LISA CARUSO
Hi Lisa, thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology and congratulations on the release of your debut album In Feelings. Rewinding to 2017, you had in place some demos and had been working on some tracks for a while but it was the connection with Ben Fletcher that really help catapult the album into the land of the living. How did you find moving from the solitary raw tracks and base emotions from which the tunes were first conceived to a working, collaborative process?
Yes I had been looking for someone to work with on the album for a while. I had maybe 14 songs (guitar and vocal) demoed and ready to go with a rough list of producers I wanted to approach. Ben was living in the UK at the time so wasn't at the top of the list, but it soon became obvious that he was the perfect fit for this record. We chatted genres and songs over email and a couple months later I flew over there to make a start! Between tea and scrumpets, we recorded full demo’s in his studio room that came together super smoothly. It was the pre-chats about influences, as well as the time in between that really helped this stage become fruitful and a heap of fun. Also being a songwriter himself, he has a great sensitivity and understanding of how important a debut album like this is. He listened, but I also really trusted him and his tastes. Lucky!
You worked alongside musician, writer and producer Matt Ingram on this album. What did Matt bring to the table that you think really shines through and has the unique touch of his work?
Matt’s awesome. Ben has worked with him in the past and thought his studio would be pretty sweet to work in. That and he is an incredible drummer. I’ve seen him play in Laura Marling’s band, and knew that he produced a Lianne La Havas record, so I was pretty excited about the situation. We had four songs we wanted to make a start on and got him to lay down the drums first. We chatted ideas and maybe one or two takes later, it was down. He was a real treat to work with as well. Super excitable and worked quite hard to find unique sounds. Matt plays on ‘Shake Baby Shake’, ‘Moonshine’, ‘Patience’, and ‘I Feel’.
In terms of the writing and lyrical content, was there an overarching narrative tying the album together or an assortment of topics and inspirations that zig zag throughout the record?
In Feelings has been a long time coming, so I had quite a lot of tracks to choose from over more than a few years of writing. In the beginning, I was a little worried that they wouldn’t all tie together neatly, but along the way, I realised that they do exactly that. It’s a bit of a memoir in expressing all that I have learnt so far. I’ve lived with Crohn's disease since I was fourteen, so a lot of the songs draw attention to invisible illness and finding strength through resilience. And I’m an open book by nature, so there are also songs about love and strife that speak directly to those who inspired me to write them. Once I decided on the name, I realised that this was a deeply personal record which needed to have a range of tempos to express this sort of film that I had created the narrative too. I’ve enjoyed the rollercoaster.
What were some of the challenges in putting this LP together and conversely what were some of the greatest surprises you experienced through the writing / recording process for In Feelings?
A couple days after I arrived in London to start on the record, I became very ill with a Crohn’s relapse. There were moments where I had to lie still on the floor waiting for the pain to pass, and days when I needed to be on a liquid diet. Not ideal, but we didn’t let it stop the process. Come time to record my vocals though and it wasn’t great. When I arrived back in Australia, we booked in days to finish off some songs but it didn’t take long to realise that I needed more time to recover to be well enough to sing. That was quite hard to accept, but in the end, it made the record all the more meaningful. As far as surprises, I think they keep coming. It took longer to record than I had expected it might, but I can now see that it allowed me to trickle out some singles and make some music videos that I'm equally as proud of. We spent a lot of time on these songs conducive to the structures I wrote them in, so I’m glad that a lot of them have had the spotlight they’ve deserved.
Given the clarity that hindsight affords, can you pinpoint a few select moments, decisions, outcomes that have occurred during your career that have proved to be pivotal?
Ah, I think that for me, its moments where I’ve felt really in tune with my artistry. There’s so much that you can’t control in this industry and so finding those moments in yourself when performing a great gig, or really smashing out a new song, is for me, the best way to do it to keep feeling fulfilled. That and working your ass off. It’s amazing how much the groundwork never stops. I’ve released this album on my own, am self-managed, and have done the PR by myself. It’s been good, but I’m tired. ha. I did get recognised as a finalist in the 2019 Australian Women in Music Awards which was wonderful, and have had ongoing support from my favourite station to listen to, Double J. The more that I build those meaningful relationships, the more it pushes me to keep going. And receiving messages from people around the world who have heard my songs is so sincerely humbling. I hope to be able to reach more people so that it enables me to have more time to do what I’m doing.
The music business can be a minefield to navigate with pitfalls around every corner yet you have pushed through on every front including duties as booker, running PR campaigns, and producing music videos. What have you found to be the common thread that ties all this together whilst not losing the connection to your core self and the music that is at the heart of it all?
Being an independent musician is all I’ve really ever known. Maybe that’s the trick. I do like to be in control of my art and what I represent, so I’m sure that also comes into play, but I guess you just do what you gotta do. When you’re doing the job too, I think that it motivates you in different ways. I’ve never released an album on my own, and so now I think that I’ve reached this standard of how much to keep putting in. I’m not entirely sure how I’ve kept sane, or maybe I haven’t, ha! but because my music is entirely me, the more I speak about it, the more it becomes intrinsic when I perform it live. I think that come launch show, it’ll be all the more meaningful because I have worked as hard as I could. I do also need to go back to yoga, that will always help.
Speaking of music videos. The clip for To Call You Mine is a beautiful cinematic piece. Can you elaborate on the location of the shoot and idea behind the split screen elements?
Thank you! I’ve loved making music videos with Adam (Singer). There are five off the album now and each are pretty cinematic in their own right. Adam has an incredible eye and has made every shot so good that I’ve captured so many screen shots and used them as stills. To Call You Mine was shot in Bombo Quarry which is on the south coast of NSW. I had been musing on a lot of 90s indie clips shot in American desserts and didn’t think we’d be able to come across anything close, until a friend of mine suggested the headlands. With limited time, we looked up some photos tagged on instagram, and when we got to the location, it was so much better than we had anticipated. We thought ‘Okay, Mars will do’. The split screen edit was an idea I tried to use on many occasions. We weren’t going to use the guitar shots but when we decided to bring them in, I knew the split screen dream of mine would work. If you’ve ever seen the series Fargo, you will know that the opening credits/theme has a similar vibe bringing two worlds/narratives together and back out again. I’m glad you picked that up!
Lastly, on a philosophical level, what does music give you that nothing else does?
Music gives it all. Its heartache and excitement, its warmth and its bitterness. I have a playlist of songs that blow my mind on what they seem capable of making me feel at every repeated listen. It’s not just the lyrics, it's the way the melodies rise and fall and how the instruments come together and break away. It’s the most inspiring thing. I think that when I play my songs too, I feel a new life in them every time. Music is so transparent and open to interpretation based on what we feel in each different moment.
