Melbourne’s Grace Cummings stops by The Current studios to play songs from her sophomore 2022 record, 'Storm Queen,' and catch up with us about band rituals, the latest Bird Of The Year in Australia, and leaving a little mystery in songwriting.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

Ayisha Jaffer: Hey, I'm Aisha Jaffer your evening host here on The Current, and I'm joined today by Grace Cummings.

Grace Cummings: Hello.

Thank you for joining me today. I know you've been all over, you've come by way of Australia to U.K., Europe, and then now here in the States, and I know you're going to continue on your world tour. I want to know what it feels like to be touring now, but also with such a diverse array of artists like the Viagra Boys, and now Ezra Furman and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

Yeah, we're at the end of the American part of the tour now, and I feel like I don't know what day it is. But it's been really fantastic. And I think, a bit of a shock, after two years of effectively being locked down in Melbourne, where I'm from. Going from sitting on your ass doing nothing to moving all the time and driving all the time, and being tired and playing shows, and sweating and all that kind of stuff. But we have a kind of newfound appreciation for tiredness. You know, it's a good thing. And we've had a really great time now touring with Ezra Furman, who I love so much, and Viagra Boys, who I love so much. And I think, I don't know, I think there's kind of, you know, we change our show a little bit, depending on who we're playing with, and what kind of audiences may or may not be there. But I think there's something that's just similar to both of those people and to gears as well. I think nothing is really exclusive, or exclusively for, you know, certain people or something like that, and I think that you can get something out of all of those things. I'm making no sense.

No, it's universal. I get what you're saying there. I think that's cool, though, you're consciously thinking about the different audiences, but also just like, encompassing that everyone will react in their way. It's all kind of universal, the way that they connect to music, which is exciting, especially to see these different reactions around the world. But also like, like you said, get right back into moving and like, getting that energy back—is there any things that you've done to overcome that hurdle of not moving to moving? Other than of course, Coca Cola, we know,

I've been drinking Coke; we're in America! What, like something that we do to kind of get energy or, or whatever?

Yeah, you have any sort of like, band group rituals?

We do? Yes! If I could see my tour manager, but I can't see him. I don't know. We — oh, man! — we started joking around about the band Wang Chung. And we, we have a couple of songs that we, you know, kind of started singing, you know, to be silly in, in the van going from place to place, and one of them just ended up being Wang Chung, which we thought was really funny. And now we've kind of made it a like a pre-show ritual to sing "Everybody Wang Chung tonight!" That's one of the things!

I can't think of a better song to really amp you up!

I don't know how it happened. But um, yeah, it was one of them.

Natural occurrence. That in a way kind of leads me to this question, but your origin story; like, I really love that you started as a drummer during these classic rock covers: AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix. What is the evolution of the beginning of your origin story? Like how did you start that way? And of course you're so far removed, but actually not completely far removed from that sound.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I kind of started that way because that's what me and my friends were doing at the time, really. But I was always singing, you know, and I was deeply in love with Bon Scott and still am. And I think I think like all of those, you know, AC/DC and in Hendrix and White Stripes and stuff all have that kind of common theme, you know? Even with Hendrix's wailing guitar solos, there's like, this kind of soul in it that's all kind of the same. I don't know, I just was singing that. And then I kept singing and singing other things, and then started to sing my own songs. I don't really know. Yeah.

 Do you still dabble in your own time? Or in covers or anything like that with classic rock?

 F***, yeah! All the time. It's my favorite thing.

 What's the ultimate? What's the number one? Number one to play on the drums?

 Jailbreak.

Nice.  Nice. Of course, that's perfect. Well, so you know, I have to bring this up: Because you did a our-hometown-hero-from-Minnesota Bob Dylan cover that went viral. And then led to signing with Eric Moore.

Yeah.  Yeah, kind of, kind of. I was playing a gig, and my very good friend, Leah Senior, got Eric to come along. And he saw me there, and said to me, "Do you have an album?" And I kind of didn't, but I said, "Yeah, I do." And I gave a collection of songs that I had recorded recently and put them together and gave it to him and he put it out. But yeah, the video, I think he got me to do that. And I'm kind of laughing now, because everyone's like, "You went on YouTube, and you did this." And I was like, "I bloody well didn't!" But I did. I did sing a cover of Bob Dylan, yeah.

Yeah. So you don't feel like it's like, like how everybody's saying like "it's a viral moment" or whatever, that kind of lead or whatnot.

No, no.

Yeah, okay. I did see the video, and I loved...

It makes me laugh, but I kind of like it. But, but yeah, it's not what happened, unfortunately!

Well, you know what? I went and looked it up, and I loved it. Because I think I saw him post it and be like, "I love this artist, and I'm putting her on my record label!

Yeah, yeah.

I love that. I love that enthusiasm. That's what you want on your side, right? And now you're on ATO, of course, and we have this new album, Storm Queen. But before we talked about that, I have to talk about some other sides of your life that I think are really interesting.

Okay.

Like, I know you're an accomplished stage actor.

I do act on stage, yeah.

And I wonder if does that bleed into, like, how you create your songs and how you are on stage? Does that kind of intertwine with your musical craft?

Um, I mean, I think the experience of being an actor and lots of things that I'm inspired by, and like, and read, and all of that kind of stuff would naturally go into what I write because it's a part of who I am. But I think they both just have, you know, one common theme, which is I'm probably just quite a dramatic person. And it feels very different to me, I think, the different kinds of performances. But there's always like, maybe a tiny little bit of your real self that's not there, I think, if that makes any sense.

Kind of retracted from for both crafts a little bit?

I think so.

This is kind of like the presentation, but it's me, but there's a piece that's I'm keeping to me.

Yeah, kind of like a like a hyper-self or something.

I love that. I do love that. And that makes sense. And some of the things I'm going to ask you about! But before I get there, I want to talk about the creation process of some of the music. I know that, or I read somewhere, that my understanding is you don't really necessarily you're not someone who would set time like and be like "This is when I'm writing my record" or whatever. It kind of comes in the moment.

Yeah.

That inspiration. So I'm wondering what is the strangest moment in which a song has kind of come to you or an idea has come to you?

During a tornado I was in last night!

The fresh new song!

Yeah! Driving through Iowa in a tornado.

Oh my goodness!

Yeah. Which was just last night!

Wow.

Yeah, I don't know. No, but I'm not a huge fan of going, "I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write a song and I'm gonna, you know, belt it out that way." I kind of... first of all, I'm far too impatient. And second of all, I just don't want to you know force that that type of thing because I think it'll just be crap. But that's the way that I kind of think about it. I was listening to some outtakes of Abbey Road, and George was playing something to the other Beatles and he said, "I can't think of what attracts me, attracts me like a what?" And they said, "Oh, just say anything; 'attracts me like a pomegranate' or something." He says, "I can't think of what attracts me; I've been trying for six months." And I was like, "If George Harrison can try for six months to get, that surely I can fucking take a little bit more time writing my songs." So I'm going to try and get get better at working on something for the long term and see how it turns out and try not to be so impatient like it's now or never kind of thing.

Yeah, then you're gonna have the pomegranate song.

Yeah.

But it's true sometimes that works though, the nonsensical, but I like the idea of like having time because there is this old idea, right? Like, "You got to make the record within six weeks," or whatever, you got to do it, but I feel like people will get to own their craft more now. And you even self-produced this record Storm Queen.

Yeah.

Which is amazing and a wonderful choice, what led you to that? Some more ownership or some more feeling of creativity?

I had a hell of a lot of help from two amazing engineers, Jesse Williams and Paul Mabry, but also it was that way out of you know pure necessity, really, because we were in lockdown for so long and I couldn't get a band together to rehearse or to, you know, even come over to my house and and figure, you know, anything out. So you had to just be alone and think about it yourself. You know, like how is this gonna sound? What what do I want these parts to be like? All that kind of thing. And we had maybe one or two weeks in the middle of two, you know, periods of lockdown to have two days' recording, I think. So we just had to get there and be like, "All right, I want you to not do this but be like this. This is the way I want this to be," you know, and "This is the way I want that to be." So yeah, it's not like I just put on a producer hat; it was kinda like, how do I figure this out?

And that's what I say, the impatience is advantageous. You got done! It sounds amazing! Well, I want to talk about the title track, “Storm Queen”. You reference Townes Van Zandt, and, you know, Storm Queen is the premise of this, so I'm curious of how, in this story, Townes Van Zandt is part of the story, but also like, who inspired, who is, or the muse of the idea of Storm Queen?

I don't know. I mean, Townes Van Zandt, I can ask that answer that kind of easily. I think it was a period of time in my life where you were held by these kinds of poets or heroes or music or whatever because maybe nobody else was, you know? So I think listening to a Townes song or a Dylan song or something like that is like being held or having a hand held by something or someone. And Storm Queen: I think it's kind of something or like a made-up kind of god or something like that. As a reaction to like, the poetic majesty of like nature, I suppose. You know, I don't, even though I reference kind of like religious things throughout the album, I'm not a religious person, but I think it's, you know, just the biggest word that I've got, you know, is God or something like that and if I did believe in anything, I think there'd be lots of gods and perhaps Storm Queen would be one of them. And whilst being loving and forgiving perhaps they're, you know, punishing, and you know, avenging your Mother Earth or something like that. I don't know. Storm Queen. But it's also just, I don't know, something, something I got that was, that was big, that kind of described a bigness that I that I wanted. If that makes sense.

Yeah. And you feel that in the record; you feel that bigness. I mean, you survived a storm yesterday, too, so you felt this as well, but I feel—

My dad messaged me and said, "Maybe you are the Storm Queen." I was like, f*** off.

Well, and you talked about religious parts of it, not blaming it, but like the references, right? The references of like this beautiful, majestic, you know, world. And I am curious about "Heaven." Because for me, I love the music video that goes along with the song, I think they're intertwangled, if that's a word — intertwined?

I'll take it!

Intertwined really well! There's like an intensity within it. But also, I feel like there's a lightness within it, too. It's a little playful in from my perspective, but I'm curious what's like, what was the inspiration of the idea of the song, but the visual also that went with it?

I did that video with my good friend, Gil Gilmour, who has done all the artwork for me, and videos. And we kind of — he's a bit crazy, which is great. You know, he's got his studio in the back of our house; we live together. And we were messaging each other, you know, texting each other about ideas that we had. And then suddenly he prints them all out and sticks them on his walls, and kind of gets surrounded by all these things. And we had, you know, all these things, "Oh we'll do that, we'll do this, we'll do that blah, blah, blah." And then it kind of came down to it. And we were like, "Let's not do any of it." You know what? What is stronger than singing to somebody and seeing them and them see you? Not much. You know, I think it was kind of like the ultimate less is more, in my opinion.

Yeah. And they came across too. I really loved it. It's definitely caught me. Now "Two Little Birds," that's a gorgeous song.

Thank you.

It has such a visual, along with all of your songs, truly, where I'm thinking like, oh, you know, I'm laying by my bed looking out the window and I see two towhee birds playing along in the song, and I'm just curious, this is going to be somewhat of a silly question, but what birds do you visualize? What is also your favorite bird? Because I know Australia birds are like, that's a really hard thing.

That's really hard.

2021 bird of the year in Australia, was it fairy wren?

It was a fairy wren. Yeah.

That's right.

I voted for the yellow crested cockatoo.

Shade! But just curious. Because I know birds are important within Australasia and I mean we don't have bird of the year here. We should. But I know sometimes it overshadows some of the...

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Everyone gets right into it. I love it. I don't know I my manager recently said to me "Grace, you've got to stop writing about birds." I said "Nah." I have a thing about birds and fascination with them and kind of what they represent and just the beauty of them in general. On the cover of the album is a crimson rosella which is a beautiful bird that I see a lot in East Gippsland in Victoria. My favorite bird, I have to like put them into three categories.

Do it!

The best bird sounds, my favorite bird sound is that of the magpie. Ah! Oh, they've all got the best sound. All right, I'm gonna put three: magpie, black cockatoo, kookaburra.

Oh, those are all great choices.

Yeah, I think so. I've got...that's not even true. Too many! Like, this one! That one!

We're gonna get the book of birds out.

Yeah! Yeah.

I had to ask the question. I think the album is beautiful. I think it tells, it's very strong, like you kind of have described Storm Queen as the persona, and I feel like that's translated through the sound. So before I let you go, I just want to ask, do you have anything else you want our listeners to know about your music?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if there's anything that I want anybody to know. In fact, sometimes I kind of actively move away from that, because I feel as though if I put my meaning onto something, it means that someone else can't get their own, which I think is kind of the most important thing. And my most, you know, my hope as well, for maybe at least somebody to relate to something and feel as though perhaps it was written just for them, you know? So I won't say a bloody thing!

Perfect. Beautiful. Well, thank you for joining us. Grace Cummings here.

Thanks very much for having me.

Songs Played
00:01 Two Little Birds
03:36 Storm Queen
08:03 Heaven

External Links
Grace Cummings - official site

Credits
Guest - Grace Cummings
Host - Ayisha Jaffer
Technical Directors - Evan Clark, Eric Romani
Producers - Derrick Stevens, Luke Taylor, Jesse Wiza