Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
This is episode twenty three of Midnight Chats. Welcome and thank you for listening, and thanks too to those who checked out. Samuel t Herring from Future Island speaking to Stuart on the last podcast. If you haven't heard it yet, I do recommend going back and listening. He was a really entertaining, engaging, honest guy. And while you're there, if you do listen to that one and you do like what you're hear on Midnight Chats, you can subscribe to
our podcast. That means you'll automatically get a new episode, a new one of these every time. We publish one at midnight every two weeks, so onto this new one. Last week I went to the meetup with Gillian Banks, better known by her stage Banks, in a London hotel room before her show at the Roundhouse in Camden. It was a final night of the Californian artist's headline European tour. It was the first one she's done since she released her second album, The Alta in the autumn of last year.
And to be honest, Banks doesn't do a huge amount of press and there's not an awful lot of information into these things like that out there with her. She's quite private. She's quite an enigmatic artist, and we've wanted to have her on Midnight Chatter for a while because I think that's part of her appeal, in everything that she kind of creates around the music that she makes. I suppose I went there hoping to find out a bit more about Gillian Banks, and I let you be
the judge of whether that happened or not. So in person, Banks was really lovely, but she says to herself in this conversation that you're about to hear that she's very protective over her music and it comes from a very deeply personal place. And it's something that you might hear artists say regularly that they prefer their music through the talking.
But I think that's certainly the case with Banks. I think that certainly had a preferences is to let the songs that she's written really kind of speak for her. After all, this is an artist who says she wrote her first songs as a necessary form of escape. It took her almost a decade before she'd actually go on
to share them publicly. But we talked about a range of things, like her visits to London to record her early music and her memories of doing that, handling the psychological effects often quite difficult to deal with the day to day being out on the road touring. It's very honest about that. How she feeds her inspiration to keep making music, where she'd like to travel outside of the world, tours that she does support in the music, and why she'd never write a song and give it away to
another artist. So, if you don't know Banks, this isn't going to tell you everything you need to know about her, but it might tell you a little bit more and hopefully this will be an interesting listen. This is Midnight Chats Episode twenty three with Banks Banks. Hello, welcome to Midnight Chats, Thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me.
You're back in London, which is I imagine a place that you kind of have fond memories of, haven't been here a number of times over the years, but also recorded some of your first music I guests over here. What's it like being back in town?
Feels good. It's pretty emotional being that's the last, you know, the last show of this tour, and this is the first tour of this album, so it's been really intense and a lot of growth and it feels good. I'm very I feel I feel quite nervous for the show tonight, actually.
I really, even though you've been playing the set kind of a couple of weeks now, right, Yeah.
I sometimes I get like that though, Like I'll be really good and then one random show I'll just feel a lot of anxiety over and then once I'm on stage, I'm good. But it's a crazy thing being on stage.
Can it happen kind of randomly? Or is it? Do you think it's maybe something to do with being in London and knowing the city and maybe having friends here. Is it? Like what?
Maybe? I think my nerves are also dependent on my exhaustion level, so like it's almost like the more tired I am, the more sensitive I am, the more nervous I get. So but I know that it'll be great. I'm you know, I'm just excited to be here. London is definitely a special place for me. You know, my first EP was called London because I made the whole thing here and it's kind of where my music was first embraced. So I'm super excited for the show.
What your memories are the first time that you came to London. Was that was that when you actually came to do the recording aloud You've been previous.
My first time I was in London was actually when I was a bit younger. I came with my mom, but I was only here for like two or three days, and you know, I was young, and I didn't really get to I think, you know, when I wrote the London EP, that was my first real time spending real time here, and it was also a crazy time in
my life. I felt like it was like one of those milestones that you think back on, is like one of the the turning points where you go through a lot of growth in a really short amount of time, And that's what I was feeling just in my personal life at that time. And then coming to London and being around artists that thought the same way I did for the first time was just like super crazy. I felt. I felt like I found my people for the first
time in my life. So that's kind of what London was to me, and that's why, you know, when I come back, I get really excited.
Did it take time to kind of meet those people, make those friends, or were you already kind of connected to the people that you knew you sort of had a kindred spirit with over here.
It was kind of like these particular few months I just happened. I think the universe was just looking out
for me. I happened to meet all these people that I really connected with in a really short amount of time, and they all happened to be in the UK at the time, So it was kind of like I was like, Okay, let's just make a trip and just like jam it all in in two weeks, two and a half weeks, and so I was like in sessions every day for those two and a half weeks with those three people mainly, and just back to back to back, and it was just amazing. Yeah.
Yeah, for those people that don't know that early EPU, we're talking about people like totally enormous extinct dinosaur and it's always a mouthful. I'm glad I got it right there, and son who learn there as well, and Little Silver. Yeah, So, how how is it meeting those people for the first time and what kind of connection you've got to have with somebody in order to make music with them, because it's not as easy as just walking into a studio, No.
No, you have it's special. It's like when it's like kind of like dating almost, it's like two souls that come together and you just it's funny because sometimes you can really vibe with someone at one point in your life and then a few years later it's like maybe like our paths have like drifted or something like. It's it's a really magical time when two creative like souls can come together and create something together and be on the same wavelength. It's kind of like you're at that
similar point in your life where it just works. And that kind of happened with all those people and they're dear to me still, and so yeah, it was awesome.
Deep question considering we've only just started, but do you sort of believe that fate sort of had something to do with that because you've been making music, you know, for almost a decade, but not necessarily kind of sharing it with the hour world, and like you said, those sort of ingredients came together and you felt at ease here in London to write that music.
I don't know if the word what the word fate means even I think it was definitely it had to do with me finally being open, like finally putting myself out there and then it Yeah, I definitely think you know, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of you have to have it, you know, you have to like believe and know who you are as an artist. But then it always takes a little bit of extra fairy dust in the end. And I think that I
definitely had that with me. Yeah, and I still do the fact that I'm still doing this, so yeah, I don't know fate something like that. Yeah, I felt like the universe was definitely like pushing me in the right direction. It's like I've always followed my gut. That's like the most in my music comes from my gut. And then I've always followed my gut, and especially in terms of like making decisions for my career and who I feel like working with and who and just any decision that
I make. So it's almost like this like I'm always like lured towards the right thing maybe and even if it ends up being the wrong thing, it was still the right thing. Because if it's if it's a decision made by following your gut, then you can't really follow yourself for it.
I'm a great believer in that. I think It's true. I've always even if I've made wrong decisions, when I have followed my gut, I sort of have confidence in the decision that I've made it great because I know why I made it.
Yeah, Sometimes it's funny, like if you're going through a period of self doubt or or just anything, you find yourself asking other people's opinions. But always always at the end of the day. I like, for me, even when I've gone through periods where I if I'm doubting myself or something and I ask like six different people what they think, I never end up listening. So it's almost just like a journey to get back to your own mind.
So, yeah, you mentioned earlier this is the first kind of big headline tool run that you've done in support of the Old Time. How has it been playing those songs every night?
Oh my gosh, feels so good. I feel like I went through a lot in between albums mentally just to try and get my I wanted to enjoy this new life of mine more.
Because I had time kind of a tough time with it the first album. And I think I've grown so much and I've my my music has grown and what I want to do on stage has grown, and so being able to finally after so long thinking about what I what that meant and what that was going to be, and then rehearsing and then like you know, letting my mind free creatively and letting myself be as you know,
taking risks and challenging myself. Like I've really done that for this tour, in this live show, and it feels so good and it's the most one I've ever had. The show is so fun for me to do. Like I genuinely enjoy being on stage every single second that I'm there because I'm really inspired by what I'm doing
right now. And sometimes when you like, especially with album cycles, because you know, this is only my second album, I'm still like, I still think of myself as a newcomer in this business because there are people who have put out six, seven, eight albums whatever. But I have to
imagine that what I felt. But at the end of the Goddess era, which is like you've been performing these songs for three years and some of their meanings have changed to you, and some shows can start feeling quite robotic, like and finally, and when that starts happening is kind of when you know, okay, artistically, I need to do something else, like I need to write, I need to I need to reinvigorate myself creatively and feel really inspired again.
And so, you know, giving myself the time to write this album and then they really think about creatively what I want to do for it and visual and live show wise, it's like it's so new and it's so fresh for me, and I feel so inspired by it right now, so it's making it really fun.
I often think it's an interesting situation when an artist enjoys more success and plays bigger shows, because inevitably, when you have a bigger stage, you fill it with a bigger production, which means more people are involved, which means that in a sense, it has to become more organized and choreographed, and like you say, it could end up being a bit robotic because there are cues, and there are visuals, and there are lights that have to appear
at the right moments. So how do you still find the kind of essence in your live performance so that every night it feels different?
And it feels because every movement, you know, when you think, when I think of the word like choreography, it almost feels like there's someone who's coming in. It almost feels like that stereotypical like pop packaging world where it's like someone's coming in from an outsider is coming into trying like make you move the way they see fit. Whereas like this show that I'm doing, it's like every single creature involved in this show was picked because I believe
in them and they inspire me. So like these moves that I'm doing are you know, from They're like these natural grooves that I just have always done but elevated. And the people that are on stage with me I have, you know, they represent these you know, these two girls Alison and Nadine, who I've taken on the road with me. It's just been so much fun because I mean, my music, I write all my music, It all comes from my heart, and so like when I move to it, it comes
from inside of me. And then like when you when you find people that really understand you and you connect with and you're inspired by, and then they kind of like you're kind of doing all these grooves together that the music is naturally doing to you. It feels really organic and authentic, and it just feels like the next step for me and Nina McNeely is kind of my partner in that, and she's choreographed this crazy she knows me so well and and we've you know, she's like
my soulmate movement wise, like my I don't know. It's good when you find people who inspire you. It doesn't feel like a robotic thing. It feels like every night that I've done this show so far, every movement feels like this like gritty, kind of like guttural thing, and it grows and it changes every night, and the audience changes every night, and it's my mood changes every night. I mean, like I said, today, I'm feeling a bit
nervous and tired or something. And you know, on another day, I could have just been like in a really like loud, goofy mood, so like that would kind of go into my performance. So sometimes you feel more fragile, sometimes you feel more more like a warrior, and that kind of affects your performance. So it's always I'm just like, I'm just a human that makes music and performs it. So it changes every night.
How are you now that you've done it for four or five years, like going on the road, that thing of performing every night moving to a different city, doing it again, repeat, repeat, repeat, in the sort of genuine
day to day detail. How do you find that? Because it's not you know, we've spoken to artists on the podcast before who've said they love every moment of touring, but only the bit where they're on stage and the rest of it they can kind of take or leave really because it's hard and they don't need to struggle
to find the kind of joy. And it might sound it might sound like it's a great luxury to move between these cities every day, but you don't really scared to see any of it, and you're really just kind of hopping from one hotel room to the next and then performing. So like the actual day today, it's quite grueling. So how do you find it?
It's hard? I mean I had a like I said my first album, I did not I would I was I didn't get how people did this? It's can you like sometimes like cuss is that allowed on this? Yeah? Yeah? But I remember thinking like, how the fuck do people do this? Like I didn't understand how Like I would talk to my friends who had leoneld been touring for years and I'm like, but how like I don't understand.
I was completely miserable and I felt like shit, and like it's unhealthy, and your body's on different time zones and you're homesick, and and you know you don't understand the language, so you think you you know, said something or ordered something and it's wrong. And then you only have a minute to get to sound check, and then you only have this long and then you're late for your show, and then you know it's just it's really
hard and it is a grind. And for me, what I've learned is like the most important thing is having right energies around you, the right people around you, because if someone doesn't understand what who you are, and like I'm just any artist or any person needs the right people around them, especially when you're in a when you're exhausted and you're traveling and you need a lot of
positive energy and a lot of like nurturing energy. And when I realized that now, the crew I have around me now is has completely changed my entire experience of touring. Like this is the most fun tour I've ever been on. For sure, I'm just having such a good time because first of all, the longer you do it, the more of a routine you can somehow find within having no routine, like and just yeah, like I said, just having the right people around you. It's kind of as simple and as hard as that.
Often when people talk about artist's careers, they say, what an incredible thing to be able to travel the world. And as I said earlier, like, yes, you are in the sense that you're kind of moving from one place to another. But I'm playing shows every night, but never necessarily seeing a place. So are you away from touring and away from making music? Are you kind of an adventurous spirit anyway? Do you do you like traveling? Do you like seeing new things? Is that like something that
you're really keen on? And regardless of the big cities that you play every night, is there somewhere in the world that you'd love to go to?
Yeah? I mean, I don't think anyone could do this if they weren't an adventurous spirit, because it's just you're out of your elements so often that you would go insane if you weren't. But yeah, I mean, I love I get so bored, Like I get bored really easily. And if I'm not inspired, sometimes I feel like uninspired and bored are similar words. If I'm either of those things, I've like my skin turns gray, like I just become
like I feel like I don't feel good. And so for me, touring does kind of fill that whole sometimes. And a place that I definitely would want to go to is India.
What attracts you about the idea of going to India? Is it the kind of just.
Like the colors, the flood, the people, everything, It just looks so beautiful every single thing I read about it, I've seen the culture. I've just never been anywhere like it.
My wife's just come back from India. She worked in a she volunteered in a children's orphanage, Oh wow, for ten days, and there was the first time she'd been to India and she was in Delhi and she had an incredible experience. Yeah, like she can't wait to go back.
Yeah. Everyone I've talked to who has been there, and I don't know if I've ever talked to someone who's played there. Even I feel like everyone I've talked to has just gone there as a just an experience. But it's funny because I was touring for you know, I toured the Goddess album for like three years, and then anytime my dad or my mom or a friend or something would be like, do you want to get out of town for a few days, I'd be like absolutely not. Like if I'm not forced to be on the plane,
I will never step on a plane. But then I took a trip to Italy with my family before the Altar came out, and it was the first trip I had gone on that wasn't like for work or for touring or for shows or whatever, and I was like, whoa, Like it's so different, Like I completely forgot that, Like yeah, like you think you're It's like you trick yourself into thinking you're on holiday, but you're absolutely not.
Like so where did you go in Italy? Would you enjoy yourself?
Yeah, we went to a few different places. We were in post Sitana, which was incredible, and then yeah, we just kind of ventured around. But it's.
Yeah, it's a beautiful country, Italy. I'd like to go there more. I've only ever really been to Rome in Venice, Venis, I would highly recommend. It's a pretty crazy place. It's come out of somebody's imagination at some point.
Yeah, I feel it seems fake or something.
What's life like when you go back home now? Then do you find it still got a sort of magnetic pool when you're when you're out on the road, or do you still do you enjoy like going home and like the comforts and the friends and the family. Is that an important thing still? Yeah?
Oh my gosh, you need that. When I'm on tour, after three weeks, I start saying I need to go home, And then when I'm at home for longer than three weeks, I say I need to go on tour. So it's like I'm constantly unsatisfied.
What's you mentioned the trying to constantly feed like your inspiration and to make sure you know your your kind of own well being is dependent on that. Yeah, how do you ensure that you do that? How do you? How do you how do you keep feeding your inspiration?
But I think a lot of it is the people who you surround yourself with, Like I've really been learning that so much more than ever the last year and a half or so, because people's minds are the most intricate things in the world, and if somebody is like, if you're around people who you connect with and inspire you, then maybe they'll show you something, show you a dancer that you're in that they're into, or show you a movie or you know, an exhibit or I don't know,
or even just hanging out with some you know. It's it's more just like having fun is really inspiring. It's not it's not as much so about like it's not always so obvious it's like, let's go to an art exhibit or like, let's like listen to this amazing song or watch this amazing movie. Like for me, it's not really like that, like if I'm like excited by my own life, that's inspiring to me. It's it's yeah, it's more about that.
Do you listen to music when you're on the road, other people's music?
You know? I do, But I'm I sometimes feel so like people think I'm nuts when I say this, But I actually like when I'm writing an album and when I'm like doing shows night after night during the day, I actually don't really listen to music. I kind of like it to be quiet almost like even when I'm getting ready for shows, I just like it's like a quiet I don't know.
It's funny the things that people help to get themselves into that zone to be able to write in to be. A guy called Reggie Snow who's from Dublin needs a rapper and he makes kind of you know, Kendrick Lamar esque kind of hip hop I suppose. But when he writes, he said, he always sits down and he always puts on a classic jazz like, you know, interesting, and he's like,
that's what I need. It's basically, this's my equivalent of kind of silence or that sort of blanket noise that I need in order to concentrate.
Yeah.
I was like, that's that's interesting because you're constantly writing, you're just writing lyrics, you're kind of you're you know, he's thinking about how he's going to deliver them and the kind of pace and the rhythm and all those sort of things, and yet he's kind of got jazz on in the background. And I was kind of like, I'd be totally distracted by that.
I think, yeah, yeah, everybody has their own way. I think a lot of it also has to do with how you got into music. Like I got into music because I needed an outlet so bad so and I taught you know, I never took lessons, I never went to school, forward, I never you know, took piano lessons or singing lessons or anything, and like it all came so from this like necessity of exhaling out all of this heavy gravity that was extra on my shoulders, and so it comes more from my gut. Like I'm sure
not saying that that person doesn't come. I'm just saying like for me, it's like if a like three chords will start, is like the atmosphere that I need. I just need like a cozy studio with like you know, a mood of some sort whatever I'm in, and then it just takes some sort of like it's always starts with like a melodic chant, like an almost meditative chant.
There's a part in my show where I kind of go through the motions about make a song, but it always starts with that, with like a chant, melodic chant.
And let's talk about the altar for a moment. How did you feel about the kind of reception to that album and most specifically the kind of conversations that you've had with your fans about songs on the album. When you meet people, what have the conversation has been like with your fans about them.
I don't know how much they connect to it. I try not to focus on the reception of my music, to be honest. I mean, I know, I seeing people scream my lyrics at these shows has been incredible and fulfilling. But uh, yeah, I think it's been great. I think it's been awesome. I'm just focusing on how I feel about it.
Yeah. Yeah, And how do you feel like it's sort of six months on after the release of it.
I feel good. I feel I'm protective of it and proud of it and excited by it.
Yeah, You've still got like a kind of great connection to it because it often people kind of a once a a head of things and you already be thinking about the music that you want to write next. You that kind of person. Who are you still living with that? Help?
Well, I'm always making music, and I don't think about music in terms of albums, So it's more about like each song has its own little meaning or big meaning, and I think, you know, every time it's like you get it, you're getting to I'm still getting to know them, you know, when I perform, I'm still getting to know the songs. And but I'm always writing songs, but they're not mutually exclusive, Like you don't have to. If you're making music, you can't still live with the other music
you've made. So I'm living with this music, and I'm still learning the ins and outs of you know, the dimensions of performing each song and how I want to move to them and how they make me feel different depending on what night I'm singing them and all that.
Yeah, and you've talked in the past about how making music for you is a kind of intensely personal thing. So would you ever if you wrote a song and you didn't you didn't like it anymore, you didn't for it worked for you, would you ever give it away? Would you ever give it to another artist?
I don't know. I've been asked that question so many times, And some days when I'm asked it, I'm like, no, I would never, And then some days I'm like, that's maybe that sounds naive and I should like think more about it before I respond so abruptly. But I don't know if it feels if I wrote something like really personal, like about my life, I would never like I couldn't like it. I don't know, it would have to I
would have to like remove if I was writing a song. No, I'm just I just can't imagine doing it because I don't write. I write about my own personal life, and it's always it always means a lot to me when
I make something. If I were to ever write something ahead of time for somebody else and then they said, like, I want to write a song about this, then like that would I guess I could potentially think about it, but that's not even how I write, like it would probably be a shit song because that sounds like a really heartless way to make music. So I don't know, I can't really imagine it.
Yeah, that's a completely understandable because it might be. It would when you put all of your kind of your personal kind of experience and feeling to hear those words beings come out with somebody else's mouth, might be I would be like, nah, I don't believe it. Finally, then the this this this year ahead, like kind of you said that this is the the most you've enjoyed touring
and playing those songs from the altar every night. What are you most looking forward to about the rest of twenty seventeen?
Just more growth, learning, just make more music and perform more. I'm just excited. I love what I do. It's I'm really blessed Field. I'm so grateful to do this. I know that it's you know, it's pretty special being able to travel and and sing songs that I'm that I wrote. So I'm just looking forward to doing it where that.
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