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KGRL Exclusive Hazel Mills Interview
(Courtesy of Xpress Records)
KGRL had a chance to interview one of Bristol's most promising artists, Hazel Mills. The interview was made possible by Hazel's record label, Xpress Records. Our heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone involved in this feature!
Important Notice:
This very comprehensive interview is divided into two sections: audio and video versions. Both are transcribed below (by Hazel herself). Although there are some parts that are similar to each other, they both carry different contents. The video interview also features TJ Allen, Hazel's producer and guitar player. The bulk of the video interview was accidentally lost, which is why there is a new audio-only interview that tackles the missing parts of the video interview. For the complete experience, it is highly recommended to go through both the audio and video versions of the interview. It's worth it!
Part I - Video Interview
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Video Interview Transcription
KGRL: Can you give us a brief introduction as to who Hazel Mills is?
Hazel Mills: I’m Hazel Mills, I’m a pianist/singer/song-writer from Bristol, UK.
KGRL: What got you into music?
Hazel Mills: My mum was a guitarist, Classical guitarist, and she played the piano. My sister also played the piano, and it was kind of assumed that I would take on the role as well. I wasn’t, you know, pushed into it or anything. It kind of got passed down the family to me and started learning the piano when I was about 6, started singing in choirs and solo performances and what not after that.
KGRL: What drew you into a more experimental form of music in the minimalist / psychedelic / post rock fusion genre?
Hazel Mills: I just found it really interesting. I mean, I studied more of the kind of the ambitious, experimental compositions when I was at university. I started researching into more experimental forms, into composers such as Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, John Cage – all the American Experimentalists, and I just round it particularly appealing. Again it’s the thing about freedom. It’s very liberating, you can do what you want with it. It’s very expressive, well it’s as expressive as any other form of music, but I find it particularly appealing, for myself. And another side of it is that it can be very visual and kind of theatrical. Some parts of certain experimental… like me pealing a bit of gaffa in front of a microphone…things that are visual and interesting and unusual for you to see, that you don’t normally see in musical performances. Having a background in performance myself, I found that particularly interesting.
KGRL: A lot of other artists come into music even without a formal education. Being formally educated in music, how important do you think it is in the way you write?
Hazel Mills: My Classical formal training, I think, has had quite large impact on the way that I write and the way that I play. There are certain areas in my music that are fairly technically complex. But, having said that, I don’t think it’s necessary to be an amazing technical player or to have the background to be a very creative person. For example, if I’m writing a chord structure I might think ‘oh no, I can’t possibly put this chord after that one, it’s not, you know, the proper theory! It’s not right’, but then Tim will be there saying ‘well, why not?’, you know.
Tim: There’s some kind of freedom to having absolutely no idea what you’re doing, I think. Not being restricted to a set of guidelines. In the same way it’s very positive having those guidelines, but I think there’s an equal argument that being free of them can be beneficial, which is again why our working relationship goes so well.
Hazel Mills: [To Tim] Yeah, you don’t necessarily have a similar kind of training that I do, but you are the most creative person I know, and I’m kind of learning from that.
KGRL: You have mentioned a ton of artists and composers that influenced the way you write music... Who do you think has influenced you the most?
Hazel Mills: That’s a question that I don’t think has one answer. If a band says they only have one main influence, I think their music would be pretty dull, you know, it would only be going in one direction. The more diversities you have, the more…you know, the bigger range of influences you have, the more likely you are to come up with something unique.
Tim: The bands that are the most expressive, experimental and interesting are the ones that wear their influences on their sleeve. They’re quite happy to admit that they’re influenced by thousands of different bands, and that’s what makes them unique.
Hazel Mills: But also, the main thing for me at the moment is that my music is not… I’m not in one place musically, I’m constantly developing.
KGRL: Can you give us a status on how your follow-up to Butterfly is shaping up?
Hazel Mills: We've got some early demos of some of the newest songs, which is sounding really good. We jam them quite a bit with the band... played them out live. It's not extremely dissimilar to the EP but it is definitely moving in a new direction.
Tim: It's more defined I think. We're getting more of an idea of what we're trying to do - stylistically as well as content. It's not a drastic departure but it's certainly an evolution.
KGRL: Aside from your own band, you are concurrently working with Andy Mackay in a group called The Metaphors. How much time are you devoting to this project vs your own band?
Hazel Mills: Although my main project at the moment is my project, this project, my music, Tim and I are also working on a project at the moment with Andy Mackay from Roxy Music, which is called
Andy Mackay + The Metaphors.
Tim: It’s quite nice and experimental, I mean a lot of the work I’ve been doing with it, because I was initially brought in to produce and then I’ve ended up playing guitar on it as well, was just manipulating sounds. So we’d take this amazing concert harp, played by Julia who’s this incredible player, and then just spend days mangling it completely out of shape and manipulating it, and just turning it into something completely new that people just haven’t seen. And the same thing with Haze’s role, we recorded this album at Real World and then spent two weeks at The Hospital in Covent Garden just taking it apart again and de-constructing it and turning it into this kind of enormous beast of a record. We’ve just started taking it out live recently and that’s been a whole new challenge in itself, trying to work out how these songs will translate to the stage. We did a little tour, just a little warm-up tour, which actually went really well and got some great responses. It’s a lot of fun I think.
Hazel Mills: And what’s really nice actually, about this particular project is that it’s almost like a break for me from the centre spot. I can actually sit back and listen to and absorb the music the music that’s going on around me but still be an important part of it.
KGRL: How did you get to working with Andy Mackay as one of The Metaphors?
Hazel Mills: Um…how did we get to the Metaphors? Well Tim actually already knew Andy from working with him previously.
Tim: Yeah, I worked on a record with Andy years back now, 7 or 8 years ago. He was coming in to play some Oboe on some things and I was doing some remixing. We ended up chatting and he heard the kind of stuff I was doing. He was starting to do the demos for this project back then, you know, 7 or 8 years ago, and he got me in initially just to play some guitar and do some odd things. Then I started co-producing it, and then the Roxy reunion tour happened and I was brought in to do some programming for that, and this whole project got put on the back burner. Then Andy wanted to pick it up again, he phoned me up and asked me if I knew a pianist because he’d been working with this Japanese girl called Miyuki for years who was a phenomenal player, and she moved back to France, or moved to France rather, and I suggested Hazel. We all got together, jammed a bit and it just all felt very natural, so it kind of grew from there.
KGRL: If given a chance, would you choose to sign up with a major record label?
Hazel Mills: The good thing about being signed to an independent label is that, well in my case certainly, I’ve got a lot of freedom with what I’m doing.
Tim: Yeah, I mean it’s kind of personal. A lot of the time, my contact with majors, a lot of the time you’re phoning up receptions and you’re talking to middle men, where as with Indies you can actually talk to people that are making decisions easily, and meet with them easily. So there’s something to be said for that. But at the same time, I mean, there’s also some benefits to the sheer kind of weight and credibility that comes with a major label, because in the modern climate there are a lot of people setting up labels. You know, you’re never quite sure, when you’re talking to something from a label, whether it’s something in their bedroom that they’ve burnt off five CDs or whether it’s a, you know, something like Rough Trade, which is obviously a massive independent chain.
KGRL: What do we expect from Hazel Mills for the rest of 2008?
Hazel Mills: For the rest of 2008, we’ve got some festival dates coming up for the Hazel Mills stuff and another tour with The Metaphors, and I think after that we’ll be just preparing for the next EP.
KGRL: Any last words for the KGRL listeners?
Hazel Mills: Thanks to KGRL for all your support and hopefully we’ll be over in the US soon to do
some performances.
Part II - Audio Interview
Listen to Hazel Mills's responses in High Quality MP3 Stream using the player below:
Alternatively, you can download the responses by clicking the listen icons.
Offered in both High and Low Quality versions.
Audio Interview Transcription
KGRL: Can you give us a brief introduction as to who Hazel Mills is?
Hazel Mills: My name’s Hazel Mills. I’m a pianist / singer / songwriter from Bristol, UK.
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KGRL: What got you into music?
Hazel Mills: What got me in the music? I come from quite a musical family actually. My mum used to play the piano and Classical guitar, her mother plays the organ and piano, and my sister is also a pianist. So I kind of took the role on as well. When I was about 6 I started taking piano lessons, and a little bit later on I started singing in various choirs, and I think when I was about 16 I started vocal lessons.
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KGRL: What drew you into a more experimental form of music in the minimalist / psychedelic / post rock fusion genre?
Hazel Mills: I just found it really interesting. I studied more of the ambitious, experimental compositions when I was at university, and I started researching into more of these kind of forms, into composers such as Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, John Cage – all the American Experimentalists. Another part of it is the freedom about it, it’s very liberating. You can basically do whatever you want with it. It’s very expressive… well it’s as expressive as any other form of music, but I find it particularly appealing. Another side of it is that it can be very visual and theatrical. For example, in one of my songs I’m pealing a bit of gaffa tape into a microphone and sampling it. Thing like that that are very visual and interesting and unusual for you see, something you don’t normally see in a musical performance. And having a background in theatre and performance myself, I find that particularly interesting.
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KGRL: A lot of other artists come into music even without a formal education. Being formally educated in music, how important do you think it is in the way you write?
Hazel Mills: My Classical formal training, I think, has had quite a large impact on the way that I write and the way that I play. There are certain areas of my music that are fairly technically complex. But at the same time, having said that, I don’t think it’s necessary to be an amazing technical player or to have that background to be a very creative person. For example, if I’m writing a chord structure, I might think ‘oh no this chord can’t possibly go after that one because it’s not the way I was taught, it’s not the proper theory.’ But then, Tim [TJ Allen, Hazel’s producer and co-writer] who would be working with me would say ‘why not?’, you know. Basically, anything goes. Although it can be a positive thing to have these guidelines, there’s an equal argument that being free of them can be beneficial, which is why mine and Tim’s working partnership works really well. And I’m learning from that.
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KGRL: You have mentioned a ton of artists and composers that influenced the way you write music... Who do you think has influenced you the most?
Hazel Mills: Ooh, that’s a question that I don’t think has one answer. If anyone says they only have one influence then their music’s going to be pretty dull, you know, it’ll only be moving in one direction. The more diversities you have, the bigger range of influences you do have, the more likely you are to come up with something unique. But people who have been influences to me are people like Steve Reich, as I mentioned earlier, Radiohead, a band called Queen Adreena, a band from back in the 60s called The United States of America and more recently Imogen Heap.
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KGRL: How did you get to work with TJ Allen? Was he handed to you by your record label?
Hazel Mills: I actually met Tim in a rehearsal studio a few years back whilst with another band that I was working with at the time. I think I was playing one of my own songs, and he overheard and showed some interest. Then he recommended me to the label he was working for at the time, it kind of went from there and they allocated him the job as my producer. So we’ve been working together since.
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KGRL: Can you tell us how your songwriting process is? Do you write lyrics or music first?
Hazel Mills: That varies really. Me or Tim might come up with something small like a piano or guitar line, a chord structure, a melody, a vocal melody, or a sound, a word, some lyrics, anything really, and then take it from there. But more recently I’ve actually discovered a really good song-writing method, which was founded in America called the IMM – Immersion Music Method. And the key is in the name, it’s basically all about immersing yourself in song-writing and nothing else, to completely free your mind of any distractions. It’s a way of composing that means you never stop and change or amend anything you do, you don’t pay any attention to detail. A very good exercise for doing this is something called The 20 Song Game, where you basically set aside 12 hours and aim to write 20 songs in those 12 hours. The important thing is not necessarily to reach the goal of writing 20 songs, but that you aim for it. You basically write a song, and then move on to the next one, write another song and you keep moving on and never look back. That way you end up with lots of songs, which aren’t necessarily all great but it’s better that than spending a whole day on just one song and not getting the result you’re after…and I found this method particularly inspiring. I would recommend it to anyone.
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KGRL: Going deeper into how your songwriting process works... How do you present the songs you and Tim worked on to the rest of the band? Tell us a bit about the arrangement process.
Hazel Mills: That really depends on what kind of vision Tim or I have of the track at the start. If we know exactly what we want then what we’ll do is demo the song, we’ll record all of our own parts and then put a bass line down, and then drums, beats or whatever, exactly how we want it. Then we’ll play it to the rest of the band and they’ll play it exactly how it is in the demo. However, if we only have very vague ideas then basically we’ll just show the band the vague idea and kind of jam together and see what we come up with, which can sometimes have some very interesting results. But the more familiar they’re becoming with what direction we want to take, the more freedom they have in writing their parts.
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KGRL: How long does it usually take for you to finish writing a song?
Hazel Mills: Umm... how long is a piece of string? [laughs] It can range from 10 minutes to 10 months to a few years. It does vary.
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KGRL: How long did it take for you to finish your EP?
Hazel Mills: It took, I think, about a year roughly for all the songs on the EP to be written. But it was all very scattered around to be honest.
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KGRL: How successful do you think Butterfly EP is in terms of the musical direction you wanted it to take?
Hazel Mills: Well we never actually initially set out to write an EP, it just so happened that when I’d finished recording 5 tracks, the label were so pleased with them that they decided to release them as an EP. So we didn’t have a pre-vision of what we wanted as a whole, as such, but were just experimenting over the space of a year, recording bits here and there, then shaping and developing them in the studio. I’m very happy with the product, but I’m also excited to show people how my music’s grown since.
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KGRL: Your EP is quite outstanding and truly phenomenal. It deserves a lot more audience. Are you planning to release your EP (and perhaps the second one as well) in the US sometime soon?
Hazel Mills: Yes, that’s being looked into at the moment. The label are looking into that and, fingers crossed, hopefully we will get some distribution over in the US.
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KGRL: Which amongst the songs you wrote is your favorite?
Hazel Mills: Oooh, that would have to be Esquisk, which is quite a new one, not very well known, because it’s very…it’s got some very contrasting sections with change unexpectedly.
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KGRL: How about the ones you love performing live?
Hazel Mills: Which one do I love performing live?….well firstly, Esquisk I love playing live. We get some great audience reactions. I just love getting absorbed into that song, it’s great. Out of the tracks of the EP, I think the one that I love performing the most is Freestanders. It always seems to be an audience favourite….and we do have quite a few different live versions of it with different cool tricks to impress [grins], so that’s always fun.
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KGRL: Which song is the most complex for you to perform live?
Hazel Mills: The one that’s the most complex for me to perform live is actually the one with the most simple parts to play, which is odd, and that’s Insomnia. What makes it complex is all the vocal looping involved, for me. Some of it I control with my hands, and some with various foot pedals, [chuckles] so there’s a lot of tap dancing involved to do very quick changes, which takes quite a bit of practice.
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KGRL: What was your best experience playing live so far?
Hazel Mills: I think I’ll tell you about my most memorable experience playing live. It was the day after I’d been to a wedding up in Leicester and I was driving back the previous evening. It was the weekend of the really bad flash floods in the South West area of England and managed to get stuck on the motorway for about 12 hours that evening, so we didn’t get back ‘til about midday the next day – the day I was due to perform, around 5 O’clock that afternoon. So I got home, really hungry, really tired. The first thing I did was have a bacon sandwich and then I slept for a few hours. I still managed to get to the gig on time, but it was pouring down with rain and it was an outdoor gig…and to top that, my looper decided to go crazy on me and I couldn’t use it for the whole of the gig. So all I had was my piano, which was fine, but I couldn't do any of my cool gadget things that I wanted to do. But people still…they didn’t leave, they stayed there under their umbrellas, had a great time and it was really surreal. But I really enjoyed it.
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KGRL: Can you tell us more about you and your band's live set-up?
Hazel Mills: My rig is based around vocals, piano, organ, a little sample and of course my Electrix Repeater Looper. Everything’s basically routed via a sub-mixer through to the looper, which means I can sample anything at anytime on any one of its 4 independent tracks (which I can also bring in and out as I wish). I consider the looper just to be another instrument that I’ve had to learn and play in the past few years, and the cool thing about it is that I’m always finding new quirks, new things that it can do that I didn’t know it could do.
Tim’s live set-up is probably the most complex I’ve ever seen actually [laugh]. It’s based around his guitars which goes through a bunch of FX pedals and into his amp. He’s also got a Nord Modular G2 Rack, which is a digital version of the old analogue modular synth, so he can create crazy noises with that. He’s also got Max MSP running with various, I don’t know, built synthesizers. He’s also got a Repeater looper the same as mine, which he loops guitar with. He’s got some cool accessories such as the Monome controller, a mini FaderFox controller which has a cool little joystick, an old violin bow and an eBow.
And then we’ve got the traditional drum kit set-up, bass guitar and synth bass.
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KGRL: Aside from your own band, you are concurrently working with Andy Mackay in a group called The Metaphors. How much time are you devoting to this project vs your own band?
Hazel Mills: Aside from my own band, Tim and I have been working on a project with Andy Mackay from Roxy Music, called Andy Mackay + The Metaphors. Although we’ve been doing quite a lot of work with it recently, it’s still pretty much a side project for me. My main focus is definitely my own music.
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KGRL: Can you tell us more about The Metaphors?
Hazel Mills: The Metaphors is Andy Mackay, myself and Tim. Also Paul Thompson, the drummer from Roxy Music, and Julia Thornton, harpist. We’re basically working on some of Andy’s own solo compositions but also some very strange versions of well known songs, including New York, New York and Waterloo Sunset. We’ve done a really crazy version of New York and the most beautiful, almost orchestral kind of ambient sounding version of Waterloo. They’re completely unrecognisable, but it’s really interesting what we can do with something. Basically we take something that’s already there and completely mangle it up, and turn it into something even more beautiful…and because we’ve got 5 different people from completely different ends of the spectrum, we’re getting completely varying, diverse, contrasting influences. We’ve got Fennesz, Sakamoto, Sigur Ros, Satie, Debussy, Brian Wilson, John Coltrane. It’s just a complete mish-mash, but brought together it sounds great. Also, the other nice thing about it for me is that it’s a break from the spotlight. I can actually sit back and listen to and absorb the music that’s going on around me, but still be an important part of it.
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KGRL: How did you and Tim get into the band?
Hazel Mills: Well, Tim already knew Andy from working with him previously, firstly on his solo work, which had started even back then; and then secondly he came to work on the Roxy reunion tour in 2001 to do some programming for them. He heard that Andy was looking for a pianist for this new solo project, so he recommended me and it all kind of went from there.
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KGRL: Are we to expect a record from The Metaphors soon?
Hazel Mills: Yes, we recorded a 6 track album last year in Real World Studios near Bath, and that’s planning to be released soon I think. It’s called London! New York! Paris! Rome!
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KGRL: Is there anyone you wish to collaborate with someday?
Hazel Mills: I would absolutely love to collaborate with Steve Reich. I’ve heard some of his most recent compositions and I actually saw the premiere of one of them recently, in Birmingham. There was some dance going on choreographed in with it, and it was just an amazing performance, I would love to have been part of that. Also, I’d love to work with Bjork, and Tim Burton. I like to work more in the film side of things. I’d love to write music for film so that would be really good, and I love Tim Burton it would be great to work with
him on that.
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KGRL: Are there any new artists you all listen to?
Hazel Mills: I’ve been listening quite a bit to a band called Malakai, who are also from Bristol and the drummer is also our drummer…and I like Bat for Lashes, a band called Brenda who are based in Bournemouth in the UK - definitely worth listening to - also Renfro and Battles.
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KGRL: How hard is it for you being an independent artist?
Hazel Mills: Well the good thing about being signed to an independent label is the amount of freedom you get with it, certainly in my case. I seem to have quite a bit of say in what direction I’m taking, in what decisions are made. It’s quite a good position to be in actually. But there’s also a lot to be said for the sheer kind of weight and credibility that comes with being signed to a major label. There’s also the financial side of it obviously, which helps a lot.
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KGRL: If given a chance, would you choose to sign up with a major record label?
Hazel Mills: If it was the right deal at the right time, I would say yes.
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KGRL: Can you give us a status on how your follow-up to Butterfly is shaping up?
Hazel Mills: We’ve recorded some demos of some of the new songs and performed them live, and we’ve got some great responses out of them. So it’s all looking pretty positive and I’m really looking forward to recording them properly.
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KGRL: Are we expecting the new EP to be in the same musical direction?
Hazel Mills: It’s not entirely dissimilar to Butterfly but it’s definitely gone in a new direction and it’s moved a lot further, my ideas have definitely developed since then, and we’ve found a bit more of what we want sound-wise. We’re exploring… I think we’re taking more risks as well, you know. We’ve been quite into the whole 60s Psychedelia thing recently so I think that’s had a bit of an impact on what we’ve been doing.
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KGRL: How about a full-length?
Hazel Mills: The next record we release will be another EP, probably a 5 track EP. But once that’s done and dusted and out of the way, I’d really like to start working on an album.
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KGRL: What do we expect from Hazel Mills for the rest of 2008?
Hazel Mills: For the rest of 2008, we’ve got some festival dates for the Hazel Mills stuff, and another tour with The Metaphors, and I think after that we’ll just be working on pre-production for the next EP.
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KGRL: Any last words for the KGRL listeners?
Hazel Mills: Thanks for KGRL for all your support and hopefully we’ll be over in the US soon to do some performances.
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Special thanks goes to Hazel Mills, TJ Allen, and Xpress Records.
Hazel Mills Links:
Official Website: http://www.hazelmills.com
Myspace Page: http://www.myspace.com/hazelmills
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