The surname Barnes has been ever-present in Australia’s music network for many a year but now it’s time for the youngest sibling Elly-May Barnes to shine with her debut album ‘No Good’. It’s varied collection of rock & pop tunes, with collaborations from some of the best in the business; Mark Lizotte, Davey Lane, Neil Finn and Don Walker all have song writing and co-writing credits and there is also a wonderful cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ to make ‘No Good’ a very enjoyable debut album. Add the likes of Kevin Shirley, Jackie Barnes and Charlie Drayton and it really is a collection of who’s who.
We caught up with Elly-May to talk about writing & recording ‘No Good’ as well as working with family & friends to create her debut album…
Sean: Hello, how are you Elly-May? It’s Sean from The Rockpit over in Perth.
Elly-May: It’s lovely to meet you Sean.
Sean: I really appreciate you taking the slightly later call.
Elly-May: You’re welcome.
Sean: I don’t know where to start with your new album ‘No Good’ – It is far from that, it’s a great album especially for your debut release. I can’t pick one single highlight as they are littered throughout. You must be so proud of how it has come out.
Elly-May: Thank you so much. I’m so glad you like it.
Sean: It’s great because there’s so many different elements throughout the album. I won’t even begin to talk about ‘Creep’ just yet because there’s something about your version that just makes the hairs stand up on my necks. I’m guessing being surrounded by so much music and so many different influences is why we have such an eclectic collection of songs.
Elly-May: I guess it’s a little bit of that. I have eclectic taste in music myself and I’m a little bit of a roller coaster as a person I suppose. There’s a song on Bob Dylan’s latest record called ‘I Contain Multitudes’ and I think we all can relate to that to some extent and I feel that this album reflects that a lot and it just is a big mixture of things and of songs from parts of my life that were really important to me and still are really important to me and pieces of myself that are really important to me.
Sean: It must be so nice to get it out there and to be able to sort of explain your life via song and music.
Elly-May: Yeah i think that’s the only way I know how to express myself. It’s how I’ve learned to deal with things and how I’ve learned that it’s my therapy and I think it is for so many people. And I think this album is just something you can put on any time of the day or night whether you’ve had a tough day or whether you want a bit of happiness or a big smile on your face.
Sean: You’ve said music’s been around your life forever so obviously there’s so many wonderful names littered through the album that have played their part and helped along the journey of this album an none more so than Mark (Lizotte). We’ve just had him here in Perth performing his ‘Forever’ tour, which was which was wonderful but what an incredible musician and obviously, his experience with recording as well is just phenomenal.
Elly-May: There are very few people more talented than my Uncle Mark and in the world, I think in the universe possibly… I haven’t travelled the universe much [laughs] but I doubt there’s many more talented. He’s phenomenal and he can get inside my brain and my heart and my mind and he understands me in a way that sometimes I don’t even understand myself. He can make me feel so comfortable and confident and we have so
much fun and we laugh together, and I mean we’re family but beyond that he’s a genius and he’s one of the most underrated people.
Sean: Of course just to have that in corner when you’re writing your own album must be a wonderful strength for you as well.
Elly-May: Yeah, everybody who’s worked on this album has made me feel beyond incredibly lucky. I don’t understand how I’ve been able to have everybody in my corner and I just feel so grateful to have had everybody work with me and I am forever grateful and I feel so lucky, but I don’t know… it’s like the who’s who and who is she? That’s a lovely analogy, I think. At the end, once this album’s out I think it’s going to definitely be a yeah, we know who she is most definitely with this but I’m extremely grateful. And I feel so loved and everybody who did work on it who is, so genius also was so careful to make sure that it was me. They made sure that every song felt like my song still, even though they are so good at what they do and so much the artist you know, it was still my album and my song, and it felt very much like I had power and strength in it too. So, it was really amazing, and it felt really wonderful and what your first album should feel like and really special and this is why I’m so happy it’s out there and I’m so proud of it and I hope that everybody else is too who worked on it.
Sean: One thing that definitely says it’s your album is the colourful album cover, which stands out so well.
Elly-May: I guess it’s a little insight into my brain as well. I’m always drawing and collaging and if you get the CD and look inside the booklet you’ll see I’ve handwritten all the lyrics and collaged inside. I just got my copies as well which is really exciting.
Sean: I was going to ask you who is Bob in ‘Song To Bob’…
Elly-May: It’s dedicated to… well you’d have to understand the lyrical references in the verses… however I can tell you… I’ll just let you know that on Bob Dylan’s first album, he had a song called ‘Song To Woody’ which was a tribute to his favourite folk singer which was Woody Guthrie
Sean: Of course, you mentioned Bob at the start of the interview…
Elly-May: Bob Dylan is my favourite, well one of my favourite artists and my son is named Dylan after Dylan from 90210 [laughs].
Sean: [laughs] What a great show! I remember that as well. So has Bob’s influences helped you through the years with your attraction to music?
Elly-May: Well I don’t consider myself a particularly great songwriter to be honest but I do love literature and writing in general, and I do consider that I do love Bob as a writer. I am very passionate about his writing.
Sean: One of the songs that sits up for me on the album is the fabulous ‘Don’t Slow Me Down’. It sounds more like a collaboration between Suzi Quatro and Tina Turner. It’s got a hint of Nutbush or Proud Mary about it.
Elly-May: Thank you. I really like that one. I’m not very fast and I love my cabaret where I sing a lot of songs about running and walking but with this one I just wanted something a bit more rockin’ and I love that kind of vibe and you know people like Tina and Suzi, they’re icons so that’s a huge compliment but you know that era is all stuff I listened to and grew up on as well so I just wanted that rock and upbeat something you can really enjoy and that won’t slow you down.
Sean: I always worry when I see ‘Creep’ on an album because it’s one of my favourite tracks of all time and I’ve heard it absolutely crucified many a time. I cautiously put your version on and I have to say it is quite possibly the best versions of the song I’ve heard. It’s hauntingly beautiful and then it pulls into that that vocal of yours just lifts into this powerful section and then I get goosebumps up my arms all the way through that track. It’s beautifully arranged – I love it!
Elly-May: Thank you so much. That was a really scary choice to make because i know that ‘Creep’ you know, it’s a big choice to make but it is a song that even though obviously you know I didn’t write it so it can’t have that personal meaning to me technically it does though because even though I really live a very happy and privileged life um and my experience of disability is technically a fairly privileged one I do live with chronic pain and constant pain and I do live in a world that isn’t built to accommodate my disability at all and and it’s at certain points that I do feel isolated and like I say music is my way of expressing things… it’s my therapy. It’s my way of letting things out – you don’t hold things in otherwise you’re sad. The reason I’m probably happy is because I let these things out and so ‘Creep’ is a really good way to express that pain and let out that feeling of isolation out there. There’s very few ways to put to words a feeling of being in a world that isn’t built for you or feeling like you don’t belong or expressing that pain sometimes especially when normally it doesn’t get to you or or you don’t let it get to you or you don’t let it show. But ‘Creep’ is a really powerful way to let that out while screaming out. At first I thought I could do it in a sort of light-hearted way and it can be a bit self-deprecating and then it just becomes really like a part of my being.
Sean: I see also Kevin Shirley produced the track too – what an incredible CV that man has.
Elly-May: I’m so glad that Kevin got to be on this record and I’m so i love him – he’s one of my favourite producers and favourite humans too.
Sean: Of course it’s a track that your brother Jackie plays on too but I hope he didn’t charge you full price – there isn’t much drumming on there [laughs]
Elly-May: [laughs] I couldn’t afford him for the whole record – he’s very in-demand. It’s very hard to get shared custody with my father’s band members these days [laughs]. I have Charlie Drayton playing on ‘Keep Yer Eyes’ To Yourself’ too which is really important to me along with Davey Lane too.
Sean: It’s just a wonderful band of incredible musicians across all the tracks, it really is.
Elly-May: It’s just an all-star band of wonderful humans that I love on this album so for an album called ‘No Good’ it’s just all good humans making something out of all the pieces of my brain that hopefully other people connect with.
Sean: I really appreciate your time but before I let you go I have one final question to ask you. ‘Creep’ is one of my favourite songs of all time but if you could be credited with writing any song ever written what song would pick to have as yours?
Elly-May: My goodness. For me that is one of the hardest things I think I could ever think of. There’s so many like basically everything Neil Finn’s ever written, anything Bob’s ever done… I don’t know – I just like all of Bob Dylan’s catalogue, all of Neil’s melodies, all of Bob’s words with all of Neil’s melodies [laughs]. I wouldn’t mind a few Beatles numbers and some Motown hits. What would be yours? What’s yours?
Sean: I’ve been asked this before when I was interviewing someone and it’s a track by Uriah Heep called ‘July Morning’. It just has everything – it starts slowly and build to this huge crescendo, the lyrics are fantastic – it’s just a wonderful complete song for me.
Elly-May: It would depend on the day for me because my moods change and are we talking melody or are we talking lyrics? Lyrically there’s a Bob Dylan song called ‘Most of the Time’ that writes like a perfect poem but then there’s other ones that would be politically amazing but then melodically there’s stuff that could blow your mind…
Sean: Another one of mine is ‘Vincent’ by Don McLean – I love it. It’s like poetry. It was also Suzi Quatro’s choice.
Elly-May: Oh really? And then are we talking production? What do we do production-wise? Or do we just write ‘Happy Birthday’ and take the royalties [laughs] or what about changing the fabric of music itself you know. It’s crazy and there’s too many to answer for one day. We just talk for an hour and go through a hundred songs [laughs].
Sean: I think we would probably get in trouble with whoever’s running the show doing that. Elly-May thank you so much for your time and we wish you all the best with ‘Good Things’ – what a great debut album.
Elly-May: Thank you Sean. Hopefully see you at one of my shows.
Sean: Are there plans to get out on the road to support the album?
Elly-May: I’m getting a great band together and I’m really hoping to be able to book some shows – I’m not sure about those logistics yet but fingers crossed and yeah, we’d love to get this rock show on the road.
Sean: We’ll keep an eye out for dates. Thanks again for your time.
Elly-May: Thanks Sean.
