We had the pleasure of interviewing Paige Valentine, and here’s what she had to say:
Q: I love your vocals! What’s your favorite vocal warm-up?
VALENTINE: Thank you! There’s a lady on YouTube that’s incredible that wears boxing gloves and has these equally ridiculous & great warm-ups. I hate doing anything tedious so for me she’s made it way more entertaining. I also have to avoid seeing anyone funny before a show or not talking over loud music because laughing and shouting makes me sound like Macy Gray the next day. (Which sometimes works for me).
Q: How long did it take to write “Cloud Dancing”? What inspired it?
VALENTINE: Most of the song came really quickly but I was stuck on the last lyric of the chorus for the longest time! I also took it to a couple of different producers because I just couldn’t work it out, I think it was one of those things where I was too close to it to be subjective. I was also trying to make it really visceral but it ended up sounding like a Disney track so I had to start again and actually simplify it a lot. What inspired it was really the reason I put so much pressure on myself. One of my closest friends was in the last stages of her life with cancer. I promised her I’d write her a song, I got to sing to her in her final week and it was just the most heart-wrenching experience but also such a privilege to be with her and to be allowed to be part of her process. I wanted the song to be celebratory, she was known for a good time on the dance floor and just loved her life. I wanted it to be like she was talking to her friends, family, and her daughter telling us everything will be ok.
Q: That’s so touching. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. What do you enjoy most about making music?
VALENTINE: I have such a good friendship with my producer Andy Lawson & co-writer / guitarist Palle Mazzulla that honestly in the studio with those two is my happy place. We don’t take it too seriously we try to stay in the spirit of music and have fun with it. It’s always magic in there. I’ve infuriated so many producers by having slightly unfinished songs; I like to leave about 30% room for studio magic. The song always knows where it wants to go. I love that some songs come to me in dreams, some songs have obliterated me then put me back together. I love that it’s an evolving beast and I never want to tame it.
Q: What do you do to get your creative juices flowing when you feel stuck while creating a song?
VALENTINE: Go move your body, or go for a drive. Often songs come when I am doing something totally different like gardening, or out in nature. There’s a great Ted Talk on how to unlock your creativity by “slow motion multi-tasking” which is having a few different projects on the go. I love working like that. So I try to flesh out a song when it graces my brain as much as I can. I haven’t been stuck on too many – actually mostly this one! The rest have been really quick-spirited things and have stayed mostly unchanged from the voice memos in my phone I’ve ad-libbed at 3am or run out of a restaurant to go record an idea in the bathrooms. You never know when will flutter into your subconscious.
Q: In what way(s), do you think your sound has evolved since you started making music?
VALENTINE: This album has been the biggest evolution I’ve ever gone through, especially personally. I moved towns mid-pandemic back to somewhere I’ve always felt my happiest and somewhere really unconventional (truly the middle of nowhere). It’s funny because the scenery instructed the music to change. I can hear the songs I wrote in Fremantle which are longing, forlorn, and deep, and then the change with moving back to the most insane wilderness, starting to surf again, being with the horses, and just having a slow life. It’s evolved into a summery, free, cosmic record that became so redemptive to me
Q: Did you always know you would become a musician? At what point did you reach this realization/conclusion?
VALENTINE: I did. I remember watching my grandfather play the piano when I was about 4, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I was spellbound. It wasn’t until about 11 when mum got me a keyboard I started writing songs of my own as a way to pass the time, which through my life has evolved to become a compass.
Interviewed by Zoey King
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