Mayuko On the Making Of “White Heat”
What was the creative process like for this particular "White Heat?“
Bassist Rebecca says: I´ve been struggling with anxiety and panic since teenager years, but I had to experience a quite challenging year 2022 to finally face the problem and seek help. The lyrics came out in a very stressful moment in my life - coming from a concert on the other side of Germany, riding trains since 5 in the morning to be on time for another job appointment in my hometown. My anxiety slowly took over my insides, I felt like I would implode and I started writing simply for the sake of surviving that train ride being tired, hungover and pretty worn out. I tried to step out of my head and heart for a moment to watch that feeling of being overwhelmed by a panic attack from the outside.
A couple of weeks later, I started to produce a little sketch for a new song, I recorded some double bass loops and built a basic structure - not knowing yet that this particular sketch and the before mentioned lyrics actually belonged together.
Were there any challenges or breakthrough moments during the songwriting process for "White Heat?"
A breakthrough moment surely was hearing Michelle sing the lyrics over the music I had produced for the first time. When we were working on our upcoming album, we were collecting all the material that was already there and I had not planned initially to combine the “white heat” lyrics with that music. But she just used them to sing over it and I had goosebumps hearing it the first time.
Were there any memorable or standout moments during the recording sessions for "White Heat?”
For “white heat“ Kasia, our drummer, recorded a whole lot of fancy percussion samples with different instruments, combining also stuff that usually didn´t belong together, for example, small cymbals with metal chains on it, and I really enjoyed her playful approach to create new characteristic soundscapes. In the final production, we had to reduce the percussions drastically to create the gloomy atmosphere we wanted, but the few moments where the sampled percussion sounds are still in the song allowed the overall sound to gain depth.
How did your band members initially come together?
We all lived in Mannheim at that time and were all part of the same circle of creative people, that hung out and worked together regularly in different combinations, most of them for theatrical or dance productions, as music producers, dancers or live musicians. Kasia and I had already jammed together and wanted to start something. We mostly knew Michelle as a fantastic dancer, but then heard her sing for the first time as a guest in a concert and were completely over the moon. So at a party we asked her if she wanted to have a band with us, and she said yes.
How do you continuously grow and evolve as a band?
When Michelle moved to Berlin, it was clear that we had to be more organized to make our long distance band relationship work. That already was a process of growth. In general, growing and evolving as a band works just how it works in other fields of life: trial and error. You do stuff, some works, some doesn´t, you try it again. What I think is really quite special about our dynamics is that we always try to be supportive and positive with each other. Nurturing first ideas and impulses instead of being over-critical in the first place, giving each other the courage to try out stuff without being judged directly, throwing out seeds of ideas without expectations or pressure, watching some grow into beautiful flowers. That approach will hopefully help us to continue that journey of growth.