THE GOOD KIND
A CONVERSATION WITH SOPH NATHAN OF OUR GIRL
It is not easy to live up to a remarkable debut album. Sometimes, sophomore albums fail miserably in trying to do so. This is not the case for Our Girl. Their second album, The Good Kind, is even better than their debut album, Stranger Today. Recently, I chatted with Soph Nathan of Our Girl about The Good Kind.
Our Girl initially recorded The Good Kind in Rockfield Studios in Wales with producer John Parish, but it needed some finishing touches. “It was great, but we came out the other side just feeling like it didn’t sound like us yet,” comments Nathan. “It needed more work, experimentation, and textures. So, we went into our friend’s home studio, she’s called Fern Ford, and we did a lot of extra production and layers, and it was only after that process that we were like, ‘ok, now it feels like how the songs are meant to feel.’”
Nathan thinks Our Girl has evolved since their debut album. “I learnt a lot about how I wanted things to sound, and I was capable of making them sound that way with the help of Fern Ford, who co-produced it. We all learnt a lot and realized we really do know what we want. I think I didn’t quite know that when we started. But in the process of trying to make it the best it could be, I was like, ‘ah, I just 100% know what I want.’ So, I think we’ve got a bit more freedom and confidence, and I suppose that’s translated live, and Josh [Tyler] and I now playing guitar live is a big step up from us.”
Reflecting on the creative process behind “What You Told Me”, Nathan shares, “I’d written the sort of main lead riff that goes with the vocals, and we haven’t had anything like that for a while. But I really like it when there’s just a really heavy guitar doing the same thing as the vocals. I like that ‘wall of sound.’ We demoed it, the three of us, and it was the end of the night, and Josh was like, ‘I got some vague ideas. Why don’t I go in and have a go?’ He picked up my guitars with my pedals, not even his own setup, and he just played the lead into the chorus and then all the extra lead guitars you hear. It was amazing! Lauren [Wilson] and I were in the other room shouting, ‘YEAH!!!’ He’s really good at going off a feeling, and he captured it perfectly… It’s a nice opportunity for us to play guitar together because live now we have two other members, so on that song, Josh and I play guitar together.”
Meanwhile, “Something Exciting”, Nathan notes, “Is partly about when we used to live in Brighton. We started the band there. It was about playing music with lots of different friends and rehearsing all hours. We had a basement in our house that everyone would pile into and rehearse. So, it’s fun, in that it sounds, I feel like, a bit more like we used to when we started. But this one, we only did a couple of takes, and it was done cause it’s such a live feeling song. But we wanted a bit more chaos and energy, so Josh and I spent time just in my room recording like a bunch of feedback and weird guitar sounds, and I just dragged them around the song and chose the moments for it to feel like where we needed that extra energy.”
PURCHASE THE GOOD KIND VIA BANDCAMP
“Writing is a big, really helpful processing tool for me.” shares Nathan. One example of this is “Something About Me Being A Woman”, which Nathan recalls, “Was about a really frustrating experience where I felt kind of undermined by someone, and I think it’s quite a common experience as a woman, this specific thing that happened, that I won’t go into the details of, but it was a really good release to write this song. I hadn’t really thought about it for a bit, and it came into my mind; I can’t remember what sparked it, but I ended up just writing the song. I was just like, ‘that was really satisfying to get some of this anger out.’”
Another example is “Relief”. “It was sort of me realizing how confident I feel in my sexuality now,” states Nathan. “I came out when I was a teenager. I think a lot of it was me thinking back to that time and processing how I feel and feeling confident in that. I think a lot of that confidence came from other people in my life whom I care about and who I was worried would feel shame or hard on themselves for their sexuality and wanting to convince them that it’s amazing and they should be celebrated. In doing that, I think I comforted myself. I kind of described it as a ‘love song’ for queer people having a hard time of it. I was sort of writing it to my younger self but also anyone else who might hear it who might need to hear it.”
Our Girl makes music that creates an accepting, loving, and safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community, which Nathan states “Is really important. I mean, I don’t think about it consciously like that, but it’s just because I’m writing about these things, and I am a queer woman like it’s just a big part of who I am and my experience in the world… I just think it’s important to have role models and people you can look up to. I think when I was a kid, I didn’t really have that. So, I love having it, I love being able to celebrate it, and if there’s like someone who’s young figuring it out, if we help in some way, just by playing music, that’s awesome.”
Our Girl does a tremendous job incorporating a loud/quiet sound dynamic. Usually, these moments happen during rehearsals. “The three of us rehearse a lot to figure out the structures of these songs,” remarks Nathan. “We always try basically all the ideas… “Who Do You Love”, the outro, is an instrumental, and in the rehearsal room, was like two hours long. We would just go round and round and get lost in it. I think it’s just bouncing off each other and knowing when to go with that feeling.”
Angel Olsen and Big Thief are two artists that inspire Nathan, commenting, “Angel inspired some of the sounds in “The Good Kind” in the strings, in the middle to late section. I was really inspired by her strings on “All Mirrors”, like they’re so swoopy, weird, and interesting, and I hadn’t really heard strings be played like that… Big Thief, they’re just the best band in the world.”
Nathan hopes The Good Kind comforts listeners. “I really love it when I’m feeling a bit shit, and I put on a record, and it just makes me feel a bit comforted or excited to do something or shake off the feeling. If we could do that, that would be great. I always feel very inspired when I go see other bands play that I love. I will often write song lyric notes on my phone. So, if we can make people feel inspired or cheered up, that would be cool.”
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Photo Credit: Katie Silvester
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