Chelsea Cutler

News

Chelsea Cutler On Writing 'Brent' With Jeremy Zucker, Playing Lolla & More

Facebook Twitter Email
While On The Road At Lollapalooza 2019, the "Your Shirt" singer tells the Recording Academy about how her 'Brent' EP came together and how leaving New York for Connecticut helped her creative process
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Aug 5, 2019 - 2:02 pm

Rising indie electronic-pop star Chelsea Cutler is one half of her latest album Brent, which she created alongside her friend and fellow singer/songwriter Jeremy Zucker.

At Lollapalooza 2019, Cutler, who got her start dropping music on Soundcloud and has been releasing a series of singles and EPs since 2016, told the Recording Academy about how the album came together and how leaving her home in New York for Connecticut helped her and Zucker's creative process. 

Chelsea Cutler Talks 'Brent' EP

"We stayed in a one room carriage house in the Berkshires...and we just wrote the most magical project together and had the best time," she said. "It's just this beautiful place that allowed us to really access this raw creativity."

She continued: "It was really essential for us to get out of New York, get out of the industry, get out of the noise and just write from out hearts and just write things that felt honest and raw for us and just make music that we love, not thinking about how it will be received commercially. It was super refreshing for us."

Cutler will joing singer Lauv on tour this fall. Watch the video above for more on Brent, how Cutler felt playing Lollapalooza and more. 

Meet Us Behind The Scenes At Lollapalooza 2019

Yung Gravy

Photo: Erika Goldring/FilmMagic/Getty Images

News

Yung Gravy On Debut Album 'Sensational,' First Show Ever & More

Facebook Twitter Email
The rapper shared his musical influences and tour stories backstage at the Chicago festival
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Aug 7, 2019 - 5:19 pm

With songs like "Whip A Tesla" and "Gravy For Pope," Minnesota rapper Yung Gravy is continuing to grow a following for his humourus lyrics and rap beats.

The rapper, who released his debut album Sensational in May, spoke to the Recording Academy during his stop at Lollapoolaza in Chicago, which he calls his second home, to reminisce about his first show ever. 

Yung Gravy On Tours, Debut Album 'Sensational'

"One of my first shows ever was a grad party that someone hit me up on Facebook for when I had no numbers at all," he said. "Probably did a suburb of Chicago grad party, turnt up. 12 people in the crowd, it was sick."

Yung Gravy also shared what some of his favorite songs are on his debut. 

"My song 'Gravy Train' is dope because I sampled 'Right Back Where We Started From' and I love that song, so that s*** gets me really hyped," he said. "My song 'Yung Gravity' is like this outerspace lowkey banger where it's chill, but then really goes hard and everyone knows the words and it's sick."

Malu Trevejo On Her 'Una Vez Mas' EP, Playing Lollapalooza For The First Time & More

AJR

News

AJR On Their Dream Lil Nas X Collab, Their Favorite Thing About Festivals & More

Facebook Twitter Email
Brothers Adam, Jack and Ryan sat down with the Recording Academy before their Lollapalooza set to talk fan mashups, dream collabs and more
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Aug 5, 2019 - 4:46 pm

Alt-pop trio AJR brought their energetic live set (and some burritos) to their 2019 Lollapalooza performance this past weekend. 

The group, made up of brothers Adam, Jack and Ryan, also stopped by to chat with the Recording Academy to share why they love playing festivals like Lolla.  

AJR Talk "Old Town Road" Mashup

"I really like that everyone is here for the music and the music alone, coming to just experience the music," lead vocalist Jack Met said. "It's kind of a rare thing in today's sort of music climate, which is much more about image and followers and stuff, but at a festival you're in front of the stage and you're just like, 'I like this song,' 'I don't like this song, let's go over there, that feels really cool.'"

The brothers also talked about how a recent fan mashup of Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" and their "Don't Throw Out My Legos" has them wanting to collab with the rising rapper. 

Watch the full interview with AJR above. 

Chelsea Cutler On Writing 'Brent' With Jeremy Zucker, Playing Lolla & More

Ozomatli 

Photo: Jordan Strauss/WireImage.com

News

Ozomatli To Host Family-Friendly 'OzoKids' Event At GRAMMY Museum Latin Gallery Opening

Facebook Twitter Email
The band's program, inspired by their 2012 album of the same name, comes to the GRAMMY Museum on Nov. 18
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Nov 15, 2019 - 3:53 pm

In 2012, Los Angeles' own Ozomatli recorded their very first kid's album, Ozomatli Presents OzoKidz.

Previously, the two-time GRAMMY-winning band had been known for meshing cumbia, salsa, hip-hop, funk and more in an upbeat, danceable fusion unique to growing up Latinx in L.A. Songs like "Cumbia del Muerto," or "Cumbia Of The Dead," off their 1998 self-titled album, was easily the soundtrack of Latin bi-cultural America during that time. Now, the song is a cumbia-American classic, continuing to bring Ozomatli's legacy to the next generation of Latinx in the U.S. 

OzoKidz - Plans For Children's Album

But as time went by and the band began to notice that their fans were starting to have kids, they saw an opportunity to connect with an even tinier generation.

"I think one of the great things about it for us is that we were able to really look at songwriting as a way to really get into characters," vocalist and guitarist Raul Pacheco tells the Recording Academy. "We just sat around and talked about things we went through as a kid or things you were into and just kind of associated certain styles of music with those subjects."

The 2010s album, which would become a GRAMMY-winning album, kept the band's sonic essence but also contained songs meant to teach kids how not be afraid of water, skateboarding and germs. Ultimately, the album taught the band something, too.  

"It actually helped our songwriting, [to] kind of not have to be stuck to what it meant to be an adult," Pacheco said. 

Now, Ozomatli are bringing their program—inspired by the OzoKidz album experience—to the Recording Academy's GRAMMY Museum on Nov. 18, the same day the Latin Music Gallery at the museum in Los Angeles is set to launch. Pacheco says the program will only continue to build the relationship Ozomatli has with the museum, the GRAMMYs and the Recording Academy. 

The Recording Academy spoke with Pacheco more about how the album helped the band evolve, their workshop at the Latin Gallery unveiling, being a part of the GRAMMY Museum history, music education and more. 

You are going to be a part of a kids workshop during the GRAMMY Museum Latin gallery opening. But this isn't your first rodeo with kids. Why connect with kids via an album?

We all grew up in public school systems where we learned and were introduced to music. I think that experience for us as young people is super impressionable, something we all talk about a lot, the importance of that experience for us. It really kind of makes playing music not some unattainable thing that you only see someone do in pictures or on TV or whatever. It's always been something very important to us.

I think we've always had a connection. As we've gotten older and have our own children, we got to a point where a lot of our fans were having kids ... So the idea came up to make a kid's record and we went for it. I think one of the great things about it for us is that we were able to really look at songwriting as a way to really get into characters. It actually helped our songwriting, [to] kind of not have to be stuck to what it meant to be an adult. We could just... create these different kinds of impressions that we were trying to focus on what it meant to be a kid. It was really cool to all these different kinds of subjects you go to just in a natural way as a child. I think we tried to make a record and songs that the parents wouldn't get sick of listening to a thousand times.

Was it only the themes you felt changed?

Yeah, because on that record there's a song about going to the movies, there's a song about germs that's just kind of funny. It's a little scary and funny. There's a song about being afraid to go into the water, and don't be afraid of it, just jump in. There's a song about skateboarding. So there's all these different subjects. We just sat around and talked about things we went through as a kid or things you were into and just kind of associated certain styles of music with those subjects. 

What kind of experience with music did you have at school?

My first real experience with music was in the school choir and I had a very, very important teacher, Mrs. Hubbard. She was one of those teachers that was so influential in terms of really introducing children to music and she was so good at it. You don't really realize that until you're old and you can kind of go like, "Wow, this lady used to wrangle all of these kids and get them to do something some of them didn't even think they could do." There's a kind of a profound thing in that, that a lot of teachers probably experience in terms of just introducing kids to concepts or to the experiences to help them do the work that it takes to have an outcome. I think for me it was also understanding, without knowing it at the time, it takes work to do what you want to do.

You have to show up, you have to practice, you have to rehearse, you got to prep and then you got to perform. And the better you get at all that it really allows you to have better presentation. Those concepts, which you're not really sure that you're not even really aware that you're learning that, it's kind of really important ... I went on to be in a boys' choir because of her. Then I just got into rock guitar as a teenager and that kind of led to other stuff. But that first experience from her was super important.

Why work with the museum on this workshop now?

We've had a long relationship with the GRAMMY Museum. [We] performed there many times. We did a kids' presentation there ourselves. We got to perform with Booker T. there. I've seen numerous presentations there. So we have a relationship with the GRAMMYs. Doing MusiCares, which we performed at, to Harold Owens who runs MusiCares, to people who work at the GRAMMY Museum. We've won GRAMMYs. I think that all kind of makes us part of that family so we know that there's certain things that they can ask us that we're always willing to do, if possible. This is one of those things.

What can you tell us about the event on Monday?

I know that it's an important presentation. There's going to be important items there with the idea of Latino music and we're going to grab the family. We're a part of that history. We have some stuff there that they asked us to bring. I have a Tres guitar, which is a Cuban guitar, that's going to be there. That was one I played at one of the Latin GRAMMYs. They asked for a bunch of stuff from some performances that we had. For us, it's just important to be a part of that whole moment and that presentation and we're honored that they asked us. Doing what we do is just, [it's] not really work. We're going to have to show up and do what we do.

For people not aware of what Latin music is today, and specifically in Los Angeles, what is the significance of the Latin gallery opening up at the museum and specifically in L.A.?

I think that there's always been a correct criticism in terms of the separation of those worlds, [between L.A. and Latinos]. To me, to this day, it's a little hard to understand the strict separation that we have in our daily lives even though that there's all kinds of people that live in Los Angeles. When it comes to Latino L.A. and non-Latino L.A., I know there's plenty of integration in our game, but somehow in our hearts and our heads, it still seems different. I'm hoping that this is a continuation of a progress into recognizing some very obvious things about the city of Los Angeles, its own history, its own adversity, and continue to create that kind of awareness in all institutions, not just music.

I get that this is important to kind of continue that evolution of thinking, of how we look at the city. This particular showcase is going to be about music, popular music. And because it's in Los Angeles, directly is how it affects L.A. There's a lot more integration that ... [brings into] recognition of basic things that we all share and ultimately don't need to be kind of segregated in that way. I'm really very happy to be a part of the progress of that.

GRAMMY Museum Reveals Flor de Toloache, Angela Aguilar & More As Special Guests For Opening Of Latin Music Gallery

Anna Meredith 

Photo: Gem Harris 

News

Scottish Singer/Composer Anna Meredith Talks Songwriting, 'FIBS' & The Power Of Simplicity

Facebook Twitter Email
"I think it's having the balls to put things up against each other that I might have felt worried about before," she tells the Recording Academy about her musical evolution
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Nov 14, 2019 - 12:28 pm

Scottish singer/songwriter, producer and composer Anna Meredith has a way of making music that may seem very calculated.

"I draw the shapes that represent the kind of graphic, also the energy of the track. And I'll do that for anything. Whether it's an orchestral piece or a piece for kids or a piece for anything," she says on the phone from Europe. "It's something that I do that helps me plan out the music because the pacing of musical ideas is really important to me."

Fusing classical music with electronic beats and genres like pop, Anna Meredith's music is an emotive journey into the experimental—some of it sounds like it could be the soundtrack of a videogame while other pieces can feel like the music you'd dance to at a club or fall asleep to. In addition to releasing three LPs and two EPs, Meredith has also composed the scores 2018 indie comedy-drama Eighth Grade and this year's Paul Rudd Netflix vehicle, Living With Yourself. 

As thoughtful as she can be about music creation, FIBS, her sophomore album out now, has her standing her ground with what feels right to her. "I know more about what I think works. I think there's more risks. Which doesn't necessarily mean more complexity," she says. "It actually sometimes means being braver with simplicity ... I set out to write something that I thought would feel open and inclusive and joyful."

The Recording Academy recently chatted with the singer/songwriter to talk FIBS, being under the spotlight in her video for "Inhale Exhale," the importance of positivity and more. 

Your latest album came out three and a half years after your debut. Did you spend that time working on it?
 
Not nonstop. I had little bursts where I was working on it really intensely for a few weeks or even a month. Then I stopped to do other things like the Eighth Grade soundtrack, or a big orchestral piece I did for the [BBC] Proms last year. So I did quite a lot of other projects in between. But I [was] full-time, working on it from about October last year, right through to about July.
 
Nowadays artists are pushing out music all the time. Did you throughout that time feel pressure to hurry your album at all?
 
Not especially, I mean, one because there was actually all this other stuff that was happening, I released an album of a piece I did that was half full Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," half my music. So that came out last year. And there was this big orchestral thing and then the whole Eighth Grade thing. So I felt like there was still lots of content from me. In terms of my band stuff, well I wouldn't want to put it out without finding really potential. I suppose I wouldn't want to put it out unless it felt perfect. Unless I felt like this is my project that I am so proud of, and this takes me so much belief and love goes into it, that if I rushed it in any way I wouldn't be happy.
 
So no, I think I would have felt bad if there was nothing else out there for people to see, but there's actually been lots going on. So if people wanted to hear new stuff, there's been quite a lot of things.
 
What was the headspace you were in when creating your sophomore album?
 
I was feeling pretty good. I have been writing for a really, really long time. I work as a classical composer and increasingly for TV stuff so writing isn't unusual. It's my job and it's what I do all the time is I write music. And it wasn't like I had to get into that headspace from a completely different job. It was more carving out the time, turning down other projects to just focus on it. And yeah, pretty excited. I think, really, I did, I spend a lot of the last few years just writing. And I knew what's nice about this project is it will then also have a live life. It will have performances and I'll go on through with it. And that's kind of amazing.
 
So, it's nice to be thinking that next year I'll be touring and doing all this stuff that's not about just composing the whole time. So yeah, I was feeling excited. I had a very clear idea of the types of music that I wanted to be on the album. The kind of mix of stuff, that I wanted fast stuff and slow stuff and upbeat stuff and quieter things and longer tracks. I had to use just very general things that I felt would balance each other up really well. So I sort of had all those kind of parameters in my head before I began.
 
You compose a lot, but is there something in specific you enjoy about the songwriting process?
 
I don't really see it as that different to any of my other stuff. I mean if you look and listen to my orchestral music or stuff like installations or anything I've done, there's a lot of the same musical ingredients, building blocks across anything I do. So it's not like I'm trying, if I actively don't think about genre at all, I'm not thinking, here's a pop song. Here's an instrumental track, here's an orchestral track. I'm just exploring the things I like to write. The types of chords or types of rhythms, the types of cross-rhythms, things that I find exciting. I mean obviously, with the vocal tracks there's the extra thing of lyrics. That was, having in the past written operas and stuff like that where you set someone else's words, it's definitely an extra challenge when you're making the words your own.
 
But I was really proud of the vocal stuff in this album. I think it's a lot stronger than the previous one. And yeah, I sort of just enjoyed the challenge of as in appreciating myself but more than I did before.
 
What are the challenges for you?
 
Well, one challenge is that I'm not the best singer. But I really love singing and it feels authentic to me and part of the expression of this whole project, that it is me. As you know, I'm not the only singer. I didn't want to just get some amazing singer into this. So, the vocal stuff is sung by me and members of my band as well. One of the tracks, "Killjoy," is sung by Sam the drummer. It's really nice to me. It's not about just getting in session players. These are people, all the members of the band and myself are all being all this and just being ourselves. That's one thing, making the music work for me vocally. I have to get it in the right range. I've got a very high squeaky voice so I have to push everything up quite high. And I guess the challenge is really trying to find stuff that doesn't feel either pretentious or clumsy. Trying to get the tone of that sort of stuff right. Feels like it feels honest. But not teenage or something, not emote, not, I guess, comfy. I think juggling all that sort of stuff and then ultimately forgetting your own, just getting on with it.
 
How do you decide when a song of yours incorporates lyrics and when it doesn't?
 
So that's all kind of decided before. Before I started the whole album, I have this way that I plan any music that I write where I draw the shapes that represent the kind of graphic, also the energy of the track. And I'll do that for anything. Whether it's an orchestral piece or a piece for kids or a piece for anything. It's something that I do that helps me plan out the music because the pacing of musical ideas is really important to me. Making the positioning of where new elements come in and where certain things are revealed or that sort of stuff. So this kind of planning stage with the shapes, these kinds of graphic shapes, lots of triangles and that sort of thing, is a big part of the kind of composing process. So right from the beginning of this album, I knew that I was going to write 11 tracks and I knew the kind of mix of stuff I was going to do. So it was almost then like writing to my own brief. It wasn't like I wrote 50 tracks and picked the best 11. I knew I was going to do longer instrumental tracks, shorter instrumental tracks, more upbeat vocal stuff, quieter vocal stuff, a song for Sam to sing, the drummer. So I had a little sort of shopping list of stuff that I really wanted to do. Then I'm just fleshing each thing out.
 
"Inhale Exhale," that's the first time you appear in a video alone. How was that experience?
 
I was a bit worried about it before. I sort of have maybe taken a bit of comfort from previous videos feeling quite equal with the rest of the band and feeling like it sort of wasn't so centered around me and singing and stuff. I mean, you get into it when you've done about 9,000 takes and we'd done it right through the night. And into carwash where we filmed putting the car through the car wash countless times. And yeah, you know what, they had an amazing team who are sort of filming it, and writing it who are so, yeah. Eventually, you get over yourself. And also it's so unbelievably cold and wet. You've got to just stop freaking out about it and just get on with it eventually.
 
 
Earlier you mentioned when you released your album, you wanted to be proud of it. Do you feel like you're proud of the album? 
 
Yeah, I'm hugely proud of it. I mean the amount of time and money and efforts being [put into it], I don't think I could live with myself if it felt like I'd done something that I didn't feel represented me. I've been part of it because it's a huge thing for me to do. I have to clear a ton of time and sacrifice a lot and write areas all across my life to make this thing that nobody's asking for and nobody needs. And that it seems very different from my classical commissions where there is a lot of infrastructure and payment and production schedules. There's good commissions fees. This is something that I have to sort of a lot of self-belief to push these things forward.
 
I feel really proud of how good each track sounds. I've listened to it thousands of times and I still love it. Which I think is a good test. Not sick of any of it. I still feel excited when I hear the tracks and energized and I'm up in my seat, dancing about. I love it. Which sounds maybe really indulgent, but I don't know what the alternative would be, would be really sad.
 
How do you feel your sound has evolved since your debut?
 
I write how I write. It's kind of how I feel. And that within itself has a lot of variety. So I think I've got better at a lot of things. I think I've got better at my production stuff, the electronics I think are better. I know more ... [I] have more confidence as I get even older as a composer. And I know more about what I think works. I think there's more risks. Which doesn't necessarily mean more complexity. It actually sometimes means being braver with simplicity. I think it's having the balls to put things up against each other that I might have felt worried about before. Start flowing from something really intense to something simple. I really didn't want this record to be alienating or in any way academic or to seem like some kind of exercise. I want people to love and enjoy and sing along to. I set out to write something that I thought would feel open and inclusive and joyful.
 
That in itself means that's quite a hard thing to try and do to. Why I find composition really hard to do? Because you want to be transparent about what the music's doing whilst also keeping sort of things that are unexpected and exciting. So I think that's slightly more accessibility.
 
What do you attribute all this growth to? I hear you say that you feel braver...
 
Oh, I don't know. I mean I think just one, I suppose the validation and confidence from the last record. Which really I did sort of on my own with just being much more of a team effort with the band ... I feel so humbled and excited when we do a gig and people are there and saying the words. I mean that's amazing. What an amazing feeling and that people are there for that. I feel excited that people are up for coming on the journey of this stuff. And have come to other things. What's been amazing for me is people who've come to our band gigs have then come to my orchestral pieces and vice versa. I think it's really lovely that I think this whole idea of genre just matters so much less now. And people are looking at music because they like how somebody writes, no matter what the context is.
 
How much do you pay attention to the other pop sounds going on around you?
 
Not very much. I mean, I basically, I work and compose in a bit of a hermit depressing, weird tunnel where I deliberately don't listen to any music or I don't seek out any music. I don't think, "Oh, how can it be a star track?"Or "What sound?"  Because just I, in the past used to sort of listen about a bit more and found that it then watered down or affected what I was writing. Instead I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I just find that I find it more creatively stronger if I'm not too influenced by anything. I'm not living in a bubble, so of course I hear lots of stuff from telly and films and things. So, I know what kind of stuff is out there, but I'm definitely not trying to write my music in the context of anyone else's.
 
When you travel with so many instruments, does that present any kind of challenge when you're playing music live?
 
I mean there's tedious, practical challenges that are almost too boring to mention. Getting a cello on a plane and getting a tuba on a plane. And that every single f***kng airline has the same policy and you walk up and each one goes, "Oh no, you need to do this. And you have to pay it anyway." So baffling. That's unbelievably infuriating.
 
We're still really getting started so we don't have a big team. It's us who pack it. We set everything up, we pack everything down, we sell the merch. And then we parole 22 suitcases of stuff on to the next place. Pack them like Tetris into the boot of a car and off we go. It's a challenge but it's also really exciting. I think because the band and I get on really well and we try and make it all fun as it can be. The last time we were in the States, we all went skiing and we went to Six Flags [theme park] ... We just did all this like fun stuff around the tour that kind of balances out all the lugging and packing and stuff that's the other side of it.
 
What have you learned from yourself as an artist throughout these years?
 
That's a good question. Let me see. What I learned? I mean, there's stuff that would be useful for, worry less over general life gubbins about trying to just do stuff under your own terms. And not just tune in to your usual stuff where you could have a lovely review with one bad light or it haunts you forever. So that's just, I guess, confidence.
 
And I think also just trying to stay positive. I think the previous album ends quite sadly. It's got quite a sort of heartbreaking little final track. And I wanted this album, even though a lot of the vocal stuff has quite a lot of self-criticism and inward-looking and hesitation and quite negative. But the final track is made to be open and up in the sense of looking outward. So I think there's optimism, that even though it seems ... everything [in the world] seems like it's just going to shit. We all just wake up and we're like, "Oh my God, we're being managed by idiots" and we think what is that. So, it's so depressing and it can also really bleak and hopeless. So I think trying to stay positive and not just lean into that negativity. Try and do something with energy and positivity is something I can kind of think about.
 
With Brexit and everything going on, how do you feel like you as an artist will be affected by that?
 
Oh my God, I feel most of us are just too scared. Well, one, we don't have a clue. The whole country feels like everything's changing every day. That there's just the news. You wake up and see what fresh hell have they got in store for us today or what? It's like a terrible, terrible box set you're watching that just never ends and it's awful. And the implications for smaller bands like us touring are awful. Going to Europe, or getting to the States is already a huge deal financially for us, getting the visas and things. Where it's a really big investment and the idea of footing doing that again for Europe is really daunting. And I think even just on a broader level, this idea of there's then a phobia of this idea of some jingoistic old-fashioned rural, this sort of really almost well, racist, to be honest, idea of what Britain is, just feels hideous.
 
So yeah, I don't know. It's fairly easy as I'm sure it's for you guys to feel like a lot of people, us and all our friends have no idea who the rest of your country is. You feel very alienated. To be honest, it's kind of reached a point where, when you meet up, when I meet a pal, the first thing we all sort of assess is that we can't talk about it. We can't talk about Brexit or we're just going to end up in silence. Going to cry. So yeah, so it's awful. And we really hope that something might get sorted. But even if it did you sense that the country is just divided in two at the moment, which is a scary thing.
 
What are you up to next?
 
 Next we'll be touring, which is really exciting. And I just finished Living with Yourself, the music for the Netflix show that came out a [few] of weeks ago, the Paul Rudd one. So that's been really nice. Lots of people have got in touch about that. Then next year composing-wise, I'm trying to do a little less because I've just written back-to-back for years. But I think the next thing maybe writing something for a VR project, which I'm quite excited about. That's underway, but I'm hoping mostly to be doing some more practical stuff and focus on just getting the band and our 92 suitcases out on the road.

The Roots, Debbie Harry & More Team Up With GRAMMY Music Education Coalition For Auction