GEORGIA NOTT of BROODS: Confronting Emotions Head On
An interview by Sarah Kidd.
They are the New Zealand brother and sister duo from Nelson who hit the ground running in 2013, the world a veritable oyster at their feet. Broods released their debut album Evergreen to critical acclaim, securing not only several NZMA nominations, but international support slots with artists such as Sam Smith and Ellie Goulding. Life was looking good, and then they were dropped by their UK label Polydor.
A small bump in the road, or so it seemed, Broods soon returning to the studio and releasing their sophomore album Conscious just two years later.
But then came their biggest blow, Capitol Records, their worldwide label dropped them as well. Feelings of jubilant elation and the potential freedom from being forced into a persona they were never comfortable with soon turned to confusion and trepidation. What would they do now?
What they did was come back fighting. Embracing their new-found freedom, Broods have returned triumphant with their third album Don’t Feed the Pop Monster; a deeply personal musical divulgence that has not only been both cathartic for Georgia and Caleb but has allowed them to connect with their fans and encourage questions and conversations around topics such as toxic masculinity.
Back in New Zealand for a few shows, I caught up with Georgia to talk about the new album, the importance of art as an outlet for emotions and just why we need to encourage New Zealand men to keep talking about depression and anxiety…
Congratulations on your third album Don’t Feed the Pop Monster.
‘Thank you!’
Must feel like a great relief to finally have it out there?
‘Yeah, I feel like it just feels good to be able to put a third album out you know? [laughs] in such a fickle industry. It sounds really good; it feels even better now that we’re playing it live. When you’re writing an album, you can imagine what it’s going to be like when you play it live, so there’s been some moments where it has been exactly what we imagined and that’s a very special thing.’
I can imagine. The release of the album has been deemed as your greatest achievement to date. A statement that you would agree with?
‘Wow! [chuckles] Yeah it feels like – especially in a musical sense – for us this has been a long time coming. It took us awhile to figure out what we wanted to say as an artist, coming into the industry really young it took us a few goes to figure out what we were trying to say and what we were trying to do, and I think with this album it’s definitely one step closer to finding ourselves.
I guess you’re always doing that anyway, but this definitely feels like for us the album that we’re most proud of and it’s nice to be able to sing it every night and sing every single song off this record and still love it!’
Yes, well three albums in for Broods as a musical project, I would assume that in a lot of ways you would feel that you and your brother Caleb have grown both personally and musically?
‘Yeah, and it feels like everything is really well documented! [laughs] Everybody goes through these different phases I guess in life, but the difference is, is that there are all these photos of me as a nineteen year old, just at the beginning of my career and I’m looking back on them like ‘Ewwwww yuck!
But at the same time, in saying that, to be able to track how far we’ve come as artists in a creative sense, it’s quite special to be able to do that and I think Caleb and I are both really, really happy with where we’re at in the way of what we’re making and it’s like it’s made us even more excited about making another record and yeah, it feels good!’ [chuckles]
You must be in a good space! I mean you’ve only just put out this record and you’re already thinking of another one, that’s fantastic!
‘Yeah, but I mean I feel the way that we wrote Don’t Eat The Pop Monster’ was so like… it took a lot longer, and a lot happened, so we were sitting on a lot of this music for quite a long time so for us it feels like this album has existed for a lot longer than it’s been out.’ [chuckles]
Ah I see, yeah, I can understand that.
‘We’re so ready to get back in the studio and I think it’s just nice to be writing all the time anyway. It’s good for the ole sanity!’ [laughs]
Funny you should say that as you both have side projects [The Venus Project / Fizzy Milk] as well. Would you say that individually they are outlets for the facets of the two of you that don’t musically bond together in Broods?
‘I think for us we’ve realised how important it is to have multiple creative outlets, because when one well dries up and that’s the only way you were getting stuff out then you are all of a sudden left with all this over-stimulation and no way to process it. The way we experience the world, we take in a lot, everything is very hyper-analysed, and every emotion is soooo exaggerated [chuckles] you kinda need to be constantly getting this shit out otherwise you go crazy.
So, whenever we were not working on Broods, or we didn’t really have time, or weren’t really in the headspace, it’s really essential – whether or not we end up releasing stuff or not – to always be making music and/or drawing pictures etc.’
Obviously, Don’t Feed the Pop Monster has been out for a wee while now, but just in your own words could you tell me about the album itself and the concept behind it?
‘We didn’t really go in with a concept for the album, I think the album title is kind of its own concept in a sense. Going back over everything that we wrote and like all the tracks on the album it’s definitely very heavily influenced by the fact that we got dropped by labels and we were independent for a while. We had this, like weird experience of having to reincarnate a little bit from what we thought we were supposed to be doing and what we thought our place was in the industry. We had to kinda learn on the way to making this album and releasing this record, it’s all about that to be honest.
It’s about, I guess … I don’t want to say be reborn, because that sounds super cheesy…
[mutual laughter]
…but it is a little bit like that. There were moments where we felt like our career had died and we just had to reinvent what it meant for us to be artists and how we wanted to be in the industry; what we wanted to give and what we wanted to get out of it and accepting that it is not the same experience for everybody and that all we can really do is just find a way to make being ourselves, our thing [laughs] Just have people come for that, rather than trying to fit into something that doesn’t really work.’
Well I know that many of the songs are musical responses to the situations that you found yourselves in…
‘Yeah…’
So, would you say that in a lot of ways, the making of the album had a healing affect?
‘Oh, absolutely. Being able to release an album that you’ve written… making all this music about being unsure and about being displaced, about being terrified that maybe things won’t go right or confused about just literally everything [chuckles] and then being able to release it, it is like the most cathartic thing.
And then being able to tour it, and see other people singing what you’ve made… it’s all like this weird, very borderline, narcissistic way of processing your emotions. Everybody! Listen!’
[mutual laughter]
‘But at the same time it’s also important, because what it means is that what we go through starts a conversation with whoever is listening – and we write from a place that is painfully personal at times – and that’s kind of the only way that people can feel like what they’re going through is not ridiculous or unheard of sometimes.
I know for me, a lot of the times that I have felt very confused about what was going on in my head, or what’s going on in my life and a song has really, completely captured everything that I’m feeling at that time; it has so much power! It has so much power on your personal headspace and I think that – as weird as it is – just like standing on stage and having people stare at you, and clapping for you every night and praising you [laughs] it’s more about that and that’s more of why it’s so therapeutic I think.’
Well, it validates your own feelings, however it is also the reason why those fans are coming to see you in the first place and praising you every night on stage because your music validates them.
‘Yeah! And I think that’s why I feel less like a dick about it, [mutual laughter] because I think we need to keep using the opportunities that we have been given to be super honest and portray ourselves exactly the way that we are and be the kind of people that connect with people and fans and start conversations about things that are a little bit hard to articulate sometimes. Because that’s the thing, a lot of the human experiences are very confusing and it’s very hard to articulate and that’s why art is so important because it asks questions that don’t necessarily give you the answers, but it opens up to answers and that’s what music does for me all the time.
So, it’s nice to be able to use it in such a personal way but also in such a … like … I wanna say public way I guess? To be able to feel my feelings in front of everybody else and then be like ‘Hey! Who feels the same??’ And then somebody will be like ‘Hey, I do too!!’ and I’m like ‘Oh, awesome! Thank god’ so it’s sort of crazy…’
As humans we need to express ourselves and we all do it in different ways; this is your way of doing it.
‘Yeah absolutely!’
I personally love the fact that with this new album Caleb steps up on vocals for the song ‘Too Proud’; especially around such an important topic as that of toxic masculinity which unfortunately casts a huge shadow over New Zealand.
‘Yeah and I think that’s why it was so important for us when we were writing that song, because it was about Caleb’s experiences. In the past we’ve written about Caleb’s life and I’ve sung and when we were writing I was like ‘You have to do this one’.
It just means so much more and I think it kind of helped him process something really big in his life too and that just makes everything so much more genuine. I think it is such an important thing that people need to be aware of.
This whole thing of what it means to be masculine and what it means to be feminine and what it means to be emotional; there are a lot of blurred lines on that kind of thing and people love to just joke about it, instead of actually confronting the issue of depression in males and anxiety, and mental illness and all these things that are apparently [only] for women cause we’re crazy …
So all these men are sitting around thinking ‘Oh fuck, there is something wrong with me’. And there’s not. Literally the most inevitable thing – apart from death – is to feel these things at one point or another. And to hide the fact that they exist, just means that when you are confronted with them, you have no clue what to do with them, or how to process it, or how to get through it. How do we even see that there is an end to it?
Because even when you do know how to process it and even when you do have all the support networks in place, it’s still fucken’ hard. So imagine not having those resources? I feel really lucky that I have grown up in the situation where we just talk about our feelings all the time [chuckles] and we’re still talking about our feelings. And I still struggle with mine, and Caleb is the same you know? And he’s from the same family as me because we’re brother and sister.
But it’s still really hard, so I can imagine that if you grow up in the situation where you feel like you’re not allowed to have the full spectrum of emotion, it’s toxic!’
Men in New Zealand not only need to be able to confront their emotions but be able to unpack the issues that are feeding those emotions and the situations going on in their lives without fear of ridicule or disownment.
‘I think you’re definitely right. It is something that needs to be addressed at the core.’
Broods will soon be returning to home grounds for a couple of shows, and I know you had to change the original dates, but it actually feels far more appropriate now that you will be performing during NZ Music Month!
‘Yeah! It’s nice to be able to come back after we’ve done the American tour too, because now we feel like way more in the groove and it’s nice to be able to come and bring our best foot forward for New Zealand because we feel like we need to flex a little bit like ‘Hey! We’ve all been working really hard guys and we’re really excited and we hope you are too!’
It’s nice to be well practiced!’ [chuckles]
Broods have two upcoming shows in New Zealand on their ‘Don’t Feed The Monster’ – Tuesday 14th May at the Christchurch Town Hall and Thursday 16th May at the Auckland Town Hall. Tickets are still available for both shows from broodsmusic.com but get in quick as they are sure to sell out!
This content is a part of our NZ Music Month coverage, celebrating old, new and upcoming Kiwi artists. For more information on NZ Music Month you can visit their website.
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