Q&A: Wrapped in ‘Vetiver’: Belle Shea on New EP and Complexities of Love

MusicQ&A

Jul 11

INTERVIEW

“HEY GIRL!” — These are the first two words Belle Shea greets me with when we hop on Zoom a few weeks before the release of her new EP, Vetiver. Luna spent a few minutes catching up, commenting on the inescapable summer heat, and sharing our equal excitement to dive right into the new EP. And when we finally do, just like in our previous conversations, the discussion is enlightening and filled with such a fervor for music.

Touching on themes of desire, beauty, softness, queerness, friendship, loss, and of course, rock and roll, on Vetiver, Belle explores how love and desire are comparable to perfume: costly, elusive, at times overpowering, always unforgettable.

Consisting of four tracks, Vetiver is a personal and vulnerable journey, one that wraps you up in all its optimism and intensity. This impressive feat comes as no surprise considering the fact that Belle has proven this before with songs such as “Leah” and “Sundance Kid.” Both, which are featured on the EP, are accompanied by new songs “Vetiver Days” and “Vetiver Perfume.”

“Vetiver Days” opens up with Belle’s steady and inviting warm tone. As she ushers you further in, it explodes in that magical way that rock and roll does best, until the closing notes. On “Vetiver Perfume,” however, things take a different approach. The ballad, backed by a gentle piano and chorus of strings, is, without a doubt, the standout from this collection of songs. Lyrically and vocally, it’s emotionally charged and it’s everything that Belle described when comparing love and desire to perfume.

Read below for more information on Belle’s journey in creating Vetiver and the exciting plans she has in store for later this year.

LUNA: Before we get into the EP, I have to ask, how cool was it to perform at the Ladybug Music Festival? Was this your first time doing a festival?

BELLE: So I've played some local festivals. I did one last summer in Staten Island and one on Governors Island, but I think this is my first, non-New York City area festival. So, that, to me, makes it a really big deal. It’s a big milestone. And if you want to know a fun secret, that won’t be a secret by the time this comes out, I booked another festival for the end of the summer. So, I’m having a festival season this year.

LUNA: That’s amazing! Wait, can you say which one?

BELLE: Meadowlark in the Hudson Valley. It’s with Sunflower Bean, Hayley Heynderickx, and some other artists I’m really pumped about.

LUNA: In talking about the EP, I want to give you your flowers because I love it so much. And I’m not saying this because we’ve talked before, but I genuinely love it. You know how you always gravitate to a specific sound time and time again? And with so much music that comes out, when you find that one emerging artist and you’re like, Wait, I love this!

BELLE: I was really hoping you would like it because you liked the first two! I was like, I really hope that I didn’t miss the mark with the full EP for you!

LUNA: No! You hit the mark. You hit it!

BELLE: I’m glad!

LUNA: When we first talked about “Leah,” at the end of our conversation, you spoke briefly how that song was the first single off an EP. Now, literally, I think, almost a year later, here we are talking about it. How are you feeling now that it’s finally out?

BELLE: Relieved, honestly [laughs]. When we recorded “Sundance Kid,” we also recorded the beginning of “Vetiver Days” on the same day. And even from starting “Leah,” I always knew these songs all go together. I feel like I've had them in the back of my mind completing the story, and it's kind of a relief to share it. Like, I talked about it, now it's done. Also, I've always thought of them as being part of this larger cycle, and now you can hear them how I hear them, with the full context.

LUNA: The EP explores how love and desire are similar to perfume, which, I love this! I had to Google vetiver because I was like, This sounds familiar but let me remind myself what it is.

BELLE: I’ve had so many people tell me they don’t know what vetiver is, and I was like, Oh no! I thought it was more well known!

LUNA: I had to ask my sister. I’m like, Is this what it is? And she’s like, Yeah, it’s expensive [laughs].

BELLE: [laughs] That’s funny. I love that. Yeah, it’s expensive.

LUNA: Vetiver explores how love and desire are similar to perfume: costly, elusive, at times overpowering, and always unforgettable. Reading that, I was curious—in terms of matching up each track to each description, what are the pairings? Do some match with more than one?

BELLE: I think “Vetiver Perfume” is the unforgettable. That's the one you return to. “Leah” may be the costly. It's expensive sometimes, this amount of infatuation, or whatever it might be - your desire, your focus. “Vetiver Days” is overpowering. The track is a little off-kilter in the beginning. I wanted it to be absorptive, like you're plunged back into something. It’s also elusive. Maybe that's also part of “Vetiver Perfume.” I think “Sundance Kid” sits a little outside the world of them. It's part of the story, but it's sort of the aftermath. I think we talked about it last time, but I wanted to put it in the flow of the EP, because it feels like it's a necessary breath of fresh air. I think Vetiver can feel a little claustrophobic. It's a series of tracks. They're spinning around a similar concept. They're talking about how overpowering, what a huge idea it can be to feel this way, and “Sundance Kid” feels a little bit like breaking the spell looking back, you know? “Now, there’s no one here to talk to.” Now, here’s where I am.

LUNA: With this EP, you mentioned that there’s an A-side and a B-side. I know that it’s usually in the order it's in. Is this the case for yours?

BELLE: So “Vetiver Perfume” and “Vetiver Days” were always meant to segue into each other. There's a very purposeful outro to “Vetiver Perfume” that leads into the key of “Vetiver Days.” I always wrote them, picturing them flowing one into the other. But I think by the time the EP was done, I reached sort of a different understanding of the two tracks, and I felt like I wanted to separate the A side / B side, to make you feel a little bit like the rest of the story was waiting when you hit play again. I wanted them to feel a little more disjointed, a little less perfectly locked in place. So they’re on opposite sides of the EP.

LUNA: Yeah, I had a feeling [laughs].

BELLE: [laughs] I just thought it would be too much. I didn’t want to give it all away, you know?

LUNA: Just like with “Leah” and “Sundance Kid,” “Vetiver Perfume” gives another sweet instrumental outro. I feel like it's become your signature, and I love that. But for “Vetiver Days,” is it fair to say that the same thread that “Leah” and “Sundance Kid” share has stretched over to “Vetiver Days” as well?

BELLE: We tried to keep some of that. It has similar guitars. I tried to expand out the sound to invite in the grungier, a little more distorted, Lo-Fi sense. “Leah” and “Sundance Kid” are both songs that take place in the now. I said this before, but, [in “Sundance Kid”] Now there's no one here to talk to… and [in “Leah”] When all was said and done… Both songs are aftermath songs, and “Vetiver Days” to me is very much the feeling of being back in something. So I wanted to let it get hazier with the guitars than the crisp, immediate, present, guitars of “Leah” and “Sundance Kid.” So they're similar, they're definitely connected sonically.

LUNA: I feel like every time I'm listening to your music, I'm discovering something new that I hadn't noticed before. Sometimes it's a familiar sound, like we discussed last time, how “Leah” reminded me of Begin Again. But this time around, it was specifically your voice. I know that Joni Mitchell and Taylor Swift are influences for you in terms of songwriting, but I'm curious, do you also happen to listen to Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor?

BELLE: I actually don't listen to either of them that often. I do love the Fiona Apple album, Fetch The Bolt Cutters. That was the first one I heard, which is such a backwards way to get into Fiona Apple [laughs]. How she enunciates, it’s so moving, you know? The way she says words is really cool.

LUNA: I'm so glad you said that. The first time I played “Vetiver Days”... maybe it's something that you have in your lower register that reminded me of Fiona and then when I play “Vetiver Perfume,” lyrically, it's very Joni, which I was obsessed with. It was very poetic. But vocally, I was like, Wait a minute, this is a little bit of Joni, but also a little bit of Regina. And Regina … she's for the indie girls, you know? Regina has this thing that when she hits her falsettos, it's so distinct. In “Vetiver Perfume,” when you get to your falsettos, I was frozen because I was like, This is reminding me of her! Is this intentional? Like, is she a fan of these artists? Is she inspired by them?

BELLE: I actually don't know if I've listened to any Regina Spektor! But I feel like there's something very raw about a falsetto because I'm such a low singer in general. I don't use that part of my range so much, and I was saying to one of the producers on this track, I was like, I feel like sometimes I can hide in the low, grittiness of my voice. It's very natural, very easy to do.

I grew up listening to a lot of male singer-songwriters. I was a huge fan of the Goo Goo Dolls, I loved Johnny Rzeznik's voice, and I feel like that's more what I tried to imitate than women songwriters. I feel like there's this hurdle you have to get over a little bit when you've grown up thinking of male singers as the rock stars or whatever. You hear Joni Mitchell do a falsetto, or maybe it's Regina Spektor, and you're like, Wow! It's so raw, almost off-putting at first. It felt very evocative in a way that I wasn't totally ready to try to sing in yet for a little while. I think also because it's a little riskier, you know? You have to try to hit the notes. [laughs] But I wanted to use that part of my range, and I’m glad that you brought up Joni, honestly, because I was thinking about this. “Vetiver Perfume” is obviously a queer love song and it was very important to me that it felt more like a timeless, classic love song.

LUNA: It does, by the way!

BELLE: That was important to me. I didn't want it to feel like queerness was anything new or it was a new style of song. I wanted it to be the kind of song you already knew or you'd already heard before. I think it’s important for queerness to get to feel like it's already lived in and not so fresh or shocking.

LUNA: So, in terms of favorites, out of these four tracks on the EP, which one is near and dear to your heart?

BELLE: Such a brutal question! I think “Leah” is still my favorite because it’s the one that started this new sound that I feel so attached to. It feels so right to me to anchor myself in these guitars. I think that’s the one I feel, at the moment, is my favorite.

LUNA: As for favorite lyrics, on these two new songs—on “Vetiver Days” my favorite is, “How do you always seem to belong to everybody but me” and on “Vetiver Perfume,” the line that instantly caught my attention was, “I don’t wanna step out of my place inside your head.” Do you have any favorites of your own from these two songs?

BELLE: I love that line in “Vetiver Perfume.” I love that you pulled that out because I think that is my personal favorite, too. I've been listening to the mixes and the masters and the drafts for so long now, and that's the line that I go back and think, Wow, I can't believe I thought of a way to say what I’m thinking!

I’m also still a big fan of some early “Leah” lyrics, too. A lyric I was considering changing or cutting was, I gave you my best, you wanted my everything. But I was convinced not to, and I'm so glad it stayed!

LUNA: This is still related to the EP, but I want to shift a little focus on your producer, Jason Sill. You’ve worked with him since your debut, The Art of Years. How has it been to find and collaborate with someone who understands and helps flesh out the vision you have designed for this project in your head?

BELLE: It’s awesome! It’s really intimate collaborating for that long with someone. And this is an interesting project because this is also the first time I’ve worked with a different producer too. “Vetiver Days” and “Vetiver Perfume” are co-produced by someone new as well, Sam Roller. So, while Jason’s been in on it since it started, it was the first time I explored what it’d be like to share that part of my own brain with another person. I was like, I really hope you get it; I hope we speak the same language.

But it’s exciting, raw, intimate, and fun, and it lets you see and appreciate things with the music that I couldn’t get if I were doing it all on my own in a bedroom. It’s fulfilling when a producer does something, and you’re thinking, That's exactly what I hope you do, but I didn't know how to tell you to play the guitar that way. And it's also frustrating when they're putting something in and you’re like, I don't know how to tell you that I hate this sound. It sounds evil, and I wish you wouldn't add it. But then, twenty minutes later, you're like, Oh no, that's great. I'm so glad you added that sound. That's perfect! That's the missing piece!

It's like constantly subverting your own expectations about what your music will sound like and constantly fulfilling them at the same time, too. It's really addictive. I think that I am such a collaborator. I’ve been reading this book, Mood Machine by Liz Pelly. It's about Spotify and the rise of streaming music. This is a little off topic, but it's connected, and I've been thinking about it a lot. [Pelly writes] that a lot of music services now want to pitch you on this idea of the individual creator. The one person in their bedroom who makes everything themselves. Who writes, performs, produces, arranges, engineers, and then pitches it. And that's how royalties are being determined, that they should be paid out to one person. That there’s enough money for one, for the solo creator.

But a lot of my own favorite music is so collaborative, and not even just in the band sense. Like Lorde and Jack Antonoff, or Rick Rubin and Tom Petty. It gives you the sense that there's someone else who's understanding the world, in real time, and they're also helping shape it. I think it's important that we don't lose sight of the fact that a lot of the music we love is not the product of one person, even if it's one person's name on the end thing, because it never is just that one person's ideas for that one person's sound in a vacuum.

LUNA: As for the weekend of the EP release, you’re playing your first show of the year. You have Solar Sessions, which features you and a few other artists. Can you talk to me about that?

BELLE: Yes, I would love to! It’s my first show at the Park House, which is this ongoing monthly series I run in McCarren Park in Brooklyn. It’s free, and it’s a collaboration with 350 Brooklyn, which is a local climate action group. They run a bunch of wonderful initiatives to get New Yorkers and Brooklynites, specifically, involved in local climate justice campaigns, and what they can do to put pressure on elected officials. They also ran the local climate hour at the libraries. They're awesome, and we are trying to funnel some money towards them, as well as some local focus and perspective.

Largely because it’s on my birthday and I'm very stressed about the state of the environment and the world, this was my present to myself [laughs]. I’m like, Can we all focus on this for a little bit so I can stop freaking out about it on my own? Let me give myself a positive experience of all of us thinking about this together with collective action. That is truly an element of it; it’s my birthday gift to myself, and I'm glad all the other bands are down to also help raise awareness and some money.

But it will also be kind of a secret EP release, which is awesome. If you know me and you know my art—and you're in my email list now [laughs]—I just have put so much love into this series, and I want it to be like, a full-circle, tied together, moment. My first Park House show this season, this environmental organization, and new music all coming out at once. That's all going to kick off my tour.

LUNA: To wrap things up—If you could go back in time, right to the beginning of creating this EP, what would you tell yourself? Any advice?

BELLE: That’s such a meaningful question. I had therapy this morning, and I was talking about this same idea. I would probably give a similar answer that I gave then. I would probably say, appreciate it more. Appreciate it while making it, appreciate it for what it is. Approach it with gratitude that it's happening and that it won't last forever. It will be over at some point, and just know that it's a really great thing that you're making it.