Q&A: Runo Plum is on the Rise
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY EMMI SHOCKLEY ☆
PATCHING IS THE DEBUT FULL-LENGTH ALBUM—from Minnesota-born, indie-folk rock musician runo plum, and it is an exceptional heartbreak record. I will stop just short of saying it’s the kind of record that makes me wish I were heartbroken, just to experience these songs at their highest definition. I won’t go that far, of course, for fear of cosmic retribution. All that to say, no matter where you are in your stages of yearning, mourning, rage, healing, or even contentment, patching will likely send all of those feelings rushing back in. Be forewarned, but do not fear— with all of this record’s immediacy, rawness and gutting confessionals, the other equally poignant facet of runo plum’s songwriting is her ability to find a soft, sweet place to land.
The first two tracks on the record, “Sickness” and “Lemon Garland,” stand as perfect examples of this range. “Sickness” kicks open with a propulsive acoustic guitar melody and lyrics, “As long as it doesn’t mean / It’s a big sickness / Mighty fine with me / I’ve been already through this,” and invites us into plum’s attempted wellness routine of purple vitamin gummies, stretches and a charades game of avoidance. “Lemon Garland” follows suit, where plum muses on a fantasy day hosting all of her friends together in her imagined, garden-surrounded dream home. Here, her loneliness gives way to aspirations for a cozy refuge of friendship and flora. The outro of this track provides some of my personal favorite, simple and striking lyrics on the record: “Give me company / Then give me more.”
Patching, produced by plum’s long-time friend and fellow Minnesotan Lutalo Jones, chronicles a journey from the loss of one romantic relationship to the fearful yet euphoric beginnings of a new one. The record sounds like real-time healing taking place. In plum’s words, it’s an album where “you can feel the damage, but also the repair.”
Runo plum is an endearing, wise, bespectacled 20-something Midwesterner. She is also a relentless writer, which was made especially clear in the hyper-productive, grief-fueled five-month songwriting burst that would become her full-length debut.
“I was constantly writing everything that I felt, all day,” plum says. “I was surrounded by the woods, so I was walking and writing, and that's sort of it. I had so many feelings and so many thoughts. It just felt endless. We weren't speaking, but I had so much to say.”
Read on for the rest of the conversation with runo plum.
LUNA: I wanted to start by asking you about “Sickness,” the opening track and the first single you released from the record. What made you decide to start there?
RUNO PLUM: I think I chose “Sickness” because it was the first one we actually recorded together. Something about that guitar line just felt like a good opener. The whole album is a sort of chronological storyline. That first track is a vague, general setting for how I was feeling [at the start], which was just insane or sick in the head or something. The record wasn’t written in chronological order, but it made sense to start the album there.
LUNA: Tell me the story of “Lemon Garland.”
RUNO PLUM: “Lemon” is the dream world. Lemon is not real. I wish it were real. Lemon is just a big daydream. It’s escaping the pain of reality and wishing that it wasn't like that. It’s sort of like, la, la, la, and then moving on to more pain.
LUNA: I love the video for this track, too. I wanted to be there. I wanted to eat that cake.
RUNO PLUM: Oh my god, that cake was f*cking amazing.
LUNA: I read that the song and the video are both about your longing for community. Through the process of making this record and working with your collaborators, have you come any closer to finding that sense of community?
RUNO PLUM: For sure. Lutalo, who produced the record, is one of my very good friends. That whole process made us even closer. With the video, one of the people who made it is a best friend, too. I knew everyone in the music video, so it was real, other than the fact that it was a music video. It created a reality.
LUNA: I loved the song just by the title immediately. It conjures Lucinda Williams and “Fruits Of My Labor” in the imagery. What is the lemon garland to you? Literally, metaphorically?
RUNO PLUM: When I was writing this, I was imagining hosting my friends in my dream house. There’s something about a lemon garland that feels very homey and warm, and f*cking cute as f*ck. It resembles being very settled in.
LUNA: Tell me more about the collaboration with Lutalo.
RUNO PLUM: I met them about 9, 10 years ago. They’re the sweetest person. The only other person I’d worked with before was an ex of mine who’s also a really close friend, so I was not prepared to work with a stranger. Lutalo is very good at what they do, and working with someone that I was comfortable around was really important to me.
LUNA: I read you were in this Vermont cabin, recording with Lutalo and instrumentalist Noa Francis, your current girlfriend. What was it like recording this heartbreak record with your new love? Was that quite healing?
RUNO PLUM: There are two secret tracks on the vinyl that are about her. The outro song is about her, too. It felt natural. I don't know if it's just a gay thing. It felt very relaxed. She's a musician, so she's used to this sort of thing. She recorded on most of the album, pretty much all the guitar and bass.
LUNA: You’re a very visual songwriter, which is something I’ve loved about your work. Can you describe to me what the cabin looked like and felt like while you were holed up in there recording?
RUNO PLUM: It was winter, and there was a lot of wood. There were these big wood beams, and it felt like 18th-century vibes. It was very old. It was very inspiring. It was also surrounded by woods and a creek. Looking out the windows was beautiful. The house had an open concept, so where we were recording and the kitchen were all in one room. It was very cute. We were all really just hanging out.
LUNA: I know you’ve heard the early Big Thief and Adrienne Lenker comparisons, which, in my opinion, are some high praises. But in your own words, who do you name as your biggest references these days?
RUNO PLUM: I mean, yeah, definitely early Big Thief and early Adrienne. That duo album of hers and Buck’s [a-sides] is goals. I can’t think of anything that is more goals than that. There are some others; Snail Mail’s Lush is a big inspiration album of mine. I’m inspired by Julia Jacklin,some Soccer Mommy stuff. Bon Iver’s self-titled is one of my favorite albums. Some more folky stuff, like Gregory Alan Isakov. Sometimes I feel hesitant to share because I feel like a lot of my inspirations don’t sound like the record at all. I’m just taking inspiration from little bits.
LUNA: Was there anyone that you were really listening to during your five-month, post-breakup, songwriting burst? I feel like we listen to the best music when we’ve just had our hearts ripped out.
RUNO PLUM: Totally. Oh my god, who was I listening to? I can’t even remember! I’m gonna have to look at my Spotify. Definitely Gregory [Alan Isakov]. His song “Amsterdam” is one that I played on repeat, because it just hurts. Adrianne’s Bright Future. And Rachel Chinouriri. That’s more rage-fueled. And Paramore. I listened to “All I Wanted,” like, 50 billion times. I was just so emo. It was sort of random. I was listening to Chappell, too. I was just trying to feel anything but what I was feeling. And I was mostly
LUNA: I guess that brings me to that creative burst. You wrote a massive amount of songs in five months, nursing a heartbreak. Is it true you got two albums' worth of songs out of this?
RUNO PLUM: It’s true. I have a rage album, too. [patching] is the soft album. Well, it didn’t end up being as soft as I originally wrote it to be. The second one is more of the rage thing. But we’ll see what happens. Maybe I'll just keep it in the vault. My ex is my friend now, and I’m like, “Do I really want to put out a rage album about them?” They’re good songs, though. I feel like they deserve to see the world. They’re kind of bangers.
LUNA: What do you most want readers to know about you, runo plum?
RUNO PLUM: Probably that I write a lot. I’m probably going to make all genres of music, there’s always gonna be the sad girl stuff, even if I make upbeat, rock, pop music, anything. Let’s say that.
Runo plum’s patching is available for pre-save now and will be released via Winspear on November 14. She will embark on a Fall European Tour on November 1.
