The Sit Down with Ella Hartwig
Originally hailing from Cooktown in northern Queensland, Ella Hartwig’s musical journey began in her early years and quickly garnered international recognition for her songwriting talent. After moving to Brisbane to pursue music full-time at nineteen and releasing her debut album “Take Me South” she decided to test the European market for the first time with an Irish road trip along with some shows of her own. Ahead of her show in London, during her first time in London, Jamie headed to East London to spend some time with her.
Welcome to Shoreditch, the most hipster part of our fair city. Apart from the temperature being a little bit warmer than you're expecting, how are you finding your time over here in Europe so far?
“It's really cool. My eyes feel very open, I feel like there's just so much going on and it definitely feels a lot different to my hometown.”
You’re originally from very far north in Queensland, like well above Cairns.
“Yeah, about four hours north of Cairns in a remote and very tropical part of the world.”
We always forget how big your country actually is.
“Yeah, in Ireland, we played a couple of shows and we went on a road trip where the total kilometres on the car was about two thousand. That was driving around the whole of the country and that’s pretty much how far it is from Brisbane, where we live now, up to my hometown which is a big three day drive. It’s just crazy that we were able to pretty much travel a whole country, all around the coast of it in the time it just takes to get home.”
It must be quite nice as well to be able to explore Ireland and turn it into a working holiday with some shows there, in Scotland and down here. In terms of your musical backstory, how did you find yourself in this country/folk/Americana world? What drew you to that to being the sound that you decided was the right fit for you?
“Well, I don't really feel like it was a decision on the sound because I’ve grown up in remote parts of Northern Australia and then I sing songs about my hometown, I sing songs about travelling on the road, making that move from my hometown to the city and then it's just sort of what came out of me. Whenever people have asked my musical influence, I kind of have to backtrack and think, oh, what sounds similar to this? Because a lot of the album is just talking about what's real for me and I guess it’s come out in a country-folk lens because that’s what it is, you know I’ve lived in the country and it just felt very organic.”
Welcome to Shoreditch, the most hipster part of our fair city. Apart from the temperature being a little bit warmer than you're expecting, how are you finding your time over here in Europe so far?
“It's really cool. My eyes feel very open, I feel like there's just so much going on and it definitely feels a lot different to my hometown.”
You’re originally from very far north in Queensland, like well above Cairns.
“Yeah, about four hours north of Cairns in a remote and very tropical part of the world.”
We always forget how big your country actually is.
“Yeah, in Ireland, we played a couple of shows and we went on a road trip where the total kilometres on the car was about two thousand. That was driving around the whole of the country and that’s pretty much how far it is from Brisbane, where we live now, up to my hometown which is a big three day drive. It’s just crazy that we were able to pretty much travel a whole country, all around the coast of it in the time it just takes to get home.”
It must be quite nice as well to be able to explore Ireland and turn it into a working holiday with some shows there, in Scotland and down here. In terms of your musical backstory, how did you find yourself in this country/folk/Americana world? What drew you to that to being the sound that you decided was the right fit for you?
“Well, I don't really feel like it was a decision on the sound because I’ve grown up in remote parts of Northern Australia and then I sing songs about my hometown, I sing songs about travelling on the road, making that move from my hometown to the city and then it's just sort of what came out of me. Whenever people have asked my musical influence, I kind of have to backtrack and think, oh, what sounds similar to this? Because a lot of the album is just talking about what's real for me and I guess it’s come out in a country-folk lens because that’s what it is, you know I’ve lived in the country and it just felt very organic.”
I see from the album credits, that you play a lot of instruments. What was the first thing that you picked up when you were younger and was everything self-taught?
“Well, I did get piano lessons when I was about eight years old but were quickly stopped because I just didn't I didn't like being told what I needed to know and I picked them back up again when I was about eleven. I wrote my first song around age eleven and then I was just so into it, so I wanted to start learning guitar, but then my mum and I learned ukulele together because it's a lot less strings, a lot less scary and it hurts a lot less. Then it went to guitar and then I sort of just started playing any string instrument, I could get my hands on. It's really cool that you noticed that. On the album I did play for most of the songs, I played bass guitar, acoustic guitar, a lot of the lead guitar, banjo, mandolin and just mucked around with a lot of that because I just love layering it all on.”
Again, looking through the credits on the record, Casper Hall was the person that produced a lot of it. How did the two of you meet and what made you feel that they were the right fit to work with when you were putting your first album out?
“I spent a whole day where I think I went all over Brisbane and I made appointments with all these different studios to just chat with them and see what's going on. Then I met Casper and he's become a brother to me now, we’re pretty like real family now and you know, we just got to chatting and everything felt normal, organic and comfortable because someone could have the most state of the art gear, I had been to a couple of places and they were just listing all the fancy gear but had no idea. It was just about the feeling and I feel like a lot of that magic happens in the studio when you have good vibes going on. He would just know from my hand gestures or if I said some complete gibberish, he would know exactly what I’m talking about. I've taught myself a little bit of the production side of it, but I feel like that almost drags me down a little like when I'm just being on a creative thing so I love having someone there who can translate that and then do the technical parts of it, so working well with someone has been great.”
Talking about “Take Me South” as an album, it's your debut record, so it’s basically your life's work so far and your opportunity to tell people who you are. Viewing it as your introduction, what do you hope people take away from it? What do you hope people learn and get to know about Ella Hartwig?
“Yeah, well, you're definitely right with it being my life's work because it's all very honest. It's all about finding myself and figuring things out. With growing up remote, you're physically isolated and you're also emotionally isolated, there’s a lot of that going around and I hope people can feel that connection, that sense of belonging through music and really just how powerful, even though it's a very small community I come from, I draw on my connections there every day. That communication, that connection, that community is very strong and I've been trying to find it pretty much everywhere I go.”
“Well, I did get piano lessons when I was about eight years old but were quickly stopped because I just didn't I didn't like being told what I needed to know and I picked them back up again when I was about eleven. I wrote my first song around age eleven and then I was just so into it, so I wanted to start learning guitar, but then my mum and I learned ukulele together because it's a lot less strings, a lot less scary and it hurts a lot less. Then it went to guitar and then I sort of just started playing any string instrument, I could get my hands on. It's really cool that you noticed that. On the album I did play for most of the songs, I played bass guitar, acoustic guitar, a lot of the lead guitar, banjo, mandolin and just mucked around with a lot of that because I just love layering it all on.”
Again, looking through the credits on the record, Casper Hall was the person that produced a lot of it. How did the two of you meet and what made you feel that they were the right fit to work with when you were putting your first album out?
“I spent a whole day where I think I went all over Brisbane and I made appointments with all these different studios to just chat with them and see what's going on. Then I met Casper and he's become a brother to me now, we’re pretty like real family now and you know, we just got to chatting and everything felt normal, organic and comfortable because someone could have the most state of the art gear, I had been to a couple of places and they were just listing all the fancy gear but had no idea. It was just about the feeling and I feel like a lot of that magic happens in the studio when you have good vibes going on. He would just know from my hand gestures or if I said some complete gibberish, he would know exactly what I’m talking about. I've taught myself a little bit of the production side of it, but I feel like that almost drags me down a little like when I'm just being on a creative thing so I love having someone there who can translate that and then do the technical parts of it, so working well with someone has been great.”
Talking about “Take Me South” as an album, it's your debut record, so it’s basically your life's work so far and your opportunity to tell people who you are. Viewing it as your introduction, what do you hope people take away from it? What do you hope people learn and get to know about Ella Hartwig?
“Yeah, well, you're definitely right with it being my life's work because it's all very honest. It's all about finding myself and figuring things out. With growing up remote, you're physically isolated and you're also emotionally isolated, there’s a lot of that going around and I hope people can feel that connection, that sense of belonging through music and really just how powerful, even though it's a very small community I come from, I draw on my connections there every day. That communication, that connection, that community is very strong and I've been trying to find it pretty much everywhere I go.”
That came out digitally in September, so it’s nearly a year old, so where are we in terms of the next step? What’s the plan for the rest of the year and are you like a lot of people in Australia tend to be where you are looking towards Tamworth and thinking I want to have something brand new to be able to kind of be pushing around that.
“Oh, I don't really feel the pressure of timing it with Tamworth but a lot of the album was written on the road then we have been on the road lots over in this part of the world and just I'm constantly writing, constantly working that muscle and then it does become pretty exciting after that first, this is me. This is figuring out who I am and that next step of, oh, what else can I say? There's all these other ideas and then the themes we're putting together. It’s about what else could I say instead of stressing about Tamworth and everything else. If that's what everyone else is doing, stressing about that, I think what else can I do to make some noise because the digital deluxe version is a year old, but a year before that is when we did the physical CD, so I guess the songs do feel quite old to me, but then it's taken me to the other side of the world, which I'm super grateful for. I’m just trying to do things a bit differently and especially being remote, I've kind of had to do things differently and a lot of it was self-taught, a lot of it wasn't the, you know, quote unquote normal way to do things because I didn't really have access. I've only been down in the city for a few years now and had access to places like Tamworth Country Music Festival because I mean, everyone kind of travels to it, but from Cooktown up in far northern Queensland is way too far, especially because I was still in school and stuff like that.”
The Deluxe Edition of “Take Me South” from Ella Hartwig is out now and available HERE. You can learn more about Ella from her WEBSITE and you can check her out socially on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK or FACEBOOK.
“Oh, I don't really feel the pressure of timing it with Tamworth but a lot of the album was written on the road then we have been on the road lots over in this part of the world and just I'm constantly writing, constantly working that muscle and then it does become pretty exciting after that first, this is me. This is figuring out who I am and that next step of, oh, what else can I say? There's all these other ideas and then the themes we're putting together. It’s about what else could I say instead of stressing about Tamworth and everything else. If that's what everyone else is doing, stressing about that, I think what else can I do to make some noise because the digital deluxe version is a year old, but a year before that is when we did the physical CD, so I guess the songs do feel quite old to me, but then it's taken me to the other side of the world, which I'm super grateful for. I’m just trying to do things a bit differently and especially being remote, I've kind of had to do things differently and a lot of it was self-taught, a lot of it wasn't the, you know, quote unquote normal way to do things because I didn't really have access. I've only been down in the city for a few years now and had access to places like Tamworth Country Music Festival because I mean, everyone kind of travels to it, but from Cooktown up in far northern Queensland is way too far, especially because I was still in school and stuff like that.”
The Deluxe Edition of “Take Me South” from Ella Hartwig is out now and available HERE. You can learn more about Ella from her WEBSITE and you can check her out socially on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK or FACEBOOK.