S: So, Bachelorette, where did that name come from?
B: I just liked the way it looked written down. I saw it written
down somewhere, and… yeah, I really liked the way the word
looked.
S: When did you get your musical start? Playing instruments,
singing, etc.
B: Just growing up, yeah. I guess I came from a musical
household. We had a piano, and on trips my mom used to play
guitar to us. She played Autoharp, and played piano. We listened
to a lot of music as well. As I got older, I wanted to start playing
music, so I started learning the piano, guitar, and the drums.
S: And when did the electronic influences come in?
B: I’m not sure exactly, probably not until I was a little bit
older. I bought my first synthesizer when I was about 17, and
started playing in a band. It just kind of kicked off; I started playing
organs and keyboards and stuff. I played in a band called Hawaii
5-0 for quite a few years, and I would play synthesizer, and organs,
and guitar. As I went along, I sort-of got into recording. I had a
4-track recorder. It just kind-of got to the point where I had these
ideas, but I really needed multi-tracks to record them[.] It wasn’t
something I could do with the band. I had stuff I wanted to do, but
I really needed to do it on computers. I went to university so that
I could start recording on computers ‘cause that was only way I
could think of to have access to good recording equipment and
computers and stuff. Yeah, I kind of went off the path a little bit. I
played psychedelic pop music in the band Hawaii 5-0, and then I
went to university because I wanted to use computers. I started
making sort-of academic music, electro-acoustic music. Sort-of...
noise.
S: Who were your musical influences at that point? Who did
you listen to a lot?
B: Um, I don’t have any classical people, just Pop, like the
Beatles. Whenever people ask me about my influences I always
think of the Beatles ‘cause they’d probably be my biggest influence.
But over the years, I got into things like Aphex Twin. I was
actually quite into Aphex Twin when I was at university, and I was
really into The Orb in high school. They’re sort-of one of the
pioneers of Electronic music in the 90’s, and I remember when
their song “Little Fluffy Clouds” came out and sort-of blew me
away. Probably that was my first introduction to really enjoying
Electronic music.
S: So things sort-of took off from there. After your first EP did
you get signed to a record label?
B: Yeah, I was on a label in New Zealand called Arch Hill, they
released my first EP as Bachelorette, and about a year later I
recorded the album called Isolation Loops. I self-released that one
in New Zealand because New Zealand’s a small country, and it
kind-of seems pointless to have a label where they take 50% of
what you earn. It’s easy to get the word around about music. Do
you wanna know stuff about Isolation Loops? That was my first
full-length album. In a sense “EP” was like a mini-album, 7 tracks,
half an hour long. Isolation Loops has 11 tracks, and I recorded that
on my own at an old, I don’t know what you call them here; in New
Zealand we call them “baches,” B-A-C-H. [Baches are] like a little
sort of holiday hut. Not like a flash holiday home or anything. [Mine
was] in like a fishing village, and it was owned by my family. My greatgrandfather
built it in the 1920s. I went and stayed out there for a
couple months, so I wouldn’t have to pay rent.
S: And now this newest [album], My Electric Family…
B: Is out on Drag City because they came to my Chicago show.
I have a manager who lives in Portland who’s been really helpful
just trying to get Bachelorette out in America, and she invited the
Drag City people along to the show I did in Chicago. She just kept in
contact with them when I was recording this album, and then they said
they wanted to release it when I finished it here.
S: What would you classify your genre as?
B: Sometimes I call it Computer Folk, and sometimes I call it, well,
there’s a touch of Psychedelic in it, so sometimes I call it Psychedelic
Folk Pop. Some people call it Psy-Folk. Isolation Loops had a bit of a
space theme, so kind-of Cosmic Folk or something. It changes though.
I was hoping to get more “Poppy”, and a couple of the songs are a bit
more “Poppy.”
S: What do you see yourself doing in the future? B: I don’t know! It just depends on what I feel like doing, I don’t really have a clear idea of what direction I want to go in or anything like that. I just want to make music that I’m happy with, and what I’m into can change slightly along the way. Generally, if I finish one album and mix one, I feel like approaching it a bit differently because I like to find a new way of doing things; finding a new way of making music that I’m happy with.
S: Are you looking to make yourself more well-known in the
States, or is your heart in New Zealand?
B: I’ve been thinking of maybe coming over here for a while,
like for a year or something. I just like it over here anyway, and New
Zealand is really far away. As a musician it’s not the best place to
live if you want to have your music heard by people. And you know,
when you put a lot of time into recording music and writing it and
everything, you want the people who would enjoy to be able to hear
it, and I see this tour as an opportunity for that – revealing the music
to more people and getting it out there.