INTERVIEW: Gretta Ziller talks new album 'Judas Tree': "Life is all about connection, and if I can sing and connect, that makes my life pretty good."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australia’s Gretta Ziller recently released her second album Judas Tree. Following up her critically acclaimed debut 2017 album Queen of Boomtown, it sees her move her sound away from the softer, Americana-country of her first release towards guitar-pop and showcases more of Ziller’s impressive musical background of jazz, pop, rock, blues and classical.
The rich sonic landscape encompasses the exhilarating, guitar heavy single ‘Stockholm’, the stunningly beautiful stripped back ballad ‘Jericho’, the rousing pop of ‘Damage Done’ which brings to mind the indie-pop sound of the 1990s, and the tender piano driven ballad ‘Dear Love Letter’, which highlights Ziller breathtaking, emotive voice. Judas Tree is an album of deep warmth and soul and is an incredible listen, we recently caught up with Gretta to find out more about the creation of this gem.
Hello Gretta so lovely to speak to you again, how have you been over the last year or so, have you been finding some joy in amongst the strangeness?
I have, I really have. I've never been scared of change. It’s frustrating and I hate waiting and I hate not doing things but I'm haven't been afraid of the changes, if that makes sense.
That makes absolute sense. You latest single 'Stockholm' is such a killer track, and it has very, very many guitars.
I used all of them!
There is so much punch, and the chorus is such a belter, I love it. Talk me through the creation of this one.
'Stockholm' actually was a co-write with my producer Paul Ruske. I took the bones of it to him and it originally was a bit slower and a little less rocky. I didn't want to write another sad song or another annoying song that was slow. So that was our directive - to be annoyed and fast!
That is amazing. I like the no nonsense approach because most people will try and bullshit their way through, but you’re just like ‘No, I just wanted to be annoyed and fast’.
As a songwriter, it's a fine line between writing for self and writing for self and for other people to hear it. It's a tough line to walk. I wanted people to sing along with me and be annoyed with me while I sang it.
It's a joyful annoyance and the video, you're kidnapped opposed to screaming from the boot of a car. You're gaffe taped to the steering wheel in a multi storey garage. Talk me through that beast as well, because that was awesome.
We wanted to have a video for it to be a tiny little bit tongue in cheek where I'm strapped to the steering wheel, where I'm technically in control, but sort of not at the same time. It's sort of like the situation I found myself in. In all seriousness, it was sort of of my own doing so we wanted to play off that.
And of course, it's the latest nugget from your wonderful new album Judas Tree. I've got to say Gretta this this new sound sits incredibly well on you.
Oh, thank you. It's very me and an extension of Queen of Boomtown and I hope people people get it and enjoy it.
It's so different, you've altered your sound for us, as receivers of your music, but I just wanted to know what boundaries were you intentionally pushing with this album? Or did it all just ‘I'm just gonna write and put out what I'm listening to and what I want.’
It was a little bit the second. I really love these artists like Rag'n'Bone Man and Bishop Briggs. Technically you could consider them Americana artists, but they live in the pop world or the contemporary music, alternative music world. They've got these amazing riffs and things going on underneath the song that are really catchy and awesome. And I wanted that for this album, I wanted people to go ‘oh my gosh, listen to that bassline’, or ‘wow, that drum bit there’. I really wanted that for my album because that's what I love to listen to. I love to hear that beat in a song that's like, ‘yes!’
I wanted to talk to you about title track 'Judas Tree', which is like a desert drive rolling credits opener of film. It is so cinematic, and it's so visual, but then your vocals just lead despite, again, some pretty savage guitars going on. And it does invoke Americana. So nail and head Gretta nail and head. Can you talk me through what is the importance of this song and its placement in the album as a whole?
This song sort of sums up the theme of the album. It came from such a strange place 'Judas Tree', I was actually supporting someone at the Creekside Hotel in Warracknabeal in the middle of Victoria in the middle of nowhere. We were playing out the back and the garden out there had this tree that was just covered in purple flowers, there were no leaves just purple flowers. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what is this?’ It was just beautiful. The owner told me it was the Judas tree. I carry around a Polaroid camera that I take photos just for myself. And I took a photo of this tree, and it just stuck with me and I wanted to write a song 'Judas Tree', because it sounded cool. The title just sounded cool, and then I had got to thinking about the historical biblical meaning of Judas and betrayal. And that's sort of where it started, from a random tree in the middle of nowhere to thinking about that story of betrayal and how that in these times that we're going through at the moment, the reckoning is coming for a lot of people or has come for a lot of people and a lot of actions and things that have been gotten away with in the past. I wrote this with an American gentleman who was not a Trump fan in 2019 when things were just starting to get hot, and that's where it all stemmed from - a tree in the middle of nowhere.
You mentioned in an earlier interview with us that your writing process is just reams of notebooks. We have a tree that was the initial seed here, but I was wondering because Judas Tree is such grit and stomp and again like a caravan of guitars, were those notebooks still a key player or were you more visually and melody led this time around?
No the notebooks are still a key player. When I went to co-write this song, I had digital pages of lyric, an idea to go with this title. It's still very much a thing for me where I have to have the skeleton of a song and all the ideas and all the options on ways to go with it. This is how we ended up with Judas Tree and how I end up with a lot of my songs through lots and lots of words on a computer now, not so much on paper.
You were talking about betrayal and that being a giant part of the album. We have the joyful betrayal of ‘Stockholm’ because you have to laugh about this stuff, but then hitting us like a piano fallen from the sky of the gods we have 'Over My Head', which is actually my album favourite.
Oh it's my favourite too!
And you know what I love? It's like the love letter that ironically comes right before ‘Dear Love Letter’. This is this song that you lay in the bath and indulge in everyone else's heartbreak, this is so good. Was it as satisfying to write as it is to listen to?
You know it kind of was. It's a song that I had lying around for [a while]. I think I wrote that it in 2016. It's that you're into someone and it's it's pretty one sided and you don't want to admit it. It was really fun to record and Rob on the guitars, that guitar solo. I'm a fan of that guitar solo.
And those songs are so important for us because although we all pretend that we haven't been that person we all have which is why we listen to those songs. So you mentioned that with this album another big part of it for you was you wanting to prove your your trained vocalists prowess, shall we say?
Yeah, a couple of years ago I did a night at a festival where we all got up and sang jazz and blues songs. I got up and actually sang this first song I performed live ever, and I had someone come up to me afterwards and say, ‘oh, wow, I didn't know you could sing like that’. They meant it as a compliment, but I took a great offence to it because, I don't mean to come across as sounding arrogant, but I'm a classically trained vocalist, I went to uni and studied voice. That's my instrument. So I had a little point to prove a little bit with this album with my vocal. I wanted to say hey, it's not five notes I can sing!
And you know, you do so over a truckload of guitars and kick drums. So congratulations on that! You've got this beautiful platform and you'd written about missing your mother after she passed and that shift. You really do put those confessionals into each song for everyone else to take, what does it mean to you to have that platform?
Oh, I really enjoy it. I'm not a journaller, a lot of writers are and I'm not. I put my life into my songs. It means a lot when somebody comes up to you and says, ‘I get that’, or, ‘I get this from that’. It’s amazing because you've connected with someone. My experiences in life are really, as a whole, no different to yours. And for you to connect with what I've gone through, or the version of what has happened to me is is amazing. Life is all about connection, and if I can sing and connect, that makes my life pretty good.
And what are your thoughts on the notion that artists have a role to play because they are they are role models? Is it something you're aware of, or do you just go ‘I'm just going to keep leading with my own integrity and if people want to follow, they follow’.
It's a little bit of both. Especially with the divide in the country at the moment surrounding vaccines and lockdowns and everything. I personally find it really hard to discuss that with people because it is met a lot of times, especially online. with such hostility. And that really disappoints me, that we have lost the art of open discussion and hearing people's point of view, whether you're for or against lockdowns or for or against whatever. I am really disappointed by that. I posted the other day when we did the get back the vax thing. I posted why I was getting my vaccine, and it was met with hostility by people. I didn't say to anyone, ‘you must go and do this’. I just said why I'm doing it. I found that really disappointing that people are so hard hearted and so closed to hearing opinion. It's not even an opinion that you have to agree with, it's they just don't want to hear it or they don't want to have a discussion about it. They just want to be set in their opinion and be surrounded by that opinion.
Message boards are a terrible thing, you just need to read YouTube comments. It's one of my favourite hobbies, actually. Unfortunately everyone's got a voice, and stamping it with their flaming pitchfork.
Everyone's got a voice with a pitchfork! Nobody has a voice with a quill, or with a voice with a bit of tenderness or a bit of understanding. Everyone is very much ‘this is what I think and I am right’.
Lastly Gretta, obviously you've got this beautiful album and hopefully some shows, what's coming up for you?
I have shows planned for November and December. It's that funny thing where I went to announce my shows end of August just before lockdown and you could kind of smell it in the air that it was coming. So I didn't and I had this wonderful lineup of shows that was a whole page long and of course that all got postponed and cancelled. So I'm hesitating to announce shows, but I will tell you that I have, touch wood, my album launch in Melbourne on November 5 at the Thornbury Theatre and other shows planned in South Australia and Queensland for later. Touch wood.
Judas Tree is out now via ABC Music. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Gretta Ziller you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
