INTERVIEW: Melanie Dyer releases second album 'Between You & Me': "I wanted this album to really dip my toes in all the different versions of me to form this versatile, experimental pop country"
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australia’s Melanie Dyer has become one of the our most beloved country-pop singers since she first released music in 2015. With a passion for both country and pop music, she expertly combines the two genres to create music that is authentic to both.
Earlier this month she released her second studio album Between You & Me. It is a gorgeous collection of music that stays firm to her country-pop roots and showcases Dyer’s lyrical skills with songs encompasses love, heartbreak and social issues.
The album kicks of with ‘Glass Houses’, a powerful rock-infused track which takes aim at a society which seems to have forgotten about how to care about each other: ‘we love sitting back, pointing fingers…whatever happened to being kind to one another?’ she asks. Title track ‘Between You & Me’, a duet with Troy Cartwright, is a delicious song that is heavily influenced by electronic pop and switches between stripped back sections and full blooded choruses.
Dyer further explores full-on pop on the track ‘Magic’ which has a chilled, laid back feel set to a shimmering beat with Dyer exuding the sensuality and excitement of the first stages of a new relationship as she urges her partner to try and recapture those feelings. The first single from the album ‘20s’ is also a deep dive into a pop soundscape with delicious electronic swirls and melodies as Dyer sings about the carefree joy of being in your 20s.
Her collaboration with fellow country music star Caitlyn Shadbolt ‘Dumb Decisions’ is arguably the most country music moment on the album, with guitars, drums and the banjo dominating the track.
Alongside the uplifting songs, there are also moments of quiet reflection. Latest single ‘Cheating On Me’ is a gorgeous ballad, which dips and soars with lush instrumentation and Dyer’s vocal that takes on a haunting, husky beauty as she sings about leaving a relationship. ‘Somebody's heart's gonna break / And I wish it were mine’. The album closes on another vulnerable song, ‘What You Didn't Say’, that lyrically explores heartbreak over the lack of communication in a doomed relationship. It starts with just Dyer’s voice and piano before introducing strings and developing into a remarkably beautiful, atmospheric song. It is stunning, if emotional, way to close the album.
Dyer has reached a creative high with Between You & Me and it delivers exactly what you want and need from a country-pop album - moments of carefree joy, music to dance to, music to cry to and a listening experience to just immerse yourself in. We recently caught up with Dyer to chat more about the creation of the album.
Hi Melanie, what a pleasure it is to spend some time chatting with you today. How are things with you?Things are great, things are busy, which is awesome after some time off and very exciting because of the new album. A lot of adrenaline, things have been leading up to the release. I'm on the road, I'm gigging again and it's all happening.
That's awesome. One of the big pulls for any artist is those live shows, so that must be beautiful.
Yeah, it's really, really good to be back with the band and playing, bringing the songs to life on stage again, with a real audience and getting that feedback. There's nothing like it, you know, that energy that you get from an audience when you're on stage, and just meeting everyone face to face afterwards, and connecting again. it feels really good.
Gorgeous. You have just released your sophomore album Between You & Me, congratulations, by the way. As the world fell apart, you were still releasing singles, but this is your first body of work in five years. Of course you’ve been working between but how was that to have that follow up with a five year break?
If I think back to Fresh my debut album, I felt like such a baby. I knew what was going on, but I also didn't understand the full mechanics of an album release and what it takes to promote an album and all of that stuff. I've learned, especially over the last five years, about recording and producing the album, I actually had a big part in the production this time, so this album, Between You & Me feels a lot more me and I feel like the songs are more me. Not that the first album wasn't, I just feel I've learned a lot along the way, I've had a lot more life experience and musically I knew where I wanted to go. So while it feels like ages ago, and I felt like I was such a baby with Fresh, it also feels like a lot of that time was just lost in translation. I didn't stop the whole time, so I'm trying to work out why it took me five years! But we're here now and like you said I released singles along the way and sort of just drip fed the album in that time and kept people aware of what I was doing. I was growing all the while writing this album and making sure that these songs all fit together as a body of work, but also showed every sort of facet of me as an artist and a songwriter together as a collection.
Gorgeous. Sonically, this album, there's a definite kaleidoscope of person in there and I imagine that comes from growing as a performer, as a songwriter and as a producer, but also as a person, because you realise as you get older, you don't have to fit into a genre. There's a little bit of everything in here. Talk to me a little bit about how you approached the album?
It's a funny thing. You know, as an artist, you have to make a decision about if you're going to follow and fit in a box, and tick the boxes in terms of this song is definitely going to get radio play, this song is definitely going to fit on that playlist. Or you ask yourself, is that really going to show who I am? and you take a risk and you be more experimental. I've definitely always coloured outside the lines in terms of my style and being experimental with my sound and I wanted this album to really just dip my toes in all of the different versions of me, and I think they still do fit together because it's neat. I grew up on a farm writing songs initially about growing up on the land. My family still lives there, I'm very much a country girl. I spent two years during COVID back on the farm, but I also lived in the city for seven years and I've experimented with sounds and different friendships and people you meet along the way. Both of these versions of me come together to form this versatile, experimental pop country, a little bit this, a little bit that, kind of sound. And I'm okay with that. It's risky in terms of where do you fit, but I think that some of the greatest artists did take risks and made their own laneway and style and sound. That is exciting for people and I'm getting feedback from this album, about every single song, people have so many different favourites and I think that that's awesome. Because it's not just an album with two or three awesome songs, and then a couple of ones that were just put on there to make an album. I treated it like every single song could be a single, it could be doing its own thing in its own laneway. It makes for a really different kind of body of work.
Absolutely, it’s a great pop album, because everyone's going to be connecting with the assortment of songs. Title track ‘Between You & Me’ with Troy Cartwright, this song is beautiful and you two compliment the pants off each other. Can you tell me a little bit about this collaboration and this song?
I wrote this song with two other male American artists over in Nashville in 2020 and they're equally amazing in their own right and great singers. One of the guys that I wrote it with, Kyle Clark, sang on the demo, he has this beautiful voice. I had his voice on the demo for a year or 18 months while I was looking for the right artist to do it. It didn't work out with him with releases and timelines, but I had his amazing velvety, smooth, beautiful country voice on it that I was like, ‘how am I going to find somebody that suits my voice so well?’ I stumbled across Troy Cartwright through mutual friends, and also through me just gravitating towards his songs on playlists. I always would be driving and hear this song and his voice and be like, ‘Who is that?’ and it was always Troy. I reached out to him, personally and straightaway he was in and he loved it. We did have to record it separately, so I did my parts in Sydney with Peter Holz and then we flew the tracks over to him and he did his part, sent it back and we blended it all.
We chose it as the title track because the title is reflective of the album. This is a collection of songs that could be between me and myself, talking to myself about this growth and change over the last couple of years almost sitting there and having a conversation about what's going on. ‘Glass Houses’ is a song about not putting too many judgments on each other and being kind to yourself and kind to one another. And there’s also some little fun story songs, and ‘20s’ which is a bit of a fun chapter about going through that that age bracket. It’s very much the title track because I think the album is a conversation between either you and I, or it could be me and myself, just just reflecting over what's happened and getting personal and connecting.
You did mention ‘20s’ I absolutely love it because it's like this great amalgamation of pop and country but if it weren't for your vocals and lyrics, which has just got that natural country sound, this is a pop song. I think it's such a beautiful track and I love the way you've approached it. Talk to me a bit about this one.
Thank you. It's so funny, you know, ‘20s’ was actually an independent single that I released in between labels. It was my own little project and I’ve since moved on to ABC they've bundled the song with the album. But this one is a pop song, and I love writing pop music. I got Konstantin Kersting to produce this song because I knew it was a pop song, and my voice and me as a person is always going to bring the country but I just wanted this song to be something different and to stand alone. Having Konstantin, obviously he has produced Tones And I, Jungle Giants, Eves Karydas, I just thought, how cool would it be to have him collaborate on this and produce essentially a country song, but we know it's pop. It sort of just slid under the radar a little bit for me until I heard my album as a collection, and that song came on in the tracklisting, and I sat back and I thought, ‘wow, I'm actually really proud of this song.’. I love this song and it really has its own thing live as well, people chant along to this and they really feel it live. It deserves a little bit of a moment, so thank you for bringing that one up!
It definitely deserves a moment! You are a country girl at the heart you grew up not far from Tamworth, and Tamworth is like Australia's Stockholm for country music as opposed to pop. Talk to me a bit about your experiences, you've worked in Nashville as well, but how do you feel that sense of home, what is it about Tamworth that brings people back?
That's a really good question. Breaking it down and finding your home is actually hard. That comes with connecting with people who are listening to your songs and sending you direct messages and showing up to your tours. While Tamworth is definitely the epicentre of country music, within Australia it's the capital, I've been going since I was 12 years old and I go back every year, because it's almost a tradition. I think the next step for us, though, as an industry within country the genre is accepting the movement of contemporary country and crossover sounds and including that in the future. While Tamworth is very important, and everybody will always go back and get amongst the traditions of that, it's really important to also now be expanding, and including artists who are the voice of country pop and expanding the audience and bringing it to younger audiences and really thinking about the future of country music. So I go back every year, and I do a show and I bring my sound to country, and while sometimes the audiences are a little more traditional, I am bringing the new fans to Tamworth, which I find a challenge but one that I'm definitely dedicated to continuing. I'll be there with bells on in January, I will always be there. I'm excited about the future of country music and where it's gonna go. I’m playing CMC Rocks festival this weekend, and that's a complete contrast. Within Australia, within the different festivals, we’re tapping into different markets of the genre. CMC Rocks is definitely more fresh country, international, collaborative, contemporary country sound while Tamworth has its traditions, and it's sort of set in that way. I'm keen for the future of country.
I think it's really important because Australia has this long history, not just in music but film and everything of saying ‘Well, this has always worked for us, I don't know why we need to change’. Very stuck in their way, it also applies to radio pay and pop stars and female artists, the list is endless. With something that seems so welcoming and roots and homely as country, there’s this very gentle backlash against change, they won’t move. So we're needing to hear these fresh voices, because otherwise, let's face it, it's will just disappear. You need more of a mix up there.
Yeah, Obviously respecting where it came from, and honouring that always. It's not about changing it, it's just about evolving it. So many people are excited about country music, the fans, and the audiences are expanding and growing and changing. The genre as a whole needs to just embrace that. And it is, slowly
You’re out performing, we've got an album, what else is coming up for you, Melanie?
I've got shows. I'm on tour now with my friend Caitlyn Shadbolt, who is on the album, we did a duet called ‘Dumb Decisions’. So we're got a fun tour surrounding that song. Of course I'm headed to Tamworth in January for the show to kick off next year. Just getting out and playing that album to as many people as possible and then starting to think about working on what's next, which will be no longer my 20s, it will be my 30s. So we'll see what comes of that!
Between You & Me is out now via ABC Music. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Melanie Dyer you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
