INTERVIEW: Sloan Peterson talks new single 'Nightmare': ‘Is she really a nightmare, or is she an independent woman who knows what she wants?’
Image: Joe Brennan
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Sydney’s Sloan Peterson has had an intriguing journey to the release of ‘Nightmare’, her first single for a major record label (Warner Music) out last week. Born in Brisbane, she moved to Sydney as a teenager and made inroads in the local indie scene as the lead singer for punk band Black Zeros. After moving to New York to pursue music with another project, in 2017 she launched Sloan Peterson, named after a character from the iconic film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. With 1.8 million streams to her name, she supported The Kooks on their Australian tour in 2019 and recently signed with Warner Music Australia.
‘Nightmare’, which details the way we navigate through relationships, is a new start for Peterson not only in terms of the record label behind her but in her sonics and creative process. The song is a melting pot of sounds, with elements of soul, jazz, indie and contemporary pop encased in a utterly unique soundscape. “It's a very different project now to what it was before,” she says. “It's more personal too. I’m writing from experience about relationships, hurt, family and misunderstandings.”
To celebrate the release of the single, Sloan Peterson will be performing a number of intimate gigs in Sydney in November with tickets on sale now. With an EP due next year, this era of Sloan Peterson is proving to be her most exciting yet. We recently sat down with her to find out more.
Hello Sloan Peterson! So lovely to catch up with you. First off I want to talk about ‘Nightmare’. It's the kind of track honestly, when I listened to it, it made my mouth curl in this kind of secret smile, while simultaneously attempting to call woodland creatures to my fingertips, like a disgruntled Disney Princess and then I saw the accompanying badass video. And I was like… ‘oh, she's nailed that.’
Thank you, thank you. It was a lot of fun to make, it's a lot of fun to sing. It's a lot of fun to have it out in the world. The video clip was so much fun to make, just the whole process. And that's why we ended up choosing that song first because that's what I wanted to represent. There was an element of just fun.
t was so fun. But again, you've got that very signature kind of grit to it. It's gorgeous. I just want to know, where did this song come from? What were its foundations, inspiration-wise?
We've all been in relationships that have gone, like in two ways. Personally, I’ve done a lot of self-work over the last year or two, where a lot of the time I probably would blame other people when things weren't going particularly right. It's kind of funny when you do this self-work and you're journaling and you look inwards, and you start to go… maybe I'm the problem. Maybe I'm the person that could have been the nightmare and could have compromised on this. A lot of my other songs are about love and I'd been in a five-year relationship and I felt bad because he's not a bad guy… and I had all these songs that the whole world was gonna hear all of a sudden and I felt almost horrible if people knew who he was. And I wanted to have this ode where it takes two to tango, but in my theatrical quite dramatised way.
For the video clip, I put forward this idea that I wanted it to be quite a feminist video. I'm tackling a lot of things that women face, especially in business and relationships. [Director] Courtney Brookes brought back the treatment and she had me at the first line: ‘Is she really a nightmare, or is she an independent woman who knows what she wants?’ So the video is talking about a generalisation of the construct of what women are deemed bossy and assertive as opposed to hysterical, you know, being a bit of a bitch.
Isn't that incredible? I'm so glad you've mentioned that and I wanted to know, have you ever felt or have you ever been told, possibly even professionally as an artist, as a woman we have to choose between powerful or meek and feminine and why does feminine has to mean submissive? And I feel like you're addressing that in this in this track?
Definitely. I’ve worked with a lot of men. I've worked with so many who have really, really helped me so much and so I don't take that away from them. I don't think explicitly I've ever been told to… stand down. But it's subtle, you can get subtle hints. And when you become aware of these, it becomes a lot more noticeable and you start going: I'm being put in a bit of a corner here and maybe I didn't have a leg to stand on before, or maybe this person was doing me a favour. So I've got to just agree with them and go along with the story because I'm too timid or shy, or I'm a woman, like stand down. Whereas now, the more awareness that we're creating, and the #metoo movement, it's become a lot more of an open conversation and I think it makes women feel like ‘I can say no. I'm allowed to say no, whenever I want.’
Absolutely. Less gratitude, and more like ‘hell yeah!’ Prior to ‘Nightmare’, my favourite track of yours was 2018’s ‘Our Love’ and again, such a killer, accompanying video. Your music has this incredible fusion element of old timey and then distorted prophecy about it. And I wanted to know, as a poet and a songwriter, a performer, a creative… what is the best part of the parcel for you?
I think wrapping it all up. The process is really fun, but once you have an idea and someone takes that vision, and they go, ‘I can see that’ and they kind of, they indulge you, that's really fun. And then you're in the studio, you're doing all of this work and it's not really turning out the way you had envisioned. But then at the end of it, it wraps up and being able to have this in the world, it's this weird feeling of excitement, but nerves and it's like you're in love for the first time. I think that's my favourite moments, the beginning and then the release.
it is a total parcel. Your bio states that you’re romantic, a dreamer, a poet, and a woman of immense ambition and resilience. Now, the first three, they are evident in your ear candy, and the visual representation of all that you create. But I wanted you to walk me through the latter, the ambition and the resilience. What is that for you?
We all have our own journeys and I look at mine, I have changed some things. I didn’t grow up in the most amazing circumstances in Brisbane. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I've put myself in situations that I haven't always said no, and I haven't always been strong. It's led me down some really dark places to a position where I've been in hospital with black eyes, a broken nose twice in domestic violence relationships, and that person died from a heroin overdose and having to deal with the traumas of that. And drug abuse throughout that relationship that I wasn't even aware of that sent me into like a position of almost a mental state of a downward spiral, where I was having to have a lot of therapy when I was only 16. Coming out of that, my parents sent me to live down in Sydney with my sister and that's when I found music. I was seeing therapists and that was barely helping me, but when I started to write and analyse what I was going through in my own words, and not only do that but have people support that and say ‘I feel that way too’, that's when I started doing my real healing and feeling like I had ambition. That I had something to live for. Before that, I didn't know where I belonged. I've now been playing for 16 years and it's been an inclining momentum for me of writing songs and having that little recognition for that, and then writing more and continuously having my dream and my vision, which is here, and just keep working so hard for that.
That's incredible. The brutality of all that is quite beautiful in a way. You know what I mean? It's very honest, I'm really pleased as well, you talked about the uphill battle, because, again, a lot of people don't understand how long it even takes to create a song. It's the birth of something. Following on from that resilience, and that struggle from your earlier life that then blossomed into such an amazing career for you, do you feel looking back that you're making the music that your adolescent self would have gotten one hell of a spirit kick out of listening to?
Oh my God, so much! ‘Nightmare’ especially. Someone said to me that it sounded like Lily Allen and it really made me smile. [I loved her] album Alright, Still, just how quirky she was, she was just anything she wanted. It was very big [at that stage] in my life. And now when people say ‘Nightmare’ sounds like Lily, my 13-year-old self would have been like, ‘go girl!’ It's amazing.
So many of us were the same as 13-year-old girls. Lastly, as well as this gorgeous track, you have announced a couple of very beautiful, intimate shows here in Sydney. How does it feel to be prepping for a live show again?
Oh my god. I'm so scared, but very, very, very excited. I'm singing eight songs that I've never sung live before and I don't have my guitar. So I'm kind of like, where do my hands go? Am I gonna be doing the robot on stage? I've got some friends of mine who are supporting me, and they are playing before. So I'm happy that I'm getting other people to play live shows again as well. I'm just so excited.
Lastly, what’s on the horizon for you? You're saying we've getting eight new songs you've never performed before. Are we going to be having those released to us soon?
Ahh... all to be confirmed!
‘Nightmare’ is out now via Warner Music. You can download and stream here.
To keep up with all things Sloan Peterson you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Sloan Peterson at Lazybones Lounge Restaurant & Bar in Marrickville on 5th and 6th November. Tickets on sale now.
