on the phone with Pet Snake
‘I love big wide spectrums of music, I can’t just sit or live in one world. Pet Snake is giving me a chance to explore those worlds.’
When we talk, Evelyn Halls of Pet Snake fame is just back from touring with the King of the Wirral, Bill Ryder Jones, and just ahead of a Yawn Ahead at Future Yard with a lineup replete with local legends. Her solo project, Pet Snake, has been going for a few years, and she’s looking ahead to a big September in the studio. She describes Pet Snake as ‘guitar-based, sort of’ and ‘a bit emo’ but ‘with folk and indie influences.’ It’s well worth the listen.
Here we talk about how working on Pet Snake has changed the way that she listens to music, moving into producing, and the persistent tension between making music work both live and on records.
Could you tell me a little about how you listen to music? Is it cutting and changing between everything at once or spending longer periods really exploring one thing?
I definitely go through moments of listening to particular things - I also go through spells of not listening to music for a full week or two and just listening to podcasts or the radio.
With music, if I’m listening, I’m really engaging; it’s not a background thing, so I’ve got to have the time to really focus. A long walk, a bus journey, in the car, something like that.
I don’t listen to music every single second of the day, but then I’ll definitely get obsessed with certain songs. I’ll listen to them like a million times over, and then I'll dive into the album to try and take in everything the artist has ever done and to really understand them.
Because of that, I don’t love where we’re at in the industry more broadly - this world where you get served music in 15-30 second snippets through social media. I don’t think many people bother going beyond that and listening to the artists work. I find it really weird.
But yeah, like, to answer your question. I just get into little worlds and hop around.
Does that mean that when you’re listening to music, you’re sort of picking it apart and thinking about how it’s constructed?
Yeah, I love that. I’m fascinated with it, especially since I started making my own music. With Clean Cut Kid I was never really involved in the production side of things.
I did a little bit of writing with Mike, but it was very much his baby, so now that I’m making my own records (though very much with Mike), it’s changing the way I’m listening to music.
I get so excited now when I hear something interesting from a band I’m really into because I’ll really be like, ‘Oh, that’s such a good idea!’
Or, oh, they’ve put the drums right far back, why does that prick my ear so much? Oh, maybe I could do something like that? It’s just so cool, it’s so exciting.
I'm really enjoying being in that place because I wasn't that interested in production or what made up the music for the last couple of years. And while I’m still a backseat driver, I’m really interested in the process now; one day I'd love to be able to produce.
So often, right, there’s this disjunct between what you hear recorded and live - are you finding that that growing interest in the production side is coming into how you’re writing and recording now?
I think it’s meant that I've been thinking more about the live aspect of things when we've been recording and being careful not to just add in like shitloads of elements that we won't be able to redo live. I’m not a massive fan of using backing track.
I’ve always been averse to it. Obviously, there are some styles of music, really frontline pop or electronic, where you need it, but when I go to see music, I’m normally excited to see people play or sing live. If there’s loads of track I kind of lose interest and don’t enjoy the gig that much.
I’ll be making my album in September, and I’ll be a bit more aware of whether I’m going to be able to deliver it all live. So far, we haven’t needed to use track, but there’s a chance we might have to bring in another bandmate to cover everything.
I guess then there’s this mix of making music in your style and the way you want it to sound, but that commitment to live music too comes almost with some constraints on who you can get on stage, who can get paid, all that?
Yeah, I’ve just come off tour with Bill [Ryder-Jones], and it was just me and him doing a duo set, me on cello and him singing with the guitar.
We were supporting Beth Gibbons, and her solo record is very experimental, progressive, and cool - all these mad sounds and instruments. I assumed that there would be quite a bit of track because there's so many elements, so many things to cover, so many big vocal parts, and stuff.
I couldn't believe when I saw the first soundcheck on the first night that there was no, not even any samples or anything being triggered; it was all live. When you looked down the stage, there were like seven members, all playing multiple instruments.
Every element of the song was covered; it was amazing. And it was one of the most emotional sets I’ve seen for so long because every sound I was hearing, I was like, Oh my God, this is a person, this is a human being playing this.
They’d put so much time and energy into arranging it and I could just feel all the work. It was some of the best playing I’ve ever seen.
But I also know that that will have cost so much money; only someone who's on a big label and has a big chunk of money and reserves that can be put into a tour can do that.
If you want to make anything vaguely similar, starting out or even a couple of years down the line, you’re going to have to put them on track - or have people playing for free, which is terrible.
So I understand why people have to do it, I get it. But I just think, like don't put everything on track. Don't use it for the main vocal. Please give us that. But yeah...
So I understand why people have to do it, I get it. But I just think like don't put everything on track. Don't put the main vocal. Please give us that. But yeah…
It changes the music though right, we’re not exactly in an era where you can take all the risks you want and just throw everything at it?
Especially with the state of live music, and difficult in making money off touring, you’re thinking about how things have got to work when recorded too? Everyone’s still got rent and bills to pay.
Yeah, exactly. I wish those things didn't seep into your consciousness when you're trying to write but they do.
And similarly, I really don’t want to admit this, but I think my songs are a bit too long - a lot are four minutes plus, some are five minutes. I’ve written them like that because that’s how the story unfolds but I know for a fact it’s meant I’m not included in playlists.
We’ve tried to do radio edits before, and it's just sounded shit. But then not doing it has counted me out of streaming playlists and radio plays.
I know that I need to be aware of that and still I wish so much I didn't. For this new album, I’m going to have to at least acknowledge that if I want the singles to get more exposure, to help with growth. Thinking making this an actual viable career means will have to think about that.
Get down on it:
13/07 - Yawn (Again) w/ Bill Ryder Jones (Future Yard)
17/07 - Salute, Album Launch (The Jac)
18/07 - You And I (Commune)
19/07 - Ceilidh in support of Greenpeace (The Unitarian Church)
20/07 - The Ayoub Sisters (The Phil)
20/07 - Conduit Sound w/ Babylon Fox (Lost Art)
21/07 - Astles (Rough Trade)
On repeat this week:
If tomorrow starts without me - Bill Ryder-Jones (Bandcamp)
Same Old Lie (Jim James)
Zindagi Ke Din (Preeti Sagar)
Shidaa (K.O.G)