Emma Swift found her way to Nashville by way of the mid-sized, but isolated city of Wagga Wagga, Australia. In high school, she fell hard for the myriad female singer songwriters that were ascendant in the early 1990s. At university, Emma discovered the world of alt-country, and she began to soak up the artistry of iconic singers like Linda Rondtstadt and Emmylou Harris.
Emma has always appreciated the interpretive talent of singing someone else’s songs. It was one of the things that first drew her to heroes like Rondtstadt and Harris. Those song selections were almost as important as the way they were performed. As much as she knew she wanted to write songs, she also knew that she possessed an interpretive talent.
Her work as a recording artist in the States received increased attention for her 2020 album of Bob Dylan covers, Blonde On The Tracks. The album, produced by Wilco’s Pat Sansone is a luscious paean to the emotional side of Dylan’s catalog. On, Blonde On The Tracks, Emma wears those songs, as she puts it, “like a Bob Dylan shaped dress”.
In September of this year, Emma will be releasing her brand new album, The Resurrection Game. The record is a laconic, gorgeously rendered collection of dreamy, alt-folk that conjures feelings of Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Judee Sill, and Fairport Convention.
While the record is a beautiful, immersive experience, it was not a smooth road from nascent idea to finished product. In the midst of making the record, Emma suffered a seven week breakdown while in her native Australia. It would take nearly a year of recovery for her to emerge as something close to the person she was before the breakdown. Emma admits that there were moments where she wondered if she would inevitably become a different person than she had been before the breakdown. Thankfully, after a long stretch of treatment and an amazing outpouring of love and support from family, friends, and fans, Emma finds herself well once again.
I sat down to speak with her on the eve of her massive house concert tour where she will be playing 29 shows over the course of nearly two months. We chatted about the romantic notion of driving across America, and the ways that speaks to our fifteen year old souls that first found Kerouac, and On The Road. Emma finds herself thrilled to be headed out on the road to play the songs from her new album each night, because as she puts it, “music is best when shared.’
Emma and I admit that we have no penchant for work/life balance, and we discuss the shapeshifting ways that technology is constantly changing the ways that we make and release our artistic projects. We talk about ways to fight the loneliness epidemic, why artists have to see their work as a small business, and Emma shares her theory that regular people renovate their bathrooms, while musicians just make another record.
Here now is my talk with the terrific Emma Swift. Enjoy
Cheers,
Matty C
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