Love gone mad, love gone bad: Natalie Prass channels Springfield and Warwick

There’s a lesson here for musicians waiting around for an album to be released. Natalie Prass recorded her debut album back in 2011 and 2012 but, between the jigs and the reels and her Spacebomb label getting busy with Matthew E White’s Big Inner album, it took until now for the album to appear.

So what did she do between then and now? Prass wrote songs, recorded two albums that might not see the light of day and toured as part of Jenny Lewis’s band. Oh and she started a dogwear business.

“It was called Analog Dog and I made sweatshirts and hoodies, like dog streetwear. It was very lucrative and I need to bring it back in some fashion.”

She leans back in her chair and laughs. Prass is in Dublin to support Ryan Adams, and it’s clear that she won’t have much time for dog attire in 2015.

Her self-titled debut album is winning over many with its tender-to-the-touch songs about love gone bad and love gone mad, all tied up in musical bows that remind you of previous blue mood chroniclers such as Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick or Carole King. It’s music for anyone who had a heart – and had that heart broken.

It took time for Prass to write these songs. Born in Cleveland and raised in Virginia Beach, she ended up in Nashville after her dad moved there for work.

“I did the whole Nashville shuffle – you know, writing and recording and playing with other people. Before I went there, I always thought it was a country music town, but I was proven wrong. It’s really a songwriting town, a music town.”

Nashville made her who she is today. “It’s a very tough, competitive place, which is what I was craving when I went there. It’s where I learned a lot and paid my dues big time and it’s shaped me and made me the hard worker that I am.

“It was really beneficial because I could see so many musicians at different stages of their career which allowed me to observe and work out who I wanted to be. You could see everything that could possibly happen to a musician’s career and work out what your values were as regards your own career, what you were prepared to do, and what you weren’t going to do.”

She had spent time in the Berklee College of Music in Boston and on a songwriting course at Middle Tennessee State University.

“The real world was more of an education for me as a songwriter,” she admits. “School is a way of buying yourself time to grow up. It’s a safe environment to experiment and try out your material.

Responsible songwriting

“School did teach me how to be a responsible songwriter – if I’m not always in the mood to write a song, you have to do it no matter what because this is your job. It taught me how to switch my mind into creative mode on any occasion, which is very useful.”

What came next took Prass back to her old stomping ground of Virginia Beach. She knew Matthew E White from her schooldays and heard he was doing something different in Richmond, Virginia so she was eager to find out more about the Spacebomb collective, label and studio he was involved with.

“I knew Matt from my past as this amazing guitar player, but I hadn’t realised he was a producer or arranger or all the rest of it. When I first talked to him after we met up again, it made so much sense. Finally, I thought, I’ve met someone I can connect with and who understands what I’m trying to do and my influences and he gets me.

“But then when I heard about Spacebomb and that there was going to be 30 people playing on this record, I went, wait a minute, am I being an idiot here? People don’t do this any more. I was scared. Even before the record came out in January, I got a scare. What are people going to say and think? But you always feel that as an artist as soon as you put your work out, you have no further control over it.”

‘Amazing ladies’

Prass knew the gist of the album she wanted to make and especially who she was seeking to emulate.

“I wanted to capture the spirit of those amazing ladies who had gone before me like Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick. They had created such beautiful music that sounded perfect to my ears. I could listen to them forever. I knew I wanted to do something like that, but Matt and Trey [Pollard, co-producer] and everyone else took it way beyond what I expected.”

Emails with MP3s and YouTube clips went back and forth between Prass and the Richmond crew for months as the collaborators created mood boards for each track.

Feather boa

“We were all obsessed with Gal Costa’s self-titled album from 1969, the one where she’s wearing a big white feather boa on the cover. The strings on her song Baby just swell and get bigger and bigger throughout and we definitely applied that concept to Violently.”

Her time in Richmond with the Spacebomb team also persuaded her to move there.

“It’s one of the oldest cities in the south, which is not saying much compared to Dublin. It got burned to the ground after the civil war so they had to completely rebuild it and Cary Street, where I live, was one of the first to be rebuilt with cobblestone roads and beautiful row houses. It’s a gorgeous old southern city with a great history but it’s also very progressive. It attracts a lot of students and artists and they’ve all made it a very unique place to be.”

She certainly prefers it to what Nashville has become. “Every time I’d go back to Nashville after a tour, another old building had been demolished to make way for a condo building and traffic was getting like LA so I knew it was time to move back to the east coast.”

Touring

It looks though that she will not be spending all that much time in Richmond this year, given the touring that lies ahead. Prass doesn’t mind in the least because this is something she’s been after for ages. Even making clothes for dogs can wait.

“I’m still growing and learning what it means to be an artist. But I know when you’re an artist, you have this little candle inside and you have to protect it. All these things are working against you – people get jealous or you’re your own worst enemy – so you have to realise what works for you and give that priority. I’ve always been really comfortable with who I am and have never worried about being cool or hip. This is me and if no one likes it, it’s their problem.”