Erin Rae
Listen On
Erin Rae needs three things for her songwriting process: a hardwood floor, a phone on airplane mode, and glowiness.
Rae brought up the word “glow-y” (glowy?) a few times in our interview. When she’s at her most effective as a songwriter, things around her are glow-y. It would be easy to think of a glow-y state in positive terms. After all, we normally associate glow with optimism and happiness (a warm glow, for instance). But as you’ll hear, that’s not how Rae sees it.
One other thing we discussed was how Rae’s songwriting process gets derailed by her phone. I’m actually surprised so few songwriters have brought that up in interviews on this site. (Robyn Hitchcock was one.) It’s easy to understand: the distracting nature of a phone makes it difficult to write, of course, but it also makes it pretty much impossible to pay attention to the external environment that gives the songwriter ideas in the first place. How can you gather inspiration if you’re always looking down?
Rae typically gets compared to 70s singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne. It seems like every review has the obligatory "Laurel Canyon" reference. But heck: these are just good songs, period. No comparison needed.
Erin Rae's latest album Lighten Up is out now on Thirty Tigers Records.
