“I’ll always be figuring out which voice sounds truest to myself “ - Grace Gardner explores their latest EP, ‘After Knowing’
The latest folk-pop project by the trailblazing singer-songwriter and self-taught producer, Grace Gardner, After Knowing is a seven-song exploration of how some things are just better understood in hindsight.
Released on December 27th of last year, the EP features Grace’s iconically guttural lyricism, clever metaphors and wistful vocals, taking listeners on a journey through all the in-betweens of heartbreak, rage, self-discovery and grappling with acceptance in the wake of recovery.
In an exclusive interview with VoiceNoted, we sat down with Grace to talk all about their latest EP, discussing everything from their songwriting origins to advice for listeners who relate to their music.
How did you get into songwriting and when did you decide that music was something you wanted to pursue?
“I kind of developed separate passions for playing instruments and writing. When I was younger - I think seven or eight - I started learning piano and guitar and that immediately took off. I played lots of sports as well, which I loved the teamwork aspect of but it never stuck in any sort of passionate way, so I’d spent a lot of my early years trying to figure out what my extracurricular vibe was and it was very much housed in music.
I would get home from school every day and just lock myself up in my room to play guitar. I’d learn on YouTube and go on Ultimate Guitar tabs to figure out different songs, and also at the same time was starting to develop more of a writer’s voice.
In my English classes, we’d have poetry and non-fiction units where we’d look into several different types of writing - which I know was for us to figure out our different inclinations with reading and what genres we liked - but my whole time going to libraries at that age was filled with literary fiction. Fiction that always felt as real as possible (or non-fiction) was what I turned to, and I didn’t really take myself seriously as a writer until I took a class that we were all required to take when I was a junior in high school. It was a narrative non-fiction class, and I had a teacher in the class who was the first to ever realise my non-fiction writing as this kind of distinct voice, and that I didn’t have it easy.
A lot of my writing has come from this place of confusion and search for truth and answers. There were a lot of screwed up things that happened in my childhood, and I’d use writing to try and figure out why those things happened to me or the people I cared about, only to find that the only comfort you’ll have is the quest for answers. That teacher was the first to validate that it was always okay to be looking.”
“Around 2020, I started learning how to produce for myself because I wanted to try and see if I could bring my music to life in some way. I read a lot of literary fiction, subscribed to a lot of Substacks and started playing solo gigs at the beginning of 2021 as it became safer to sort of re-enter the world.
It took a few years for me to see myself as a serious writer, and I would always call myself a musician. A few weeks ago, someone asked me: ‘would you consider yourself a poet?’ and I was like, dang, I guess? By the definition of the term, sure but I think that I’m still trying to see myself in those lights as those things.
I’ll always be figuring out which voice sounds truest to myself because I feel like that changes with every given moment, but it was seeing that other people could do it - especially people who weren’t winning the popularity contests and who forged paths when there just weren’t any - that pushed me.
I also had to take a step back and embrace that I couldn’t take myself so seriously all the time. Music at the end of the day was the only thing that got me out of bed, to sleep, or to do literally anything in my life and everything was so driven by music but it took me an interestingly long time to realise that maybe I should make that the focal point of my life.”
How would you describe the After Knowing EP to someone who hasn’t heard it yet?
“What unites all of the songs is them being very lyric-driven. Sonically speaking, especially over the course of my releases, you can kind of see some navigations of indie-pop and even electronic folk-pop, and I can hear my influences so clearly in my early releases because I was still trying to find out what my voice was. Now that my voice has felt a lot more solidified, lyrically speaking it’s a lot more fed up, and there’s a lot of contained rage. As someone who was socialised as a woman, there’s a lot of it in that sort of context for people to relate to. If there was any part of you that systemically was forced to stay quiet about something, my lyrics are a lot of being up in arms with that.
Lyrically, I try to make people feel heard and seen in ways that pop music doesn’t always provide for people. With At Your Best, a lot of it is folk - which is a huge umbrella for good reason - but what unites all songs under folk is lyric-driven, storytelling music. We’ve been throwing around the labels of ‘power folk’ and ‘angsty folk’ but it’s supposed to be a powerful folk project with a lot of different instrumental influences. Its all guitar-centred but you’ll hear pedal steel coming in, and banjo coming in. The goal when I was making it was to find, secondarily answers, but primarily relief.
Some of these songs felt like they came out so easily, but when I got them out I was exhausted and drained and couldn’t talk for three days. But other ones felt like I was pulling out my veins one by one and I couldn’t bare myself to finish them because they would be confronting me with these really heavy emotions, but what it brought me was catharsis.”
How and when did you decide that Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) was the opening song for the EP?
“Lonnie Davis, my collaborator for this project, and I were getting everything done pretty out of order. I had just gotten out of a really crappy mixing/mastering relationship and the collaborative energy I was around before meeting Lonnie was really bad, so my spirit was broken.
I had met Lonnie at a party and he was like, ‘we have to work on music together’, but I was kind of too depressed to drag myself out of the house and so he’d be like: ‘we’re making music. Come to my house!’ The first song that I had ready and felt really good about doing was Firing Sideways so that was the first one that we worked on and released. That song being the first one I worked on for this project made me think for a long time, ‘wait, I don’t know if I can write anything better than that.’ It was a nine-month-old song at that point because I wanted it to be weird but for a long time, couldn’t figure out what kind of weird so we let it collect dust for a while.
Lonnie majored in classical production in college and his family is full of bluegrass folk musicians, so has all this crazy music theory energy around him. My dad sings and plays piano but when I went to grade school I did choir and musical theatre, but that was the extent of it. When I went to college, I joined an acapella group and will always credit it as the thing that made my vocal arrangements unique and interesting, but Lonnie is so organised with everything and I’m very much like, ‘this will sound good, let’s try!’ We’re very opposite in that way but I think as we got to know each other I’d be like ‘no, it needs something eerie - let’s hit the wall or something’ because it’s so much of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.
After Firing Sideways, we worked on a couple other songs that are just sitting, and I’m waiting for the right time to release them because they were just too happy to release on this project. The only happy song I’ve ever written is just sitting on Lonnie’s computer! We are in Connecticut now and for the most of this project, Lonnie and I were working on it remotely. Our original plan was to do it in person in Philadelphia, but we’d drive back and forth a few times and meet in the middle in New Jersey to figure out everything from there.”
“Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) wasn’t the first song we worked on, but the three that we finished last were Hole in the Wall, Big Picture and Dog Ear. When we were picking the track order, we tried to sit with not only what makes sense chronologically but also sonically. I think that Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) was written as I was coming to terms with knowing the truth about a person and situation. I was in that grey area between before and after, when you’re trying to cope with the fact that you know this thing now. Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) felt a lot more hopeless, and it was just kind of a hoping, praying and grovelling to a god that I don’t believe in that this person would suffer some kinds of consequences and I wouldn’t be there to see it. I wrote it when things were desolate, as well as Dog Ear which is about the same situation.
When we decided to bookend the project with those two new songs, the intent of that was for Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) to be something that’s not necessarily hopeless but deeply confused, because I wanted to start the listener off with this feeling of complete anger, guilt and betrayal - but the crux of it all is a confused how could you? There’s very much a growth in resilience and development of determination throughout the project, and it starts with Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) being a ‘fingers crossed’ kind of song. There were all these questions floating around that I had literally no way of answering, I was just so perplexed at how someone could bring themselves to be such a monster, and Dog Ear came after I’d come to terms with the fact that the initial read I’d had on someone was wrong. Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) was an internal read on how I was going to try and get through that situation, but Dog Ear was my post-escape anthem of being in a birds eye view of it all.”
How did it feel to explore a heavier sound with At Your Best and was this song more cathartic to write because of that?
“I think honestly that it would’ve gotten to 3/4ths the power that it did if it wasn’t for Lonnie pushing me. I only ever saw it getting as heavy as Dog Ear, but the person who inspired this project had been hitting me with the ‘whisper singer’ allegations. They’d gotten to know my music through my song, Deny Me, which was a powerful song but the people that approached me around that time wanted to put me in a soft singing box. I’m not formally vocally trained at all but when I was in high school productions I was usually the big boisterous alto with the crazy belt, and I knew myself and that I had a really strong voice so when this person came into my life and called me a ‘whisper singer’, I was like not only do you not know my music, but you don’t know music at all. They just saw a girl-looking person with a guitar and had their reservations about how I was going to sound. I think it also takes away from the value of artists who sing softly, because they of course deserve their platforms - and just because someone’s voice doesn’t have as much power behind it as someone like Adele, it doesn’t take away from the value of the message they’re trying to send.
Lonnie suggested building out the outro a little more, because my plan was to just make it a chilled outro into the next song that wasn’t more than a 5/10 on the power-intensity scale, but we talked so much about what these songs were about whilst creating them. The goal of my writing recently has been to create this element of mirroring and intentionality between both the composition and the lyrics. On a more complex scale, Lonnie was like, ‘there’s so much tension behind these lyrics, do you feel like this is more deserving of a bigger moment since there’s not another one on this project?’
I’d spent the last few years of my life at a chain of schools that focused a lot on rock music, so I was around a lot of heavier guitar sounds and indie rock when I was living in Philly. I had really tried my hand with a sound like that very early on in my career and quickly learned that it’s a really hard one to learn how to channel into production. An easier gateway into production that I found was to learn how to mic up my acoustic guitar correctly and make up interesting textures. Something that took me a lot longer to figure out was what electric guitar sounds sounded best together, what sort of pedals belong where and how to compose a drum part. I’ve always had my head in this vocal arrangement - string, guitar, piano - sort of world so the percussive element was very new to me.
I had thought for a long time I didn’t like how I sounded when I arranged in full, but it turns out that I just didn’t know how to engineer it! Once Lonnie said we could do it with a big scream at the end, I was like okay. It felt new and it felt scary but it was definitely what the song deserved. As unfortunate as it is to admit this, I am partially fuelled by spite so that kicked me into gear a little bit. Lonnie was like, ‘do you wanna fucking tell them so? tell them so,’ and him rebuilding my confidence was definitely how the project came to be. We bounced a few versions back between ourselves, and I wouldn’t have the song any other way. The best parts of this project have come from us pushing each other, and it’s been really nice to produce a project with someone who lets me stay in the production chair. In a co-production setting, a 50/50 split doesn’t often happen but Lonnie’s mission as a producer is the same as mine; to realise your vision and make you feel great about how something sounds.”
Do you have any advice, comfort or guidance for listeners who relate to your song, Smaller and might be trying to get their voice back but don’t know where to start?
“I just got back from talking with a bunch of my high school teachers, and pretty much all of them were like, ‘yeah, you had it pretty rough growing up’ and echoed a really big feeling of pride for me being able to do something with how helpless and drowned I felt by the world.
I had all of these questions like why is this there? why is this this? and as an autistic person, that sensitivity to things being just, right and moral came up a lot - way before I was even aware of it. I was just in this constant state of what and why and how, but the thing that my dad told me was that ultimately, I just needed time. If there’s an impatient person reading this thinking it has to be now, I get it, but it’s the most valid piece of advice I can give.
I’d say, don’t let what’s happening isolate you into being the only person in your life that you love and care about, but also become good friends with your internal monologue. Be that through journalling, videoing yourself talking, visual art or creative writing in some way - any sort of creative expression - the sooner you have a firm grasp on what you sound like, the more able you are to fend off anyone else who’s trying to tell you what you sound like.”
“Time ultimately is what gets you away from those people, whether that’s through working for money to get away or waiting until you’re old enough to file for certain privileges or move out. Part of it is time, but part of it is also knowing your own voice literally better than anyone else. That doesn’t mean to exclude people like your partner or long-term friends, because if they’re good people and they’re good to you, don’t shut them out just because they don’t know you exactly how you want them to.
I just think that only good has come to my life since knowing my voice in that way because I’m able to recognise when an opportunity fits me or doesn’t and say yes to the right things, and not yes to everything. It takes a lot of trial and error, mistakes happen, you might trust the wrong people or make the wrong calls every now and again but you cant necessarily blame yourself for it. In so many situations, how were you to know?
I think reading, writing, watching movies or TV and getting a sense for the media you consume is helpful, too. Something that I’ve said a lot in interviews before is that your internal monologue is a lot stronger and poetic than you think it is. You have an identifiable voice, and it might not necessarily be a ‘writer’s voice’ yet, but you have an identity that’s exclusive to just yourself. Learning your way around that can take time, people, help, sometimes therapy or self-help workbooks and a lot of different things. I will forever be on that journey of trying to figure out what I sound like, but if you know your strength and have a really strong sense of personhood and identity, that’s kind of where I tell myself that everything is going to be okay.”
Can you describe the mood of your song, Hole in the Wall in three words?
“This song was something that Lonnie and I definitely threw back and forth a lot because it only ever lived as an electric guitar and a voice, that was all I ever wanted it to be. We ended up adding bass and synths, then toiled for a while on what kind of drum pattern we wanted as it had to be very light and tame because it’s a very story-driven song with a clear chronology. We’re way past three words now [laughs] but I think reflective is definitely one to describe it. Especially being a person who did not grow up with the the same money, power and connections as a lot of people in this industry - because if you have one of those things, you can get the other three.
There are a lot of people in the music industry spaces that have been training for this their whole lives, and I’ve only been finding out recently about all these things that other indie-folk musicians were doing before they even got to high school. I was reflecting on my lack of knowledge, connections and money and how it was going to make forging this path much harder - and that’s definitely been true. I was fresh to the industry at the time that I wrote this song and the politics of it. So it’s not quite a diss-track about parent/child relationships, but more so about the exhaustingly privileged energy I see in the industry sometimes. Definitely a reflective and cathartic call-in, is how I’d describe the song.”
Having painted the cover art for Big Picture ft. Buff Chick, what was that process of translating the vision in your mind onto paper?
“Honestly, all of the artworks have been building on each other but I’ve had truly no plan - as is natural with any neurodivergent person, I’ve flown in on the seat of my pants. I knew with the Firing Sideways cover that I wanted that really oil-based and to be driven by strong, bold primary colours. I tried to take elements of that and dilute the intensity and drop down into acrylic with Smaller.
From that point, it started getting a little more complex. I used some of the same watercolour that I was using there for At Your Best, which had the same little window pane that you can see in the Big Picture ft. Buffchick cover art. That was meant to be an inside the window sort of thing where I dripped candle wax all over it, and Buffchick who finished the second verse is a Brooklyn-based artist. I wrote the song when I was in the heart of the city, feeling so alone and like the world would never stop even though my heart was broken. So, I wanted to do the art from this ‘outside of the window’ perspective where you can see the figure of the person who was chosen over me. I wanted it to feel like New York, and it’s kind of been a continuous development of the work building on each other. I felt the pressure for sure and first felt like it all had to be so detailed and complicated but then I was like, actually, the artwork best represents the project if it’s just like nothing!”
Dog Ear - especially its bridge - was one of our favourite parts of the EP. Could you tell us about the vision surrounding it, and how you approached closing out the story of After Knowing with this final song?
“It’s essentially a song about how the initial read on a situation I was in was, ultimately, true. Whilst Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) was an internal read on how to get through that situation, Dog Ear was my post-escape anthem and statement that ‘I’m here now, and I’m smarter than you thought I was.’ There’s very much a growth in resilience, and a clear development of determination whereas Something You’re Proud Of (Crime Television) is more of a fingers crossed.”
Was it a purposeful thing to make the EP cyclical by mentioning dogs in both the first and final tracks?
“I looked back on it literally two days before this project was due, because I’d been struggling with this feeling of what it’s like to be an artist when fan communities can either be great or super scary - as someone who was a big Directioner and fan of 5SOS and all those things. I’d written this song that uses yet another dog metaphor and the opening lyric, “I feel like a dog, I love to assume you’re bound for the door,” was what made me start writing this song. It was about this feeling of co-dependence and anxious attachment towards fans who I felt could leave and ditch me at any second, as a person who had really inconsistent love in my childhood from one of my parents, it’s a really weird and interesting parallel. I had written this other dog song two days before the deadline and I was almost going to put the voice memo on the project to have a third dog motif, so we’re looking at throwing together a little deluxe version. I might put that on there… But I guess I’m just following suit with indie-folk artists mentioning dogs like Searows and Noah Kahan!”
Now, for some mandatory fun questions…
If you could live inside any album cover, which would you choose?
“My first inclination is the Flower Boy cover by Tyler the Creator that’s in a garden but there’s bees in that and I hate bees, so definitely not! My second inclination is Revealer by Madison Cunningham but there’s a lot of hypnotic energy in that so I feel like I’d get a headache pretty quickly. Maybe something by The Army, The Navy like Fruit for Flies because their artwork in general just freaking rules. I wouldn’t want to live in it forever though because a lot of the artwork is based on rotting fruit, but the art itself is mastery truly.”
And finally…if you were to make a vision board for the rest of this year, what would be on it?
“I feel like my goals are so conceptual but definitely a picture of a house or apartment that my girlfriend and I share by ourselves. A pet would be cool, and a lot of nature and greenery. I want to do a better job of getting outside! Pictures of jam sessions, too - anything that shares the magic of music. Also lots of tropic fruits - big fan of fruit - and natural sunlight.”
In fact, starting tonight, Grace is set to head out on a US tour in support of the Australian indie pop-rock band, Eliza & The Delusionals. Starting with an opening night in San Francisco and ending June 15th in Sacramento, we’re sure that this next month of Grace’s life will be mood board-worthy.
We can’t wait to see what’s next for Grace Gardner in 2025 and beyond, and for our US readers wanting to hear their favourite songs from After Knowing on tour, tickets are available here.
To stay in-the-know about their work in the meantime, you can follow Grace on Instagram, and find the rest of their discography on Spotify:
