In Conversation With Odie Leigh

By Mia Romanoff

This past November, Odie Leigh played The Poetry Club at Glasgow’s iconic SWG3. This room of the sprawling venue, The Poetry Club, was a cozy room that never felt too claustrophobic despite being a sold out event. The intimate room provided the perfect backdrop for the emotionally vulnerable music of both Philip Brooks, Leigh’s opening act, as well as Leigh herself. Brooks took the stage early in the night and played one of the best and most earnest opening sets I’ve seen in a while. They got nervous, shared the stories behind songs, and taunted the crowd for picking George as their favorite Beatle. Most notably, they were able to turn the awkward moments into an endearing framing for their music. 

Leigh’s own set started off slow as she informed the crowd about being in an unshakeable mood, something she would come back to throughout.“It’s so dark. It’s so cold, and I’m just a girl,” she admitted. Leigh then went on to speak about how sad it was that she would be missing Thanksgiving due to a performance in Berlin.  While some in the crowd shook their heads at the thought that 4°C was cold, I couldn’t help but commiserate as a fellow American plagued by the 4pm sunset and patchworked Thanksgiving I myself would be making later that month. Even with the “hardcore library vibes” that filled the room, there were moments of laughter, most notably when Leigh was reflecting on the relationship that inspired many of her songs, lamenting that she “can’t believe [she] wrote all these songs about a man who only wore denim cut off shorts and never wore underwear.” All in all, the show, while not high energy, was human and sincere. Song after song, the audience was able to connect to Leigh while taking in the music that clearly meant so much to everyone there.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Odie Leigh before the show to talk about her UK tour and what’s next.

…

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Hearing Aid (Mia Romanoff): How's tour been so far and seeing the UK?

Odie Leigh: It's been good. I've realized that every place is the exact same, but it's just a little bit different. So nothing ever feels that different. It's just a little bit wacky. Whenever I'm on tour, I don't really have time to explore or really get to know anything. Touring the UK is especially different because at least whenever I'm touring the US, I'm working and I'm making money. But it's an unspoken knowledge (well, it's well known in the music industry) that if you're touring the UK you should plan to lose thousands of dollars, but it's not known to the public that that's the case. All of my friends are like, ‘oh my god you're going to the UK like wow, you've made a big time’ and it's like I'm staying at the houses of random people, nickel and diming, hoping I break even. I should [break even] because again, I'm not spending any money on hotels and Philip, who's opening for me, offered to drive me everywhere, so I don't have to rent a car. But if I had the normal expenses, I would be losing thousands of dollars. So it doesn't even feel like work, it just kind of feels like work that I'm not being paid for because it is work that I'm not being paid for. 

HA: I'm such a huge fan of your music.I mean, your songs are so smart and so vulnerable, and I just was wondering if you could talk about your songwriting process

OL: Most of my songs the less I think about them, the better. I truly just try to get the words out and then sort it out later. So all of my songs are really just based on one initial instinct or emotion and then I just kind of flesh it out from there.

HA: You have this really pervasive and overarching kind of theme about change and growth throughout a lot of your songs and I was wondering what draws you to that like every time?

OL: I don't know. I think [“change” is] just a really good word for some reason. It's just a word that always comes out. I say it a lot. I don't know why but I think that change is inevitable and change is in everything. It's uncomfortable, but it's also necessary, like you can't grow without really having something about you change. 

HA: Your most recent EP is titled The Only Thing Worse Than A Woman Who Lies Is A Girl Who Tells The Truth. Obviously that's a lyric from the first song, but how did you settle on that title and how do you see womanhood manifesting in your music?

OL: Well at first I wanted the title to be an answer to the question of ‘how did it seem to you?’ But then every answer I was coming up with just sucked. Every answer to that question as a title was just not working. [For] this EP I just wanted to make uncomfortable, unpleasant music – stuff that was different than the ethereal, whimsy, folk thing I was doing. I didn't want to get kind of cornered into this whimsy, beautiful, ethereal, nature-y thing because that is not me at all. I am not whimsical and I hate the outdoors. I really needed to just get something out that showed another side, you know? 

HA: Do you think that I guess those early nature-y songs were still coming from a place of truth and it just happened to be what you were writing at the time? 

OL: Yeah, those songs were what I wrote at that time and they did really well. It was what I was writing at the time because I didn't really have any other tools. I was still learning how to play guitar, still learning how to make music, still learning how to write a song. So of course I was making folk music because it's the core of music: acoustic folk music. Now that I've learned more, I'm expanding past that because I have the ability to.

HA: Speaking of inspiration for songwriting, are there any musicians or even non-musician artists that really inspired you and motivate your creative pursuits generally?

OL: I love Fiona Apple. Old Fiona Apple, like, the Red album [When the Pawn], and The Idler Wheel. I remember getting a copy of The Idler Wheel when I was in eighth or ninth grade and being like, ‘Oh my God.’ I had no idea that music could be like [that]. Reading about how she recorded it and how she would run around with a tape recorder and just record different sounds and then put it into the music. I thought [it] was really cool because I had only ever heard of electronic musicians doing that. I thought that that album was so interesting, the way that it brought the world sounds into melodies and I thought it was really beautiful. And then I totally would not be making music had I never heard Connie Converse's music. Her music is incredible and simple and like nothing I'd ever heard. 

HA: You talked before in interviews about how much you love Louisiana, and how you don't really ever want to leave. I was wondering how touring throughout the U. S. and now the UK and Europe has altered that or reaffirmed that. 

OL: It's been really tough because I've never had any aspiration to leave or want to leave. So I'm out here doing all this stuff and feeling guilty that I'm not really having fun. Like knowing that I'm living the dream, but just wishing I was home where it's warm with all of my friends. I think it's really important to know that I am touring alone. Whenever I go on these tours, it's just me or it's me and another person. I don't have a band. I don't have a community of people with me. It's just me and work and it can be really exhausting. I love it because I love my job, but I hope that one day I can get to the point where touring feels more sustainable for me and I can afford to bring my community with me instead of just feeling sad and guilty and weird all the time. But I know that right now, I have to do these things in a way that isn't super comfortable because I know that people want to hear my music, and I want people to hear my music. But, at the same time, what keeps me going is knowing that eventually it won't always be this uncomfortable. I love Louisiana, will always love Louisiana – New Orleans is the best city on Earth.

HA: You've also talked about the pressure to release songs that you don't feel 100 percent done with, or, you're not completely happy with because of the pressure of the social media comments and all of that. Are there any songs that you're still not happy with or would re-release if you got the chance? 

OL: I would say literally all of them. All of them. 

HA: All of them? 

OL: Yeah. All of them.

HA: Coming back to community, because you started from the internet, do you feel the need to retroactively build a local base and integrate yourself into the local music scene, or is it nice knowing that wherever you go, there's going to be the same type of dedication and reception?

OL: I used to want to be accepted into the local music scene, but then I realized that I don't want to play in bars. The New Orleans music scene is about gigging in a way that is exhausting and not really fruitful for me. I've never played a show in New Orleans. I'm playing my first show in New Orleans in January. And I don't plan on playing in New Orleans, probably for as long as I can. 

HA: You want to keep home and work separate? 

OL: I want to keep home and work separate. But also, I have a lot of things I want to do, and getting involved in the local music scene isn't going to do those things for me.

HA: TikTok has done amazing things for you, but is there ever that instinct to get away from it and not be known as the person who got famous on TikTok? 

OL: I don't really care anymore. I've never had a problem with being a person from TikTok. I think I would much rather be a person from TikTok than a person whose parents bought them a career, you know? I would much rather be someone who came up by accident than through anything else. I haven't really been on TikTok as much as I used to since I cut my hair. I just don't like myself as much so I don't want to post videos. If I had kept my hair long, maybe I would still be on TikTok, but that kind of killed it for me. 

HA: That was the end of the TikTok-ing?

OL: Unfortunately, it literally was. You can go and see: ‘Oh, she cut her hair and stopped posting.’

HA: It'll grow eventually. 

OL: I know, but it's going to take two years. I don't want to get into it. That makes me sad.

HA: Up until this point, you've released all your music as singles and then you've had the two EPs, with a few of the songs on [the EPs] being released as singles beforehand. Have you considered working on an album and releasing a larger connected body of work? Or are you liking taking it one song at a time?

OL: I actually just recorded an album. It'll be out soon. 

HA: I read that you played a really big kind of part in the production of your music. Is that something that  you only like to do when it's for your music and  executing your own vision? Or have you thought about kind of helping other artists with production for their songs? 

OL: I am a very opinionated woman. And I would love to help produce other people, but I'm just so busy and I don't have a setup to record or anything [so] it doesn't make any sense, but at some point I could see myself doing that. Right now it just doesn't make any sense, but it is something I would love to do.

HA: I know you also have a background in film and  have been putting out music videos recently. How do you find the process of making visual media for your own songs?

OL: All of the videos that I've put out have been directed by other people. Just as an exercise for me to give up control, but I've realized that I want to co-direct the rest of my videos. Just because I know what I want, and there's no need for me to take that step back if I know what I want. I do think that it is important for me to not control everything all the time, and I don't. These last couple of videos have helped me with that, but they've also taught me that I can still have a say in what I want and that I should have a say if I know what I want. 

HA: Do you like the process of translating your songs to a visual format? 

OL: The actual translation is hard, but once someone has an idea, I have ideas.

HA: I guess finally, what's next? How do you see things panning out after this? You have the album coming up…

OL: I recorded an indie rock album. So, indie rock era.