VÉRITÉ talks Somewhere In Between, being the boss, and her dark video for "When You're Gone"

Three singles into her album campaign and we've only heard a small chunk of what is to come from the singer-songwriter's debut album, as she's opted for an all new collection of tracks to make up the record. Led by "Phase Me Out", latest track "Bout You" is a stone cold synth anthem. Now, second single "When You're Gone" gets its own music video.

A key component of any artist's aesthetic is the visuals released alongside their music. With just one thus far, VÉRITÉ's second was sure to be impressive and "When You're Gone" does not disappoint. Set at a macabre dinner party, VÉRITÉ and her guests are some kind of cyborg dressed in period clothing. With almost gothic styling, the video is all kinds of creepy and confusing; a "cult dinner party" were the words that came to Byrne as she listened back to the track, and thus planted a seed for the video treatment.

With an album's worth of material already online through her three EPs, which show the progression in her sound, we caught up with VÉRITÉ for an in-depth chat about the album and her journey from waitress to CEO.

“Phase Me Out” is the lead single, and has been out around a month now, how’s that been going?

It’s been great. I feel it's odd releasing singles when you know it’s coming as part of a much bigger project. How I tried to write the album was so that it wasn’t defined by any one song, so that each song could hopefully stand on its own. I just didn’t want to make a boring album and so “Phase Me Out” is just a very small sliver of what the album is. It’s been great though, everyone has been very happy and supportive.

2017 has already been quite a big year for VÉRITÉ, what has been the highlight so far?

I think having the album done. I’m just excited to push it out and I’ve got a very large team working with me, so I feel like I finally have the resources to make a much bigger push and splash and music videos, which is fun.

The first music video you've done is for “Phase Me Out”, why was this?

Yeah, made people wait for it! I’ve been experimenting and failing... I think when you release visuals, it really defines a project and so the visuals just haven’t matched up to the world that I wanted to create. Part of it is probably confidence and growth. Now I've found a director in London, I actually shoot my videos in the UK. I’m shooting the video for “When You’re Gone” next week, so I’m just pushing myself. The music video is going to be pretty insane.

“When You’re Gone” came out today, can you tell us some more about that track in particular?

I wrote the track’s first verse and pre-chorus on a train up to see my parents. I forget what I was listening to, but I just had this moment where I put my head in my hands and I was like “I only write shit”. It was one of those super self-deprecating moments where I was like, “What the fuck am I doing with my life? You’re not an artist!” Semi-nervous breakdown, then I wrote that first verse and afterwards I was like “okay, I’m not complete shit.” It became this rant in my head, and it stuck with me for a few days, then I took it to a producer in LA - James Flannigan - and we fleshed out the production. I wanted it to hit hard and I love that it’s the first track on the album, because it’s a statement that I’m not fucking around.

The album is called Somewhere In Between, why did you choose that title?

I knew I wanted it to be a title track, just because all of the EPs were title tracks and I fucking hate naming shit, it’s the worst! As the album was coming to be, I would test different titles in the album. It was going to be called Death With Me for a while, [which] was a little too depressing to some people! “Somewhere In Between” was the last song I finished for the album and it just kind of fit. It was like this odd nostalgic summary of the intent of the album, which I didn’t really intend to do when I started it.

Is there a message or an intent that you built into the album as a whole?

Like I said, “Somewhere In Between” is the summation of all of it. The first line of that song is “somewhere between living and dying,” and so for me, that’s what the album is. It’s the odd snapshot into my current reality and I feel super distant and separate from things a lot of the time; figuring out how to navigate relationships and people and the world in my weird fucked up head. I think it’s definitely that.

It’s taken a while to get to the point where you’re releasing an album, why did you decide to wait so long?

I’ve definitely had the material for albums - I mean, for the first EP I had a full album, the second EP I had a full album. I think it’s important to grow smartly and strategically, and I’m still technically independent. You want to make sure you’re building a sustainable fan base and that people understand your identity; you don’t want to release an album to no ears. I wanted to be sure that I could build up to the point where I would have an audience to release an album to. Sometimes it feels like a slow-moving train, other times it feels like everything is moving so fast, but I just wanted to put myself in a position where I’m in control creatively. I’m in control of the whole project and I have the final say on everything, which is really rare, but beautiful.

Do you ever feel like thinking strategically has compromised your creativity at times?

No, I have a split personality in that way. I don’t dedicate so much time to being creative, it just pours out. All of the initial song ideas come on the train, or when I’m walking somewhere, and I just log it. That part is very natural for me. Spreadsheets and organisation and strategy is also very natural to me, so I think there are two parallel roads in my mind at all times, which is a nice gift given the industry I’m in. Sometimes it’s annoying, but it would be annoying any other way too. I like the world that I’ve built for myself; managing business aspects of the project and executive producing an album. They don’t seem like they would go together, but they do in my head.

The album is made up of entirely new material; was it important for you to put out something new, rather than a mix of old and new?

I think a greatest hits is a cop out, I do and I think that’s very common that debut albums are just a collection of things that people have already heard. They fall flat, because what happens in my mind is you release an album, five of the songs were already singles and then the next five are less good versions of those singles. I wanted very much not to do that, so I made a separate body of work. Hopefully I’m better than my EPs. Everything that you do allows you to grow and so I think the album is hopefully a step up from them, and hopefully the second album will be a step up from this, because you’re always growing and changing.

Were there any older songs that you had thought of including on the album?

Sonically, it’s just a little different. I feel like “Living” would’ve fit well on the album, just with the vibe. “Underdressed” obviously has the most streams of any of the songs from the EPs, so that would’ve been a smart move, but I just wanted it cut and everything new. There’ll be a lot of material for people to sink their teeth into.

Which new tracks are most excited for people to hear?

I’m excited for them to hear all of it. I tried to make a range, so there are songs which are definitely like more pop banger-esque, like “Saint”, which is funny, because we didn’t intend for it to be like that – it just kind of came out. There’s a song called “Better” that I really like, which I wrote in 15 minutes - super quick and it was done - and I was really happy. “Solutions” is the throwback, but there’s a bunch. There’s “Floor” which is the ballad of the album, if you will, but there aren’t really any ballads on the album.

“Solutions” is a track that's been in your live set for a while. Are there any other tracks you’ve held back for the album, and was there a point where you decided you were writing for the album?

Everything’s kind of been saved for later, in a way, just because I’m always creating and logging and putting it in the arsenal and waiting for the right time to finish it. I don’t really finish things, unless I’m going to release them and then once I decide to finish something it gets released. I just kind of knew I was writing for the album, because I knew I wasn’t going to release 4 EPs - that would’ve been crazy, and I think people would have become impatient. From the writing that happened for the third EP - which is where “Phase Me Out” was written - it was like, “Phase Me Out” is going on the album, “Solutions” is going on the album, and you know there’s a bunch of demos, so I picked my favourites. Then I did some more writing and took it from there.

Do you feel any added pressure with the release of the album in comparison to your previous EPs?

I think it’s equal. I’m at this point in creating and existing, it’s not that I don’t give a fuck how people feel about it, but I just know that I worked my ass off on it and did the best that I could do and pushed myself as far as I could go. The rest is up to other people. I felt like that with the Living EP and probably feel a little bit more like that now. I’m just excited to do the second album now, which I’ll start in June probably, because I like to be productive. I feel this odd weightlessness about it.

How do you think the album compares sonically to the EPs?

I think it’s a step up. When I did the first EP I didn’t know how to listen for a mix, for instance. My ears weren’t trained for certain things. Now I know what I’m listening for and I’m much more confident in delegating production responsibilities. I spent a lot of time with the producers, assigned the producers different aspects of songs and was very intentional with that, so for me the production is cleaner, it hits harder, and hopefully it’s smarter. Like I said before – I learned from listening back to the EPs, what I would do better and differently. Hopefully I did those things better and differently for the album.

In terms of production, how much of that do you do yourself?

I write and I executive produce. I’m not a producer; that is not my art and I respect people for whom it is their art, I just don’t have the patience to sit there and do it well! What I do is piano and vocals with very rough demo production in Ableton. Then I have three core collaborators, who I’ve worked with in the past, who I worked with on the album a lot. It was a process of seeing the bigger vision and knowing where I wanted the songs to go; for example giving someone “Saint” and letting them do their thing, because I trust their aesthetic and I know what their strengths are. I know that if I say “Give me slamming fucking drums”, the producer who produced “Saint” will give that to me. James, who produced “When You’re Gone”, has a very distinct style. It’s about knowing people’s strengths and using them to build this bigger picture.

You’re still independent, and have written about being an independent artist. Is that still something that’s important to you?

It is, it really, really is! I think a lot of people think I’m crazy, and I think a lot of people think that major labels just hate me, but it’s very much been a decided and strategic position. I want a career in ten years, I want to be able to write music when I want to and to release music when I want to. What I’ve done is kept my head down and built this, and as I go along brought on strategic partners who understand my vision.

I work with Kobalt Music Recordings, who are very entangled in the project now. They are phenomenal strategic partners so I can have a full global push. [They provide] management, lawyers, publicists, all of these things, and I get to be the head of this ship. If the ship goes down, then I go down with it. I’ve made peace with that.

Nobody talks about all of the major label artists who never release music, who release two songs and get dropped, or not dropped and told to write hits. The people who are releasing music are probably about 5% of the overall people who are signed! I never wanted to sign away my ownership, because early on, when I was successful independently, I saw the value of owning my masters and being able to operate like that.

What is it like being the CEO of VÉRITÉ?

It depends what day you ask me! Overall, it’s the bed I’ve made for myself and I sleep really well in it. Sometimes it’s stressful, sometimes you’re required to have hard conversations which are uncomfortable, but ultimately I create what I want, I release when I want, and I’m able to work with phenomenal creative people who are in full support of my vision. Nobody told me what kind of album to write, nobody listened to the album and said to change anything. This is my album. I executively produced it. There was no A&R - I was my own A&R! I shared it with people for comments and the comments were minimal, they were like “Great job, keep going.” I don’t know how many people can say that, so I’m really grateful it’s been sustainable like this.

In the process of making the album what were some of the more difficult parts?

Communication. It’s my album, I have to get up and sing it, and I need to do all the press for it and I need to love it. It’s interesting navigating that as an artist, and it’s interesting navigating it as a women. It’s all of these personalities and creative voices and it’s my job to funnel them. It was a bigger undertaking than I realised it would be in the beginning - a lot of emails, putting my foot down and saying no, I want this bass sound. I’m lucky and working with people I trust, and people where if I put my foot down and they put their foot down, I can let them go with their way and try it and we’ll edit it from there. It taught how to be much more collaborative, open-minded and bold in a lot of ways. It also taught me how to stick to my guns and to trust my instincts, when that makes sense.

You mention being a woman in the music industry, has this ever been an issue for you?

It’s a weird subtle thing; a subtlety that I haven’t experienced much of, because I tend to be very strong. I have a strong personality, I’m sure of things and I’m not afraid to play in a boy’s club. The subtleties can really stab you in the gut: people undercutting what you’ve done, or thinking that me saying I executive produced the album means that the male producers who worked with me didn’t do as much work and feeling like that’s an undercut. It’s like no, they’re two different jobs! Wverything is subtle. People [assume that] "Oh, you’re just a singer," and there’s part of me that wants to be like, "No! I write everything, I fucking run the business, and have my hand in everything, go fuck yourself!" The subtleties are what kills you.

Do you feel like you have a lot of freedom?

I have so much freedom, the freedom is daunting sometimes. Sometimes I want walls. The freedom is also really exciting. I’ve been doing this full time for two and half years, essentially on my own with my team. There are limitless possibilities. I came from waiting tables and I think when you’re in that world - especially the way that I was in it; obsessively, because that’s how I am with everything - it can feel very trapped. You can feel like there’s no exit and you’re stuck in this monotonous day-to-day. It’s really interesting to transition from that into “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to," but it’s a beautiful thing. I try and view it as a gift and then be as productive and hardworking as I can, building it up and pushing myself to do things that people would think are impossible to do as an independent artist. That’s what I’m hoping 2017 is, just proving people wrong.

Thinking back to Kelsey who worked in Applebee’s, what would you tell her now?

I don’t know! I don’t recognise that person, which is odd. I was super shy and terrified of everything, very unsure. There were a lot of situations where I felt uncomfortable. I was terrified of confrontation, but I had a really dope work ethic that my parents have drilled into me since I was a kid. I think I’ve taken the work ethic and transformed the majority of my personality. Other than that, I would just tell her to keep hustling tips.

Finally, we can’t not talk about that “Somebody Else” cover, which has crazy streams!

Of course, I don’t really know how it happened! I have to be honest, it took me two days to do. I heard the song and I feel in love with. I’m a 1975 fan, but not an obsessive 1975 fan. I respect everything they do, I respect their visual aesthetic, everything, and it just resonated with me.

I decided to do the cover, and played a quick piano/vocal demo of it and gave it to Zach Nicita, who also produced “Saint” and produces a lot of my stuff. I was like "This is the cover I want to do, and I don’t know what I want to do with it yet." It was one of those moments - because I work with people I trust, I just handed it over. He sent me back this skeleton production, and he’d nailed it. We edited it from there and put it online, because I wanted to share something between the EP and the album. Spotify called a month later and said, "It’s having a crazy reaction and we’re putting it on Today’s Top Hits," where it lived for six months. Now it has 62 million streams. I have these rare moments where I feel super confident and I had a few people who were really excited about me doing a cover, unsure about the song and whether it was a big enough song, but I was like "No, I love this song, I’m doing it!"