Thea Gilmore: ‘I think in songs’
Time is something that concerns many of us but Oxford-born singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore has taken it one step further and directly addressed the subject in a series of releases, the first of which, WAS, came out in October.
WAS is the first of four EPs that build into a full-length album to be released on vinyl and CD next year. Each will feature four tracks, including a cover, as Thea plays with the concepts of ‘past’, ‘present’, ‘future’ and ‘what if’ in the EP titles: WAS, IS, WILL and COULD.
The first release explores history, both personal and universal, by examining the elements that lead us to make the decisions that determine our lives. “I’ve always really liked EPs actually,” says Thea, whose music features in Olivia Coleman’s latest film Joyride (2022), as well as Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead (2021), Blithe Spirit (2020) starring Judi Dench, and the BAFTA award-winning Bait (2019), of a trend that seems popular among artists these days.
“I’ve kind of peppered my career with them since probably 2001 I think was the first one I did. I like EPs in the same way that I like the concept of a song, in that you can kind of deliver a concept in a very short burst. I think that’s quite powerful, and I think particularly in an age of very short attention spans we have sort of moved away from the idea of a long-playing album.
“We’ll definitely go back there because everything’s cyclical but for now I think that people’s attention spans are dead short, people have lots and lots of stuff to do with their time, and so the idea of concentrating the concept into three or four songs is really powerful.”
She adds: “And in the age of Spotify I think it makes life easier for people to go, ‘Right, here’s an EP, I’ve got 20 minutes, I can get an idea of what this artist is about without having to invest like an hour and 10 minutes of my time in an album’.”
How did Thea come up with this idea of addressing different aspects related to time? “I think because I released an album last year under the moniker Afterlight, which was sort of drawing a line under my past,” she explains. “I’ve made quite a few albums in the past and I wanted to just get away from what I’d done before and begin again, I suppose, like a bit of a rebirth.
“So this [WAS] is me kind of addressing it in a more positive way, I suppose. This is about the past – not just personal past but the historical past and how the past informs us as people, particularly in my case, me as a woman, in the present day.
“Then ‘present’ will be more about this sort of celebration of freedom and looking at what is happening in my life and in the world in general and finding things to be grateful for. Then ‘future’ and ‘what if’, who knows? That’s the whole point of that.”
WAS comprises four tracks, including a version of Hey Jealousy by ’90s alternative rockers Gin Blossoms. “My sister was a massive Gin Blossoms fan,” recalls Thea, “I was a Gin Blossoms fan, although I wasn’t allowed to say it because my sister didn’t like me liking the same things she did, but Hey Jealousy was a song that I grew up playing at full volume.
“There was the Gin Blossoms in one room and then my dad would listen to Dylan in the other, so I had a really good, well-rounded musical education. And, as far as I’m aware, I don’t think there’s been a big cover of Hey Jealousy, and it always seems a shame to me because that era of music – from that point all the way through Britpop – they were my formative years so it felt right to be revisiting it and seeing what I could bring to music that really did inform my youth.”
A formidable live performer, Thea has sold out shows across the globe, releasing 20 albums along the way. She has worked with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Martha Wainwright, John Cooper Clarke, Billy Bragg, and Steve Earle, and was personally invited to open for folk legend Joan Baez in the run up to the 2004 US presidential election.
Thea reveals that she’s constantly writing. “Always. And even when I’m not necessarily sitting down with a guitar and writing music, I will be writing lyrics... My brain is always switched on to how can I get a song out of this, which probably makes me really difficult to be around if you’re my friend, because you never know when you might end up in a song!
“It’s just how my brain works; some people think in images, I think in songs.”
WAS is available to download now. IS is due to be released in January. Thea will be appearing at the Junction’s J2 on Tuesday, November 15. For tickets, priced at £22.50 in advance, visit junction.co.uk. For more on Thea, go to theagilmore.net.
