Transcript of an interview I recorded with ANNE AUTUMN ERICKSON of UPON WINGS - 20201125. Full article here. MAL-
Talking to Anne Autumn Erickson from UPON WINGS. Anne, thanks for joining me today. ANNE- Well, thank you so much for having me. MAL- It's good to have you on, now tell us about the formation of the band, how you got together and who's involved in it. ANNE- I don't even know when we started maybe eight years or maybe even 10 years, but I basically had grown up singing opera and musical theatre and stuff like that. But I really got into metal and rock music and after seeing Iron Maiden live I thought oh my gosh, even though I have this operatic voice that I thought I could never use for like rock music that maybe I can actually make some music and have some heavy backing because I had never heard an operatic vocalist with the heavy background music if that makes sense. So I started just writing music on my own and I wanted to of course record it, so I found some people and they're pretty much all over the place, Brett Hestla who I work with a lot he's down in Nashville right now, he was in Florida for a while and Kevin Jardine who's an amazing producer and guitarist, he's in Canada and I'm in Michigan. So we're all over the place, but I found these people and I just started writing music and they would write the music part and then I would do the lyrics and the melodies and the vocals and stuff like that. And so UPON WINGS was kind of born out of that. MAL- With people spread all over the place, it makes recording music quite difficult. How did you get around that? ANNE- Yeah, it does and it's funny because with Covid-19 right now, it's kind of the only way a lot of people are doing music, but it's been how we've always done it. Usually the instrumentalist will lay down some parts and kind of lay down the flesh of the song and then they'll send it to me and I'll write the lyrics and I'll write melodies over that so that's how we've always done that. MAL- It's not the ideal way is it? ANNE- It's different, you know, obviously, it's not the same vibe as being in the room with the person and you know and jamming that way it isn't but it's okay, you know, it works out for me. I'm an only child so I'm used to being alone and working alone. So I guess in that sense, it's kind of comforting and sometimes I feel like maybe I even feel like I can get a little more intimate with the lyrics and everything because I'm alone whereas when I'm with other people, you know writing with them in person, maybe I feel a little more on the spot. So it's worked out for me, but it definitely is different than being in a room filled with musicians jamming and writing together. MAL- How did you go playing live? Have you played live? ANNE- Well, we're hoping to play a live show next year. We haven't really played a live show yet, which is you know, so crazy to think about and I was hoping to do that this year but then covid-19 and everything, that idea got shut down. So my hope is that when live music returns that we can get out there because we released our debut EP several years ago and has 4 tracks on there and now we've written more music and now we have more to tour with and just more material to give people. MAL- All right. So tell us about some of the videos that you've got on YouTube. I mean 'Afterlife' was done what 2013? Tell us about that one. ANNE- Yeah. So 'Afterlife' was written with Brett Hestla who also has been in CREED and DARK NEW DAY and he's just a great, you know, producer and musician and everything. So that track was written about, it's written about loss and losing someone close to you in life and how hard that is, but also having that faith and that belief that you're going to see them in the afterlife and that kind of pulling you through that dark time. So this music video we shot. It was really cold. There's snow in the video and it was just a super cold day, which is why I left my coat on I was like, I'm too much of a wimp to just you know, it was just at least zero degrees if not colder and it just kind of captures that vibe of you got photos of someone that you've lost and missing them but feeling in your heart that they're still there with you. MAL- All right, so tell us about some of the other recordings that you've done. I must say when I heard you'd done 'Amazing Grace', I thought 'wow, that's an interesting choice'. Tell us about that one. ANNE- Yeah. I really never thought about doing a cover of 'Amazing Grace' or even doing a cover. I'm just not someone who really does cover songs, but when coronavirus first hit back in March that song just, I kept hearing it played on the news and stuff and I saw nurses and First Responders singing it and I've always loved that song and I just kept hearing it and I thought you know, I really want to do my own version of this because it seemed like such an appropriate time for it. So I recorded 'Amazing Grace' with Corey Lowery of SEETHER, he's our guitarist and everything and he's just really awesome. He also mixed 'You Are My Weapon', which is another one of our tracks, like one of our heavier tracks but we recorded that together and it got a really good response, which is nice because I do think of us as a heavy band, as a rock or metal band and so doing 'Amazing Grace' and not a rocked-out version, I was a little bit nervous and like 'I hope people you know, like this', and everything but thankfully everyone seemed to really like it and I hope that it, you know, gave some hope to people and then also I had something on our website where you can go there and you still can go there and you can email this link and then we'll send you the song for free and we encourage you to donate to the charity of your choice. MAL- So have we got new music planned? ANNE- Yes. I'm very excited because we haven't released too much new stuff lately and I've been working on stuff writing and recording and finally we're finished with new music and I'm very excited about it. It's our heaviest stuff I would say, to date. So we're going to release the first new single in January and we have a new music video with it as well, so I'm looking forward to that. I really wanted to put it out this year, but just when we finally got it mixed and mastered and all of that stuff, it got kind of late in the year and we're already the holidays which I can't believe so that's always kind of a difficult time to put out new music, so we're going to do it in early January. MAL- Apart from IRON MAIDEN inspiring you as you already mentioned, what else may have inspired you to produce your own music in this vein? ANNE- Yeah, just so many different bands as I mentioned I grew up singing opera and musical theatre and stuff like that, so 'Phantom of the Opera', 'Les Mis' that was the first stuff I really got into but when I first heard rock music, even music that doesn't sound like UPON WINGS just inspired us, like I love TOOL or A PERFECT CIRCLE and DISTURBED, I mean stuff that doesn't even sound like us just that really heavy backing with a powerful vocal and when it comes to the more operatic vocal, JUDAS PRIEST is another big one for me, Rob Halford I just think is so legendary and you know, so great in every way and he's just such a great frontman as well, and some of the female bands out there too I mean it's inspiring to see women out there in this genre when I first got into it there were only a few really doing it. Now I feel like there are a lot more, but sometimes we get comparisons to NIGHTWISH for example, and that's a huge compliment because NIGHTWISH is such an amazing band and NIGHTWISH was just one of those bands that I heard and after hearing, you know, JUDAS PRIEST and IRON MAIDEN where I thought, wow, this stuff I heard was big in Europe and it was cool to hear a true opera vocalist with that kind of backing. So all of that really inspired me to write with UPON WINGS. MAL- I can understand like an opera vocalist who likes metal, on their own thinking to themself, 'Wow, you know is this going to work?' and then if you see someone like NIGHTWISH making it work you think 'yes, we can do it'. ANNE- Definitely and I mean, I think a lot of it too is being in the U.S. that music isn't as popular, you know in Europe NIGHTWISH or WITHIN TEMPTATION, you know, that stuff is huge. And so I just wasn't familiar and I kind of thought 'Gosh. Is anyone going to like this?' You know, I have no idea. I mean it's different from anything I've heard around here. But then when I heard those other people in other countries, I thought 'good some people there might be an audience, you know for this'. MAL- We've already mentioned NIGHTWISH, any other bands in that sort of genre, realm I suppose, that you are enjoying lately? ANNE- Not a ton, I mean it's funny because I think a lot of bands feel this way, but when we get compared to other bands, sometimes it's bands I haven't even really heard and it's so funny, like I remember one reviewer was like, 'Oh they sound just like EPICA'. I'd never heard EPICA. I had to look them up. But um, so when it comes to the female stuff, I mean it I really listened to more male singers growing up. I don't know why but I think you can't deny. I mean all these bands, EVANESCENCE, IN THIS MOMENT, HALESTORM. I mean they put out such great music and they've really forged the way for a lot of women in music because when I first started out you would maybe hear one woman on the radio, but now when you listen to radio, I do think that you hear a lot more women and you can have women, you know, putting out hits at the same time and that sort of thing. MAL- The new music that's coming out in January, Anne, is that an album? Is that an EP? What is the deal? ANNE- Yeah, so it's going to be an EP but the single will come out in January and then the EP will come out a little bit later in the year probably in the early spring or whatnot. It'll have 'Amazing Grace' on it because we never actually released that track as a proper single, it never got in Spotify never did any of that with it? So it was just on YouTube with the videos. So this will be the first time that you can actually get 'Amazing Grace' as a single and everything, and then we'll have a few of the heavy tracks and it'll be an EP and we have special guest that I'm really excited about so I think that people yeah.. MAL- Tell us more. Can you tell us more? ANNE- Not yet. But as soon as I can I'm gonna get in touch with you, you'll be the first to know but yeah, I've had some guests on before in 'Afterlife' Brett actually sings on it a little bit and I like that dynamic of having a male vocalist with the female vocalist once in a while because that's the only UPON WINGS song that we've done that with so far 'Afterlife', so I figured why not do it again? MAL- Have we got any songs released for the holidays? ANNE- Yes, actually, we have two holiday songs that are out right now and you can find them on Apple Music and Spotify and all those spots 'O Holy Night' was one from last year. And then we also have 'O come, O come Emmanuel, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen', it's a kind of mashup of the two. You can check those out and they both have acoustic guitar solos, which is cool because I don't think you hear too many holiday tracks with acoustic guitar solos or any guitar solos. MAL- Okay. What's the plans for the future? How are you going over there with the whole covid thing? Are you allowed out? Are you confined? ANNE- It's been so crazy this year. I mean, I don't think that anyone could have predicted this a year ago. I mean, maybe they did but if someone had told me a year ago that this is what it would be like I just would think they were just not telling the truth. But so here where I'm based, I'm in Michigan and every state kind of has different rules. And right now we're on a partial lockdown so you can't go to restaurants inside, you can get takeout or you can be outside, but it's snowing right now. So that's not good. (Mal laughs-I shouldn't laugh, sorry.) No, I mean that's one thing about Michigan. I love Michigan, but it's way too cold. So it's kind of crazy. I mean the numbers are very high and I'm just trying to stay safe and keep my family safe. My parents of course are in that kind of danger age range. And so I'm taking care of a lot of stuff for them so that they don't have to go out and about and I'm just trying to stay safe and stay home as much as possible, but I'm just really hoping that next year things are better because I do miss live music a lot, and I mean there's so much that we can't do now because of this. MAL- We used to take live music for granted didn't we? ANNE- I know, I mean I see photos and clips from shows I was at last year and it seems surreal. I mean I see thousands of people shoulder to shoulder like that. It just seems like a different life. MAL- All right, Anne, where can people find you online? ANNE- So if you head to a uponwings.com you can find all of our social media and then it's Facebook.com/uponwings if you just want to go direct. Twitter.com/uponwings and our YouTube is UPON WINGS Official. So that's the only one that's a little bit different and or an Instagram.com/uponwings. But if you just had to uponwings.com you'll see all that and then you can find us in Spotify and all those places. So we definitely appreciate the support. I mean the way music is right now just even having a few new Facebook likes or Twitter followers or whatnot from people. I mean any way that you can support bands like we really appreciate it. MAL- All right. I've been chatting to Anne from UPON WINGS. So thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. ANNE- Yeah. Well, thank you, and I hope that you stay safe and everything and have a great holiday. MAL- Excellent. Thanks for chatting to me today, and we look forward to new music from UPON WINGS early in the New Year. ANNE- Thank you so much. I definitely appreciate it. It was great talking to you. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |