In The Spotlight: Molly Payton

We caught up with new talent Molly Payton and discussed her new EP ‘Porcupine’, gigs (or lack of), politics and what we can expect from the artist in 2021.

Photographs: Zachary Sunman

Molly Payton, as one of the best new artists I’ve heard this year, needs no introduction. But she deserves one. Fresh off the release of a new EP, this New Zealand native found her footing in the music industry after an eventful move to London where, at the age of sixteen, she started gigging and producing music at a breakneck pace. I was lucky to speak to her ahead of the release of her second EP ‘Porcupine’. What follows is our interview with her, where she reflected on that newest project and the production process behind it, as well as the state of the music industry amidst lockdown, and her links with London and New Zealand as an up and coming musician on the Tmwrk label.

Eliot Odgers: First I just wanted to say that I really love your new EP. It sounds really good. This new EP seems a bit heavier than your last one. What inspired that change? 

Molly Payton: Well, I've always listened to more bands than singer-songwriters. I think when I first moved here I didn't really have access to a band so I wrote songs that I could play live which, at the time, was on my own. So once I met my band, which was when I recorded the second EP, I realised I could transfer myself into a heavier sound. 

Eliot Odgers: So do you feel like you're going to stay in this kind of sound or do you think you would change to something else? Say — electronic music?

Molly Payton: I think my sound will probably continue to develop. I mean, every time I think I've got a solid taste in music or figured myself out, I end up changing my entire personality and look and sound. So, yeah, I'm sure it will develop into something new.

Eliot Odgers: So with this new EP, and I think your first EP, you worked with Oli Barton-Wood?

Molly Payton: Yeah, just the second EP. The first one I did with Oscar Lang. 

Eliot Odgers: I was gonna ask what was it like working with him? And how did that collaboration come about?

Molly Payton: He's, to this day, still my favourite person to write and record with. We were actually in the studio yesterday which is why I missed your call. Before I met him, I used to get really intimidated going into writing sessions because I've only really ever written on my own. I just remember going in that day feeling so nervous and it was kind of my first writing session I'd done with someone who was established and had worked with artists I really liked and I felt a lot of pressure and I went in and I think he noticed that I was a bit nervous? So he just handed me an electric guitar and said “mic up” and started drumming and we jammed for two hours and that's basically how we wrote 'Warm Body'. 

Eliot Odgers: Nice. So how important is the production for your creative process?

Molly Payton: I dunno it it changes really I don't really have a formula for writing songs. Sometimes I'll only write about half a song then bring it to someone like Oli.

Eliot Odgers: Yeah.

Molly Payton: And then other times it's like ten minutes. 

Eliot Odgers: Nice. I have to say your voice is so incredible; how much preparation do you do for that? Did you have singing lessons? Or did you just wake up one day and be like “wow, I've got an amazing voice”. 

Molly Payton: Thank you, that’s very kind! I was about twelve or thirteen when I decided I wanted to start singing. I had been learning classical piano since I was three. So I feel like, after ten or twelve years of that, I just wanted to do something a bit more relevant to being a teenager. So I got my brother to teach me guitar and signed up to singing lessons at my school. Had about three years, I think, before I could sing anywhere near well; and even then I think I doubt my voice. It’s still a bit weak — well not weak — but I didn't have complete control until I'd been gigging for almost two years.

I think it's also because, obviously, I'm a teenager. My vocal cords aren't really fully developed yet? It's still kind of changing and getting deeper which I've actually really enjoyed. Like if you listen to the second and first EP and compare them, you can kind of hear my voice dropping.

Eliot Odgers: I was gonna say that actually — it's definitely a bit deeper on that second EP! And overall there's a real emotive power to your music. How important is emotion when you're writing songs?

Molly Payton: I think it was on the second EP that we definitely went a bit further away from just trying to be emotional and make people sad because that first EP was definitely a tear-jerker. Like, most of the songs were those I wrote when I was in a really bad place and songwriting at that point in my life was kind of there as a form of therapy almost.

Whereas once I started working with my band, and once I'd met Oli and a few other producers and people that I work with, it actually became something I really enjoyed so the songs started to reflect that. Songs like ‘Going Heavy’ and ‘Warm Body’ and how to have fun. They all kind of reflect (well, for me) that time in my life when I was actually starting to enjoy going to the studio and writing songs and it was a happy thing rather than a form of expressing sadness, you know?

Eliot Odgers: Yeah, of course.

Molly Payton: I still do that. Obviously, Rodeo is my favourite song on the EP and that's very much something that could be on the first EP.

Eliot Odgers: When I listened to the second EP earlier today the song Rodeo left me so, I don't know, speechless at the end. It's just so powerful.

Molly Payton: I think that song is probably my favourite because it was the simplest to write. All of them are quite thought-out; whereas rodeo is something from sitting in my room. I was having a hard time with someone I was dating and it just came out and it was really honest and fragile. I think it gives the EP a little moment of peace in between all these almost aggressive songs. It's a moment of fragility and honesty.

Eliot Odgers: Speaking of the new EP, what’s the origin behind the name?

Molly Payton: Porcupine! So we've got like two stories for this. The official one that I was saying earlier on was that it's about like defence mechanisms and stuff. When you've been hurt so many times that you start to keep people at arm's length.

Eliot Odgers: Yeah.

Molly Payton: But the other one, which is where I first had the idea, is at the time I was writing the EP so by last summer when I just kind of left high school, I had bleached my hair for probably two years to the point where it was falling out and then I dyed it black and it all broke off — like the top part of it all broke off. So I had a ring of spikes around the back of my head. For a good like six months of my life, everybody used to say I look like a hedgehog. So yeah porcupine!

Eliot Odgers: I love the live video you did for your song ‘Corduroy’!

Molly Payton: Oh, yeah! I shot that at my lake house in New Zealand. That was such a nice experience. My brother in law Don came and visited. We paid for his flight and I bought him a bottle of whiskey, then shot it for free.

Every night I stayed at my lake house, we used to walk down and feed the eels from that jetty. So it was so weird bringing in music because I really don't connect my New Zealand life with my music life, since I didn't really start performing or gigging until I moved to London.

Eliot Odgers: Yeah.

Molly Payton: So doing something like that, like shooting a music video at this lake house where I've been going since whilst I was in the womb, is quite surreal. Bringing those two sides of my life together is insane. 

Eliot Odgers: That's cool that you still go back out to New Zealand then because obviously you're from there originally.

Molly Payton: I try and go over for a couple months if I can. I'm actually heading back in six weeks.

Eliot Odgers: Nice! Well, yeah, I think they might be doing gigs out that way. Or I might be wrong.

Molly Payton: They already are. They’re already open!

Eliot Odgers: Oh really? That's great.

Molly Payton: Yeah, finally! I miss gigging so much. What was that politician recently who was saying “Oh you're having a hard time? Just get a real job”?

Eliot Odgers: I think it was Matt Hancock? They're all as bad as each other!

Molly Payton: I’d like to see Netflix and Spotify to ban his account!

Eliot Odgers: Yeah. They should do that with Donald and Boris, too. What's your opinion on the political landscape here in the UK coming from New Zealand? Because you guys have Jacinda! 

Molly Payton: I feel like it's not my place to comment sometimes but I think it's all pretty ridiculous, to be honest. It's a shit show. I know that we're very lucky to have Jacinda, though. She's a queen!

Eliot Odgers: Yeah. She's a hero. 

Molly Payton: I want her to run every country.

Eliot Odgers: Yeah, that would be perfect really. Just get Jacinda in charge. So, you released both your new EP and your last EP as well with Tmwrk. What's it been like working with them?

Molly Payton: They've been really lovely and supportive. My manager works as part of their management company but he was really comfortable and knew them really well. It's been the perfect first label experience I think. They've made sure I understand everything because I'm absolutely hopeless with the business side of things but I like to know, y'know? So they've been really patient with showing me how everything works! and they funded the trip to New York just before lockdown so I got to do a gig there and meet the whole team in person, which is really great, and they've been supportive and kind. I've really enjoyed working with them.

Eliot Odgers: That's great! Did you have future plans to release with them? You're in the studio today as well, you said?

Molly Payton: Yeah, I'm going in fifteen minutes. I'm writing with Jimmy Hogarth.

Eliot Odgers: That's cool! 

Molly Payton: He's a bit of a legend, TBH; I get a little star-struck every time I think he's worked with Amy Winehouse. 

But I'm trying to get least some solid chunks of an album written before I go back to New Zealand because I don't really do a lot of production and stuff there. Doing lots of writing with Jimmy Hogarth and Oli Barton-Wood. And Dominic Ganderton, from Superfood, he's producing some stuff for me at moment as well. 

Eliot Odgers: Nice! So do you have plans to release something next year potentially, like a debut?

Molly Payton: Absolutely I am! I think we've built a good amount of momentum from these EPs and I want to move on pretty quickly. I mean, I know why I write constantly.

Eliot Odgers: Are there any plans to release your EPs on vinyl? Do you collect records? 

Molly Payton: That's the dream! But financing it doesn't seem justifiable just yet.

Eliot Odgers: Of course. I think one day you could definitely put them both out on like a double EP type thing.

Molly Payton: Yeah, that would be great.

Eliot Odgers: How has it been navigating being unable to play live and not being able to have a proper debut year. You know, because everything's so different now?

Molly Payton: It's been disappointing but people have it worse. I'm lucky because I've been able to move back home and live with my mum so the financial strain hasn't been too hard. There are people out there who really financially relied on touring and gigging. I feel sorry for all the sound engineers and people who actually run the gigs and the venues. So people have it worse and I'm very lucky to have the support system that I have.

Eliot Odgers: Did you watch any of the Mercury Awards?

Molly Payton: I didn't, no. I don't pay a lot of attention to stuff online so I didn't really get involved with lockdown gigs either.

Eliot Odgers: I'm on your page really — they can definitely be a bit weak. 

Molly Payton: The idea of people being put in a little pen and then and not being allowed to dance and get drunk with your mates and move around…

Eliot Odgers: Are you talking about that thing that they did in Newcastle, where they had little cages essentially? 

Molly Payton: That was Sam Fender right? I mean it's creative and I guess we need to do anything we can to get gigs going again. 

Eliot Odgers: Just before you go, what was your last gig — out of curiosity?

Molly Payton: The last gig I played was in New York.

Eliot Odgers: Ah, awesome! Thanks again for taking the time to speak with us! We’re Looking forward to hearing more from you in 2021!

Molly Payton: Thanks! It was nice talking to you, man!

Payton’s new EP, Porcupine, is out now and available on your preferred streaming platform. Go do yourself a favour and pay her the attention she deserves!