George Maple Interview

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Interview with George Maple 

This month we have a chat with Jessica Higgs, better known as George Maple, who has been touring with the likes of Flight Facilities, and who’s vocals you may have heard on the odd track from Flume. More recently working with Bondax and Snakehips, George Maple is a name to add to your musical memory banks for 2013.

Hiya, how are you today? Where in the world are you right now?
Heya I’m pretty good…nursing a little bit of a hangover. I’m on tour with Flight Facilities at the moment, we had a show last night. Lot’s of our friends came to the part which is always a recipe for pain the following day. I’m sitting on a white leather couch looking out over the Miami Bay and watching some Wednesday night fireworks. Fireworks on a Wednesday is a completely normal thing here. There is also a lot of skywriting, helicopters and girls dressed in bikinis and heels. It’s so amusing. I’m waiting for the guys to return from Whole Foods, which is the best supermarket in the world. It’s the first time we’ve had an apartment in two weeks, we’ve been living out of hotels so I’m really excited to do some normal things like cook.

You’ve just been out to Austin for SXSW, how was it? Tell us about the festival? Did you see any particularly stand out acts whilst there?
We played six shows in a row prior, so we were all pretty exhausted. We did manage to wander around the festival. There are a lot of crazy costumes, half naked cowboys playing guitar, buskers on the side of the street, lots of noise, it’s an intense vibe there and lots going on. My favourite act was definitely Toro et Moi, we played after him at the KCRW show which was really special because I’m a big fan.

Your new single ‘Fixed’ is out on 15th April, it’s great, what were your inspirations behind the track?
It was the most bizarre experience – I had been writing really intensively for a week or so, for hours on end each day – and I think when you get into those zones, your brain goes a little crazy and keeps on working when you sleep. I woke up at around 2am, recorded the drum pattern and the melody into my computer and then fell back asleep. When I finally woke up in the morning I wasn’t sure whether I had dreamed the whole thing! When I first got to London, I met Royce (Wood Junior) and he helped me finish it off and he built the kind of psychotic elements into it. I am fascinated by unrequited love; I think it’s the most torturous and powerful emotion. It plays with so many basic instincts we all struggle with; control, power, fragility, vulnerability and I have definitely been sucked into that void more than once.

You’ve worked closely with Flight Facilities, what’s it like working with them?
It’s great ha ha! I’m sitting next to one of them right now! I’m really lucky to have met them and we are all a little bit like family, we’ve shared so many experiences together. You know when you tour with people, you get to know every side of them and I’m yet to complain.

There seems to be some great new sounds coming out of the UK at the moment, with people like Bondax, who I believe you’re working with at the moment. What do you think about this chilled wave of dance music that’s coming out?
Yeah it is really exciting – there is a really fun crew building over there. Some really clever, well written Pop and Dance music is starting to emerge, nice melodies, good vocals, creative production. I think it’s really exciting hearing artists like James Blake, Lapalux, Laura Mvula and Lianne La Havas. It would be so good to see if some real songwriting starts to dilute some of the monotonous repetitive music on commercial airwaves.

How would you describe your sound?
I’m not sure; this is such a tricky question! I guess all I can do is make the music and other people can create their own categories for it.

‘Uphill’ and ‘Bring Me Down’ which you collaborated with Flume on both have quite haunting vocals, where do you get your inspiration from?
I was inspired to write ‘Bring Me Down’ after reading the Jodie Picoult novel, 19 Minutes. It’s a story based on the columbine shootings, and is written from the perspective of all the people affected by the tragedy. It’s quite dark but what I found really interesting was that moment that pushed the main character over the edge. I was reading it thinking, if only someone had intervened earlier, maybe it could have been stopped. I see a lot of teens struggle with fitting in and just coping with the chaos of the world. I picked up the book when I was staying at a yoga retreat. We were meditating three times a day, so I think the clean air kind of consolidated the ideas. ‘Uphill’ was written when I came home from my first big tour. I felt quite disorientated, confused and scattered and I was unnerved by a romantic situation that was playing on my mind, so I guess both were written from quite personal and unstable places.

How did the collaboration with Flume come about?
I heard Sleepless on Triple J about a year and a half ago. Turned out I knew his manager, so I got in touch to see whether he’d be interested in a collaboration because I thought he was absolutely amazing, I think he had about 1000 fans on Facebook then. It’s insane – he’s such a rock star now – so good to see.

What have you got planned for 2013?
I’m just in the final stages of refining the production for the next few tracks at the moment. I think the live shows will start in May, I’m just putting the band together at the moment. I can’t wait to perform again. I’ve been in the studio with some lovely boys, collaborations with Bondax and Snakehips that are each quite different and really fun, so they should be released this year. I really want to release a series of individual tracks throughout the year and then I’d love to go away and write a series of tracks in one place (maybe an album), get all my talented friends together somewhere in a country house maybe in the English countryside at the end of the year.

How did the name George Maple come about?
To begin with I really wanted to try and make George Maple a little more fictitious, like a character from a movie, a little bit more dark and mysterious. I started writing stories about her and where she came from, but I quickly realised it’s not in my nature to contrive a persona. I would just end up confused and disorientated. So now it’s just become the name I make music under. I like it because it gives me a space to breathe. It’s like a blank creative canvas

You have your own label, Tuluum Records, are you releasing other acts through this label?
Definitely! I’ve always had this vision in my head to one day to run a kind of collective, a place where creative people can collaborate and create without any commercial pressures. I would love to have a kind of physical and digital ‘factory’ hang out space that could become a sanctuary. I’d love Tuluum to support all kinds of artists, photographers, musicians, painters, writers. I’d love to release artists, publish works, host events, tours, exhibitions, but obviously this is very early stages, so we’ll see.

Is there anyone in particular you’re listening to at the moment that you would recommend?
There’s so much good music out there at the moment. I’m digging Lapalux, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Robin Hannibal, Rhye, Royce Wood Junior, Jagwar Ma, Deetron and Kwes.

You’re originally from Sydney, what do you think about the difference in the industry between London and Sydney?
I think they are both similar in some ways. I think industries are made up of types of people everywhere you go. I’m lucky to be surrounded by a bunch of good people in the industry both in Sydney and London, the biggest difference is probably the climate.

What’s been a career highlight for you so far?
Touring internationally to sing a couple of songs has been pretty amazing, definitely a highlight, it’s just so much fun. Last week I was just about to go on stage in Vancouver to a sold out crowd and I had one of those “holy shit I can’t believe I’ve lucked out and I’m actually doing this” moments.

By Hannah Shakir

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