Lisa Mitchell inspired by hearing Silverchair’s Straight Lines for new album Warriors

LISA Mitchell shakes off her folk self and goes back to her teenage years, even remembering the songs on the school bus for her new album.

Lisa Mitchell revisits her teenage self on third record Warriors. Picture: Supplied

IT IS four years since singer/songwriter Lisa Mitchell released an album. With a national tour starting tonight and her third studio album Warriors, which features the single Boys, is released tomorrow.

Here’s our latest chat with Lisa, who also heads for shows in Europe next year, about Warriors.

This album sounds like a time capsule of Lisa Mitchell as a young girl.

It feels like my teenage self is very in the album. She’s there.

How easy was it to reconnect with her?

It was really easy, she was wanting to hang out with me. I have been trying to work out why. The song Warriors is me imagining my 14, 15-year-old self. That song itself reminds me of being on the school bus and hearing Straight Lines for the first time. It is such a vivid memory, it affected me, I loved that song so much. I was a massive Killers fan then too and I was really into that gritty bass sound which came through in the Silverchair song. I remember standing up on the bus and smashing my ear to the speaker and asking the bus driver ‘Ken, can you please turn it up?’ as the bus was driving through the country. Me remembering that was such a ‘Wow’ moment while I was playing around at the piano on the Warriors chorus about a year ago. I was being really tongue in cheek with it because it sounded like a power ballad chorus to me and I really wanted to send it to some Aussie hip hop guys. I could hear Hilltop Hoods all over it. But I wanted to see what I could do with it.

Music always seems to have the power to conjure vivid memories of a time in our lives.

The radio was so powerful to a teenager in Albury. This was before the blogosphere was super established, there was no Spotify. There was MySpace at that time so the radio was still so powerful for finding music.

Mitchell claims nerd status for her teenage years. Picture: Stephen Cooper

This time in your life, your mid-teens, was just before you decided you wanted to be a musician.

Definitely. I was still very much under the umbrella of family, it was before Idol, it was before knowing anything else, knowing there was another world out there. My world was school and family and the bush. I was playing busking festivals, folk festivals … I was a bit of a nerdy school kid playing music. I find that time of my life endlessly inspiring for music.

Your album has that sense of childlike wonder, the escape of imagination. How much of it is a romanticised version of your youth or did you have an idyllic childhood?

I had a really good childhood. I think that’s rare now. It’s definitely something I am so grateful for. As you get older, you meet so many people and hear pretty crazy stories about their childhood. I was so lucky, I have really good parents, very supportive. And growing up near the bush was massive to me. Sometimes I resented it — I often make art or songs that feel very innocent but now I get it, I understand why I do that.

Australian singer-songwriter Lisa Mitchell’s third album is inspired by her teenage years. Picture: Supplied

So why do you do that?

There’s a Tarot card called the Fool. I remember drawing it once with my friend Julia and saying ‘Oh great! I’m an idiot.” And she was “no, this is the child, this is innocence, the joy of life.’ I really love that symbol now; childlike wonder is powerful. It’s very scary though, isn’t it, to actually embody that because it can come across as a little naive or silly. I’m a big fan of hearing the humanity in music, the messiness and you have to fight for that as an artist because people want to style you to the absolute tee.

Three albums in, can you do what you want to do with your music and everything that goes with it?

This is another interesting thing about going back to the younger self. You remember how stubborn you were. ‘No, I do my hair like this!’ or ‘No! I sing like this!’ or ‘No! I will pronounce that word like this!’ I will do what I want. I love that brilliant stubbornness. I think I will always be like that, me doing things for me.

There are a lot of songs on the record with ‘love’ in the title. Are they inspired by your own relationship with Jordan (Wilson of Georgia Fair)?

I Remember Love, which I wrote in 2014 in Sydney, was inspired by not feeling in love and being freaked out about that and desperately trying to remember that feeling, being open again. And then there’s that line in The Boys: “I think I’m beginning to care” which is a similar sentiment. I think that line is speaking to the fans because a few people have mentioned it to me, that they like it.

You debuted a different kind of live show when she opened for Grouplove. Are you getting your inner Madonna on now?

The headset (mic)? It’s funny how everyone has their own connection with it like David Byrne or Madonna or Prince or Michael Jackson. I was a little bit nervous about it but it was a really good warm-up for the new show this month. I want it to be almost like theatre.

Will there be costume changes?

Maybe … I want to, we’ll see. The musical is coming in 2018 (laughs). No one says that it should just be the big pop stars who do it. I want more fashion. All it takes is preparation, wanting to have fun with it.

There will be movement but no “chorey” during Mitchell’s concerts. Picture: Stephen Cooper

How do you feel about being thrust into the world of fashion as a musician?

I don’t really think about costumes as fashion, I think of it more as making a character, it appeals to the storyteller in me. Fashion is such a beautiful accompanying industry to music and it’s really fun, I really enjoy it. I have so much respect for designers and stylists, it’s another form of art.

I know you have been taking movement classes. Will we see you dancing in this new show?

I wouldn’t call it dancing, it’s more like movement. Hashtag #chorey … get some Mandy Moore moves. Have you been getting into the Christine and the Queens stuff? I really love that kind of choreography.

HEAR: Warriors (Warner) is out tomorrow.

SEE: Lisa Mitchell performs at Howler, Melbourne tonight and tomorrow, Woolly Mammoth, Brisbane, October 15, Newtown Social Club, Sydney, October 22 and 23, Jack Rabbit Slims, Perth, October 27 and Rocket Bar, Adelaide, October 28

Originally published as Lisa Mitchell inspired by hearing Silverchair’s Straight Lines for new album Warriors