D: 17-
M: OCT-
Y: 24-
A CONVERSATION WITH KATHY WRIGHT AND HELEN SKINNER. ​
h-
The Cavendish is such a nice pub, really friendly….. and lovely pizza. I think it's a jewel in the South London indie scene. They’ve had us on a few times, so we thought it was a perfect kind of place to do the launch (of Sassyhiya's debut album Take You Somewhere on 8 November 2024).
g- Last time I was there was to see Kindsight from Sweden. And I’ve also seen Jon Langford play there.
h-
I love the Mekons.
g-
I had a compilation album called They Shall Not Pass (released by CNT Records from Leeds) that I bought while I was a student in the 80’s in Liverpool. Three Johns, The Redskins, Mekons, early Sisters of Mercy and stuff like that. It was a miners’ benefit compilation. It was so great. It was just one of those records that I would play over and over again. So good. But the Mekons were brilliant.
​
h- I love their musical journey from punk through to country and all their different bits and bobs in between and after. And Sally Timms has got the best voice, hasn't she? Ghosts of American Astronauts. That's the one of my favourite songs.
k-
When we started the band, we did a Sassyhiya faves playlist on Spotify for our band mates to show them what we wanted to sound like, and that was one of the songs that was on it.
h-
They never listened to it {laughs}
g-
So how are you feeling with the release coming up?
h-
Probably a big mix of nervous and excited, really, isn't it?
k-
Yeah, because we've never had an album out on a label before. So that’s both exciting and nervewracking.
h-
We’ve done bits and bobs and other stuff, but not our own proper album. I’ve more helped out with other people on their own projects.
k-
There's been a lot of work, but it's been really fun doing it. But then occasionally I just think, oh my god, it’s coming out soon and the launch party is also coming up. Is anyone going to turn up?!
h-
We'll be like "Hey everyone, we've got this album!"….and there'll be two people there
​
k-
Our friends have come to a lot of our gigs and we're a bit worried that they've come to too many now
g-
It must be really difficult promoting things these days. And also difficult to gauge who’s going to come, have people heard about it, and also there seems to be a lot more live music to go and see. There’s lots of competition for people’s attention
h-
I think also there’s an element of - post-COVID - people just not going out as much, so maybe they don’t want to commit themselves, you know, to keep their options open in case they aren’t feeling it on the night.
k-
We've got two really good bands playing with us and we're having a raffle that Helen's organized. So we’re going all out for it!
g-
A proper night of old school entertainment. I'm all for that. It also feels like the venue has got quite a loyal, regular following as well.
h-
Yeah, the previous promoter was Soks from the band Tugboat Captain and he really established the place. I think he's left to start up his own recording studio. He’s also still doing Tugboat Captain, who are a really good band, but The Cav has been taken over by Dom, who I think just wants to keep it going, really, more than anything. And he's kind of carried on the same kind of vibe, you know, just lots of exciting new bands
g-
Maybe we can delve a bit into your history of how you all came together?
h-
Well, I used to work with Pablo, our drummer, when I worked in an academic library previous to the one I'm at now.
He was in a very kind of noisy, really fun post punk, math, rocky band called Punching Swans. I went to see him play so I'd seen his drumming, and he's a lovely fella, and we were good friends.
His best pal is Neil, who plays the guitar, who I'd also seen playing in bands. We thought, great we could get them both as a package! Kathy and I’s previous band, Barry, just fizzled out, really, during COVID. We'd started doing some recordings on our own, you know, a couple of songs.
W e did a split EP with Mark from our previous band, Barry, about our pets - we did a couple of songs about our cat, and he did a couple of songs about his dog. And I guess we just enjoyed making up songs ourselves at home. And then Kathy did a fair few on her own, which gave us the idea of what Sassyhiya would sound like.
k-
Neil and Pablo are really good musicians. I speak for myself but I'm not the best musician at all. I'm all right, I would say, but they live for working at, and bettering, their craft and all that.
So, we knew that we would sound very different from our other bands, which were more focused on just having fun.
Well, this is fun too, but you know what I mean. When we went in to rehearse, they just immediately picked up the demos and made them into something much bigger than what we had originally.
g-
This is a great example of how bringing people together with different outlooks, different experiences, different thought processes, can help create something completely different to maybe what you expected.
k-
think as a writer of the songs, you have to let go a little bit and allow it to become something that wasn't what you originally had in mind, and not be too controlling or worried about how different It sounds. And just let people do their own creative thing. I mean, within reason, I guess {laughs}
g-
Does that come naturally to you, or is that something that you need to conscious of and work at?
​
k-
​ I have to be conscious of it. I think it's just natural to be a little bit precious about the things that you feel close to.
But, letting go a bit is something that I've learned to do really throughout the last kind of couple of years, I think, to be way more relaxed about how things sound and not write anything off, you know, immediately. To just sit with it a little bit. And usually what happens is that I realize,
Oh, God, this is actually really good. It's much better than something I could have done myself.
k-
Sometimes something will just immediately fit in.
When it’s not quite right, I think the important thing is learning to say that in a positive, encouraging way. I mean, sometimes someone might not quite get the genre of the song that you're trying to go for, and they'll put something in and you’ll go, ‘Oh, they're hearing it completely different to me’.
And sometimes that can be a really positive thing, because it expands the palette of the song.
And it's ok to say it’s not quite right and rein it in, if you want to move it back to the direction you were thinking.
I always think about how bits of the songs or different musical parts fit together to make it how you want it to sound, and how what you put in is obviously very important, but you also have to be very careful about what you're leaving out.
​
​
k-
​ I think it also depends how far down the road you get with creating something.
When Helen was talking about writing the songs during COVID, I had started to use Pro Tools and I built up these quite complicated arrangements for the demos. They were pretty much full songs, you know, with lots of instruments and all that.
So I was very clear in my head of how I wanted them to sound. And then when we took them to the band, they sounded completely different.
And I think part of how I felt about this, was they weren't just rough demos, they were pretty much full songs like I said.
k-
There can be more than one version of a song, even for the same band. I mean, when we put our demos together, everything is quite neat and tidy, but Pablo and Neil both really like jamming, so they'll kind of let themselves loose a bit more.
So, it ends up being quite different.
But one of my favorite records is Cut by The Slits, and the album version is so good, you know, there's so much detail and it's such a distinctive sound. But I also love the demo versions of the same song, which are almost like completely different songs. But I like that you get to enjoy them both versions, and also imagine that journey from one version to the other.
g-
I'm totally with you on that.
For some songs, I could listen to like 10-15 versions of them never get bored of any of them. Sometimes I’ll listen to a song that sounds quite straightforward, and then hear an alternate version and I’ll be ‘oh my god, right, it's not that straightforward’. It breaks the construction down somehow.
And I love that, because I think it lays bare the people behind that song playing it, and sometimes it’s the imperfections, the differences from the final version that give you that “Wow” and give you a bit of an insight into the band. I mean, sometimes, there’s a place for the polished version, okay, that's fine, but sometimes you want to hear something a bit different, a bit more what you see is what you get. But I agree with you, I like the idea of a song that can kind of evolve.
h-
Yeah. And I suppose part of the pressure of actually doing a proper album this time is that it feels more definitive that that's the song now, there it is, on vinyl or whatever.
It's all done.
k-
I don't think it’s necessarily true when you play live, though. But for recorded songs, people are constantly remastering and re-recording things, and we've got loads of different versions of all those songs saved somewhere on a hard drive. And I don't rule out that they might change again in future.
g-
One of my favourite remixes has to be Maps’ (James Chapman) remix of A Certain Ratio’s Get A Grip. ACR gave a different track from their 2020, album, ACR Loco, to a different producer and asked them to give their interpretation of it, no restrictions. The album version of Get A Grip is really funky, clubby and groovy. James is classically trained and he created this kind of opulent, orchestral, really massive, spacious arrangement that makes you stop in your tracks. It featured a guest vocalist, Maria Uzor – she’s a fabulous musician by the way – and James’ mix gives her vocals a completely different vibe. The whole song is unrecognizable from the original and just stunning. I think that's such wonderful vision.
h-
I thought it would be really funny to have a song called Puppet Museum.
k-
There was actually a Puppet Museum in Paris - Musée de la Poupée - and it was closed when we went! Now I think about it, quite a few of them are sparked by something we've seen whilst on holiday. Let's See What We Can Find - that's about a massive flea market that we went to in Montreal - probably the biggest one we've ever been to. It was amazing.
h-
I tend to drag Kathy around these places. So while I'm looking at badges and stickers from the 1970s, Kathy's making up this beautiful song.
g-
Taking your inspiration in different ways.
h-
Yeah, indeed.
k-
Passing songs around happens with indie bands sometimes.
Like when we were in Barry, our last band, our friends who are in US Highball did a cover of one of the Barry songs, and it was so US Highball in the way it sounded. It's just a sweet thing that people who are in bands, who know each other, occasionally do
g-
What sort of themes were running through the record?
h-
I can talk a bit about the sound first: a lot of the demos Kathy had done were quite angular and sparse and maybe with a bit of Kleenex/LiLiPUT/Delta Five about them, or even maybe Young Marble Giants – who we really love - quite a minimal sound.
k-
In terms of themes, I guess those songs that Helen's referring to, I wrote four of them on a holiday in Scotland. We were driving around a lot, and it's beautiful scenery. One of them is Boat Called Predator, actually, so I suppose a lot of them are just observations from a car window! On Our Way for example is about when you're on a long car journey - it's basically a stream of consciousness. You follow the route of the journey. So I suppose travel is a theme and with that I’m also thinking about people who move from place to place and are a bit itinerant.
h-
I suppose you have a lot of references to nature, and I guess that makes sense, because you're looking at travelling. I don't know if I have themes....I mean some of the songs are very much Kathy, and some of them are me. I think mine are probably the more silly ones!
g-
Interesting that what you are observing around you features quite heavily, so I wonder how your physical environment – like from living in South London - influences your songwriting?
h-
I guess we're very fortunate in that we have probably the biggest selection of music to go and see and an amazing mix of cultures and stuff.
k-
Hmmmm, I don’t know, I mean maybe I just want to leave the city or something, but a lot of the songs I've written have been about getting away. I mean, I love living in the city, but I don't know. Maybe I've just come of that age where I think about moving away now, I don't know. And then there's another song called I Had A Thought, which is well, it's not really about environment but, I work in an office, and, you know, maybe it's a bit of a cliché, but sometimes when you're working in an office, you can just feel a bit like a robot. So that song’s about that office environment.
g-
Do you find that you have different personas – like an office one and a band one?
h-
I work in a university art library, so I think I'm quite lucky in that a lot of people who I work with have quite a creative side which is more than just a hobby, you know, it’s stuff that's very important to them outside work. So someone might be an artist or a photographer. In a weird way, it's almost the norm where I am to have that, and it's nice and bright, because everyone's quite supportive of one another's passions so you can ask your work friends to help. So my librarian is a photographer: she's done some band photographs for us and stuff like that. And someone else in the library is an artist and an animator, and we kind of commission them to make an animated video for us. I feel like I’m surrounded by creativity, which I really love.
k-
Yeah. I definitely find it a bit jarring going from work mode to band mode. I have to physically change my clothes when I go into rehearsal. I cannot wear office clothes. I just have to learn to flip into band mode.
g-
How does it feel when you get on stage and start playing?
k-
It's like work doesn't exist. I’ve left it behind. I don't think about it all.
h-
Same for me, I’m just in the moment. I’d just be thinking “now, how does this next bit go?”. Although saying that, I think playing live, there's a fine balance between not thinking about what you're doing and thinking about it too much. If you think too much about “OK, what am I doing?”, then that's when you go wrong, rather than just letting it happen. I like that place where your mind just goes to naturally when you're playing live.
k-
I’m a bit funny about people at work asking me about the band, and, I mean, I tell them, you know, the sort of top line stuff, but if they ever wanted to come to a gig, I don't know how I’d feel about that. People might feel a bit uncomfortable, but your friends come to gigs all the time, don’t they, Helen?
h-
Yeah, they do. I'm bit older. Maybe it's an age thing. I don't know. I don’t really care about the different group or different areas of your life mixing. When I played bands when I was much younger, I was probably more like, ‘oh, my god, is this cool? Are people gonna think this is awful?’ Now I'm like, ‘oh yay, let’s just play it!’
k-
We talk about queer stuff a lot in our band. I mean I’m out at work but it's not something that I talk about there. I think that me being a little bit shy about my personal life is part of it as well. You just have to be decisive and say, I'm not gonna let this bother me.
g-
Is it a welcoming environment for you at work?
k-
Yeah, completely. We got civil partnered last year, and they were really lovely about it, gave me some champagne and all that kind of lovely stuff, but it’s more, I don't know, like I would be a bit embarrassed to say that we've written a song about Kristen Stewart.
h-
That was one of mine. But, I think we both had times when we weren't happy about things like our sexuality. So, we’re at the point now where we can actually put something out there that queer people will hopefully enjoy. Sometimes, you've got to just make what you want to and what you want to be out there. So that was kind of the thought with writing a song about Kristen Stewart.
g-
She’s been a beacon, really. Standing up to what I only imagine is an intolerant industry, like imagine being advised not to be affectionate to your partner in public. She’s sending a very powerful message standing up to that.
h-
Yeah. She’s great. And I think she said a very similar thing herself about when she was on the cover of Rolling Stone, saying she wanted to do the queerest thing ever, and some people were saying what she is doing is disgusting, and she just said that this is what I would have wanted to have on my wall when I was a teenager. So, really us doing the song is her doing the magazine cover – it’s the same kind of thing.
k-
Absolutely. It's like, you know, being in a band is quite a confrontational thing, because you're singing at people loudly, basically saying ‘listen to what I'm saying’. You're expressing yourself and making people listen to you.
h-
Y eah, yeah. It's like, making a statement, isn't it? It's actually putting what you want to say out there.
k-
And so sometimes at work, even though my workplace is really supportive of me, I wouldn't be confrontational with them or talk to them about that kind of stuff in any way. So I think that's why I'm a little bit reticent. I don't know, I’m working towards being more comfortable about it with them.
g-
I mean, work environments are not always as welcoming or friendly as they seem. There’s always a risk that they aren’t safe beneath any company policy or whatever. Workplaces aren't places that you really want to have personal confrontations when you’re seeing the same people each day. I mean, everybody has work related disagreements and things like that, but you know personal confrontations are a different matter.
​
h-
Oh, yeah, you don’t want to be rocking the boat with someone you've got to sit next to, whether you like it or not, for the foreseeable future!
g-
Who have been your musical inspirations over the years?
h-
I'm going to say Kim Deal and the Breeders. Kim just seems quite down to earth and just makes records when she wants to. And what we want to do, is a bit of what I think she does: when you listen to one of her records, or a Breeders record, there'll be quite a lot of different things going on. There'll be something quite sweet, something quite poppy, something quite weird and noisy, but they all sound like the Breeders, and that's what I would like us to achieve.
k-
I like all sorts really. I love Arthur Russell. I wrote a lot of the songs on the album when I was listening to Arthur Russell a lot, so I don't know, in some ways some of the songs are a little bit imitative of him.
And I like a lot of folk music and jazz. I know that we don't sound jazzy at all, but we have used some jazz chords. I don't know that I have one particular influence, really. I just listen to a lot of different types of music and in writing a song, sometimes I just purposely, you know, try to write in a specific genre or sound like a specific person.
When we were writing those four songs in Scotland, I was deliberately wanting them to sound kind of post punky, DIY - we really like Oh-OK and Lynda Stipe (Michael Stipe's sister) and I just wanted to write a song that sounded like them, basically.
g-
What about The Raincoats? I got some hints of an influence
h-
I love The Raincoats. I'm bit of a fan girl actually. They played an exhibition launch at the White Cube recently and they just still sounded so radical, and maybe even more so because they’re older now and they're just making this, you know, primal noise.
g-
I totally agree. Gina’s great. She was on my podcast and also she did an art workshop over lockdown. A real inspiration and, yeah, paints, sings and talks with such gravitas – I agree with you, a stronger sort of impactful as she’s got older. There’s definitely don’t care attitude which inspired me to try to stop giving a shit. Same as Cynthia Sley from Bush Tetras, she was on my podcast and said “Oh boy, wait till you get to 65, you do not give a single fuck by then!”
h-
Ha! We were talking at work about the liberation of getting older and giving less and less of a shit. But how that happens when your body is able to do less and less things! So, you know, you have this younger body that could do anything, but your mind is like, “Oh, no I can't, what’ll people think?”
g-
Do you find yourself thinking that you're more willing to take risks in your music or life?
h-
Possibly, yeah, I think so. Because the fact that someone, and someone so revered as Rob (Pursey) and Amelia (Fletcher - from SkepWax), have faith in us makes us think that we must be all right and that it’ll be ok because really tremendous people are putting our record out.
k-
Part of taking risks is also wanting to not always sound how you did before. When we were writing the songs for this album, a lot of them were written over several years. And some of them, well I would just write them for myself, just to see if I could write this type of song, right? Whereas now, thinking about another album, I would want it to have a theme and I’d want to think beforehand about how I wanted it to sound, rather than just kind of gathering a collection of songs that I've written over a period of time. Because when you start thinking ‘How do I want this to sound?’, you're like, I don't want to just strum a few chords, you know, I want it to be different. And maybe I can add in this instrument. We like to play around on lots of different instruments and stuff, so maybe at some point we'll introduce something else than what we have now.
h-
Like the saxophone that we bought that's currently under our bed.
g-
If you ever need a very amateurish cellist….
h-
Oh, wow, yeah, the Arthur Russell sound!
g-
This is really interesting. I think there are some bands that will never change, and some bands probably never should do – I could quite happily have listened to variations on a theme of the first three Ramones albums – but how a band evolves, how it matches (or doesn’t match) the band members’ own evolution, how will the fans receive change, are we doing it for the fans or are we doing it for us
k-
Yes, it comes down to why are you doing it? I can't imagine we'll ever make any money from my band, I mean, maybe I'll be wrong, I suppose you never know, but we may as well just do exactly what we want.
g-
I guess for personal state of mind, most people need to evolve and do different things.
h-
Yeah, we’ve got to the point where our set is quite similar from what it was two years ago, so we’re happy to add in a few different songs
g-
How do you feel about those songs written at that time – what are we saying…2022 – and being released now in 2024?
k-
2021, and actually some of them even earlier than that. I can't really listen to some of the really early ones, because they were really the first songs that I had written. Well, we wrote songs in Barry, but generally what happened in Barry was that our friends would write the lyrics and we would write the music, so it was more collaborative. But these were songs that I wrote by myself. So it just feels a bit they're things that I was trying out and - without wishing to sound pretentious - hone my craft. So, some of those songs are buried at the end of the album.
g-
Was that one of the reasons of how the tracklisting was put together?
k-
In part, yeah.
h-
Also, I just like idea of slightly front loading with some of the catchy ones, just because I think people don't necessarily listen to an album as a whole anymore. But hopefully, you know, if people go the whole hog, they'll hear the different styles and moods.
g-
We need to bring back people's attention spans.
h-
Well, mine is terrible.
k-
Everyone needs to get a record player and then you're sort of forced to listen to it all - you can't easily change tracks with vinyl. Well, it’s a bit of an effort, anyway!
h-
I'm a big record fan. Just that commitment, I think, to 40 minutes, or however long of being in someone else's world is, you know, well, it's not something you can get flicking from one thing to another. But then also, I do make playlists and I love the idea of sharing music, so that’s quite a different experience, really, isn't it?
k-
I think with our album, in some ways we’ve pulled together all these songs. And I was thinking, a lot of these were written years apart, so how is it going to work as an album? But then it just does, and you realise that you have a sound that's your own that maybe you hadn't realised before. It comes out of nowhere without you really being conscious or deliberate about it.
It’s a kind of alchemy.
"Take You Somewhere" is out on Skepwax on 8 November 2024
