INTERVIEW: Gretta Ziller on her latest single 'Ain't Even Your Lover': "If I'm not a little bit scared by the songs that I write, I'm not doing the right thing."

Interview: Jett Tattersall

Australian Americana artist Gretta Ziller recently released the single ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’, her first new music since the 2021 release of her album Judas Tree.

Originally conceived during the 2020 lockdowns when Ziller joined a weekly songwriting club, it was later completed with co-writer and co-producer Oscar Dawson (Holy Holy). It is a more upbeat sound then her more recent work and has a definite pop sensibility with a smooth beat, blasts of horns and beautifully warm vocals from Ziller.

“It’s a song about giving your time and emotion to someone,” Ziller says. “And that someone being a leech – just sucking and sucking and taking and taking – and it not being a real human relationship, where it’s give and take. It’s a little bit sarcastic and a little bit sassy, like, ‘I’ve done everything and I didn’t even get sex out of it!’ It is also about being hurt by that person and the things you learn along the way. The most frustrating thing about that whole adventure was the way I let myself be treated; I rolled over, and I was so disappointed in myself for letting that happen!”  

The single is the first release from Ziller’s upcoming third studio album. Inspired by the sounds of HAIM, Ziller made a conscious decision to steer away from the heavier themes that were explored on her previous two albums on this new project. Created organically, recording live and “lyrically more joyous”, it promises to shine as Ziller embarks on a new, invigorated lease of creative life. “There are a couple of tracks on my next album that are little moments of sparkle, and ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ is one of them,” she says.

We recently caught up with Ziller to chat more about the creation of ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ and her upcoming album.

Hi Gretta! It has been a while since we've chatted and now you've given us ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ which is such a great title and I'm loving the lyrics. How are things with you?
Really good! Just sort of learning and discovering what the new music scene looks like, in 2023.

I like this. Tell me how you're finding it?
To be honest, last year was personally really tricky for me. I'd spent two years detoxing from what was normal, and then I came back and obviously, things weren't the same. And I didn't want to do things the same, but I didn't know what that looked like. So I found 2022 really tricky. This year, I'm coming into 2023 with new music and a new idea of what I want to do and what I definitely don't. Ticketing and shows and touring has changed because people’s financial stability has changed. So that's another kind of little hurdle you have to not get over but learn to get around.

I was listening to a podcast with an artist the other day, and she was saying how in the 90s, when she was touring with a band, it was all about sort of hotels and tours and what have you. And now it's like, you'll be putting yourself up here, you'll be set here, and find your own way to the venue.
Yeah, it's very different, and it's a little daunting because you don't know what to expect. I did a show recently that I had to travel for and I had to leave three, four days before to get there. I left my house with 23 tickets sold. It wasn't feasible for me to leave my house, but I had committed to this show. And people kept saying there's going to be a lot last minute rush on tickets, [but] I was walking out my door with big thousands of dollars in the red. That's how daunting it is at the moment. I ended up selling 60 more tickets in the last four days or whatever it was, but that is really scary. How do you go on tour like that?

Yeah, yet everyone's like, ‘come out and tour!’, but then they don’t commit.
I understand leaving things to the last minute but it's really scary as a small independent artist to walk out the door, knowing that you can't afford to fail, because you don't have a spare couple of grand to lose on one show. If you're doing a band show, especially, you've got people to pay and other responsibilities.

‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ is the lead single from your much anticipated third album. I know this song was about a really bad relationship, well, it wasn't even a relationship, which is really funny, but just not being able to move on, like wading through the mud. Talk to me a little bit about this track.
I know I'm not the only one that's ever had a friend or a family member or whatever person in their life that is just like a bit of a succubus. When you're in it, you don't realise how much they take from you, and don't give back. ‘Ain't Even Your Lover’ is a tongue in cheek. kind of joke to yourself. I'm over it now, but if I'm looking back, I got absolutely nothing from this. And they will like I didn't even get sex from it. Just as a giggle to yourself. Literally nothing!

You didn't even get any sex. It's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. And I think already resonating.
I'm sure I'm not the only person that's thought this!

Not at all and this is why integrity in music needs to stick around, because they're the places where we really go ‘Okay, that's not just me then.’. As humans we we need to have that ‘it's not just me’ moment, because quite a lot of the things that we think we can't say out loud, so as long as it's someone we don't know that we respect that’s singing about them, we don't have to talk to our friends about it.
Yeah, we can scream it out loud as we're driving in the car. Just pull out that emotion or whatever in the car.

Absolutely. There's a definite lightness to it, which I'm loving. It's the lead single but is this where you're leading with this album as well, a bit more tongue in cheek and more playful? Both melodically and also with your lyrics?
A little bit more. Judas Tree was a very dark and heavy album and I didn't want to do that again. I don't like doing the same thing twice, so I was really conscious about making this album a little bit more light - not necessarily light hearted, but I wanted my lyrics to be more hopeful, joyous and thoughtful. Sonically it's not a huge step away from from Judas Tree but it is definitely lighter lyrically.

Judas Tree was also incredibly cinematic, very beautiful album. I was reading up that this song in particularly, ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’, and I'm imagining also songs on the album, came together a Women In Music mentoring programme?
Yeah. So before the mentorship, I was talking to a friend of mine, Sam Hawksley, who is a producer and musician that lives in Nashville, but he comes over here for the Tamworth Country Music Festival every year. It was that January before lockdown started, and I was chatting to him and he said to me, ‘I do this songwriting group in Nashville where we just email out a theme or an idea for the week, and then you have to write a song influenced by that and send it back. Do you want to be a part of it?’ I said yes, that'd be amazing, but I didn't hear anything from him until like the third week of the first lockdown. I jumped at it thinking that that would be something fun to do for a couple of weeks until lockdown ended, and I lasted a whole year. ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ came out of that, but then I got this AIR Women In Music mentorship. My mentor was Matt Tanner from what is now Concord Music and he set me up with a number of co-writes in between lockdowns. One of them was Oscar Dawson and I took the first draft of ‘Ain't Even Your Lover’ to him. Pretty much how you hear it on the album is the demo that we ended up with.

I love hearing these stories about the journeys songs go on. I must say it really does lean into your style. Americana music is quite broad.
Yeah, Americana music is music, you know. I have very strong views about what Australians consider Americana and it's a very narrow segment of what Americana is. Mine's pop, rock, blues, country elements. I love country songwriters. I love pop and rock sounds. I love the dirtiness of blues. Not that all that is present ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’, but it's definitely present in all that I record.

Absolutely. I remember when we spoke on the release of your first album Queen of Boomtown and you were saying how your music is a bit of blues, bit of rock, bit of this, bit of that and to you creating music was very much a picture of your musical past. You grew up in a family of farmers and you played violin, but you didn't necessarily fit into that because you just wanted to consume music.
Yeah, definitely. My mum was a great music lover as well and we would listen to within a day Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Edith Piaf and Pavarotti. And on weekends, we would listen to [TV show] rage. We would consume music and any sort of music in our house. I didn't grow up listening to one genre and I think that is what makes music interesting and being able to create music interesting. It would be very dull if we all stuck to our lanes.

You’ve said in the past that writing ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ was the moment that you truly felt like an artist in the sense that you were making the songs like you'd heard growing up. It became your first song that you went, ‘this is the music I want to make.’ How does the new album, not just ‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ make you feel with regards to those personal bars that you've set?
Equally as scared! When I wrote ‘Hell's Half Acre’, I wrote it and then I sung it to myself. And I was like, ‘Oh, I don't know about this’. It scared me, the song, because it was different to what I'd been writing and it was new to me, but I knew that it was something that was right, but it was just a bit scary. If I'm not a little bit scared by the songs that I write, I'm not doing the right thing. I'm not worried about them, then then they're not worth worrying about. That's how I feel about this new album.

It’s a great way to look at things. Your albums and EPs have this very familial connection, there's obviously different sounds, but if you line them up, they'd all look like each other, like siblings. How does this next album fit into the family lineup? Is it is an extension not just of yourself but an extension from your previous work, or is this just the visiting uncle from abroad that we've not yet met?
No, it definitely is an extension. It's like the fourth child that's a little bit more carefree. As we were saying before, it's lyrically lighter. And I've written songs that are probably a little bit more personal on this one. I have songs about my partner, most people that know me on the internet probably don't know that I'm married. There's songs about my not political views but on the way people are in the world. There’s another track on the album, it's called ‘Borrowings’, and it's all about my deep love for music. Music isn't something that I do or work, it's not a job for me it's in my soul, it's in my bones. Singing is the thing that I can't live without.

We have the single out now, we have an album coming out. What else is coming up for you?
I've got some shows and festivals coming up that will be announced very soon. I'm looking forward to getting out and performing again and to creating moments with people. That's what I'm really looking forward to, having beautiful moments with people that come to my shows.

‘Ain’t Even Your Lover’ is out now via ABC Music. You can buy and stream here.

You can keep up with all things Gretta Ziller on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.