INTERVIEW: Karmel Jäger releases new single 'Nowhere to Go': "I’m not ready to confine myself to one genre or sound world"
Image: By Ravyna
Sydney’s Karmel Jäger is one of those performers whose style you will never be able to pin down - and that’s a good thing. She started her music career as a professional classical singer, studying at prestigious institutes such as the Sydney Conservatorium and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. While based in the UK for three years, she performed as a classical singer throughout Europe and appeared on the soundtracks for major films including The Avengers and Star Wars alongside the TV series Sherlock, and computer game World of Warcraft.
After returning to Sydney in 2017, she did a complete musical flip and moved in the arena of electronic music and started DJ-ing across some of her hometown’s biggest night clubs. She released her first solo single, the trancey ‘Back of You’, in 2018, which was followed last year by the electro pop gem ‘Trafalgar Square’. Today she releases her third solo single ‘Nowhere to Go’, and like we’ve come to expect from Jäger she has taken the opportunity to flip the script again. A smooth, sensuous yet edgy track, it ties together a number of genres, including jazz, soul, funk and electro, into an effortlessly beautiful track. Referencing the isolation and quarantine some parts of the world are now slowly emerging from - “I’m going nutso in iso” Jäger sings to open the track - the anxiety in the lyrics is tempered by the calm, polished beats that envelope you and for two and a half minutes make you float away without a care in the world. Although early in her pop career, Jäger is showing such versatility in her music and we are so here for what else she brings out this year. To celebrate the release of ‘Nowhere to Go’ we met up with Karmel to find out more.
Hey Karmel! Thanks for chatting to us. How have you been surviving life in lockdown?
Hey, thanks for having me! Iso started off pretty rough for me. Losing all my work was pretty gutting, and I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself at first to be honest. But it’s funny how adaptable we, as humans, can be, and I just shifted my focus towards the slightly more neglected aspects of my creative life, like producing, classical singing and even drawing. Survival has also relied heavily on spending lots of time video chatting!
Congratulations on the release of your new single ‘Nowhere to Go’ it is a beautiful track! It has such a different vibe to your last single ‘Trafalgar Square’, what is the inspiration behind this track?
Thank you! So I was lying in bed, scrolling through insta one Tuesday morning, when I saw a Charli XCX instastream. She was showing her process for one of her tracks for the iso album she was creating. The song she was working on was like a rap, and it reminded me how much I like writing in that style. I was immediately inspired to write a new song and I went straight to work on it that morning! The vibe is pretty different to my last release, and I find, with my musical background, that I’m not ready to confine myself to one genre or sound world yet. The constant throughout my music so far has predominantly been the use of my voice.
Can you tell us a little about the creative process behind the track?
The first thing I did for this track was to write the lyrics, which is how I always start a new song. What I love about rapping is that it’s such a free way to write. I think I made just one edit to those original lyrics, and then I set about producing the track. I recorded my vocal idea straight into my DAW through my laptop speakers so that I’d have a vocal demo to work with. I produced the track around that one vocal take, and the track was finished within a couple of hours! As someone who grew up learning the violin and voice, and mucked around on the piano, I’ve always been aware of and interested in melodies and chord progressions over percussion. So I always start with those elements before filling out the rest of the track.
The next day I made some edits to the production and then got it mixed on Thursday, by Jono Fernandez. I recorded the final vocals at a friend’s studio the following Tuesday (with appropriate distancing of course), and then gave those vocals to my mixing engineer. He then did a final mixdown and master that Thursday - 9 days after I started writing the track! I’ve never started and finished a track so quickly, and I’m keen to try that again.
It has been over a year since we last heard new music from you, what have you been up to creatively over this period?
It has indeed been a while! Over the last year I’ve written a bunch of music, I actually composed a classical acapella trio earlier this year for a show I was in, but I was mainly focussed on building my DJ career until Covid hit. Once I got over the initial shock of losing all my gigs, I started using the extra time to hone in on a few unfinished tracks and I’ll be releasing a couple of them later this year.
You have a fascinating career history and started out as a classical singer and studied at some of the most prestigious music colleges in the world. What inspired the switch to electronica and Dj-ing?
I’ve been pretty fortunate to have had the opportunity to study with some of the best teachers in the world. Studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama also gave me the opportunity to study with some of the best drama teachers in the world – it’s even harder to get into that school as an actor than as a musician! I really loved my classical career in London, it was everything I’d ever wished for, and I performed and recorded at a level I hadn’t even contemplated.
The switch to electronic music came about through a quite winding road, actually. I was initially inspired to get back into composing during a session recording for a video game. It was the first time I’d recorded music by a female composer, and I decided I wanted to be another female in that space. I started composing a classical choral piece, but realised I’d need a deadline to finish it - typical creative needing a deadline! I searched for music competitions and I ended up finding a songwriting one which looked interesting. By the time I realised the deadline for that comp had past, I’d already written a song on guitar and decided I’d rather do that than composing classical music! I told my sister living in Brisbane that I’d written a song, and she suggested I join the song writing club she was a member of – she’s a jazz singer based in Brisbane.
A few months later, having now got in the habit of writing a song a week through the international online group, I Heart Songwriting Club, I moved back to Sydney and attended my first BigSound conference. There I met Ella Fence who suggested I produce my own songs, so that they sounded more like ‘me’. This advice pretty much changed my life, because, after mucking around with Ableton for the next nine months, I released my first self-produced track, attending the Electronic Music Conference and met my now-good DJ friend, Hightail, who showed me how to DJ!
I knew moving back to Sydney would mean needing to find another musical path, as there wasn’t going to be enough work for me to have a full-time classical singing career. As soon as I started DJing, I felt that same high that singing gave me, a feeling I’d never got anywhere else, and I instantly knew that this was going to be the thing to replace classical singing for me. Producing was where it started for me though, and the two careers go so well together. I get to create my own music, go searching for amazing tunes, and then I get to mix them live! It’s everything I love rolled into one, really. Before Covid I had a gig where I did backing vocals and DJ-ed alongside a percussionist and vocalist. That’s something I’d like to do more of once venues are able to open up.
Given your history with music, was a career in music the only thing you wanted growing up or was it something that developed later?
I had always planned on having a classical music career, initially as a violinist and then as a singer. It was always where my heart was. Having said that, I had no clue as to how much hard work was involved in building a music career! If you’re told you have talent when you’re young, you can assume that the career will simply come to you. I’ve seen this happen time and time again, and it certainly was the case for me. I wasn’t taught about the 10,000 hour rule, how to conquer performance anxiety, or prepared for the numerous rejections that were to come my way. This lack of information leads so many to give up on their journey, and oftentimes without any sense of why things didn’t work out.
I certainly didn’t have an easy path and watched as many of my colleagues gave up along the way. I remember one colleague wisely telling me that in his experience, if you just keep working harder and harder, don’t give up and don’t let yourself be disheartened by the rejection, you can get a career in the end, and that was certainly true for me. Only a handful of musicians have a direct path to success. You can usually tell the ones at college who are going to make it big from day one, but for the rest of us, it’s a matter of grit and drive and sheer willpower to stay the course, come what may. I really wanted to have music be my day to day life, and thankfully, the hard work and great advice I was given along the way, paid off in the end.
When it comes down to it, music is music but do you see any real differences between performing classical music as opposed to pop – do they require different mindsets?
Hmm.. .good question. Both require a level of ‘performance’ on top of the actual music making. Both require a focus on technique and storytelling. The techniques for singing these two styles are incredibly different, but focusing on the sound you want to make and the way you want to deliver a phrase/lyric is the same concept behind both. Being totally in the zone and not distracted by anything else is the same. However, the focus in classical singing is on the tone of voice and technique first and foremost. Acting and storytelling always comes second, no matter what anyone says! Though both are required, the former must be outstanding, always. With pop, the delivery is more important than the technique, and you can be more easily forgiven for delivering a heartfelt lyric in a less than perfect way, than making a beautiful sound but with nothing behind the eyes. With classical singing, you have to think about pacing yourself more, as there is no microphone to help you reach the back of the hall. You also have to stay true to the music and can’t decide to sing a note down an octave if you feel like it. As a pop singer, if you feel like changing a note because you’re not feeling quite up to that high note at this second, you’re free to do that. There’s a lot more freedom in pop singing overall, but classical singers get to do some pretty cool stuff, and I’m privileged to have experienced both.
The music industry has not been great on gender equality or the way female artists are treated. What are your thoughts on sexism in the music industry and have you seen a difference in the classical scene vs the pop scene?
There are some differences in the classical vs pop scene for sure, but it’s still a huge issue for both. With classical singing you need roughly equal numbers of males to females in order to perform the music. For choral music, opera, oratorio, the numbers are pretty equal – in fact there are more girls who take up singing and stick with it throughout high school, so come college time, there are many more girls vying for spots than boys. The boys get extra time and attention because they’re needed in the field. I remember on one tour, the company split the tenors across two flights, because if there was a plane crash, the music world would never recover! I’m not even kidding..!
Having said that, when it comes to the positions at the top, the conductors, directors and composers, they’re overwhelmingly male. So the struggle to be taken seriously and have your voice heard at that level is very much like it is for women in electronic music.
The main difference I would say is that classical music relies on males for performances to be able to take place. Whereas in electronic music, if there were no women, the industry would just continue as it always did. And that’s a pretty sad reality.
What artists have you been getting into during lockdown?
I just love how Charli XCX created her iso album and I’ve been playing ‘Pink Diamond’ on repeat. I’ve got back into Suzi Analogue too, who is an amazing producer. I’ve discovered another producer called Affective Sauna and will be playing her track ‘Lobby Groove’ out ASAP. Also been playing a bunch of Eli Brown, as ever, and Amelie Lens remixes and Danny L Harle have been good company as well!
Who knows what will happen over the next few months, but all going well what else can we expect from you in 2020?
The music video for ‘Nowhere to Go’ comes out 19th June, and the house remix will be out soon after that! I’ll be releasing another single within the next few months and already have a house remix in the works for that track too!
In terms of DJing out, it is pretty uncertain, but it looks like I may have some outdoor gigs starting back in September! I’ve been asked to do some live streams in iso too so keep your eyes peeled for those
.
‘Nowhere to Go’ is out now. You can download on iTunes and stream on Apple Music and Spotify.
To keep up with all things Karmel Jäger you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
