Interview: Jett Tattersall
Images: Georgia Wallace

Townsville based singer-songwriter Winifred today releases her debut EP EP1. Featuring five tracks, including previous singles ‘Into The Night’ and ‘Drowning Purple’, Winifred worked with some of Australia’s top producers including One Above (Dami Im, Emalia, KLP), Chi (Chris Sebastian, Feki) and Cheekbone (Lost Boys) as well as recording in LA with Grammy nominated David Ott (Empire) and Tim Anderson (Solange, Halsey, Banks, Billie Eilish).

EP1 is a remarkably assured debut release, with a sonic soundscape that is as diverse as it is fascinating. There is an undercurrent of electronica through all the tracks, but it is a form of the genre that trades just as heavily on trance, with several of the tracks inhabiting a delicious, other-worldly feel such as EP opener ‘Got Me Wrong’ with it’s distorted vocals and measured beats, or the sheer dreamy beauty of first single ‘Into The Night’.

While still maintaining pop as its foundation, new single ‘On Yr Time’ sees Winifred authentically inhabit R&B and EP closer ‘Fallen’ introduces a moodier, darker electro edge.

Winifred is an artist who is showing enormous potential just three years into her career. With a beguiling voice, incredible music and that intangible ‘it’ that inexorably draws you into her world, we should all expect even bigger things from her in the next few years. To celebrate the release of EP1 we sat down with Winifred to chat more about its creation and her music career to date.

Hi Winifred, you absolute talent nugget. How wonderful is your music? How are you today?
I'm good. I'm trying to stay cool here in Townsville, which is where I live now. It's really hot at this time of year. I feel like I'm just hopping from one aircon system to the next! But yes, I'm good.

You’ve just released your gorgeous EP, EP1 , today, how does it feel to have that baby out into the world?
It's really special. Getting to this point has taken a really long time for me, establishing what the project is, and just collaborating and writing so much and being in the studio. That's really taken up so much of my life in the last few years. It means a lot to me, it's really special. This first EP is kind of a collection of songs that reflect me being on that journey of discovering what the Winifred project actually is - what it sounds like, what I want it to look like. This is my first offering, and I'm really proud of it.

It's beautiful, and it's important I think as listeners for that understanding of what goes into the collation of an EP, or album, because even though we ingest the songs within half an hour, it's such a huge process to get every single song together, and in some semblance of an order, or motive. With that in mind, how did you go about creating this beast?
Thank you for mentioning that, because it's so funny, isn't it? People just see the content that you put out online, but oh my gosh even just getting it to that point where you get to share that stuff, so much goes into it. There's so many moving parts and people collaborating to get it to that point. It’s really important to shed light on the process. I did a lot of the writing in Australia, and then I did a writing trip to LA a few years ago and there's two tracks on the EP that were written in LA with different collaborators and producers. ‘Fallen’ was written with Tim Anderson in LA, and that was really cool working with him. It was a bit of a pipeline dream. I didn't think it would come off because I thought, ‘oh, this guy's too busy’, he's worked with Halsey and Banks and Solange so we were really just trying our luck. And he was like, ‘yeah, absolutely, come in’. It was such a cool experience. The single for this EP ‘On Yr Time’ was written with David Ott, that was a great learning experience to me, as a person and as an artist. I wrote the other three songs in Sydney and I finished them off here in Townsville with a local producer named Adib Parker. He helped me bring the whole EP together, tie it up really nicely.

The EP opens with the very heady ‘Got Me Wrong’ and it just makes me want to shake off a shirt and kind of melt into a thick shag pile rug. And then the lyrics are this call of declaration and closing argument that comes, thanks to your delicious vocals, from a very powerful place. I love it because you've just got so many layers in here. Can you talk me through this glorious song?
This song went through a few reworkings. I first wrote it with One Above in Sydney. We were working together on songs at the point in time where I was just figuring out I really love writing pop music. This is one of the first songs I ever wrote for the Winifred project, so it's a couple of years old. Late last year when I was pulling everything together for the EP, I reworked this one in the studio, just to make sure that the production and the execution felt a little bit more reflective of where I'm at right now. Lyrically, it's still very true to who I am. It's about really fighting to be who you know you are and for people to perceive you in that sense. Someone who's really important to you slipping away, and you're standing your ground in that moment, saying ‘hey, but I'm this person, you’ve got me wrong’

I love it. You're from Australia, but your music has a near kind of Nordic midnight dance quality to it, or driving home from that Nordic Midnight Club! What artists or sounds or environments inspired you to push yourself musically with the Winifred project?
That's a good question. When I first started writing for this project, I was really into alt-pop R&B artists. I was listening to a lot of Banks, lot of Rihanna, her most recent stuff is pretty cutting edge in terms of the production. And artists like SZA and NAO, I was really into the production and the worlds that they would create with their music. It really allowed the lead vocal to cut through, and those lyrical messages to hit really hard. I was really into people who write music with a lot of light and shade, a lot of dynamic variation. You can really pull people in with the verses and get right up close, and then when the chorus hits, you let loose and the production goes crazy. That quintessential pop writing and production was an itch I've been wanting to scratch for a really long time as an artist. That kind of music was really informing where it was heading with all of my writing.

Gorgeous, I'm often hearing from artists that have started on a similar trajectory as you, it's building yourself up to create that pop song, because there's so much weight behind it. There's so much inspiration coming from all angles and as listeners we go ‘it’s a pop song’ be have no idea what it means to break it down and to have one that actually hit that target for what you want.
Yeah, that's so true. Some of the songs on the EP literally wrote themselves, they were my favourite types of writing experience. You almost feel like you sit back and you're channelling the song. But then there's a song on the EP called ‘Into The Night’, which took so long to write. I wrote it with a guy named Chris Chidiak in Sydney and it felt like we were wrangling a wild beast, trying to tame this pop song because we knew that it had to be so methodically written, everything had to to fit into a very specific pocket. So that song actually took four days for us to write, and it was tiring. We had a lot of challenges with that song, but we knew, without having the finished product in our hands, what it would be like which made the whole process so worth it. The fight was worth it.

The wrangling of the beast was worth it! I want to ask you about ‘On Yr Time’, which is the lead single from the EP and when listening for me, it's this great pop song, but with a switch flipped on the lyrics. Can you tell us a little bit about this track?
That's an interesting way of putting it because I kind of view it in the same way. It's sort of this cheeky bubbly little pop song, but the lyrics are quite serious. I wanted to create a song with that juxtaposition. It's got that light and shade, I didn't want it to be all serious. I wanted the music to have a bit of a sassy, serious vibe to it and have the instrumentation feel really playful, fun, draw you in from the get go. It’s about observing someone in your stratosphere who uses their strengths to control and manipulate people and feeling you're going crazy because you're the only person who sees it for what it is. It can be really hard navigating domineering personalities, so I wrote this song as a bit of an outlet for myself. It sucks when you feel like certain people take your power away - what can I do in this situation? I know, I'll write a song! It's my personal, little vindication moment where I got to get everything off of my heart and into a song. I feel like I took some of my power back in that way.

That’s so good, everyone needs an anthem. You've got the words, and you've got the music behind you and the voice. Where did that come from in you? What was it about music that got you started in creating your own music?
It started when I was around 15. Both of my parents were musicians, they never really pushed me into music, I just sort of fell into it. I learned covers, like Weezer songs, on acoustic guitar and once I locked down an instrument, I started to really appreciate the art of lyricism and poetry and putting words together. From a really early age, and still to this day, something that I'm really passionate about is words. I always have my phone with my voice or app ready to go In case I hear a really interesting phrase in a sentence. I've got journals and notes full of potential ideas for lyrics. In ‘Got Me Wrong’, there's a lyric that goes, ‘Don't seal this undesired fate / What can I do to take you higher?’ The ‘undesired fate’ lyric came from a sentence that one of my very eloquent friends Cory said a few years ago. We were sitting in a park and he said in sort of a joking way, something about sealing an undesired fate. And I thought, ‘Who talks like that? That's amazing. That's gonna pop up in a song like two years from now!’

That's so good! Your videos are something else quite wonderful as well. You have been working with homegrown visionary director, Zoee Marsh, who's a bit of a kick ass on everything. What a beautiful collaboration. Can you talk me through your process?
Yeah, absolutely. Meeting Zoee was one of the most formative things to me in my music career thus far. We started working together at the start of 2020, which feels like such a long time ago, doesn't it? It was right before the pandemic hit and we had no idea what was about to happen. I was really interested in the idea of building a visual brand for Winifred that was very dance oriented, and so a lot of people were saying, ‘Zoee Marsh, she's your girl’. I reached out to her and sent her this little video of me doing the choreography to a Grimes song and I was just like, ‘look, I don't have a dance background, but I'm enthusiastic’ and we went from that. I decided that when we would do rehearsal sessions together, I was just gonna throw myself into it, 110% and not feel awkward about it or anything. And that's what helped her and I instantly hit it off, and be like, ‘yes, we can totally do this’. It really made me realise that I can dance, that was a huge confidence boost for me. Up until that point, I always felt so clumsy, not super fluid in my body, or confident or powerful, but she really brought that out in me. Even separate to what we were able to create together I'm very, very grateful for my partnership with her. She's one of those very rare people that you meet in a career span that just really leave a mark, because she's just an amazing person as well as and exceptional creative.

It's just beautiful to watch. I love that you have this very thematic accompaniment to your music. Lastly, before I have to leave you, EP1 is out, we're dancing, we're watching, we're eating it up. What's coming up for you?
I'm already starting to work on my next EP, actually. I never stop writing, which I'm thankful for. I'm hoping to play some shows, we haven't looked anything in as yet, so I'm working on my live show, getting all of that really finessed and sorted so that it's ready when the time comes. I'm a writing nerd, so if anyone needs to find me, I'll most likely be in my studio!

EP1 is out now MNRK Music Australia. You can buy and download here.

To keep up with all things Winifred you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.