PREMIERE: Chloe Styler shares video for new single 'Consider Me Gone'
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Chloe Styler creates warm, gentle pop music that may not hit you in a overwhelming wave of noise and production, but does something even better - captures your heart and warms your soul.
Earlier in November she released the single ‘Consider Me Gone’, the first taste of her upcoming debut album. Written by Styler, produced by Andy Mak (Vera Blue, Yorke) and mastered by Greg Calbi & Steven Fallone (Taylor Swift, Tame Impala), the track details walking away from a relationship and is a lush mix of 80s pop, indie pop, guitar rock and just a hint of country. “Writing ‘Consider Me Gone’ was like going to therapy. I was able to get all the feelings out that I’d held in for so long, and the words practically fell onto the paper in front of me. There’s no anger, regret or any ill feeling in this song – just relief for finally being able to let go of something that I held onto for way too long.”
The music video for ‘Consider Me Gone’ was shot on the Gold Coast by an all female production team and was directed by Madeline Jones. “Filming the music video was so much fun! It was the perfect day to film, and it couldn’t have happened without my amazing all female-team,” Styler says. “I’m so proud of what we were able to create. It was crazy to see my pink-California dream Pinterest board come to life on the Gold Coast”.
Today the music video premieres exclusively on Women In Pop before its general release later this week. Take a look below and then read our interview with Styler underneath where she chats about her career, her passion for music and songwriting and her future plans.
Chloe, thank you very much for your time today. How are things with you?
Things are really, really good at the moment. I'm very happy with everything that I've got going on at the moment with my single and music video. I'm just excited for the future.
New single ‘Consider Me Gone’ is a summer pop breakup see ya later song. You’re getting a little bit more into the pop, which I'm digging a lot. Can you talk me through the creation of this gorgeous thing?
When I wrote the song, I wrote it just me and my guitar, so it could have gone any way, any direction in terms of production. But when I got into the studio last year, I just really wanted the song to have the life that it deserves. There was no barriers, we just did whatever felt right. I have some really great influences, I listened to a lot of 80s music and I felt this came through a little bit in the undertone of the song, a lot of 80s pop references, and we just had a lot of fun with it. We had live drums live guitar live bass and just tracked it in a day and had a really great time.
Gorgeous and I mean talk about 80s pop references - am I right that you toured with Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet?
Yes, you are right! That did happen last year before everything went quiet in the world. February 2020 I toured with him around Australia.
Oh my god, ‘True’ is probably one of the greatest slow dance songs in the world.
Right? So good and hearing that live by the man that sings it, it was so cool.
Amazing. Now let's talk about your video because ‘Consider Me Gone’ is all Grease, pink ladies, summer loving greatest moments. But then you've got that line,’this ain’t a movie, we're not reading lines’. Was that intentional?
It was intentional. I like that you picked that up because often when I'm planning a music video, I sit down and I read through lyrics and I find something to run with. I really liked in the lyrics of ‘Consider Me Gone’ ‘this ain’t a movie, we're not reading lines, nobody's cueing me to say this time’. Those lyrics really influenced the music video. So I ran with that idea of a movie, and California vibes. I just wanted it to feel very cinematic, but the lyrics are then a juxtaposition compared to the cinematic experience you're witnessing when you're watching the music video. I had some really big plans, but we stripped it back a little bit to just a one person video instead of having lots of other people in it. it was still really, really fun and a great time had by all
You had an all female production team, which is kick ass. What was your desire behind that apart from being a sole female performer yourself?
It happened because I have some really great female people that I work with. Creatives, like my stylist I’ve been working with her for a few months now my hair and makeup artist I've been working with for two years. And my stylist just happened to have a female assistant and my behind the scenes photographer is a female, my videographer is female. It just happened that I gravitated towards an all female crew. I feel like they completely understood this vision. And as you've seen, it’s very specific there’s lots of colour, lots of California vibes, and they all seem to get it and bring it to life even more than I could just myself. It was definitely a dream team.
It's such a tricky subject because of course you want to work with people on all platforms, regardless of gender but I can see what you're doing. If you don't start championing them and making room for them at the front, they're never going to get a shot. It's a little bit of a push and pull, isn't it?
Yeah and genuinely it wasn't a pointed decision, I didn't go out of my way to have an all female crew, but because I love them all dearly, and they are all just fantastic creatives, it just happened. I was so stoked with that because in this day and age to have an all female crew is pretty damn cool in the creative industry.
Beautiful. Now I want to rewind a little bit. In January 2017, you wrote, funded, recorded and released your debut self titled EP. You've been doing this like a trooper for a while, and I want to know, when did music for you shift from becoming something that you did and you enjoyed to something where you were like, ‘hold on, I could do this for a job’?
Wow, that's a good question. I don't think that was ever a poignant moment where I was like, ‘Okay, I'm doing this as a career’, it was just I have to do this. This is what makes me the happiest. I'm constantly challenged, and I'm a person that loves to be challenged. I love to interact with people all the time, being a musician, you're always doing that. I love telling my stories, I just really, really want to have an impact on the world in some small way and if that is by connecting with people through songs, then that's just amazing to me. In high school, there's always those people that put down your big dreams, but I have a really supportive family and friend network so I just ran with it and thought ‘I can have a backup plan’, like going to uni doing my teaching, but I really just want to be a musician. It's the only option to me in my head because I love it so much.
You said that in high school, growing up, people can be bubble bursters and kick your dreams. Was music something that you turned to because of the reaction you got?
Yeah, I started songwriting when I was 15 and I probably would never bring them out to see the light of day because they were quite bad songs! But it was just a way of coping with life. I can't journal to save my life, I can't sit down at a desk and write about my day. I don't understand that. But I can write a song, that's my way of journaling and getting all my thoughts out. When you're 15 and 16, there's some people that think you’re crazy for wanting to be a musician, I definitely had some of that. But that’s the beauty of songwriting. You can write about it, you don't have to name names, but you feel better. You've gotten it off your chest and then out it goes out to the world. And you said your piece.
Absolutely, and I just love the way you write. ‘Sweden’, one of my favourites, a song about chance meeting. Your lyric, ‘if you knew how much I'd fall / If you knew how much I fell for you / You would run and hide and you wouldn’t say goodbye’. I love it. Like you're preaching to the eternal romantics and fantasists with such a beautiful sense of humour on this.
Oh, that is so sweet, thank you. That was a very fun song to write, I literally wrote it in about half an hour, all lyrics first, which I never do. And then I just created the chords around it. It was one of the fastest songs I've ever written just because it was so fun. It was [based on] a five minute interaction with this one Swedish boy and I thought, ‘Oh, wow, like I could marry him’. I was 17 I didn't know what I was doing! But it was a really fun time for me to write a fun song like that.
But do you think there’s something beautiful in it as well? You're you're totally embracing that reckless heart that people have when they're growing up where their heart hasn't heard ‘no’ yet.
Yes, I'm definitely a hopeless romantic. I am a huge Taylor Swift fan and she was the first person that really got me into songwriting, just because of all of her fantastic love breakup songs. I have been heavily influenced by that to just write what you feel and write what you know. For me at the moment, at 24, most of that has been heartbreak or love or some theme around that. And I think it's really cool to open up and show everybody how much of a hopeless romantic you are even if that means you got your heart broken and your crying your eyes out writing the song, it's still really nice to connect with people that way.
I imagine part of the security to do that comes from your country music roots, you went to the Academy of Country Music in Tamworth when you were still in school, didn't you? Can you talk to me about this a bit?
I did, I had just graduated high school, I was 17. It was a two week course in Tamworth. I didn't really know what genre I was, I just knew I was a songwriter. I applied for this Academy, I got in, I went down, I made some wonderful friends that I'm still best friends with and it was just a great experience to be around like minded people, write lots of songs, and learn about the industry. I was brand new to the music industry, I had no experience and it was just great to get some insight into playing a show, and managers and things like that. It was definitely an experience that I'm really grateful for. It helped me with my writing and contacts and just friends in the industry, which are really important. It's helped me evolve into the artists that I am now.
Was there ever a country element of this the musicians you were listening to? of course, Taylor Swift started as a country singer, and then it was folk and pop, but I guess genres are kind of a blurred thing now. Either that or country music's had a makeover with this new generation, which I think is incredible.
Country music has had a makeover, which is very exciting for the genre. I've grown up listening to everything, my mum used to put on the old hits station at home on the Gold Coast, so I've listened to 70s 80s 90s, early 2000s music growing up, and so I have a very wide influence of genres. I really struggle with that question, because I don't know what genre I am, and I think that's a wonderful thing. Each song deserves its own life, and you can't box them into a genre. I'm a songwriter, and that often folds into country and I do listen to country music, because I love the storytelling behind it. That's probably why I gravitated towards country at the beginning because it is so heavily telling stories, but as I've gotten more mature and more confident in myself, I've just learnt that each song deserves its own life and if that means that one song’s a pop song and one song’s a rock song and one song is a little country ballad then that's that and that's okay. Especially in this day and age with singles being the market at the moment, people are more accepting of each song being a little bit different to the other. I am, probably just because I'm a musician, but I’m seeing it online. Even Taylor Swift, she went full pop and now she's back to her storytelling country roots with Folklore and Evermore and people are loving it. It's very exciting to be a musician at the moment because I feel like we're not as boxed in as we used to be.
When people were selling albums or EPs beforehand, they really had to make sure that we're acheiving those hits in order for people to go to the music shop and buy it. Whereas now people instantly make their own mixtape and so because of that the artists can go ‘I'm gonna put the songs I like on here’.
Yes, exactly. With ‘Consider Me Gone’ it is the most pop song I've ever released and it's so exciting to me because I have a few more up my sleeves that are a little bit more pop than that. And I have a few more up my sleeves that are a bit more indie rock or more folk singer songwriter. It’s cool seeing people's reactions to my new music and their acceptance as well.
Chloe you have so much going on and you just said there's new music coming as well. Can you talk me through what exciting things are coming up for you?
So, I have the music video coming out, I have spent a lot of 18 months recording and writing music, and I have the most wonderful producer Andy Mak. He's brought a handful of songs to life for me. I can't give away too much, but I definitely have some songs in my back pocket that will be coming out next year. There'll be a shorter amount of time between releases then I have had, as you can probably see on my Spotify it has been a year per single, so it won't be a long wait for the next one. I'm working on it at the moment and it's very, very exciting.
‘Consider Me Gone’ is out now. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Chloe Styler you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
