INTERVIEW: Imogen Clark on her new single 'The Noise' and upcoming album 'The Art of Getting Through'
Image: Michelle Grace Hunder
Published: 15 May 2024
Australia’s Imogen Clark has been releasing music for a decade and over that time her music has travelled through indie, country, rock and pop. With her new album The Art of Getting Through, due for release on 31 May, Clark embraces a rockier sound with strong doses of 1980s electronic pop flowing through.
She recently released the single ‘The Noise’, which is a delicious rock-new wave-synthpop hybrid. Written with fellow singer-songwriter Eilish Gilligan, the song dissects the way female musicians are treated by both the music industry and the media in general, where a woman is considered ‘past it’ when she reaches 30: ‘They say I′m getting old / But they won′t dim my voice / Cause I got the noise.’
“I wrote ‘The Noise’ with my friend Eilish Gilligan, a great singer-songwriter in her own right,” Clark says.“We’ve both been through the ringer in the music industry, and we were both feeling like we’d just figured out who we are as people, overcome so much self-doubt and are ready to stand up for who we are as women and as artists. This business wants to put women out to pasture when they hit thirty, but I know I’m just getting started.”
‘The Noise’ is accompanied by an incredible music video which flips the script on Bruce Springsteen’s classic 1980s video for ‘Dancing In The Dark’. It sees Clark performing on stage before inviting a man in the audience to dance with her on stage.
Recorded in Los Angeles, London, Sydney, Melbourne and Nashville The Art of Getting Through is Clark’s first album since 2018’s Collide and features thirteen tracks. Reflecting an artist more confident in her creativity and artistry than ever, it is an album where Clark experiments without restraint, pushes genre further than she ever has and in the process created arguably her greatest collection of music to date. We recently caught up with Clark to find out more about ‘The Noise’ and her upcoming album.
Hi Imogen! Thanks so much for chatting to me today. How is life with you right now?
Here’s something I’ve been wanting to say for a long time: I moved to Nashville this week, all the way from Sydney, Australia! It’s an incredible and overwhelming feeling to finally be living in my favourite city and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m about to release my new album The Art of Getting Through on May 31, I’ve got shows this month in Nashville and LA, plus preparing for a UK tour in July. Things are truly wild in the best possible way!
You recently dropped your new single ‘The Noise’, it is an incredible track! We particularly love the message behind the song, about how difficult the music industry can be for women, particularly once women hit 30 and you suddenly become ‘too old’. Can you talk to me a little bit more about the inspiration behind the song?
I had an existential crisis when I hit 25. I felt like I was “ageing out” of pop music as a woman, and the fact I hadn’t achieved everything I’d ever dreamt of by the second half of my twenties made me feel like a failure. I had a long time to process that feeling over the pandemic lockdowns in Australia and when I reemerged, I felt like a totally new person. I felt the pandemic had stolen a lot of my youth, but I also felt like a stronger, smarter person than I’d ever been and I finally realized the best was yet to come in my career, so I didn’t need to be scared. I’m now 29 and I want to push back against the idea that women lose their value as they age. I have more to say now than I ever did at 20, and I’ll have even more to say at 40 and again at 50. The Noise is about never giving up on your value, as a human and an artist.
In many ways, women have made so much progress within music in recent years, but in a lot of other areas it feels like the dial hasn’t changed in 50 years. You’ve been in the industry for a good few years now, what changes if any have you seen over that time?
Something I’m so happy to see is the rise of female dominance in pop music. Some of the best and most popular songwriters in the pop scene right now are women – Taylor Swift, SZA, Sabrina Carpenter, Beyoncé, Olivia Rodrigo. Unfortunately, there are still some really disappointing attitudes towards female-identifying artists that poison the comments section of every post you see on social media. It’s “annoying” when women write about breakups; it’s “brave” when men do it. It’s “whining” when women sing angry songs; it’s “gutsy” when men do it. The double standards are everywhere, though many don’t even realise they’ve been conditioned to exhibit them. While there have been major improvements in the last decade that I’ve been working in this industry, it’s still so common to see people devaluing music made by women and underestimating the power of female fans. It’s often branded as “lame” when an artist has a predominantly young female fanbase, despite the fact that young women and their tastes have shaped the history of pop music and continue to do so.
‘The Noise’ has this really exciting sound, there is a bit of 1980s synthpop, a bit of guitar rock. What soundscape, or feeling, were you aiming for with this one?
One of my favourite albums of all time is Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen, which feels like the epitome of 80s rock to me; anthemic, catchy and powerful. I wanted to combine those influences with my love of modern pop like Maisie Peters and MUNA. I feel like that combo is what folks can expect from my whole album. I’m in a place where I love my music to be poppy but still grounded with real played instruments and that singer/songwriter core.
I wrote this song with Melbourne artist/producer Eilish Gilligan and many of the initial production elements of Eilish’s demo made it into the final track because they were so fun and unique. Bringing the song to life in the studio in LA with Mike Bloom at the helm was a great way to ground the popiness of the demo with some riffy guitar parts and Griff Goldsmith from Dawes provided some excellent drums, both real and electronic, to create that crossover sound.
The music video for ‘The Noise’ is also incredible, flipping the script on Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ video. Tell me more about the idea behind this, and what it was like to make?
This video was SO fun to shoot! I get told sometimes that I look like Courtney Cox in the early seasons of Friends (I think it’s just the hair), so my manager Jeremy Dylan and I came up with the idea that we should flip the gender roles on the ‘Dancing in the Dark’ video. What if Courtney were the one to start on stage and pull an enthusiastic male fan out of the crowd? We shot it with an incredible crew and band at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory and I see it as one step closer to my ultimate goal of becoming a female Springsteen!
You have your new album The Art of Getting Through coming on May 31. What can you tell me about this one and what we can expect to hear?
The Art of Getting Through is an album about learning to grow and change while also learning to accept yourself for who you are. It’s about my journey through life, my struggles in my head and heart and with the people who have fucked with both of those. I’ve been working as a professional musician since I was 12, so this industry has raised me and shaped who I’ve become a hell of a lot. The idea that the only way out is through has permeated every area of my life, from the music business to family and romantic encounters, and it’s the main theme of this record. You never get a fresh start or a clean slate, you can’t hit the reset button. There’s no getting past, there may not be any getting over, but if you learn how, you can get through.
Sonically, it’s an album that combines my many musical influences; everything from the classic rock I was raised on to modern pop, folk and indie sounds. I’ve always resented the idea of being just one thing. I’m embracing the love I have for so many kinds of music in this album.
I just love the cover of the album - it’s cryptic, allegorical, almost religious! Can you tell me the story behind it?
This album cover is a truly stunning piece of art by Australian photographer, visual artist and creative director Giulia Giannini McGauran. My mum is the strongest woman I know and throughout my life, she’s always taught me to be my own hero because, in her words, “the cavalry’s not coming; you have to do it yourself”. So much of this album is about letting yourself process and feel the disappointments and challenges of life, then picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and getting out the other side. You can’t skip the hurt, as much as we’d all like to. It makes you who you are going to be. In this album cover, I’m carrying a younger, more naïve version of myself over the threshold into a new era of my life, shedding an old skin but always carrying what I’ve learned with me. As my own hero, I appear giant against a tiny backdrop of Sydney looking out to the west, where my hometown lies. Giulia really outdid her consistently brilliant standards with this one and it’s the perfect visual representation of what the album means to me.
You recorded the album in the US, UK and Australia. I’m curious to know if the creative process for you is different when you are making music at home in Australia as opposed to internationally?
Recording anywhere is great fun with the right people, but there’s something so magical about recording in studios overseas that I’ve grown up hearing about and listening to music that was made there. We recorded the first single off this album at Abbey Road, a studio that may as well have only existed in my dreams before we set foot in there! It felt surreal to play the piano Paul McCarney once played on Penny Lane and stand in the spot The Beatles stood as they recorded albums I grew up listening to; albums that made me want to make albums myself. Likewise, when we recorded at East West studios in LA, you can feel the history of the place pulsing through the atmosphere. The Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra recorded their iconic albums there. It makes you perform better because you feel like you’re a small part of the history of an iconic musical landmark.
You have some shows coming up in the USA and UK which must be amazing. How are you feeling about them, and what can we expect to see?
I couldn’t be more excited for these shows! I’ll be launching the album with a full band at shows at The Basement in Nashville on May 21, and at the Hotel Café in LA on May 29. I’ll be heading to the UK in July for some more stripped back shows there too! My gigs can range from high energy, anthemic and cathartic, to intimate and emotional, and I really can’t wait to bring these new songs out to play.
We’ve got ‘The Noise’ out now, The Art of Getting Through on May 31, we’ve got live shows, what else is coming up for you in 2024?
2024 is shaping up to be my busiest year since pre-pandemic! As well as album release and press, I’ve got a tonne of touring in the U.S. and U.K. (some already announced and some other sneaky stuff still in the pipeline!). I’ll be writing a bunch more music, recording some more in LA, and settling into life as an official Nashvillian. I’ll be playing shows back in Australia at the end of this year too, so a LOT of travelling! Can’t wait to see you all out there at a gig!
‘The Noise’ is out now. You can buy and stream here.
The Art of Getting Through will be released on 31 May. You can pre-order and pre-save here.
Follow Imogen Clark on Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok
