Thelma Plum has recently released her terrific new EP, Monsters. A national tour is under way and a brand new single, Young In Love, has just been let loose in the world. The EP was produced by M-Phazes. Sean Sennett sat down with Thelma to talk about recording her latest work, her influences … and even her favourite films. 

Sean: Tell me about the recording of the EP. When I saw you play last it was you on an acoustic guitar. Obviously Monsters a sonic departure. Did you consciously make a decision that you wanted to change and do something different?

Thelma: Yeah, I don’t know if I consciously made a decision. I would like to say ,without sounding wanky, but it happened pretty organically. I’ve always wanted to make music that was a bit more than just me and a guitar but I never really knew how. Then I got the opportunity to work with people that do know how to do that, like M-Phazes. I guess that’s what happened and what came out of it but… yeah, I think it was not too much a conscious decision but maybe a conscious decision to expand my music a bit more and explore it. It would have been easy to do the same thing on a guitar, but not as much fun.

Sean: Did you make demos at home or in a studio before you sent it off to M-Phazes?

Thelma: Yeah, I did. I went in and did some demos with a friend and then sent them to M-Phases.

Sean: Were they acoustic demos or were they more embellished than that?

Thelma: They were mostly written on the piano except for “How Much Does Your Love Cost,” so they’re very ballady and quite pop. I guess he could kind of hear where they were going. He transformed them and made them very amazing, with what he did. They were pretty acoustic, the demos I sent him.

Sean: How many songs did you send across?

Thelma: I think I only sent him a couple more than what’s actually on the EP. One of the songs … Monsters … I wrote in the studio, so that was not with the demos. I sent him a few and then he told me let’s use these ones. I think one missed out.

Sean: The idea was always go to and do an EP?

Thelma: Yeah, that was always the idea, doing an EP.

Sean: How did you find out about him?

Thelma: I really love Illy. I love Aussie hip hop but really love Illy. I listened to his albums a lot of times but when I first listened to it I was like these tracks sound really cool. If you take way the rapping, which is awesome as well, which he is so good at that … but, when I just listened to the backing track, I thought it was pretty incredible how Phazes made all those noises. I wanted to know about him, and I heard of a few other things he’d done, and thought it would be a cool idea, a folk girl working with a hip hop producer.

Sean: When you got there, were you involved in creating the sonic backdrops or was that all his job and your job was to play guitar and sing on top?

Thelma: No, it was very much a collaborative thing. I worked with John Castle before M-Phazses, so John engineered it and we laid down all the tracks. The songs recorded, had piano, vocals, little noises and stuff. Then once I had that, and that was very much a collaborative thing as well, but once I had that I went to Phazes and he built on top of that. He built on top of these songs I already had a bit formed, but he built on top of them, and made them a lot bigger than they were.

Sean: Where did you record the EP?

Thelma: in John Castle’s studio in Melbourne. He’s a great guy and they’ve got this shed studio which is pretty cool.

Sean: How long did it take?

Thelma: Probably ten days or something to record. And then after that with Phazes it took a little bit of work-shopping them and making sure they were perfect.

Sean: When you go and make the album are you going to use the same people?

Thelma: I’m not sure yet. I have thought about that. I definitely would love to work with Phazes again. I think whatever I do he is also now a very good friend of mine, and I trust him musically a lot. He means a lot to me musically so, yeah, I’d like to work with him again.

Sean: What kind of things were you listening to when you first kicked off writing songs? Who inspired you in the early days?

Thelma: Quite a few people, like when I was growing up I listened to a lot of country music and singer/song writers.

Sean: Did you grow up in Brisbane?

Thelma: I did in between Brisbane and this place called Delungra which is just outside of Inverell. My parents have our farm there so I spent a lot of my childhood there. Some of it in Brisbane too, so I guess maybe living in the country had an impact of what sort of music I listened to. But I grew up liking Kasey Chambers, Slim Dusty, that sort of stuff, John Williamson, lots of very Australia country, loved it. And that’s really what made me want to play the guitar and write songs the way I do write songs.

Paul Kelly was a huge inspiration. [I] have loved Paul Kelly my whole life. I first saw him play at the Gympie Muster, but there was another time I saw him play. He was playing with Kev Carmody. I would’ve been really young, like seven or something. It was a Woodstock tribute my mum took me to. Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly were on the stage together and I remember seeing them play. I was like I want to do that. I told my mum, “Oh yeah, I’m going to do what they do when I’m older.” She was like “Okay.”

Sean: Your tastes have changed. What sort of stuff do you listen to for fun, doesn’t necessarily mean it influences you, but you listen to it?

Thelma: I know everyone is like oh, I listen to everything, but I really do listen to everything. I listen to a lot of country music. I love country music and I always will. I went to see Kasey Chambers play last week and  I think that brought back a lot of memories. Since making this EP, when I first started writing the songs I was listening to a lot of pop music and a lot of hip hop music. That was Phazes’ world and I wanted to kind of be educated in that world as well. I was listening to heaps of hip hop music and I love Aussie hip hop as well, but really everything. Then I started listening to Kasey again the other day and was like ‑‑

Sean: The Captain was a great record, wasn’t it?

Thelma: It’s so good, that song. When she played that song last week, I was sobbing and sobbing. Did you know that song was in an episode of The Sopranos as well?  I only finished watching The Sopranos really recently, and hence was listening to Kasey again. It’s like the end of the season.

Sean: Have you seen the actual end of The Sopranos?What did you think of the ending?

Thelma: I got a little bit grumpy, to be honest. I felt like there was no resolution. I feel like I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Sean: Do you think [Tony] was killed?

Thelma: I don’t know. I would like to think no because I really loved Tony.

Sean: What are you watching at the moment?

Thelma: I’m like a crazy movie buff. If I’m not feeling inspired with my writing, I’ll watch a movie and then afterwards be like oh, that’s so lovely and romantic. I’m going to write about it. But my new favourite movie is Frances Ha. It’s a movie shot in New York, and it’s filmed in black and white. It’s pretty cool, very raw humour, and very realistic. It was good.  Frances Ha is probably, actually, my favourite movie, but maybe because I only watched it last week. I love Australian films so much. It reminds me of home but Rabbit-Proof Fence, is a really huge favourite. My Girl is one of my favourite movies. It’s a great movie. It was the first movie I ever cried in.

Sean: When you tour, will you be using a band to recreate the sounds?

Thelma: Yeah. I have a new band now and they’re awesome. I play with three beautiful musicians. It’s pretty much exactly ‑‑ I’m a really big fan of when I go to see music, which is funny because some people are the opposite ‑‑ I like the show to sound exactly like the record. I love the record so much and want to go and hear the record live. I’ve tried to make it sound as much as the EP as possible. I think it does, but it’s very different. There’s lots of beats and cool noises. Someone has a laptop on stage and does the gadgety things. I do a few gadgety things too. But I do play a couple of songs on the electric by myself, so still a bit of the old show. It’s nice to have that break in the set as well.