Gregory and the Hawk Interview

With her new album, Leche, having just had it’s launch party, we took the chance to speak to Gregory and the Hawk about tours, pseudonyms and the new album.

MTTM: It’s been two years since your last full length album. What have you been up to in between times?

Gregory and the Hawk: Played a few different tours, wrote the new album, life

MTTM: The launch party for your new album, Leche, was 29th October. How are you feeling about the release of your new record?

Gregory and the Hawk: I feel great about it. The songs took a lot of time, I was very careful with the sound of my album this time around and excited for it to be part of the world.

MTTM: You have a pretty hefty tour coming up, how are you feeling about showcasing the new record?

Gregory and the Hawk: The shows will be solo shows. I will be doing four or so songs from the new album, and also some older songs I don’t normally play live that I’m trying to give new life. I’ve been enjoying playing out a lot more recently, so I look forward to the tour.

MTTM: Is a tour of this size daunting? And how do you feel about touring, is it tough travelling for such a long length of time?

Gregory and the Hawk: Being tired much of the time can get me down, but a month is not bad. I found that approaching two weeks, you can hit a stride that seems unbreakable.

MTTM: What sort of sounds can fans expect to find on Leche? What does this latest recording mean to you personally? How would you say it differs from your previous two albums, In Your Dreams and Moenie and Kitchi?

Gregory and the Hawk: I can say I consciously set out to strike a balance between my last two albums with this one. I wanted it more varied than In Your Dreams, but darker than Moenie and Kitchi, with the music being slightly less driven by singing. But the care I put into the songwriting is closer to in your dreams. There is a lot of thought in Leche and, I think, some sounds that are a lot different from my previous stuff.

MTTM: Gregory and the Hawk is a pseudonym of your real name (Meredith Godreau). It states in your biography you started working under this name to avoid being pigeonholed as a singer/songwriter. Why is it that you don’t want to be perceived this way? And how does your work defy this perception?

Gregory and the Hawk: I did say that once and sadly it’s followed me around and I keep having to explain myself. Maybe I meant something by it then, but it now seems irrelevant. What it comes down to is genres are walls – Nobody wants to be walled in.

MTTM: Prior to your recordings with FatCat Records, you independently released two EPs (Gregory and the Hawk and Boats and Birds) and an album (In Your Dreams) selling 15, 000 copies. How does recording independently compare with creating an album in the studio? Was it hard to adapt and do you feel it has altered your sound in any way?

Gregory and the Hawk: Boats and Birds (besides the remixes) and Moenie and Kitchi were the two that were recorded by an unchanging engineer, in one studio, start to finish. It’s definitely different from having an open agenda and doing your own work and calling every shot, and I feel when I record on my own it sounds more like “true” me. But that is obviously not fun 100% of the time. I will hopefully always have the chance to do both, and to collaborate.