Earl interview: 'I want to transcend any sort of chaos'

American artist on her new album 'Tongue Tied', her colourful life, and why the record industry is so unkind to single mothers

Earl wants her music to be a place to find the joy in life, rather than the bad (Dan Kendall)

We're in Underground London, in low light and with glasses balancing precariously on a rickety table while Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Etta James croon from speakers dotted around the room; a barman is polishing glasses while another brings over more cocktails.

It's the perfect setting to talk to American artist Earl, born Kate Earl in Alaska, US, about her new album Tongue Tied, which draws heavily on jazz, swing and blues, and adds modern production that recalls the best work of Austrian composer Parov Stelar.

Her album is unlike anything else you will have heard this year, far from the disco or funk influences that have dominated so many new releases.

So as old-school as her influences may be, it seems fresh, fun, and exciting: the title track opens with a video game 'pew pew pew' before the double bass riff and Earl's silky vocals that crackle like an old vinyl record, while "Travelling Heart" is a bonafide pop jam about struggling to be faithful to one person. "Lazy Man" will throw you right back to the 1950s thanks to its splendid male backing vocals.

"I would like to be a recognised name, but I just want to have the feeling of like… I get to keep doing this, and then I can connect with people," she says. "I really want to have a connection with fans."

She recently played the second stage at Cornbury Festival in the Cotswolds – "the first time in my career I’ve been at a festival and I got an encore", she beams.

But it's been a long ride to get to this point in her career. Four albums, four record deals and a fourth ("and final!") marriage set to take place when her fiance moves from America to join her and her son in the UK.

"I was very impulsive before, and being so caught up in drama on the side," she explains. "I’ve really been working to eliminate drama and maximise creativity, because 16 years has passed, and I need to account for the next.

"It’s really important to be present and recognise the preciousness of our time. That’s why I was making this music – as a throwback, you realise it’s a bygone era, and I want to bring it back and let people enjoy it again, to make time stand still."

Earl is an infectious presence to be around, with a wicked sense of humour and the sort of blunt honesty that most artists (and their PR teams) would balk at. But it works, because she adds a little artistic licence to what is already a fascinating life story.

"There’s a lot on the internet about me," she says. "More than I’d like."

She left home aged 17 after her father died from cancer and her step-father kicked her out. Travelling to California, she found work as a model, got married to a boy she met at missionary school, and was then discovered, at 19, by a major label, and then by singer-songwriter Damien Rice, who took her on tour with him.

"He took me to perform with him at the London Palladium and-” she pauses, “- may have had a hand in breaking up my first marriage. He might selectively not remember that. But we performed at the Palladium before any shenanigans went down."

She got a standing ovation, something rarely seen for an opening act, and Rice let her have an encore. But she was shelved after an offer of an international tour with another artist fell through, and went back to modelling.

"I went to a surfers party and I just fell into this Bible study of models. It was a bunch of really hot girls trying to keep their legs closed," she explains, giggling. "I would have to escort some of these girls who were trying to be born again virgins, to be like their chaperone. It was really well-meaning but really… against nature."


 Earl: 'I want to transcend any sort of chaos, to be defiant against this unknown feeling we all have in the world'
 (Dan Kendall)

After being signed again, she secretly got married for a second time in Vegas and “very publicly got pregnant" before being unceremoniously dropped, again. On the recommendation of Andrew Wyatt, the vocalist for Miike Snow, she signed to another label, and put a record together while she was looking after her newborn son.

She crowd-funded money for a motor-home, and for her third album, Ransom, which earned her a spot on BBC Introducing and a tour with Jack Savoretti.

"Just a simple little jaunt," she jokes, taking a sip of her cocktail. "Here’s a question, why is it so offensive to be a mom in the industry? As a beginner. If you’re established, no one cares, it’s like an accessory, but why is it such a problem to be a single mother?

"Maybe it’s America," she suggests. "But BMG [her new label] have been very supportive, I bring my son to everything, everyone compliments him on how well behaved he is. Because he’s an industry kid, he knows not to step of the cables!"

After years of single motherhood she’s preparing for the “fourth and final” wedding, to a soldier who’s being honourably discharged from the military, who plans to enrol at medical school in the UK. She shows me pictures on her phone (nothing explicit), of a very handsome young man she’s clearly besotted with.

Many of her idols are playing through the speakers: "Billie Holliday taught me how to sing, Louis Armstrong, Michael Jackson, Elvis, Doris Day, Smokey Robinson, Frank Ocean, Amy Winehouse, Adele,” she reels off. All notable as artists who stand the test of time, and whose voices you can recognise in an instant.

"I want to transcend any sort of chaos, to be defiant against this unknown feeling we all have in the world. I think that’s the beauty and the brilliance of things like speakeasys," she says. "They’re becoming more common again for a reason, the world feels similar to the last time this happened."

As an American, she's hyper aware of how torn the political landscape is, but wants her music to be a place to find the joy in life, rather than the bad. "It’s the purest drug there is," she smiles.

And like many of her idols, one of the most wonderful thing about each song on her album is that they are clearly so personal, and feature so many anecdotes from her own past. But they are also completely universal in their themes, so as a listener you’re not excluded but rather feel invited to say: "I’ve been there as well."

"That’s something that’s been so important to me. I really respect and admire artists like Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder… do you realise how many hits Robinson wrote?" she exclaims. "Dozens and dozens of them, there aren’t many men like him. And he said the most important thing you can do as a songwriter is to write a song that is so personal it could be for anyone to feel is their song.

"Anyone can apply their own version of the story to the narrative. And without all my experience, I wouldn’t be able to do that."

Tongue Tied, the new album from Earl, is out now via BMG Records