The Breakdown: Willow on 'Run'

Rolling Stone

Watch The Breakdown: Willow on 'Run' - Rolling Stone on Dailymotion

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00:00I would say that this song is unique in the album.

00:04This song is like the weird sibling of the album.

00:10Hi, I'm Willow, and this is The Breakdown.

00:19The idea for this song was like,

00:20I'm in a situation with this person,

00:22and they're saying things to me,

00:24and I'm trying so hard to be in the moment

00:26and see their sincerity,

00:28and not let my toxic mental pattern

00:32paint them as this person who's trying to attack me

00:35or judge me.

00:36So Chris Griotti is a really good friend of mine.

00:38We made Coping Mechanism together,

00:41and we made a few songs on this record together.

00:43Not every single song is with me and him,

00:45but the songs that we did make together

00:47are some of my favorites.

00:48The way that me and Chris work most of the time is

00:51we have an amazing drummer friend named Asher Banks,

00:54and he will just play for a super long time.

00:57He'll play different BPMs, different time signatures,

01:00different everything, and he'll go away,

01:02and we'll come together and listen to everything that he did

01:04and be like, ah, we like this part,

01:06we like this part, we like this part.

01:07And so the drum part was picked first,

01:10and then right after that, we did the bass.

01:13That's not usually how it goes all the time,

01:15but specifically for this song,

01:17I needed to start first with those two things

01:20because they needed to interplay with each other

01:22and have that conversation.

01:24♪♪

01:27There's a lot on this album is a lot of just drum and bass

01:31because I just feel like it's so primal

01:33and it gets you right there.

01:34When the parts are really interplaying with each other

01:37in the right way, it just goes straight

01:40to that good place inside of you.

01:41For me, I really just wanted to hit that simplicity

01:46but just be super knife sharp

01:49and like this is the exact area I want you to feel this.

01:51When you craft drums, bass, and vocals

01:54in such a specific way that's so thoughtful,

01:58that's a really strong vehicle.

01:59I wrote this song when I was,

02:02I want to say like four or five songs into the project.

02:06And I had been telling my good homie, Chris Griotti,

02:09that I'm like, no electric guitar on the album.

02:11Like, I want it to be super stripped back.

02:14I want it to be super raw

02:16because I wanted it to contrast Coping Mechanism

02:18because Coping Mechanism was so produced

02:21and it had so many layers and, you know,

02:23it works really great for that album,

02:25but I wanted to just kind of strip it back

02:28and have more of like a simple piercing energy

02:31for this album, but also this song.

02:34And what's interesting about this song

02:36is that this was the first song

02:38that we actually added some electric guitar to.

02:41I just was like, you know what?

02:42F it, we're going for it

02:44because I wanted to give it that funky,

02:46like kind of dark feeling.

02:49I wanted it to feel like

02:50you're on the verge of a panic attack.

02:52And I told him, I was like, you know,

02:54I want it to sound kind of messed up.

02:56Like I want it to sound like

02:57I don't know how to play the guitar,

02:58like play something crazy.

02:59And he was like, no, you play something crazy.

03:01And I was like, okay, cool.

03:02So I just went on there

03:03and did some just weird guitar sounds

03:06that aren't even in tune.

03:08And it just made it that much cooler.

03:13So even just that, like I did a,

03:16yeah, that wasn't me there.

03:19That's, that's Chris, love you, Chris.

03:21But then I come back in here with the,

03:25and I told him, I was like, bro, like,

03:27no, it just needs to sound messed up.

03:29Like it needs to just be like,

03:30you're like wrenching your heartstrings,

03:32like, ah, you know what I'm saying?

03:34That anxiety needs to be there.

03:36Saint Vincent does a lot of like really intense,

03:39almost like using the guitar,

03:41not tonally, but just as a feeling.

03:44And that's what I, like,

03:45just the guitar spirit is like coming through it.

03:48It's not like, oh, I'm playing a line

03:49that's in the tune of the song.

03:51It's like, you're about to hear this guitar scream

03:53and the spirit coming out of this guitar.

03:55And I mean, a big inspiration for everything

03:57that I do is Saint Vincent,

03:58but specifically with those guitars.

04:00And it ended up, you know,

04:02bringing that urgency that the song really needed.

04:11Even that little,

04:18like,

04:30so you heard those like,

04:33like those very far away,

04:35like almost guitar feedbacks

04:37that kind of brings that like weird ghostly,

04:40like anxiety element into it.

04:42Like you wouldn't necessarily hear that

04:44when you're listening to everything together,

04:46but you feel it.

04:48Like, you know, in like the Sierra movies

04:49where they play like that really low note

04:51that nobody can hear, but they feel it.

04:53It's almost like that to me.

04:54And this song was really inspired by old school funk.

05:00And I really wanted to like put my little spin on it.

05:02Let's only do the vocals.

05:11And my vocal doesn't have any like slap on it

05:16or distortion on it.

05:20Because we're going deeper into that like emotional place.

05:29I don't want to leave,

05:31but I don't want to stay,

05:34you know, like I can't figure this out.

05:37I'm stuck, you know, I'm trying to escape.

05:42And as you can hear like,

05:46like there's a relief, but you feel the sadness.

05:53Like you feel me going like,

05:56I don't know what I'm going to do.

05:58I'm not brave enough to like face this head on.

06:06The vocals are giving this like ethereal beauty

06:10that would feel like a relief

06:13if it wasn't this deep sadness of me being like,

06:18I'm not strong enough to meet this uncomfortability head on.

06:22I'm not strong enough to see this through

06:25and like really do the self-work that I need to do

06:27in order to see this person as a human being

06:30and not just the metaphor of a threat to all of my insecurities.

06:34And there's this, yeah, that deep sadness is just permeating through

06:37and it's the escape.

06:39I love a good moving background vocal.

06:40Like I feel like there's a moment for like,

06:43the really like stark, like middle ones

06:45where it's like the ones in the beginning of the verse

06:48where it's like,

06:50and then we bring in that like long vocal,

06:53more of that movement.

06:55And yeah, it's just those different textures

06:57playing with each other, having a conversation.

07:14Yeah, so as you can see the background vocals

07:23have a little bit less of that like slap,

07:26like reverb on them.

07:27They have a little bit less of that distortion,

07:29like trying to enhance that funky like,

07:33you wouldn't necessarily expect that background

07:35to come in in a song like this,

07:37putting those backgrounds in

07:38and even like the way that I was singing,

07:40like making sure that I wasn't doing the same things

07:43that I have done in the past.

07:44Like for every album,

07:46there are like vocal isms that I work on for those albums.

07:52And you know, for Coping Mechanism,

07:53it was screaming, growling.

07:55That was very tough to learn how to do.

07:57And just belting.

07:58Those were the isms for that one.

08:00For this one, I feel like it's very intricate,

08:02like changing of notes.

08:05And I'm doing this like, it's not in this song.

08:07Actually, yes, it is.

08:08Yes, it is a little bit that,

08:10like a lot of like staccato breathing

08:13and almost like a weird yodel thing.

08:21So yeah, that's different for me,

08:23but I knew that it would push the emotion across

08:26and there are other songs on the album

08:28that have very similar,

08:30like just breath kind of moments,

08:32but using the breath as almost like a percussive element

08:35as well.

08:36For this song,

08:37there was like a two-day thing.

08:39Production the first day,

08:40main vocal the first day,

08:41and the next day come in and do backgrounds

08:44and mess with the production a little bit,

08:46like maybe put some LFOs on stuff.

08:48Maybe, you know, do some weird stuff.

08:51The emotion was strong.

08:52I had just been through an interesting experience.

08:56So I feel like the song pretty much kind of wrote itself

08:58because I was like,

08:59ah, this feeling is here right now.

09:01In the situation that I was in,

09:04I was just like,

09:05damn, like this person is acting so chill right now

09:08and I'm so not and like I was insecure about that

09:12and usually when people are insecure,

09:14they kind of try to bite back and be like,

09:15well, you know what I'm saying?

09:17And that was kind of my thing.

09:18Like stop talking to me like I'm your friend.

09:20Stop looking at me like I'll let you win.

09:21Like the lyrics are so important.

09:24Like here we go.

09:26First verse lyrics.

09:38Okay, here we go.

10:09Yeah, so like clarity can't be bought.

10:11With every breath that I take,

10:12I spiral around and around and then down.

10:15You can feel the palpable sense of like I'm panicking

10:21and I don't know what to do

10:22and I'm trying to make it your fault,

10:23but it's totally not.

10:25And like I was saying before about the like energy

10:28with which a performer sings a lyric,

10:32that energy is behind those words.

10:35Like, you know,

10:36I'm kind of like talking down to you and being sassy,

10:39but you can hear the fear in my voice.

10:40Like you're not like,

10:41oh, she's so confident right now.

10:43It's like, oh man,

10:44like there's a layer there.

10:45I also want to show you the second verse as well

10:47because there are some lyrics there

10:49that are pretty intense as well.

10:52Second verse lyrics.

11:06So yeah, like twisting every word that you say

11:17until I can't recognize you.

11:18That was one of my favorite lyrics actually.

11:20I actually want to hear that one more time

11:21because I'm butchering it.

11:32I mean, we've all been there.

11:34We've all been there.

11:36Someone's talking to you.

11:37You're like, damn,

11:38like sometimes we're not aware enough in our own mind.

11:41Sometimes we just think it's their fault.

11:43You know what I'm saying?

11:43Like, oh, they were being sus to me,

11:44but sometimes it's really us being like,

11:46I'm feeling weird about myself right now

11:48and everything that you're saying is reminding me

11:50about all the things that I feel weird about,

11:52which is making me judge you even more and more and more.

11:55And so that was definitely one of my favorite lyrics

11:57in the song.

11:58I really am a very immediate songwriter.

12:01I don't like to,

12:02like if I've left a song for too long,

12:05like if I made it and it's not finished

12:07and I leave it for a while,

12:08I'm not usually the kind of person to go back to it

12:11and remake it.

12:13I got to do it right now and the next day.

12:15And if that doesn't happen,

12:17I'm usually like on to the next idea,

12:19which is kind of weird because a lot of artists

12:22that I know like, oh, a song from two years ago.

12:24Yeah, I'll totally go back in and reproduce it

12:26and da-da-da-da-da.

12:27And for some reason I just don't work like that.

12:32I was telling Chris,

12:48I was like, oh, like this, this feeling of anxiety,

12:50like we need to find really simple and subtle ways

12:54to almost subliminally like make people feel like,

12:58oh my God, like why am I feeling like this right now?

13:00And just little touches like that,

13:02getting louder, starting low

13:03and then increasingly getting louder and louder

13:06and louder as the verse goes on.

13:08It really does that job of like,

13:11I'm on the edge of my seat.

13:12I'm feeling this anxiety that you're talking about.

13:14I kind of want to play the second verse

13:15with everything in it.

13:32So it's super, super subtle,

13:40but near the end of the verse,

13:41you start to feel like, oh,

13:42like something's coming out of this darkness.

13:45That's like, oh, making me feel some type of way.

13:47But how I feel about this project,

13:49I truly, truly feel like I am breaking out

13:54of my childhood perception of who I am as a musician

13:59because I have been doing music for so long.

14:01You kind of build up these like mental

14:03and emotional frameworks of like,

14:04this is how I interact with the world

14:06and this is how I am, you know what I'm saying?

14:09And I feel like those mental and emotional frameworks

14:12that I built up were from so long ago,

14:14like being a child.

14:15And you know, with this album,

14:17I feel like I kind of took a bat

14:18and just was like, no, no, no to all of this

14:21like old ways of conducting myself as an artist

14:25and as a musician.

14:26Coping Mechanism was definitely a step towards that.

14:30I truly believe that.

14:31But I feel like this was really like,

14:33okay, now the foot is really all the way down

14:36on the floor in this new place.

14:38And that makes me really excited.

14:50Making music is the honor of my life

14:53and I'm just so happy to do it.

15:00Making music is the honor of my life

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