Family Affair- Emily and The Woods
By Amber Ainsworth
Emerging talent Emily and The Woods is a family matter. London born and
based, 23 year old vocalist Emily Woods plays along side her father and brother
in their typically British acoustic folk outfit. Competing to make in an
overcrowded industry of singer/songwriters, Emily tells us what sets her apart
from the rest with her delicate melodies and insightful lyrics.
Tonight’s gig is in the cultural seaside
town of Brighton at The Latest Music Bar, supporting fellow hopeful new artist
Thomas J Speight. Waiting for Emily to arrive, the atmosphere very much
reflects the mood of this talented new artist’s music, tranquil, relaxed and
serene. With her music described as acoustic, folk and British blues, tonight’s
venue seems like the perfect location for the audience to capture the quiet but
powerful ambience of her songs. Emily and The Woods, has a not so traditional changing
line up of brother Benedict Wood, her father Patrick Wood and artists including
Ted Dwane (Mumford & Sons) and bass player John Parker (Nizlopi).
In a short but increasingly
promising career, Emily and The Woods, have achieved airplay on radio stations
such as Radio 6 music and Xfm, thousands of hits on YouTube and LastFM and
played a bunch of festivals including their Glastonbury 2011 performance and a
collection of gigs supporting the likes of chart topping artists, Ed Sheeran
and Ben Howard. With famous friends and associates such as Laura Marling,
Bombay Bicycle Club and Newton Faulkner, Emily finds herself falling into the current
new wave of middle class singer/songwriters.
Dressed casually for tonight’s show
in jeans and a sweater, Emily enters the building in a calm and relaxed manner,
ever more the female sing/songwriter cliché. Her long brown curly hair has been
pulled up in a bun and she repeatedly apologises for her late arrival in her
soft airy voice. After getting a drink from the bar, she sits down and begins
to play with her straw, staring wistfully, and ready to discuss her inevitable
road to success.
So far Emily and The Woods have
released two EP’s, the 2011 ‘Eye To Eye’ EP and 2010 ‘Emily and The Woods EP’. Emily
reveals that although an album isn’t specifically on the cards just yet, she
has been writing new material ‘I’ve just found a really cool picture that id
like to use on the front of it so I’m going to start gathering the songs to put
in it’ Although in her early demo’s Emily had her friends Laura Marling and Ted
from Mumford and sons involved in the recording, she goes on to explain how
collaborating with other artists has added a new interesting element to her
recent writing methods. ‘There’s lots of different ways of doing things so
recently I’ve done a bit of collaborative work with people which has been a
really interesting way to come up with songs. Basing things around stories and
ideas that you kind of work on together which is not something I have not done
much of before.’
And have the themes in the music
changed since the earlier days of writing? ‘In terms of the writing, I get inspired by all
sorts of things mostly people. Basically, in the older songs I would be talking
about things very specifically because I didn’t think that anyone would ever hear
anything. I talked about things in a very direct way but I also wanted to be a
bit more poetic so things sounded slightly more complicated. So themes wise I’m
writing more about boring things like fancying someone! It’s still about
people, its still about feelings of being alive’ Steal
His Heart particularly portrays this need for poetic illustration with
lyrics such as ‘Takes off my crown,
throws it to the sky, We are emblazoned as bright lights we’ll thrive’
With an ever increasing schedule
Emily and The Woods are getting ready for one of their busiest years to date.
With plenty of shows and festivals lined up, Emily reflects on some of her
standout performances so far and what she’s looking forward to musically in the
next few months.
‘I think my favourite gig was when I supported
Ben Howard at Lusty Glaze beach in Cornwall last year because it was just so
beautiful. There was a big crowd and it was just amazing because it was down on
the beach with all these cliffs around us. There was something like 150 steps
to get down to the beach so it felt very far away from anything else which was
great’
As mentioned in 2011 Emily and The
Woods stole hearts whilst playing at Glastonbury festival as part of the
Emerging Talent competition. A landmark in any musical career, Emily tells me
of her experience at the UK’s biggest festival. ‘Glastonbury was amazing, it
was great fun. I took all my family which was just a hilarious thing to do and
they all camped. When we got there it was a bit grey and rainy and then we
played and the sun came out and stayed out for the whole weekend.’
Emily and The Woods are lined up to
play at this years Oceanfest festival with friends in the business, Ben Howard
and Newton Faulkner. ‘I am looking
forward to playing Oceanfest this year because there are people playing who I’m
really excited about. I’d really like to see Dry The River’ Other small
festivals they are set to play include Barn On The Farm, London Folk Festival
and Chagstock. ‘At the moment we just want to play a lot and it’s a good time to
do that because there’s not much pressure on what festivals we do. They’re all
really sweet and small, which is great. I love that vibe. ‘
With a broad range of influences
including Joni Mitchell, John Martin, Gill Scott and Erykah Badhu, music is
something Emily has been interested in from a young age. She began writing
songs when she was little but it wasn’t until she was around 18 that she learnt
to play instruments which allowed her to put her songs to music. When she
finished her degree in Philosophy and Theology at Exeter University, she
decided to take it on full time. Although
music was always something close to the young singer/songwriter’s heart and mind,
the decision to take it on full time was not immediate for her. ‘I was doing my degree but I also did loads
of music. I was in the process of working out what kind of things I wanted to
spend my time doing , it just led me to deciding that this was something worth
concentrating on. I tried lots of different jobs so that I could really make an
informed decision. When I worked in offices I spent the whole day wanting to
play music and that was what was making me excited so that was what I decided
to do’.’
From the early days of Emily and
The Woods, the internet was one of the main sources of getting the music heard.
With a collection of YouTube videos with views over 1,000,00
and subscriptions in the thousands, the internet has opened up a lot of doors
including a WatchListenTell acoustic video which Emily exclaims is her biggest
achievement to date. With a high level of interaction with her fans on social
media sites such as Facebook and Twitter with followers and fans up to 7000,
Emily considers staying connected an important element to any artist or band.
‘It’s so nice to have any contact with people who are listening to your stuff;
it makes it feel worth it. The only reason why I wouldn’t stay connected actually
is because of bloody Timeline! (the new highly unpopular Facebook page layout).
With the internet being an ever
growing pit of new and emerging artists and genres trying to make something
happen and record sales increasingly dropping, the music industry is harder to
break into professionally than it ever been but this doesn’t stop Emily and The
woods striving for success. As a fan of new music, Emily is opinionated about how
the internet is transforming the way music is now consumed ‘I love the fact
that now the music industry doesn’t feel like it’s able to dictate in such a
way that it used to. So now you can actually discover music and carry on
finding out. You’re not just limited to the radio, or your parent’s record
collection or whatever you can buy in the record shops’.
Clearly what sets Emily apart from
others on her level is her obvious drive and positive attitude. By describing
her music as just her singing her songs, she tries to avoid being categorised although
tends to be due to her lucky support slots and humble beginnings. Openly
admitting that mainstream success is what would eventually like to be achieved,
Emily is also aware of the struggles which she may have to face along the way. ‘I
think as long as you keep your integrity and you carry on doing music that you
really like and then it’s great when people know about you. It’s difficult and
also there’s not really any money in it anymore so things are in a bit of a
funny place. But I also think that the brilliant thing is that there are loads
of connections being made and It’s not
as difficult as it used to be for your music to get heard’.
