Society dictates that attending school is a way to allow continuity in our culture. We are taught, from generation to generation, a variety of norms, values, and skills that will allow us to form, from a young age, as accomplished individuals of its system. Perhaps, this old fashioned expectation and construct doesn’t match our present reality and conflicts with certain aspects of human social behavior. In this case and reflecting on her time as a pupil of an all-girls Catholic school, Hannah Rodgers also known as Pixx, allowed herself to look back at her time in this atmosphere and felt not content with the effects of denominational schooling and how this impacted her and former classmates. Pixx, a 23-year old songwriter who also hails from the renowned Brit School, not only reevaluates now the constricting consequences of religious rules while growing up, but gives herself the chance to stand up and conceive her own perspective and opinions on this experience. We talked a little about this, the process of creating music, and playing with a full band for her upcoming record Small Mercies via 4AD.
Lola Pistola: Okay let’s get started. We only have a little bit of time. Is this your first time in New York?
Pixx: No, I think it’s actually my fourth visit. The first one I came here, I was recording. Just had like a few sessions.
Yea.
I came here for like a 4AD showcase, but that’s like the only time I played in America before. And then I came here again, I can’t remember maybe for leisure.
You had a show last night?
Yea, it was just like, a strip back set. Just like for mostly industry vibes.
An industry show? Like a showcase sort of thing.
Yeah, yeah. In like this big hotel.
Nice, that sounds like a good time. So, it’s just you guys playing?
Yeah, we come back in July playing a show supporting Nilfer Yanya at Rough Trade.
I was curious about how the set up live is. Do you feel different playing with a live band? Or just doing a stripped sort of thing? Are there elements that get lost in a way?
I mean cause the album’s got some songs that are so much more band, ya know, bass. So, that feel, sounds so much bigger when we have like a live junket and stuff. It’s like but we still use loads of sound pause, electro mix albums as well, so it doesn’t get like swallowed up by the live band. Yesterday, we were just using like a sound person, and then we had 2 guitars and a bass on stage, but normally we have synths live and sound person like cause its quite a big setup now. Which is nice and fun. We got loads of toys to play with.
Was that like a big shift from when you like started playing? As in having now a full band…
It was always like something that um no one was sure that it was necessary except me. I was always pushing for it.
For having the live band?
I just loved playing, playing with a full band. Yea it feels just so much more. And the energy can shift way more when you’re not restricted to you know staying on a click or whatever. Cause if you’ve always got a an electro–drum machine then most of the time it’s just gonna be triggering like a beat for the whole track. And that means you can’t really shift in and out and so.
Yeah, it becomes like very like rudimentary to just do a certain kind of thing.
Yeah.
Do you feel like you’re giving more now?
Kind of, although I play guitar more on stage now. Which is nice, that’s kind of how I first started, and I’ve gone back to that. No, not for every song, but I kind of, we haven’t played that many shows with the live band. We’ve just been rehearsing. ‘
So that’s sort of like a new thing?
Right, that’s to come really. We’ve just been playing little independent venues. For our mates nights and stuff, just to get test it out really. But it’s been really fun, so far, I’m really excited to play in bigger venues and get back into the swing of things.
What’s been happening with you after your debut album? What have you been doing?
I’ve been writing a lot. The recording process is always time consuming, so I did it and I was mostly working with two different producers, but this is the first time I actually worked out some of the songs with the live band before going into the studio. So, that was a nice thing that we did. Recording live in the studio, it’s like something that was never done before, and I’ve been making lots of videos, lots of homemade videos now. Cause I wanted there to be visual content for the whole album, like lyric videos cause I love lyrics, it’s like my favorite part of music really. Well I mean that’s not necessarily true, but it’s a big thing to me so I was like “oooh lyric videos”. So that’s been taking up a lot of my time.
Are you more concerned of your visual art? It’s a complimentary aspect of your music and what you’re putting now into the world. Like the new album that you are putting out on June, are you behind now a lot like of the visual aspect of it?
Yeah, yeah, I’ve been doing it kind of a lot alongside the whole, that sort of happened along gradually with the writing and the music as well. It’s just like I love capturing content with my friends and just like my real life that goes on behind the scenes, while I’m writing this music. I know some of them are a bit more sort of performance based as well, where I just set up a green screen and go a bit crazy in front of the camera. It’s just fun for me. It’s kind of a good outlet for energy cause when you’re not playing live shows, it’s kinda, it’s weird cause you go through this chunk where you’re playing loads and then you have a dip and it’s just like “ugh what’s going on?” and you kind of lose that performance or that kind of energy. So, I’ve just been bouncing around in front of the camera a lot.
Trying to keep the energy going and then that liberating moment when you’re on stage and you’re like “what do I do after all this time”. I was thinking about how that new song or like your single “This Gray” reminded me a lot of like Nina Hagen. It’s very moody, there’s a little bit of everything. There’s like this rock’n’roll aspect and then there’s this synth part too. Very proto your voice is like lower than usual too. Is that like something that you wanted to achieve? Are you more into a certain kind of energy or vibe now?
Yeah I kind of, I always just love low voices anyway. You’ll find that I feel it more when I sing low. I feel like I can get a bit more out of me, you know what I mean? It feels more suited to the songs as well. But this album is quite a lot of depth behind the lyrics, as they come. You know the sort of characters that are behind all the different songs, cause a lot of them are kind of, they’re sort of made up characters that I was writing from that perspective and I felt kind of–a lot of them I was really angry. I was sort of, so the voices are bit more growl I suppose.
Right. Why were you angry? At the time of like writing the songs?
I suppose I was just focusing on you know, lots of different things. You know, I was thinking about how I felt about sort of being raised in a Catholic school for example, an all-girls catholic school. You know and I was thinking about how so many of my friends from there sort of came out years and years later and it was hard for them as being lesbians. I suddenly got this new sort of feeling about the whole thing where I never, it never sorts of sprung to mind before how sort of suppressed we all were and I. And I just wanted to write about how I felt about religion because it was so, I just felt like there’s so many elements of it that are pretty backwards in my opinion.
Would that be totally directing to the title too like “Small Mercies”?
I mean it all ties in as well. Like the songs on the record that are about you know, this song called “Hysterical” for example, it’s just about how men always call women hysterical and I just think even when you look at religious schools when there’s boys and girls schools, it’s like the rules are so different. Women are kind of, especially in that Catholic school, it’s like you got such a high rate of pregnancy compared to every other school. And it’s because it’s so condemned and you know people naturally rebel and then you’ve got all these girls sort of coming out of there who are basically like not had the chance to do what they wanted to do because they’ve been sort of put in a box. And you were so young then and it’s all really fucked that you’ve got all this guilt sort of thrown on you at that age.
That seems frightening because it is education that you’re getting is not proper, or part of the spectrum of being a human, it’s more like a thing that could or could not exist.
Yeah and you don’t get like taught about other religions and stuff and that’s like so damaging as well, so like you can’t come out of a school and you’re like 16 or 17 and not have like any idea of about other cultures and their beliefs. It’s not like I think that other people who have faith are wrong, but you can’t make people believe something and you can’t force people to sort of and you can’t, you should never try to make people, you know do what you want or follow rules because of fear, because you know anything that’s led by fear is just gonna be so damaging to people.
Absolutely. Yeah there’s no real circumstance of what could happen, what could I do as a human and then it’s going to what am I going to do after I’m dead cause I’m going to get judged.
It’s so weird, it’s like you got kids being raised then with that idea of death already. It’s like you shouldn’t be, you should never fear death anyway. Death is a natural thing. You know that death is not bad.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that you went to a like a full women’s catholic.
Yeah.
That sounds pretty insane.
Yeah, it’s weird, I made it out though. I’m alright.
Do you think, how would that, how did that affect your song writing, I mean now cause you’re what? 22 or 21?
23.
23. So this is years and years after, you’re writing about that now. Why do you think it’s so important to write about those things nowadays?
I think I just kind of, I just started to look back and sort of and I can just like I said there was a lot of girls who went to my school who’s actually like, there’s actually a couple whom are now like married, I think. These two girls who were in my class. I just, I can’t. I felt like sort of turning a blind eye to it. I feel like as a musician, as a songwriter it’s like I want to be able to express how I feel about stuff. And all I can really do is take from my own experiences a lot of the time and build on that. And I wanted to write music that makes people question things and there’s a lot of people who can relate to that because it’s like being in prison.
And these are the times too where raising awareness and talking about our own experiences it’s beyond it’s political, it’s beyond just like sharing experience. And in music it should not be, you should not give your back to that stuff, so I think that’s pretty brave on your part you know.
You know I feel like a lot of the music that I listen to and I was brought up on is like class Bob Dylan stuff and like lots of protest songs and yea you know that’s just something I appreciate more than you don’t need but it’s nice too. I quite like direct references in songs that you kind of know exactly what they’re talking about. It’s not all like ooh what’s going on there.
Yeah, like the fantasy of that. Like it’s good to have a pressing conversation of the world too and make it personal. I read online that interview that you said or expressed that Pixx is a way for you too, or bridge, to express you know and process your art. How do you allow as Hannah to welcome that moment as Pixx?
It’s quite, I mean it’s funny actually cause it’s like really only in the songwriting in those moments when I’m writing a song, in those moments when I’m performing a song, that’s when I really fall into it. So, it’s like sometimes it feels like it’s happening to me more than I happen to it, if you know what I mean. It’s kind something that really helped me in my everyday life. If I kind of zone out for a bit and pick up a guitar and start writing, you know even if it’s scribbling on a piece of paper or I’m playing or whatever. The feeling after that sometimes it’s like I won’t even realize that I’ve been really like pent up and it’s like a massive outlet and it really helps me to sort of to get by really cause without it I feel like I’d be a bloody mess.
Yeah, you need that outlet, so that’s really good. You went from this catholic school and then you went to Brit school. How did that shift it?
It was pretty weird because it was like complete opposite environment, but it was really good, it was like the first time I was surrounded by lots of musicians.
Did you always want to make music? Did you make music while you were a kid?
Yeah, well I was always, I was always writing songs and playing guitar and stuff, but I never–I don’t know if I ever sort of considered that’s what I’d do. I just always did it cause that’s what I enjoyed doing. But even after Brit school I came out of there and got like a, I worked in like an office in central London booking adverts into newspapers. And I was always still doing music on the side, but I wouldn’t say I was, I mean my heart was set on it but I wouldn’t say I was really allowing myself to even consider it. So it was kind of a pleasant surprise when it sort of came to…
A realization, to become…
Yeah and then it in some ways is kind of has taken me a while to get to the point now where I’m kind of like oh shit this is actually like what I’m doing this, this is amazing you know. Yeah, I got to make sure that I’m sort of grabbing on to it with all that I can cause I felt like I was, yeah it’s just sort of came out of nowhere.
Balance is good in music and more when you’re traveling too.
Yeah exactly. It was quite sad leaving the other two behind (Pixx’s bandmate was present in the interview and Pixx is referring to the rest of the live band members) We all live like really close to each other as well, which is good. We’re about to start demoing.
New stuff?
Yeah yeah. Which probably shouldn’t talk about now.
How would you describe your method with writing now that you have more people involved? And you said you had a few songs you started with a band like it was sort of like a jam or something that? Or you would come in like an idea?
It’s always kind of the songs are there, and the band kind of add their parts. But what we’re starting now is kind of separate. It’s still sorts of like bring new songs to the band and we jam with them, but the record Small Mercies was different like I wrote that majority of it just on my own. But I wanted to be on this, I want to sort of try more bandy kind of set just cause it was the first time I really been in the studio with a full band towards the end of writing this record recording this record sorry. That’s kind of what were gonna do next.
That sounds good. What’s next? You guys are leaving New York soon or you playing more shows? Or just going back to London?
We’re going back to LA tomorrow night for another showcase. And then we’re gonna, we got a day off there, so then we’re going to go on Saturday I think my manager is gonna drive us to the desert.
‘Small Mercies’ is out on 6/7 via 4AD. Pre-order here. You can follow Pixx on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.