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Want It All is the sophomore album from Little Wise, that in September 2022 turned three. Sophie Klein the artist behind Little Wise aimed around the record to commit to becoming a full time musician, as well as live life as a new parent (reflected in a recent Single ‘Heart Beats Quicker’).

Same time the new album was to be performed to audiences the health of the world was taking a turn and touring – which was part of ‘having it all’ – was effectively gone. Though this also resulted in ‘I want to really see you, and you see me‘ a LIVE extended-play being released.

Ahead of performing at the Trinity Sessions as support for the Tuck Shop Ladies… Sophie joined John at Sublime Cafe for this chat…

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IMAGE CREDIT: Elena McGannon

Thank You to Sublime Cafe for the recording space for the chat and Fraser Montgomery for production on Want It All.

SHOW NOTES: Want It All by Little Wise turns 3

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Feature Guest: Sophie Klein of Little Wise

Next Feature Guest: Charly Oakley

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CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

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TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV team member – check to audio before quoting wider

John Murch:
Sophie Klein, thanks very much for joining us today.

Sophie Klein:
Thanks for having me, John.

John Murch:
How have you been going?

Sophie Klein:
Well, that’s a big question. I’ve been riding the waves of ups and downs like the rest of the world. And all things considered, I’m really well.

John Murch:
If we look at 2019, that was the release of this album we’ll be chatting a bit about. And that was meant to be the catalyst of you becoming a full-time musician. Within the title of the album itself, it was an opportunity for you to want it all, achieve it all and get those dreams, desires, goals.

Sophie Klein:
Yeah, I guess wanting it all has taken on, in a way, new meanings because the past few years have showed us all how much we have to be grateful for as well as how much can be lost. But yeah, I did start September 2019, released Want it All, and hit the road right away to tour and was planning to make music my full-time thing. And then of course, the world had different plans. And in a way, I’m grateful for not having to earn my crust solely from music because I think just in that little period my mentality was very driven. But earning an income for my family and putting the emphasis on music and the pressure, in hindsight I think that wasn’t exactly right for me and where I want to be creatively. I’m finding it really liberating to not put the pressure creatively to also be the breadwinner for my family through my creative means.

John Murch:
You did get the insight though, I would guess, through that planning process of what it would look like to be a full-time touring musician and a new parent at that.

Sophie Klein:
I did. And also the picture of how things are constantly changing as my child grows up, and the different phases we go through, and how much she needs me around versus it’s okay to be a bit more on the road.

John Murch:
Can we set out whether or not the idea of the Want it All album, so the album is an idea then as a product in that it was a series of songs which we’ll get to. Was it a wish or a desire, a hope or a dream? Because only you know that answer.

Sophie Klein:
The song Want It All was really about me being in a bit of a point of uncertainty in my life. Do I want to settle down? Do I want to play rock and roll? Do I want to have children? So I think it was a desire. And it was interesting because as the album was being released that was already shifting within me, between the time that I’d written the song and first had conversations around those ideas of just being torn of which direction will I go? The point where I was releasing the album, my daughter had been born. It was funny because when I was releasing the album, people were like, “Oh, is it all about new parenthood?”
And I was like, “You guys really don’t know how the album release cycle works. This has been written and recorded and ready to release well before she came along.” To answer your question, I think it was a desire. And I think it still is a desire, but when I play the song live, I almost feel this sense of gratitude like, I actually do have it all, if I look what it all is. I’ve got all the important things,

John Murch:
What sense of time travel is there in this record and playing this record? Because if we look at those themes of looking back in the past of people who have been in your life and where they’re at-

Sophie Klein:
There is a bit of nostalgia in the record. Interestingly, when I’ve been writing new songs now I keep coming back to reflecting on the past. And the songs that I’ve played to people so far definitely have a sense of nostalgia permeating. I’ve been writing a lot of songs about when I was a teenager, and that’s something that bubbled up throughout the lockdowns in Melbourne during COVID. I had recurring dreams from the period of when I was about 16 to 21, and in all the dreams I was surrounded by friends who’d been my closest friends at those formative times in life. And I think there was a reason that they kept bubbling up in my dreams. The song is called 17, and it’s about… We used to listen to the radio and hit play record, and now we have Jukeboxes at our fingertips, and we’ve lost a bit of the romance.
But then in the bridge I sing about how the kids these days really get it, and I’ve got hope for where we’re heading in the future. So it’s like things have changed, but I never want to be one of those people who are like, “Oh, the next generation doesn’t know anything or they don’t know what they’re doing.” It’s actually like, there’s wisdom in both up and coming generation. And they’ve got something beautiful to offer. I see as well with my young people I work with as a youth worker as well. Yeah.

John Murch:
Can we draw you back to, It Doesn’t Work Like That. I want to in the sense of time and how we measure and expect time to do things for us.

Sophie Klein:
Well, it’s really about a relative of mine who’s child went through childhood brain cancer, and me reflecting on how life just isn’t fair. And what do we do with that, and where do we put those feelings? Yeah, gamble with time was the line in that song, a little bit about when a young person’s really ill and you see the older generation say, “Oh, why couldn’t it have been me?” That kind of reflection. So it’s interesting because it came from a really raw and hurting place, but it turned out to be quite a rollicking rock and roll song. I like that juxtaposition in a way about what it originally meant for me versus how the song musically came out.

John Murch:
Things are good, they also have to be worse as well. There’s this balance you seem to bring across in your lyrics a lot of the time. Where does that come from?

Sophie Klein:
I guess it’s just being a human. For me, it’s the bittersweet existence of the highs and lows in life. I was just thinking, my grandmother used to have a saying, “You can’t dance at everybody’s wedding.” And it’s like, even for the things that you want to celebrate, you can’t always be there. I don’t know. I think that’s just my human condition is when it’s bad to want to see that it could be worse and how good we have it compared to how it could be and when it’s good. Tempering that a little bit as well with, but there are people going through hardships at the same time.

John Murch:
Silver Birch was an album about your mother. You, now as a parent, what are you hoping those conversations will be like in terms of social issues and people’s place in society?

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. Being a parent, you always want to be teaching your child, and I guess the best way to teach them is through your own actions. I don’t know. I think I’ve just reflected a lot on how I was raised. And I feel like we all either react and do the opposite of what our parents wanted, or we just end up of becoming our parents slowly. Which is interesting, because I have another new song which is about understanding a little bit more where my parents came from compared to how I didn’t understand them when I was a teenager.

John Murch:
That also brings up the case… Firstly, did you want to be a parent?

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. I did want to be a parent. I don’t know if I was ready to be a parent, but I don’t know that anyone really is ready to be a parent. In some ways, I’m still not ready to be a parent and yet here I am parenting and doing my best I can like, most parents. And it’s hard to of encapsulate how that is because it really depends on the minute, on the day, on the hour.

John Murch:
I want to personalise it to you as a singer, songwriter. Has your writing changed because of it? Because the first single in a long while from you was Heart Beats Strong, which was very much about this, being a parent experience. Has it changed you as a songwriter in any way?

Sophie Klein:
It has. And I remember, after my daughter was born, there was a little period where I was like, “Oh, well. I’m a songwriter, so I have to write the song about parenthood.” And obviously, there’s no the song. There’ll be many songs and many permutations along the way. But one of the first songs I wrote after my daughter was born was not about her at all, but I was able to channel a whole new set of emotions in my writing. It’s a song called Call Your Bluff, and it’s really about a relationship and being willing to do just about anything for another person. And it was cool because I could access this new set of emotions different to being in a romantic relationship or a partnership, different to a friendship, different to me and my parents, but someone who I feel that I would do anything for them.
I think it has changed my songwriting because I have a whole new set of emotional depth that I can access. And B, I think it’s made me more purposeful about my songwriting, purely because the way I spend my time is different and I have to be a lot more disciplined and get to work because I have this person who’s taking up a chunk of my time that I didn’t previously have responsibility for.

John Murch:
Is it a sense of home in the emotional sense or is it a sense of muse?

Sophie Klein:
I think a bit of both. Yeah, a bit of both. In some ways, having a child has made me even possibly a little bit more driven. That was maybe a bit more so initially because there was no such thing as just going out to do a gig. It was like every show was sacrificing time spent with her or more pressure on my partner who was then home with our daughter, and nights away where I couldn’t do bed times or… So every show had to really count because otherwise, why am I sacrificing this important time, missing important milestones?

John Murch:
Your face lit up in terms of bedtime. Is there a sense of storytelling within that time?

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. I love reading stories. I’m sure a lot lots of people do, but I love children’s books. And my daughter’s three and a half now, so we get to really delve into stories. And I think songwriters have a lot to learn from children’s book authors.

John Murch:
I was about to say, not about her but in terms of children’s books. You understand the rhythm and the minimalism in a way of children’s books.

Sophie Klein:
I think it’s Laurie McKenna or maybe it was… I’m trying to remember who said this. But someone I heard a podcast or I read, said that they’ve just got a… Maybe it was Lucinda Williams actually, said that she’s just got a really short attention span and that’s why she writes songs, not novels. And I think in that way children’s books are perfect like that because they’re short. They’re self contained. They usually can only deal with one topic like any good song, should really just deal with one topic to have clarity. And music has music and words to tell the story and children’s books have pictures and words to tell the story and they have to work together. So there’s a lot of similarities.

John Murch:
The Christmas song on the album, is Joanna aware of this song?

Sophie Klein:
No. Joanna is loosely based on somebody who used to live in my street, and I didn’t change her name, which was a little bit of an interesting move. So sorry Joanna, if you’re listening. I used to get a little bit worried that when the band would come over to practise, and we were playing that song, that she might come in here. But really, it’s respectful song towards Joanna. It’s just about the plight that she’s finds herself in.

John Murch:
The title track, Want it All in 2022. Do you think you have it all now? Has that want become a reality?

Sophie Klein:
I think I have it all in terms of what I wanted in the song, which was to have a family and settle down, but to still be able to play my music and express myself and-

John Murch:
Have no debts.

Sophie Klein:
… get out on the town. Have no debts? I don’t know about that. I think anything, maybe what I wanted then I think I have now, but maybe what I want now, also has changed, which is probably only natural that we keep changing and evolving.

John Murch:
I want to ask you about that give and receive element of that song as well because that is the whole community charity thing. Is that what you’re talking about in terms of giving and receiving?

Sophie Klein:
That was actually more about in my relationship that I want to play music. The type of music that I play and the way I want to do it in this original music scene doesn’t exactly bring in the big bucks. And it was like, I want to show you that I can give to this relationship too financially and support our family, which I guess I have in my own way, found my other ways and always carved out an existence in other fields as well as music. I feel really lucky to have that.

John Murch:
While still having music centrally.

Sophie Klein:
The pull of music has always been so strong. I think I’ve come to understand that that’s always going to be a part of who I am. There’s almost no point in fighting. It’s just there, let it come through. It’s interesting because looking back on the pandemic years, some of my peers and friends who were most successful in their music suffered the most because it was their sole income and their driving purpose all taken away. And those of us who were able to have more than one thing that we do, were pretty lucky really. It’s ironic that those who were, in a way, doing the best in music were hit the hardest.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about some of the ins and outs of the record. Talk about the producer, the recording. And the mixing was done by Fraser Montgomery. And Nick Edin.

Sophie Klein:
Nick Edin. Yes.

John Murch:
Edin. Sorry. Nick was also a producer and recording in the mix as well. Mastered master sounds. You seemed really comfortable in that environment at the Aviary Studio. Was that the case?

Sophie Klein:
Fraser and I, in particular, have quite a close working relationship. I think we got our process down to a tee by the end of making the album and we always said, “We got to do this again sometime now that we’ve got our flow, and we know what we’re doing” And no spoilers, but that’s exactly what I’m working on at the moment, is album number three at the Aviary Studios in Abbotsford, Melbourne with Fraser. Really admire his palette of his sonic inspiration, but also the way he’s able to… We can put technicality aside because he’s got a good handle on that, and then it becomes purely about the music. And we worked with amazing musicians as well. Josh Barber who played drums as well as my regular drummer Pam Zaharias. Josh is going to be co-producing some of the next work. Great producer and engineer in his own right.

John Murch:
There’s some really blues open organ movements in Come Back For More from Brendan McMahon, which really makes that particular song as well.

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. And he’s an incredible Hammond player who we were lucky to just get in for a session, which was awesome. Now, I’ve just come to feel really at home at the Aviary Studios.

John Murch:
You continue now to work with Aviary Studios, and I want to talk about what’s in that space. What kind of interactive elements are within the Aviary Studio that make it so good for you?

Sophie Klein:
Well, there’s a number of rooms. So there’s the main room, which is big enough to accommodate a whole band. There’s a vocal booth and another little room and the control room. There’s cool guitars. There’s a Wurlitzer. There’s a bunch of different keys. I think it’s probably more about the people. The space has come to feel really comfortable, but probably because of the rapport and great working relationship that Fraser and I have filter.

John Murch:
Each of the first two records had their own very distinct sound. Is this going to be a more rockier, heavier record, the third one?

Sophie Klein:
No, I don’t think so. I think it’s going to be maybe a little bit more soulful, even. Not in the sense of soul music, but I think the sonic palette is acoustic warmth meets classic pop rock and a little bit eighties inspired, which you can hear in Heart Beats Quicker. That’s probably maybe going to be the maximum end of layer and-

John Murch:
And that’s where-

Sophie Klein:
…the big sound.

John Murch:
That’s where I was getting the suggestion that…

Sophie Klein:
And the rest of the material is probably a little closer to the acoustic warmth, folk Americana. But in every song I’d like to take something that’s… I really love the idea of two sonic elements that are quite different coming and rubbing up against each other. So like, warm acoustic guitar meets synthesiser or drum machine or something unexpected, and taking each element that’s really classic and putting it up against something you wouldn’t expect. So I think we can expect a bit of that on the new record.

John Murch:
That’s that polar thing happening again. So both lyrically before worst and best and now orally, two sounds.

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. I’ve also been listening a little bit differently like, these artists who are doing things that are almost classic American heartland rock, but a little bit different. So there’s an artist, Hiss Golden Messenger, who I’m really into at the moment. And that’s where that soulful thing comes from. Not necessarily soul music in the sounds of Hammond organs and horns and things like that, but in the spirit of the music. Another one I’ve been listening to lately is Waxahatchee. To be honest, I think being an artist who doesn’t really fit into one neat genre has in some ways been really challenging because it can be hard to find my niche. But in other ways, I have to just do what’s true to me musically. And the artists I love don’t make the same record twice. It has to be different. It has to have its own feel, its own world. The sound has to keep evolving.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about an artist, I believe you do admire and the are the co-writer of a song called Heart Beats Quick, which sounds like it is going to be on the album. So the first single, we can now say, from the third album. 14th April 2022 is when the single’s released. It was co-written while in Nashville at around the same time, I believe that you’re playing Bluebird Cafe. On your way, obviously to New York City to play Mondo around the same time as well.

Sophie Klein:
Well, actually it wasn’t written then. That’s when Larissa and I first met.

John Murch:
First met.

Sophie Klein:
It was in Nashville.

John Murch:
What is the Sophie and Larissa’s story, musically speaking?

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. So Larissa and I met in Nashville. They were doing a songwriting residency where they were basically working every day on Music Row, being thrown into co-writing situations with all different musicians and songwriters. Writing for country music stars, writing for advertising. Just writing, writing and really getting their chops really strong. And I found that really inspiring and was picking Larissa’s brain a lot of the time in Nashville when we started talking about it. Yeah. Loved hearing about the life of a working songwriter. So when Larissa came to Melbourne just before the pandemic hit in, I think it was early 2020, we got together. And when you sit down to write a song, I always think, I haven’t done heaps of co-writes, but the ones I’ve done that have felt really great are when you can find a common ground and you go from there.
So Larissa and I, both queer, had just had our first kids born in the same month. So that was an obvious starting point. I loved connecting with Larissa to write this song. And I’d love to do that for someone else as well, is co-writer a song and have it go off and get wings of its own, and do its own different thing as well. It’s a cool thing as a songwriter to get one of your songs cut. And I think Larissa and I just mutually appreciate what each other does and it was great. I love how it worked out.

John Murch:
How are you finding these newer songs live, if you’ve had much of a chance to get them out live? You’re here in Adelaide to perform a support for the Tuck Shop Ladies, how are you finding the live?

Sophie Klein:
Really good. It’s really important for me to get a chance to road test how I feel about the song live. Both how I feel singing it, how I feel the audience is receiving it. It allows me to hone how I sing it before I go into the studio. And I’m probably enjoying playing the newer songs the most.

John Murch:
I want to draw people’s attention to a 2020 live EP, which was released during the times when live music couldn’t be a thing. It’s called I Want to Really See You, and You See Me. Was that title inspired by Courtney Barnett for being so long and nerdy?

Sophie Klein:
Oh, an obtruse album title? You know what? Maybe it was there in the back of my mind. Maybe she just made it okay for us to be able to do that. I was like, “Oh, yeah. You can do whatever you want. You can name it whatever you want.” That EP was released in lieu of all the tour dates I had planned and was my little gift to people I guess, of, “Oh, well. You can’t see me live, but here you go. Here’s some live recording audio from the archives.”

John Murch:
I’m quite aware that I have a prime opportunity here to talk to you about the new record and what’s on it. What’s the thematics of this new record? The first one was about your mother, the second one was about you and getting your freedom. It would be very naive to say that this next one is about parenthood.

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. It’s a good question. I think it’s still coming together. So it’s a work in progress. At this stage, I would definitely say parenthood is a theme as well as reflecting on my own formative experiences in teenagehood and childhood. Which think makes sense, because when you are starting to raise a child, I guess you think about your own childhood. So a sense of understanding, coming to a new understanding of my parents and how I was raised, and also raising my own child. As well as, coming to terms with a new identity in life. Yeah, watch this space.

John Murch:
What do you think your mother would say of the music that you’re now producing, and what sort of validation would you need from her?

Sophie Klein:
That’s a really good question. I think she’d be really proud of me, to be honest. She only ever got to hear my very first EP, which maybe at the time I was proud of. But now, I see how far I’ve come. Like everybody’s first batch of work, I have to cringe a little bit when I hear it now. But I remember actually her face seeing me perform at the EP launch, and I remember how supportive she was of helping me get that recorded as well. Yeah, I’d like to think she’d be proud. I think still, maybe some of my choices in life are different to how she would have her life, but I’d like to think that she’d be proud and happy to see me live my own truth because that’s, I guess, probably really how she raised me, was to be happy.

John Murch:
And you’re now getting ready through this songwriting process, and you’re probably doing writing outside of the actual release songs as well. One would think, being a full-time songwriter in that sense. Of lyrics and songs that you’ll be able to pass on to that next generation in terms of a journal on how to live life when they reach 17.

Sophie Klein:
Yeah. Songs that writing.

John Murch:
Right now. Yeah.

Sophie Klein:
Yeah, that’s a nice way to see it actually, to leave that kind of legacy or instructional manual. Not that there is ever one. But recording my own thoughts, ideas, and insights and hoping they resonate with someone.

John Murch:
What are you reading at the moment?

Sophie Klein:
I’m going through a bit of a Tim Winton phase actually. I just finished Cloud Street. Interestingly, a lot of my books I’m going through at the moment are from my parents library that I inherited some of when we packed down my childhood home. So now when I want a new book, I go onto my bookshelf of mainly my mom’s books because my dad’s not such a big reader, not such a fiction reader at least.

John Murch:
So the childhood home as in the Silver Birch home?

Sophie Klein:
Yeah, the Silver Birch home. So I’ve got a bunch of books at my home now that came off the bookshelves there when my sisters and I divvied up who wants what. Yeah, I’m going through Tim Winton.

John Murch:
I saw on your book list, Jeff Tweedy. What’s it about? Are you enjoying it? Have you read it?

Sophie Klein:
How to Write One Song is fantastic, and I’ve read about half of it, but I’ve actually gone back to the start of the book holding a pencil so that I could underline all the parts I love.

John Murch:
I thought it might be one of those kind of books.

Sophie Klein:
It’s a really liberating read. He talks through his process of writing a song and really looking at it like you do any piece of work where you have to sit down and really work for it. And also training the subconscious to be looking for materials for a song all the time. And anything you do, the more you do it, the easier it is to train your subconscious to continually work away in the background.

John Murch:
What do you do to keep your songwriting brain active? Is there particular excursions or skills or tasks that you set it to do that?

Sophie Klein:
I just keep a lot of notes, really. I just try and have a regular practise of it. I’ve got it in my diary.

John Murch:
What’s one of the most important things in your studio writing space?

Sophie Klein:
It’s a good question. I’m not someone who has to have my writing space set up in a particular way. I probably have to have a notepad or something nearby where I can write down thoughts that are outside of the realm of songwriting, so that I can just put them somewhere to be addressed later.

John Murch:
What’s one of your top tips regarding editing songs?

Sophie Klein:
Well, the first tip would be don’t try and edit while you are initially writing the song, because that’s really interrupts the process. Someone once told me, “Write at the top of a page that you… I give myself permission to write, complete and utter-

John Murch:
Yep, BS.

Sophie Klein:
BS. Yep. At the top of the page.

John Murch:
I don’t want to offend the American listeners.

Sophie Klein:
Firstly, separate the editing from the writing and definitely come back on a different day to edit. And then I guess for editing, I just always think, try and be lean. Just only say something that’s going to add to the song in some way. Be prepared to justify why that line needs to be there. And that’s where sometimes playing it live can really help because sometimes it’s only once you’re playing a song to somebody that you realise that that line that you thought you could get away with, maybe you can’t get away with it. And maybe you can come up with something better. So nothing like having to play it in front of someone or some people to really make sure every line is right.

John Murch:
What would you like to say about this song before we throw to it?

Sophie Klein:
Well, this is my song, Want it All. And in so many ways, I really have it all, but I’m still searching for more.

John Murch:
Sophie, thanks very much for joining us today.

Sophie Klein:
Thank you so much for having me, John.