Friends Interview Friends: Elijah Wolf and Emma Bowers for All My Friends Fest
Emma Bowers (left) and Elijah Wolf (right)
Promotion for All My Friends Fest (on tomorrow!) continues with the second installment of “Friends Interview Friends,” where two pals from our festival lineup interview each other. This time around, we get to know musicians Elijah Wolf and Emma Bowers as they strike up a wholesome phone call. On the surface, Elijah and Emma have a lot in common: they’re both based in NYC, both their names start with the letter “E,” and as we find out, their musical interests stretch far beyond their own mutual folk-rock style. Read their full conversation on creative growing pains, the importance of collaboration in music, and their new favourite records of 2020 (so far) below!
On coming to music
Elijah: If music wasn’t much of a thing in your household, what got you into songwriting?
Emma: I picked up the guitar at twelve because of Taylor Swift, and then not too long after that I started finding my way to folk music. I did really latch on to a few of my mom’s favorite songs that informed my songwriting after that, “Here’s Where The Story Ends” by The Sundays and some of The Cranberries’ radio hits...and then by high school it was Bon Iver and Joni Mitchell and Bright Eyes.
Elijah: It seems like you really found your own path...starting with Taylor Swift and ending up at Bright Eyes. Usually you hear a story about an older sibling or someone down the block who gave someone a tape. You never hear someone just kind of finding the weirder side of music on their own after coming from straight pop music.
Emma: It’s funny what a teenager will get into when up to their own devices. Were your parents musical?
Elijah: They were, thankfully. I grew up in Phoenicia, right next to Woodstock, so there was a big music presence there. Both of my parents weren’t musicians professionally, but growing up, my mom had an old 60s Guild and a really great voice, and she loved Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell and the great folk music of the 60s and 70s. She would just walk around the house singing those songs. My dad had the ability to just pick up an instrument and play it, he’s really humble about it. He plays a mean harmonica. He used to play it through this old mic called the Green Bullet, hooked up to a makeshift pedalboard with a drum machine, and that was all going through some old combo bass amp. He’d get lost in these kind of crazy experimental jam sessions with himself. I’m pretty sure he taped himself, I need to find those.
Emma: Yes, you do! Sample them or something. I always wonder what my relationship to music would be if I grew up with a parent with taste similar to my adult self, because now that I love Joan Baez and Neil Young, and I wonder if someone had spoon fed them to me, if it would be the same.
Elijah: That brings up an interesting point, because I was, very much so. As a result I rebelled against it for years. I played in punk bands and listened to everything but folk music, and then I came around to it and realized that it was the music that spoke to me the most. My sister Kashia is four years older than me, so she actually grew up in the 90s and was able to listen to and love in real time a lot of bands that are some of my favorites. I love the 90s music scene from Seattle, so Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, and I discovered them through her. I just decided that music was all I liked to do, and my best friend Evan, who goes by Photay, we’ve been friends since we were really little and he also came to the same decision as a musician, so we just made like every type of different band together, every kind of genre, just trying things out.
Emma: That reminds me of Katie Crutchfield’s arc from punk music to folk, which is super interesting and I’m glad she’s talked about that a lot more recently because it’s a great contemporary example of how nonlinear your relationship to genre can be.
Elijah: It does seem like a somewhat familiar progression that people actually go through. There is some kind of natural transition from punk music to folk or country. I think there are similarities - more so than you’d think. Just because folk isn’t often loud or aggressive, it can still have this rebellious nature.
Photo provided by Emma Bowers
On collaboration
Emma: My musical life for a long time has been really isolated and solo, and it wasn’t until I made my EP a few years ago that I actually got into a studio with other people and started playing with a band. Since then I’ve been really wanting to pick up instruments other than guitar so that I can play with my friends’ projects and build out my musical life in that way.
Elijah: That’s something I’ve thought a lot about too, trying to make sure music is more community based and not such a solo thing. I’m sure there are lot of people who would disagree, and I understand that side too, because I tried it. It’s just more fun when you have friends and collaborators around. At least for now, I really don’t want to go back for a while...I want to stay here and enjoy working with my collaborators and working with friends.
Emma: It’s such a funny time to have the instinct to want to collaborate! I feel like I want to do things with other people more than ever, and maybe that’s partially because I can’t, but I also think I had these curiosities before this but had a hard time following through on the impulse.
Photo provided by Elijah Wolf
On creativity in isolation
Emma: Do you find yourself feeling more or less creative?
Elijah: Sometimes I’ll be really productive, and I’ll be able to work on new music and get into the zone and feel optimistic and excited. Then there are weeks when I feel really down and anxious, and don’t make anything at all. I just stare at my guitar and think about how I should be doing it, and then I go down that path which is never good. But it goes back and forth.
Emma: I’ve felt similarly: having really wildly productive days bookended by days where I just can’t get myself to do anything. I’ve been sitting on a handful of songs all Spring, trying to get them to the place where they feel done, and when I can’t do that, I try to be creative in other ways. Either cooking, or making a quilt, or writing about music for work. I find that when I step away after doing those things, I feel a bit creatively restored and can approach my music with a clearer head and a bit more creative confidence. I miss being able to watch other people play in person, that was always a huge part of what kept me inspired.
Elijah: One thing that’s been helpful for me when I’m in that place is learning covers of songs I love. It helps me to understand the song more and it becomes more personal.
Emma: That’s something I do too! I often try to find a more challenging song that I love and when climbing up the mountain of learning it, it kind of comes alive in your hands. Every time I do that I end up dumbfounded, wondering, “Did the person who wrote this feel this way about this song?” It’s just so good.
Photo provided by Emma Bowers
On listening to new music in isolation
Elijah: I’ve been listening to a lot of music from friends, and I think that the amount of incredible music and art in general coming out right now is just insane. Then also from just the people I like and admire. It feels like once or twice a month they pour on the best records I’ve heard in my entire life. I don’t know if I’m just more sensitive right now, but the records that are coming out right now just feel so right. It’s hard to even articulate. The new Perfume Genius record, and...there’s just so many. I was going to begin to list them all but I really can’t.
Emma: I wonder if it’s having more time to sit down with new music. I’ve found that having a bit more time and space to listen to these records in full has really changed my experiences of them.
Elijah: What are you listening to right now?
Emma: Between Saint Cloud and all of her livestreams with Kevin Morby, Katie Crutchfield has been my coronavirus MVP. The Fiona Apple record totally blew my mind open, I had no idea I could feel that way listening to music and be so, so intensely interested and hearing all of these things that I’d never heard before. It was such a unique experience and truly felt like a bit of a gift, having my musical world toppled over because I’ve felt recently that I’ve been listening to music in an indie-vacuum.
Elijah: I feel like we needed that, a record to come and challenge us. That feels particularly important right now...and the Waxahatchee record, so good.
Emma: The singles from that record! Every time she released a new track, I was like oh, this is my new favorite song. I’m also deeply excited for the new Phoebe Bridgers record, I don’t know if I’m at the liberty to say this...but I’ve been able to spin it upwards of ten times already and it’s absolutely incredible.
Elijah: I can’t wait to hear it. There’s also the new Woods record! There are so many good records coming out right now.
Photo provided by Elijah Wolf
On living in NYC
Emma: Does it feel like everyone you know is moving away from New York? Because it feels like everyone I know has already or is going to.
Elijah: Totally, they are. I’ve thought about it a lot because my family is upstate, and I want to be up there, but there’s no place like the city. I still love it, so I’m not going anywhere.
Emma: I feel the same way. I don’t feel like I’m done yet, and I don’t want to leave until I feel like I’m done because I don’t want to ask, “What if?” The reason I switched from being a history major and moved back from Europe in all of my haste was because I didn’t want to ask “What if?” I feel like if I left New York, and didn’t see this city through, that I’d be walking back on some of that.
Elijah: I’ve always admired your ability to completely wrap yourself up in whatever is going on in a community, at least in the time that I’ve gotten to know you. I’ve seen you at so many different shows, or at least have spoken to you later on and discovered that you were at a show or a really cool event, and then going to DC and working at NPR. I’ve luckily been able to travel for different reasons, but I’ve lived in this state my entire life. I grew up two hours North of here and really have no desire to leave this two hour radius, so I admire what you’ve done.
Emma: Thank you. I’m really ready to not feel like I might need to be somewhere else. I haven’t felt totally settled anywhere in my adult life, and I’ve gone back and forth about how I feel about being in New York, but then I remember why I came here. I’ve moved upwards of ten times in the last five years, and it’s really funny because I’m such a homebody. It’s kind of bizarre how many shows I go to and how many places I’ve lived because all of that is in direct opposition to my tendencies.
Elijah: That’s interesting, you do seem to have a very homebody feel about you, but mostly I think of you as very adventurous, like more so than most people I know even. You have a very adventurous spirit, and that’s pretty cool. That’s a special combo.
Emma: It’s pretty weird to inhabit, I kind of feel like I’m internally at odds at all times, but it’s brought me a lot of places and I’m grateful for it.
You can catch both Elijah Wolf and Emma Bowers at at All My Friends Fest on this Saturday May 30th via Instagram live. Both will be performing on the Also Cool Mag Instagram: Emma’s set is from 3:30PM-4:30PM EST and Elijah’s is from 5:30PM-6:00PM EST!
Donate to the All My Friends Fest GoFundMe here!
All proceeds directly compensate all artists on our festival lineup.
Follow Elijah Wolf: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Follow Emma Bowers: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
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