Based in Nottingham, the self proclaimed 'ambi-punk' pair released their debut EP 'Here Lies Our Love' back in July that is filled with every emotion that one can feel/express at the end of a relationship. They nail the tone and it takes you on a beautiful but an extremely emotive procession that we can all relate to. It was really interesting to get Micki and Ryan answering our questions about the EP, from writing the songs to the recording process.
Where did the name for the project come from, it sounds so poetic? Micki: Wilted Flower is the opening line of the first poetry book I wrote! “I feel like a wilted flower, I was once beautiful to someone then I died inside” for years I went under my own name, then around April 2019 I decided I wanted to rebrand and I was at a Bears Den gig and I was thinking and thinking and I thought why not and it just clicked! So ‘Here Lies Our Love’ follows the narrative of the love between a couple dying. How was it writing about a varied amount of emotions that comes with the end of a loving relationship? Micki: It was very strange. And it all happened really quickly. It was around the time my ex and I were due to be married and I wrote Widow on one of my lunch breaks and sent a demo to Ryan. I just remember him saying “this needed recording, like yesterday” and then I ended up writing and writing and it went from a single to released EP in around 6 weeks!
It was definitely therapeutic to write about it, and i wasn’t expecting it at all but it helped me process it all and reflect on what we both did wrong which I felt was important. I didn’t want to write just another break up record, I wanted to show the imperfections of both parties involved, something more introspective! It’s allowed me to address myself and how I can improve and be a better person. The EP also touches on the death of people I love, and just death in general.
Ryan: The trouble we have is Micki is such a serial writer and that comes with a risk of the relevance of these songs not having as much impact. Wilted Flower is so raw in baring emotion so if you’ve missed the moment, you lose that bit of magic.
credit: @rebecaa_.photography (instagram)
The opening ‘Funeral Procession’ begins sounding like the mind returning back to focus, the tone that follows is haunting and feels so real. Was it hard to decide how the EP would start?
Micki: Funeral Procession was a last minute addition! We just felt like the EP needed an Opener that summed up what the listener was going to experience, rather than opening with Widow! So Ryan had a play with some guitar riffs and we thought that singing a line from each of the songs on the EP would be a cool way to let the listener know what they were in for, emotionally!
Vocally you nail it with the passion, emotion and even despair! The experience of bearing all those emotions when singing during the recording of the EP, must of been a whole host of feelings?
Micki: It was really difficult to record, but raw emotion is something that is extremely important to me in my music, whether our sound changes over time, maybe we’ll go metal who knows, but the emotion and honesty I put into my vocals will always stay. This has its downfalls - recording was an emotional experience and though I’ve not played this EP live yet, I imagine performing it will be pretty emotional too, but it’s what I do!
Ryan: Yeah, I think this was my favourite to write musically because I got a lot of freedom. The delicate guitar solos are the hooks, so it needed to be a memorable melody you can sing back. As the song builds and that big emotion hits at the end, I felt it needed that heightened tension and just an extended variation on the previous melodies. It’s probably my favourite song on the EP. As for the other tracks, it was important that any lead guitar or other instrumentation didn’t take away from Micki’s vocal or the lyrics. The instrumentation just needs to augment the emotions.
Micki: Musically we’ve drifted into a punkier vibe since Ryan joined, I was always a singer-songwriter acoustic but I love the way I can show the range in my vocals from quiet and haunting to powerful and more aggressive I suppose? We came up with a new genre ‘ambi-punk’ which I think describes ‘Here Lies Our Love’ pretty well! We were definitely taking inspiration from a band we both love ‘The Cranberries’ and my personal inspirations for the lyrics and softer vocals are Daughter, Phoebe Bridgers & Keaton Henson!
Ryan: ‘Ambi-punk’ sort of sums it up well. Some of the songs just needed that bit more grit and a bit of distorted guitar on them to allow Micki to unlock that aggression. We seem to have found a really nice balance of delicate and soft, to aggression and ‘punk’.
‘Silencer’ has a romantic vibe to it musically but the lyrics of ‘you equipped a silencer before you shot me in the chest’ is a far cry from that. How was it finding different tones to match with the endless emotions within the journey of the EP?
Micki: Silencer is one of my favourites on the EP, I really love that line and I think it really my describes how I think a part of me knew the relationship was going to end, but only in hindsight! We had a play with tones and tried to find what Wilted Flower is with the addition of Ryan but honestly, not to be that person, but it just came really naturally! We focused less on trying to be a certain genre and just... wrote and the rest is history!
Ryan: I’ve described ‘Here Lies Our Love’ as the bridge from where Wilted Flower was before me, and the ‘Grow In The Dark’ sound to where this is heading. We’ve still got that staple ‘singer songwriter’ vibe and the majority of the songs we write do start with lyrics and an acoustic guitar and build from there. It’s then about how much you throw at the song without clouding the raw-ness.
Okay ‘Residing in a Graveyard’ is an even better song title! The spoken part of the song is a great touch, did deciding how to incorporate different ways to express a song a natural process?
Micki: This track was first called Honeymooning in a graveyard, but it felt temporary, and death is permanent so when we were doing the artwork shoot I rethought and yeah, it became Residing in a Graveyard - luckily I don’t reside in one, truth be told they creep me out!
Ryan: ‘Residing In A Graveyard’ had a more emotional, bluesy guitar solo in it, but it just distracted from the feel and it felt so sore 'thumb'. I then said to Micki that this is an idea I’m kicking around with and might work. From there, we didn’t look back!
credit: @rebecaa_.photography (instagram)
‘Beautiful, but Bleak’ production gives it such a mourning in bed ambiance to the song. As previously mentioned it must of been an experience emotionally to record these songs, how was it for the two of you when finishing this body of work?
Micki: This track was the only track that I’d written before the rest of the EP was even a thought, I wrote this at 2am the night I got back from a two month stay in a psych ward! We wanted to use the actual demo but it was a bit too messy so I recorded it in one take for the record to keep the vulnerability I felt when I first demos it and then Ryan added some atmosphere and yeah, it’s a really popular track!
Ryan: Beautiful, But Bleak is a popular one. I guess that’s the idea, you’ve gone on this emotional journey and you probably need to lay down after! It was such an intense process from that first voice note of ‘Widow’ to getting the tracks out there. It was a breath of fresh air… but that’s about it. A single breath. Not long after, Micki came with the next one. So that’s on the way soon, but we’re taking a bit more time with it.