An artist’s debut album is often a chance to tell the story of their life, and new Nashville artists are usually eager to get that story out. But that’s not the case for Meg Elsier.
“I don’t want anyone to know anything about this record.”
That’s what Meg Elsier told me as we sat down on her couch on the east side. “I feel like that’s so not Nashville. Nashville loves to explain a song,” I responded, wondering how I was going to do an interview about this record.
“It is true, yeah,” Elsier agreed.
It’s just so the norm in Nashville to when you’re in a songwriter circle or just when you’re playing a song to give a little story about the song. It’s part of the standards and practices of this city. For Elsier, all that information is too much. “It’s something I’m working on with my therapist,” she confessed. “I don’t like being vulnerable like that. Making the music is vulnerable enough and playing it on stage and singing it is vulnerable enough. I don’t need people to know why I feel like I’m gonna cry during this song.”
She told me that she wanted to make a record where the impulse wasn’t to tell a story, but reveal a feeling. Any feeling. Every feeling. But first she had to get that record out.
Elsier grew up in a suburb outside of Boston. She went to Broadway shows and she saw kids her age performing music on a stage. Inspired, she went to the prestigious Berklee College of Music. She said that when she graduated there were three acceptable choices for someone who got a degree in music: “It was New York, Nashville or L.A.. New York I always wanted to do but maybe I didn’t think I was ready. In L.A., I had some bad experiences there. As written about in song. And I wasn’t ready to play that game.”
There was one final deciding factor for Elsier choosing to move to Middle Tennessee. “I could afford rent here.” Mind you, this was 2015 East Nashville rent. “I moved to Nashville being like, ‘Three years tops, honey. That’s it.’ And I’ve been here for like eight years.”
Eight years in Nashville with a Berklee education and Spittake is her very first album. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. “I was a nanny but like it was so minor. I was too afraid to do music because I was afraid to say anything. And I didn’t know what I wanted to say, so I didn’t say anything. I was rotting.”
The thing that finally moved her wasn’t a need to prove herself to Nashville or something, it was a need to prove herself to little Meg. “It was me being like, ‘What is my younger self going to think of me right now?’ And the confidence I had when I was younger for no reason, but I had it.”
So she got over the hump and started making her debut album, Spittake. “This is me being a little dumbo. I wanted to do it all myself. Do I play drums or bass or keys? No. I just was afraid of working with people really.” But she got over that fear, too.
“I’m Ryan McFadden and I produced Spittake. I think [Meg] was comfortable because we were both equally as excited to see what the other person was excited about.” With this trust and dynamic, McFadden and Elsier entered the studio to make an album long in the waiting.
“I just wanted to make something that sounded like me in all aspects of it. Like, it’s all over the place. Just like me.” said Elsier. For McFadden, making Spittake was loose and freeing. He said, “It was like, let’s just start turning knobs and see what makes us smile together.”
Together, they made Spittake, an album that is unpredictable. It starts small and gets big, the narrator is unreliable, and at no point in the 44 minutes can you look around the corner to see what’s coming next. Not knowing anything about the record is part of the fun.
“I feel like I’m slightly back to my childhood self where I’m like, ‘LET’S GOOOOOO,'” said Elsier.
