Interview with Rachael Webster

Today I have an interview with indie artist Rachael Webster. Rachael is from Sheffield and her music ranges from acoustic indie to pop punk and I love it. Her 2018 EP Find A Place is a really great listen and I am super excited for more. I caught up with Rachael and we talked about that EP, her biggest musical influences and what's coming next.

Hi Rachael, first of all how are you?

I’m doing alright thank you for asking - just hanging out and playing video games so I’m having a blast! I hope you’re well also!

How would you describe your sound to the readers?

I was unsure on how to answer this question so I asked a couple of people to help me out. Chris Wilkinson gave the iconic answer of ‘with words’, my girlfriend said ‘really sad and really pretty’, so I think they’re the most informative answers in all fairness.

Who are some of your biggest musical inspirations?

Inspiration for my music has come from all over if I’m being totally honest. I listened to a lot of metal, rock and pop punk when I was growing up like Slipknot, Paramore, Foo Fighters etc but then shifted more into the acoustic/folk and alternative music with artists like Iron and Wine, Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Fenne Lily through watching a lot of NPR’s tiny desk concert and the Mahogany sessions on YouTube, which opened up a whole world of fun stuff. So I would say they are all pretty heavy influences.

How did you get started in music?

I started playing guitar when I was around 10 and then started taking it seriously just when I was writing music that I thought was cool. I saw the Marmozets play a gig in Leeds in 2015 and that really solidified for me that performing and writing was something that I really wanted to pursue.

I listened to your song Whiskey & Cream and I absolutely loved the pop punk style of the song. That’s not a sound we see a lot from solo performers, can you tell us more about the writing process behind that song?

Thank you for taking the time to listen!! I wrote that song fresh out of a relationship I was in when I was younger. Around this time, I was listening to a lot of angsty pop punk music and that was the vibe I had in mind when I was writing it haha. I then took it into the studio a couple of years later and said that I wanted a fat pop punk sound and Federico Telesca, the producer on the EP, took that and ran with it and we were super happy with how it turned out!!

Your 2018 EP Find A Place was really fun to listen to, I loved it. The songwriting on these songs was great and I can’t wait to hear more from you. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind that EP?

Thank you so much! The bulk of this EP was based around the aftermath of a few different relationships over the span of a couple of years so it’s primarily inspired by personal experience. This EP tackles a bunch of different emotions that I couldn’t quite process at the time, so I wrote about them instead. I was listening to a lot of angsty pop punk music around the time that I was in the writing process and I think that shines through pretty heavily.

The pandemic has hit a lot of artists and musicians hard, with not being able to perform live at all. What’s something you’ve found the hardest about being an artist during the pandemic? Have you found it hard or has it given you more time to refine your sound and work on songs that perhaps you wouldn’t have had before?

It’s been strange going from gigging pretty frequently to not playing any live things at all apart from the occasional live stream, but I think it’s been a super refreshing break in life that’s allowed me to experiment with my sound a little bit more.

What’s something you’ve missed the most during the pandemic?

I think the biggest thing I’ve been missing is just hanging out with people yano? I used to work in a nightclub before all of this hit so it’s been pretty crazy going from being surrounded by that many people every week, to just chilling at home.

What can we expect to hear from you next? Is there any more music on the way?

If I said that I wasn’t working on anything, I’d be lying;) So keep your eyes peeled for things happening this year!! There’ll be a lot more information on my social media when the time comes!

And lastly, what music have you been listening to recently? Anything you want to recommend to us?

The lockdowns so far have allowed me to listen to a lot of new albums front to back which has been an absolute blessing. Some of the top albums I’ve found through lockdown have been:

Breach - Fenne Lily

Fetch the Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

Anak Ko - Jay Som

Sketches of Brunswick East - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Oncle Jazz - Men I Trust

With all time favourites:

Punisher - Phoebe Bridgers

Saves the World - MUNA

Some amazing albums there…Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions, good luck with everything the future brings and hopefully I’ll see you at a live show soon.

Make sure you all go and listen to Rachael's music and follow her pages, it's definitely worth it, and i am really looking forward to what's coming next.

Thanks for reading, until next time...

Listen to Find A Place on Spotify here.

Follow Rachael Webster on Spotify here.

Follow Rachael Webster on Instagram here.

All After Midnight links here.

Music Submissions and Enquires to aftermidnightblog1@gmail.com