By Al Newstead
Merpire is charming us with a very accurate, impression of a crow.
The occasion? The independent singer-songwriter’s second album, Milk Pool. The impetus, however, is the lush flora and fauna surrounding her at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden, a location she hand-picked for this interview after describing the record as a “garden of possibility”.
As Merpire, Rhiannon Atkinson-Howatt is a well-connected figure in the Melbourne/Naarm music scene.
She co-founded the COVID-era streaming event ISOL-AID, was one half of indie-pop duo Wilson’s Prom, and lately seems to be the go-to name when touring artists need a local support act.
As evidenced by her crow mimicry, she also has a great sense of humour, which feeds into songs that are at once playful yet mature, and very relatable.
Those qualities are all over the new album. Like her 2021 debut, Double J Feature Album Simulation Ride, it exhibits her knack for hooky indie-rock that’s emotive, memorable and comforting. To mark its release, we caught up with Merpire for a chin wag that took in second albums, horny songs, and “chin music”.
Cliché question alert: Can you tell us about the album title, Milk Pool?
Milk Pool is a couple of things. It tells you my more serious side of approach to music, as well as humorous side.
This is more for millennials and above, but if anyone remembers the episode of The Simpsons when they get a pool and Bart has broken his leg. He’s sitting by the pool and he’s asking, ‘Sign my cast? Sign my cast?’ And no-one signs it. And then Milhouse goes past and he goes to write his name but he’s looking at the pool and writes ‘Milpool’.
That’s just me. When I think too seriously about music, I have to counteract it with something that I find funny. So, there’s that side of the album name.
But then also it’s representative of how approaching making music is for me, by reminding myself just to wade into the unknown, like a pool of milk.
You can’t see where you’re stepping. It could be scary, but you just have to trust that you’re gonna carry yourself through and find something to write.
You described Simulation Ride as being like an internal video store — a bit of a rom-com, a bit of a horror film. If Milk Pool is a garden, what kind of flowers are in it?
I love me some sunflowers. There’s some happiness, a couple of songs that are more about being open like a sunflower and welcoming friendship.
But then maybe there’s some also dark-petalled flowers as well. Dark-petalled flowers!? I don’t know my flowers, how embarrassing! Maybe dark roses.
What’s the most important lesson you learned from your first album that you took into making your second?
I think to be easier on myself, in terms of everything it takes releasing an album.
From writing it and recording it, coming up with the visuals, maybe having marketing on board and radio, plugging it, all that kind of stuff. You’re always learning how to do each of those things a little bit better, or more in line with yourself.
Also, an approach I want to take once the songs are out is to really let them be however and whatever other people need. That might mean interpreting the lyrics or the emotions in their own way, and I think that’s the beauty of music that I’m remembering.
Do you have a favourite second album?
Favourite second album by another artist? Maybe Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins. Lots of good songs on the second album!
You’ve self-directed a bunch of the videos for the new album. What do you enjoy most about that process?
Definitely the development phase. It makes it a bit easier the fact that when I write, I’m already dreaming up the scenes and what the visuals could look like. I do really need that time with the songs and to walk around gardens like this and just kind of soak up my surrounds.
I love TV and movies; there’s not a moment that goes by where if I’m with a friend, I’m like, ‘Imagine if there was a scene just now and then this thing happened, and then, like, the camera came over here and we were like, whoa!’ That’s just how my brain works.
It’s easier directing videos when I can see angles and cuts in my mind. I think the hardest part though is when I have a limited budget, so then I have to limit the visuals. But that’s also exciting to see what can come from almost nothing.
You described ‘Premonition’ as the horniest song you’ve ever released. I would like to present the evidence of ‘Bigger’, where the chorus is about fingers going in the mouth.
I guess maybe it was a bit more of a tag line for people to be like, ‘Oh, I better listen to this if it’s the horniest song she’s ever written.’ And then with ‘Bigger’, even hornier, they’re like ‘What?!’ That’s how I wanted that to happen. So, it was a bit sneaky, but I always knew that.
Your trilogy of advance singles (‘Premonition’, ‘Bigger’, ‘Leaving With You’) really captures the thrill, but also the dread, of a fling becoming something more serious. Was that easy to write about?
I found it easy to write about because I think as much as early crushes are so difficult and challenging, they’re also so exciting. Especially for someone that writes.
I was really inspired by the first fantasy novel that I read by Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind, from the Kingkiller Chronicles.
If anyone wants to delve into that realm, not a particularly sexy trilogy of books. But there are little sexy moments, and that’s kind of what inspired me to think back to having big crushes and all the feelings that happen around that.
What is your musical guilty pleasure and can you explain what ‘chin music’ is?
Chin music! [Laughs] OK, it’s anything that requires your chin to sing like this [juts chin out]. Like the bands Live, Pearl Jam or Creed. [Begins singing the latter’s hit, ‘Higher’]
The ‘ers’ have to be right there in the back of your throat. That’s my guilty pleasure, rocking out to those songs. They’re my karaoke songs every single time. That’s chin music.
Fanning Dempsey National Park, Magic Dirt, Spacey Jane, Ball Park Music. When it comes to support slots, it’s like you’re collecting the infinity stones of Australian music legends. Who else is on the bucket list?
Who’s next? I would love to play with Middle Kids one day. They’re on the bucket list. That’s probably the top one. I would say.
I’d also love to play with Angie McMahon again, also Julia Jacklin. And Armlock — they’re really, really cool.
We want to know a Melbourne/Naarm artist you think deserves more attention.
Oh my goodness, there’s so many!
I recently did some backing vocals for Bec Sykes’ album launch. I just hit her up on Instagram and said, ‘Hey, I really love your songs. I’m always singing harmonies to them. I know you’ve got an album launch coming up. Would you be so kind as to let me sing some if you needed them?’
It just so happened that her backing vocalists had gone overseas, so she was like, ‘Yeah, please.’ And it was such a pleasure.
What was the last thing you saw online that made you laugh or that you shared with someone?
It’s probably going to be dog related, or babies getting pushed over by a dog. Or it’d be something really unhinged like… Actually, I know!
Someone had made an imaginary dream rollercoaster. It takes you through the whole ride as if you’re in a seat. At the top of the video, it’s got the velocity you’re travelling at, slightly increasing it by the end of it. You’re travelling at like, 10 Gs. Then, it’s going crazy — it goes through the core of the Earth and it’s just stupid. But it’s very funny.
Milk Pool is out now. Catch Merpire at the following dates:
Friday August 15— Junk Bar: Turrbal Jagera Land, Brisbane
Saturday August 16 — Lazy Thinking: Gadigal Land, Sydney
Sunday August 17 — Smiths Alternative: Ngunnawal, Canberra
Thursday August 21 — Merri Creek Tavern: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Melbourne (sold out)
Thurs August 28 — Merri Creek Tavern: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Melbourne (sold out)