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Photo: Brendan Frost

Australian singer-songwriter Grace Cummings has released her latest album, Ramona, a rich body of work that explores deep truths while ignoring boundaries and modern expectations. It follows her 2022 self-produced LP Storm Queen and marks her third studio album as a whole. Cummings has a voice that will knock you off your feet and a pen that will make you ponder all aspects of your human behavior. Recorded within the classic Topanga Canyon environment, the project evokes visceral, expansive reflection in a time where music leans towards being easily digestible and bite-sized.

We chatted with the prolific artist about her detailed new record and its creation.

OnesToWatch: I would love to start with the origin of your taste, it’s so classic and inspired by so many different genres. What did you grow up listening to?

Grace Cummings: I grew up listening to a lot of The Beatles who I was obsessed with, and still am. Also a lot of Irish folk music and classical music. I remember I made a radio show when I was a kid and where I was the radio host. I was also all of the guests, all of the advertisements, all of the callers in, I’d put on different voices. I couldn’t figure out how to record any music so I was the music as well.

“Something Going ‘Round,” what an incredible, cinematic intro to this body of work. How did you place this track as the first one?

This song shows a lot of what the whole album is, it’s a long song and it’s quite wordy. It means a lot to me but also it’s elaborate and builds, it has that crescendo. It’s the perfect way to lead someone into an album that is going to be just as theatrical. If you can handle those five and a half minutes, then you’re sweet.

There are so many classic elements about this album that we don’t really hear anymore, most notably song lengths. What does it mean to you to put out a body of work that doesn’t follow those standards and challenges the listener a bit more?

To be honest, I don’t think about it that much. Especially song length, I do think about it now because I have a record label and have to think about getting played on the radio and stuff like that. But cool radio stations play cool music, and they play the whole thing! It’s hard for me to write a song that’s shorter than that. I’ll either write a song that’s like thirty seconds or six minutes. I can’t find any in between because I’m just not done yet. The song is long because my attention span was long that day.

It’s so cinematic, I’m a huge movie girl so would love to know if there were any that inspired the album. It literally sounds like a film score at some points, which is amazing.

I would love it to be a film score, that’d be cool. I’m a huge movie person too. I've been to the movies four times this week and I love it!

There’s a film that’s inspired this album a lot, The Wizard of Oz. Particularly the cowardly lion, his song “If I Were King Of The Forest,” is a big inspiration to me and I think about him all the time. But I wouldn’t say there’s a particular film that inspires me, I think everything does. You start writing your new album the day that your old album is done, to the day. It’s a whole mixture of everything that’s happened to you, everything you've seen, everyone you know, everything you’ve heard, every place you’ve walked since that time.

Instrumentation is so crucial in this album, what goes into your production? How involved are you and how do you craft a song with your collaborators?

I was really lucky that I cold contacted Jonathan Wilson and he got back to me in half an hour. We just got on really well, he’s a great guy. I would write stuff and send it to him as voice memos. I’ve always wanted to do something really big, but I’ve had constraints like COVID and not having any money. I was like “Oy, let’s get everything we possibly can on this because I want it massive.” and he was like “Let’s do it.” He knew what to do, where to go, who to get. It was great.

One of the titles that struck me upon first looking at the tracklist and then listening to the record was “I’m Getting Married To The War,” such a visceral title and concept. What does this song mean to you?

“I’m Getting Married To The War” is something that I thought about as I was sitting on my front porch one day and someone was on their phone. He was talking to his brother about their grandmother and he said something along the lines of, “Oh you know Nan, she’s married to the war, she’ll never change.” And I thought, “Woah that’s amazing. I’ve never heard somebody say that before.” The war to me is a massive metaphor, the war of life and struggles and how we’re all absolutely tied to the pain of it. It was an overheard thing and it was brilliant.

You said, “I didn’t want to be myself so I decided to be Ramona instead.” What was it like titling the project with the title of another song, “To Ramona” by Bob Dylan? How did you approach that?

I just made it into something that was different to me. Initially, I had only ever heard the name Ramona from the Bob Dylan song and I think that it’s probably like a name for a lot of things about myself that I find to be difficult. It’s easier to express yourself with a mask on [laughs] it’s so strange, you can be truer when you’re a bit faker.

Ending on “Help is on its Way” is a stunning choice. The way your voice fluctuates in this track is remarkable, this one, in particular, has so many layers of emotion. I personally adore the low droning, it’s super haunting. I would love to hear more about the choice to end on this track.

It’s my favorite song as well. I’m really happy with the droning. I wanted it to be quite sinister, but also it’s the end of the album because I think for a moment there’s a shine of hope in there. All of the hope is about music, making it, listening to it, singing it. It’s just what I want to leave people with, maybe it’ll make them put the record on again. Maybe it’ll make them feel a little less lonely.

The main thought I had while listening to this album was “I NEED to hear this live.” You’ve announced a tour already and I can't wait to catch your LA show. What is the atmosphere like at your live shows? 

With this album, it’s kinda like the jig is up. I can’t tour with 50 people, I would obviously love to but there’s no chance of that happening. We’ve done our best with what we can do. I've got a band and what I said to them the other day during rehearsal was that we’re kind of doing a cover of it. One day I’d love to have a big orchestra and do that but, at the moment it’ll just be me and my boys.

Who are your OnesToWatch?

I’ll plug my friend Leah, whose jumper I’m wearing right now. She’s one of the reasons I play music to anybody. Her name is Leah Senior, she’s a very beautiful songwriter and she’ll make you feel really good if you listen to her music.