Baltimore native Lindsey Jordan put her out Habit her first EP of indie guitar rock back in 2016. At the time the musician, who performs under the moniker Snail Mail, was still in high school. She used to have to ask permission from the School Principal to have time off to play music festivals.

- Advertisement -

Her output has been compared to some of the big names of 90’s indie rock including Liz Phair and Juliana Hatfield with it’s slow-core guitar sound.   

Now her musical project has expanded to be a four piece band, and her debut album Lush is one of the most anticipated records of 2018. The lead up to the album’s release has filled her life with tours, hundreds of interviews and a jammed packed schedule of publicity commitments.  

Ahead of the album dropping, and while on tour across the USA, Lindsey Jordan had a quick chat to OUTinPerth.   

What’s it like at this point in your life, your doing back to back interviews, the albums about to come out, what’s going on in your head at this time?

I don’t know what is going on, there is so much going on every day, it’s just trying to get all these tasks done every single day. I haven’t gotten to sit back and absorb it all yet.  

Your album is called Lush, what made you choose that title?

I think it’s like a reference to the lyrical content being all encapsulating, I had the intention of the listener being fully immersed in the story line from beginning to end, being part of it, being 100% fully immersed. Sonically I think in the simplest terms it’s very big and luscious and rich. I also like that lush means cool, it has so many meanings.

On this record your lyrics you’ve been more specific using female pronouns as where on your previous EP the lyrics were more guarded, does being able to speak for freely after coming out give you a sense of freedom?

Yes, it really wasn’t the intention going into writing the record but it is liberating being able to write about what you want, without having to worry about the people in your immediate circle, and not needing the validation of other people to what I write, feeling confident and writing what you want to write about
.

You’ve spoken previously about not classify music as ‘female’ or ‘queer’ because they’re not genres, but when you were growing up were you looking for queer female role models in music?

When I was growing up I don’t think I knew what I was looking for. I think it was more that I was just really interested in music and listened to the music that I liked and I didn’t feel I had artists very early in my life that I could relate to, or felt were like me, eventually that was something I found, but I don’t think that has to do with classifying music by gender or sexuality. Genre’s lack representation in certain categories but I don’t think that means we should identify with female music or queer music. At that point in my life I didn’t know of a lot of music made by women or queer people. I think representation matters, I just don’t think we should classify music by people’s identities.

Your sound harks back to ‘90s indie and reminds of artists some of may have been listening to in our teens and twenties, are you finding your attracting older fans because of that?

Yeah, our fan base spans all over the place, I love meeting older people who are into our music, it’s cool.

I was intrigued by your video featuring ice hockey, for us in Australia ice hockey is a sport we’re not so familiar with, was it a big part of your life growing up?

That’s amazing, I played ice hockey for a really long time, it was like my whole life for most of my adolescence.

What was it like growing up in Maryland? Let’s be honest most Australia’s probably couldn’t find it on a map.

It’s not super distinctive. There’s not a lot to identify it by when your looking at a map, because when we think of the United States of America from an outsiders perspective people tend to imagine the deep south or Texas, New York or L.A. I love Maryland, where I loved wasn’t to close to Baltimore and really close to Washington D.C. I grew up in a really great quiet suburb. Maryland has great crabs and we created Old Bay Seasoning, I’m sure if you’re familiar with that in Australia – but it’s an incredible invention!

You’ve just been on a tour of the UK, what’s it like arriving to play in a new city where people already know your work and are anticipating your appearance.

It’s been incredible and playing in the UK was great, and parts of Europe We didn’t really know what to expect, but there was big crowds and full rooms. We got to a little light tourism too, it can be really monotonous touring in the US, so it was great to mix it up, we had a great time.

You’ve spoken up previously about wanting to be real on stage, and people living a people seeing a social media life as opposed to a real life. How to you make sure you stay real?

I think you have to be a good person, stay humble. I think it’s important to have a separation between the person you are when your working and the person you are at home who is dealing with real people that you care about. WHen I’m on stage I don’t crack a lot of jokes, or talk because I’m not comfortable showing any kind of character of myselg, I think I just keep it real by playing the set and getting off stage.

Snail Mail’s delicious album Lush is out on Friday 8th June, Lindsey told us she hopes to make it down to Australia soon.

Graeme Watson