Do It Ourselves: MALKA & Carla J. Easton in conversation

Collectively, Carla J. Easton and Tamara Schlesinger, aka MALKA, have 30+ years experience in the music industry, having been involved in various bands, projects and more over the years as well as being solo artists. The two have worked together as part of Hen Hoose, a songwriting collective and music production house for female and non-binary artists, musicians and producers, set up by Schlesinger.

This autumn, the pair release their fourth solo studio albums respectively with MALKA’s Anatomy of Sight out now via her own Tantrum Records label and Easton’s Sugar Honey due on 20 October via Glasgow indie label Olive Grove Records. And excitingly, in an industry where so few producers are women, both releases have been self-produced. We catch up with the pair for an honest and frank discussion about their new releases as well as the state of the music industry, and how hard it continues to be for women.

How are you both feeling four records in?
Schlesinger: I'm actually excited because as you mentioned, I produced this one myself. And for years and years I've co-produced, or been produced by others, and I felt this huge freedom with this album to just do everything how I wanted it, when I wanted it... and actually it's been a joy for me and a real learning curve.

Easton: I'm excited and nervous; it's been such a hands-on album for me this time. It was completely fan-funded as well... It almost feels like my most personal record to date. And I think because it's self-produced, it's like you're sort of saying, here's me, here's all my flaws, here's my authentic self. So that's quite daunting… I'm fucking terrified about people hearing it and going "What the fuck is this?" [...] I keep saying this record's my most uncool record to date. Like it's so uncool, it's so not relevant, and I really don't care.

It's interesting to me that both records are incredibly upbeat, but if you scratch beneath the surface there’s often difficult subject matters to be found.
Schlesinger: I think that's just who I am, I'm all bubblegum on the surface, and then underneath it's all the shit that's going on that no-one knows about… I really need to express that and get it out of my head, it's a kind of release for me. But then I've always been drawn to upbeat music and I kind of like that disconnect. 

Easton: I think quite a lot of the time my writing comes from personal experience – this is a form of therapy. Writing, I think, is really helpful for me. But yeah, I don't know why I go for these happy melodies? If I look at my record collection, I'm always drawn to strong melodies in any artist that I listen to it and I think subconsciously I'm just soaking that up like a big sponge.

Schlesinger: A lot of my melodies come to me walking down the street, so I must have this little gait to my walk where I'm creating this kind of rhythm and I've just got these melodies flying around my head… But similar to you [Carla], for me, it really is based on therapy and a necessity to get this stuff out of my head.

Can tell us more about the process of making these records?
Schlesinger: I've been working a lot in the box, so literally going in with the production. Before I would've played keys or ukulele or guitar and written the songs and played… So melodies I might have walking down the street, I create a beat and put the melody on top and start figuring out where it's going from there, adding synths and developing it that way.I've done a combination with this record where some of it – I've got this lovely new synth called a Grandmother, I'm totally in love with it and it just sounds so fat and amazing – I'll just play. [But, as] I said, I'm really melody-led. It's, for me, the core of my writing.

Easton: It's always great, those magical few moments when you get a melody and lyrics at the same time… Over the last few years, what I've learned is there's no right way or wrong way to write a song. And I'm the same as you Tamara, I think we've had conversations before where you don't even realise you're producing. You've always said you're making a demo, but then your demo's got so many harmonies and layers and beats to it, so yeah, you can start a song with like a looping drum beat and a synth line and then all of a sudden, you get a top line and then lyrics. I write every day in journals and free-write, so sometimes if I've got a melody I can look back and pick out ideas for songs.

With this album I actually took part in two digital residencies, so a couple of the songs happened there and that was a really nice atmosphere to be in, 'cause I was just in my bedroom. But I had all these lectures with, like, The Weather Station and Mary Margaret O'Hara and Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and then song sharing circles with people all over the world. And you know, that's quite inspiring... to just be around people that just love exploring song and structures and things like that. It's a bit of a weird album. I don't know about you, Tamara, but you know that way when someone's like "aw, can you do a solo set?" and you're like, 'I have no idea how to play that song, just me and a piano, but this song, I do', you know?

Schlesinger: I actually wouldn't know where to start to play this [album] solo, but that's, I suppose, the joy of producing it yourself; I've just got so many layers – too many layers. But it's interesting what you're saying about collaboration... without collaborating, and all the things I've done with Hen Hoose... I think that forms how you write and makes you consider how you write and develop your writing.

What were some of the challenges you came up against?
Schlesinger: I think the challenge is that often when you're working with another producer you get feedback, and it can be nice to get that. Sometimes it pushes you in a direction you don't want to go and sometimes it sparks something you wouldn't have come up with. So I would say there was a challenge of questioning yourself... With this record I actually went back and said, 'Oh, do you know what, actually, those songs, I don't think they're good enough.'

Easton: My record's loads of different styles of production. I involved my live band for the first time… I really wanted them involved more in the process, so some tracks, all of them play on, and some tracks it's just me. I would say my biggest curve was working with children [which] was interesting…  I got the Glad Foundation Kids Choir in. It was a really special moment because it was all the young girls that came along... We had a great day, and that was really nice because we were working at the Chunky studio in Glasgow, and you're like, "wow, that's your first time in a studio". That's really cool as well, normalising that.

Then I think just listening to my intuition… Editing is really important in self-producing, being okay to be like, 'Okay, this is all great, but what does the song need?' So you have to be quite brave to just be like, 'delete that', 'delete that section' and actually, I think sometimes the space you allow is more important than the stuff that you leave in.

What was it that inspired you to self-produce?
Schlesinger: There were a number of things. I've not been well (Schlesinger suffers from long COVID), so being able to pace myself and record it in my own way was quite important this time. I wanted to move into a producer role, I wanted to see if that was something I could do, and I suppose the cost of doing it at home… To be honest, Paul Savage, who I worked with on my last record, he really inspired me and really pushed me to do this because he was always saying, "you can do this yourself."

Easton: Cost is such an important thing that we perhaps don't talk about, because it's expensive to make a record. And that's just to get it recorded and tracked, never mind mixed, never mind produced, never mind mastered, and then you're not even going onto the release phase of it yet. With my [Adventures in Pop] fanclub, I managed to raise a really modest amount, so you're looking at what you can do with that amount that doesn't compromise the work… and there's also just this element of DIY... DIY really facilitates more women getting involved in a scene when there's no opportunities there.

Schlesinger: It's interesting what you're saying about DIY, I think, and actually about as women doing this ourselves and the freedom and I think there's an element when you decide to produce it yourself. If we were at a major label or even a large indie, would we have even been allowed to produce it ourselves and would we have been deemed professional enough?

There's no budget in the music industry, so inevitably DIY is the way forward, certainly for a lot of new artists, because to even get the attention in the first place, they’re having to release music. You know, there's not so many people going to venues and scouting people from nothing these days. So I think most people are probably beginning their journey DIY, and then perhaps they’re thinking, "What's in it for me to go with a major label or another label anyway?" Carla, you and I were talking about that earlier.

Easton: I’ve been working on the [Since Yesterday] documentary for, I think I’m on year seven… I’m just constantly reading these stories which aren’t mainstream narrative, but it’s all these women and they're all doing it themselves, they’re all creating opportunities for themselves because the opportunities weren't there. I think back to my first ever band, Futuristic Retro Champions, which was about the same time that you maybe started making music, Tamara, because we’ve both spoken about MySpace and how groundbreaking that was as a platform. All of a sudden you could bypass everything and just get your music out there. If you couldn’t get a gig, you were bypassing promoters... I do worry nowadays that DIY is dying out. I mentor a lot of students, and they’re all like, "how do I get a gig, how do I do this?" And I’m like, "Do it yourself."

A friend recently told me about DIO, which is "do it ourselves", and the community spirit of doing it ourselves, because no one's doing it for us and you build community, and safe spaces by doing that. And I think that’s really exciting, and that's definitely happening in Scotland today, with Hen Hoose, Popgirlz, POWA, Fanny Riot, AMPLIFI, loads of all these great initiatives [with peer to peer support], but it’s still grassroots up. As exciting as that is, you still need someone topdown to go, "What is that they’re doing?"

Schlesinger: When Carla was talking about MySpace, that was like the real start for me, when you didn't even need an indie label. You could be completely independent... Now, it’s all about content, but that just means that you're thrown all this content and there's so many people releasing music all the time.

It’s interesting what you’re saying about content. Artists are expected to be on TikTok and I’m pretty sure that when Self Esteem was asked by her label to do more on hers, she pushed back. “My label kindly don’t really ask me anymore”, she said in a tweet on the subject.
Easton: I hate TikTok. I wish people would stop telling me to get a TikTok! I've even got my 12-year-old niece being like, "Aunty Carla, get a TikTok and I'll run it for you," and I was like no, I don't want it!

Schlesinger: I'm on TikTok. I don't have a scooby what I'm doing... For me Twitter was always quite a good space, but that's fucked now as well, so it's like, where's your space, where are your people, how do you connect with them? And everyone will have their different space, and not everyone has the visibility and the power to be able to say no to labels, especially women, and Self Esteem, she broke through 'older' in the industry.

Easton: I remember when she got nominated for the Mercury, I can't remember what the publication was, but the journalist had written, 'Self Esteem: proving dreams still can come true at 35', and I was just like 'fuck off!'

Schlesinger: Kylie has broken America at 50 – that's cool. It's really cool that these women are still having their breakthroughs at a certain age and I don't think ten years ago that necessarily would have been the case... I remember I'd just had my daughter and this huge management company wanted to sign me... they found out I had a child, ghosted me and I never heard from them again. It was really hard to be like, 'Oh, okay, so having a kid and being a certain age – that's that then'... But you can still have your breakthrough later in life. And I think with women in the industry, there's an expectation of a certain age, a certain way that you are, and a certain look, and I think that's not changed a lot.

Easton: Yeah, the ageism thing, it's like, yeah, emerging and established, these awards, as great as they are – I'll maybe shoot myself in the foot here – when I was asked to be a judge in the Sound of Young Scotland Award for The SAY, I really battled with whether I wanted to do it or not. I spoke to some friends about it, and they were like, "I think you should just do it, if I was young and you were fighting my corner, I'd be into that", but that's an opportunity, like, I just kept thinking, "Well, what if it had been TeenCanteen?" It wouldn't have been available to us. I was speaking to Elisabeth Elektra, who's part of Hen Hoose, who had a kid quite young, so she didn't start making music until, what was she like, same, 20s, early 30s, you know. By putting age limits on it, whilst it's important to encourage the next generation, 100% I'm behind that – I'm working with a youth music initiative based at Rig Arts in Greenock, and it's brilliant seeing these kids come through – what if life circumstances mean you don't get a chance to start early? 

Schlesinger: And we're not just talking about women, but to cap your creative output and say under 25, you're up-and-coming, over 25, you're no longer new – but you can still be a brand new artist at 45... like you said Carla, there should be support whatever age, whenever they're doing it. There shouldn't be a point where you're too old for the industry, and I actually don't think it's changing much.

How do you think we change these attitudes?
Schlesinger: Really it's the gatekeepers, until those in prominent positions are of a certain age, and are of a certain gender, and have a certain mindset… [but really] the whole industry needs to change. Why do we think everyone has to look a certain way and sound a certain way now? Why have we created this industry where there's less experimentation and less belief in the audience? It's become a business model about what's selling.

Easton: When I was speaking to Halina [Rifai] and Arusa [Qureshi] about AMPLIFI [for] the documentary, Halina said something that's just stuck with me: "It's fine festivals and labels trying to tick boxes for diversification, but unless you're actually involved in the community that you're wanting to include and represent, and speaking to that community directly, it's always gonna be through the eyes of white cis men."

Schlesinger: It's interesting, especially with Hen Hoose, we're starting to work with other organisations and it is about the cross-collaboration and coming together. I think one community cannot solve this, it's a lot of different communities and a lot of people pushing in the same directions… It's quite important about how you do it, how you create the change and the steps you take, how you try and implement that, and you've got to have the right people wanting to do it in the right way.

So doing it from the ground up feels like the best possible starting point?
Schlesinger: In Scotland it feels viable, whereas across the whole of the UK, across the global market, less so, but you know, baby steps. Maybe there's a change that can happen right here in Scotland. 

Easton: I kind of hope it could because… you're right, [in Scotland] it is quite a small industry, it's easy to phone someone up and say, 'I'm doing this, you're doing that, let's have a chat.' Does it happen? I dunno. Could it? Yeah.

Schlesinger: I've gone via Hen Hoose to a couple of different places doing exactly that, that idea of pulling together some kind of inclusivity agreement, but it's a lot of work to do something like that, to create that, and to get everyone on board.

Easton: That raises the other important point, because everything is grassroots up, because a lot of it is artist-led, the burnout is so high. You'll know yourself, you're spending time platforming other voices and creating this space, and that has an impact on your own creative journey, your own creative output, and it's the same for a lot of other people because it's unsupported.

Schlesinger: I think that's it. The support needs to come across the whole industry, you know, and to implement that change, you need someone to take the reins and say, "Right, this is what we're going to try and do." And who that is, I don't know, but I always believe that everything's possible, and I think you can see the development and you can see things are moving. It's just slow.

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Anatomy of Sight by MALKA is out now via Tantrum Records; Sugar Honey by Carla J. Easton is released on 20 Oct via Olive Grove Records

MALKA plays The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 11 Nov
Carla J. Easton plays Summerhall, Edinburgh, 11 Nov and Mono, Glasgow, 12 Nov (all-ages matinee show); the pair play a co-headline show at MacArts, Galashiels, 17 Nov

malkamusic.co.uk
carlajennifereaston.com