Welsh born, now London living artist Greta Isaac has been known in the music scene as a glittering chameleon ever since stepping foot into it – from moving to the capital with fellow collaborator Orla Gartland, creating the technicolour supergroup Fizz together with the latter and mutual friends Dodie Clark and Martin Luke Brown, to releasing the radically personal EP ‘Productive Pain’ and the Y2K-soaked ‘Dolly Zoom’ project, which welcomes Isaac’s listeners into the campy world of her hyperpop alter-ego. We sat down with the 30-year-old musical powerhouse to talk about the release of the two polarising EPs in the span of less than two months, taking inspiration from the people around you and vintage horror movies, and saying goodbye to an older version of yourself and your hometown to pursue your biggest dreams, even though it scares you.
How did your journey as an artist in the industry begin?
“It’s been a long one. Music has always been in my DNA and in my bones because I grew up in a family that loved music and made music. So, from really young, music was a way of communicating and, you know, socialising and connecting with each other. And I’m really grateful for that. I think it instilled this sort of love for it that feels non-compromising and is just a part of my life. Then I started writing songs when I was 15, and I was definitely obsessed with Ellie Goulding and Laura Marling and those sort of folk girlies of that time who were writing their own songs and also felt a little bit out of place in the world. And I guess I related to that in some way, and so, I started writing songs and then releasing my own music since I was like maybe 16 or 17. I moved to London when I was 18 with my good friend Orla. She moved up from Ireland, and we went on this music journey together. Since then, I’ve just been releasing a bunch of EPs, different styles, different concepts, and I feel really proud of them all. And here we are now.”
Did you think you’d end up where you are now back when it all started?
“I think if I told younger me all the stuff that she’s done, she would be like, really??? I’m from Wales, and it was always scary, the idea of parting ways with that life to pursue something that you love. But I feel so blessed, and I like thinking about everything I’ve achieved. It’s like when you make a to-do list, but you write down all the things you have done so you can tick them off, just on a bigger scale. It’s like looking at what you’ve done and you’re like, “Oh, that’s really cool”. I’m really excited about everything I’ve achieved. And I can’t wait for what’s next.”
How did the world of ‘Dolly Zoom’ come to be?
“We started writing all the ‘Dolly Zoom’ music maybe three years ago. We were in my family’s house in Wales, me, Mark Elliot, Martin Luke Brown and Matt Zara. We got this very pokey set-up in my living room, and Mark was like, “Just tell a story, just make one up”. And I was like, OK, there was a circus and there was a dog and the dog had two thumbs. And they were all like, “Okay, there’s a dog with two thumbs, let’s run with that”. It was so silly, but I think it really helped influence the writing to be more instinctive, fun and playful. I have built this very deep infrastructure and access to my emotions, because you have to as a songwriter. You have to constantly be in check with your emotions and how you perceive the world, and looking for stories everywhere you go.”
Who is Dolly Zoom for you as a character?
“The way that I’ve always imagined Dolly is this sort of side of me, or personification of the side of me that stomps on the door of sadness. She finds her way in somehow with chainsaws and hammers and sparks flying through this vaulted door. And I guess through the EP, she takes you on this journey of what it means to interact with the hyper-manic playful parts of you, and how it can be so empowering at first, and then it can slowly deteriorate into something that isn’t maybe so good long term. She’s always here somewhere, in the back. I always try to live in balance, and I love the idea of the pendulum of life swinging in this very nice little ground. Dolly exists on either end of where the balance is. She’s the extremes, the ups and downs. She’s sexy and playful and alluring and seductive and funny and makes you feel like you’re her best friend. And she’s also completely unreliable and scary and destructive and manic. I wanted to put a face to that, so that I could look at her and be like, “Stop”. Or at least befriend her and try to understand her. I don’t know if I love or hate her. I feel like everyone I’ve spoken to has a little glimmer of Dolly in them somewhere.”
Lyrically and musically, ‘Dolly Zoom’ is a drastic swing from your ‘Productive Pain’ EP that was released earlier in the year – how did you decide when and how to share them with the world?
“I think creatively, what I am finding myself doing is always wanting to be in alignment with whatever I’m putting out. ‘Productive Pain’ was very close to all the events that were happening in my life that inspired that EP. It just felt correct to put it out at that time. I really wanted to feel it when I was putting it out. It was a release in a musical sense, but it was a release emotionally as well. And then following that, ‘Dolly Zoom’ just felt like the right time. It was like her coming in like, okay, we’re done being sad now. Like, we get it, you’re emotional, but it’s my turn.”
What does productive pain look like for you?
“The term productive pain was actually something my flatmate had written on her bedroom door in a big love heart, and at some point, I was like, “What the hell does that mean?”. And then fast-forward three years after that, I was like, “Oh, this is what it means”. I think for me, what it means is being able to sit in uncertainty and letting yourself feel it in real time and trusting that whatever event happens, any pain that comes from it, it will be like currents of waves. It’s about trying to see heartbreak or challenging times in your life as a way to know more about yourself and what you want, what you want less of. I like how contrasting those words are and how even the most challenging times in our lives can be a stepping stone to the most beautiful and rewarding experiences and the most growth.”
As the EP is so deeply personal, did creating it teach you new things about yourself?
“Since the EP has come out, I’ve realised that so many of the things that I resented about myself – like being too much, too emotional, too reactive, too opinionated – I had put them in a box to shut them away as just bad. But by doing so, I had locked away so many amazing parts of myself that I really love. For example, being able to be opinionated is also standing for something, and if you’re too much or too emotional, that means you’re also really empathetic and kind. Or if you’re too anxious or too paranoid about something, it also means you’re imaginative. Those two things can exist at the same time. No part of you is inherently good or bad. So, in order to find peace, those contradicting truths about myself have to exist in this space. You have to let all those things come out and coexist with each other and learn to love every bit of it.”
What does music mean to you?
“Music is love. It’s the way that I communicate best with the people I love in my life; it’s like another language. It’s all the things we can’t say in a conversation.”
Written by Laura Weingrill // Creative Direction & Photography by Karina Barberis
GEM Magazine 