At the tender age of 19, Lisa Mitchell is taking on the world with her sweet folk voice and exceptional songwriting skills. On the eve of the release of her debut album Wonder I chatted to her about the new CD, her upcoming Australian tour, and what it’s like to live the life of a nomad. 
You’ve just come back from playing the Glastonbury festival. How was that?
Amazing. It was so cool. It was great. I would have loved to have stayed the whole weekend and have camped out – I had some friends there – but I had a gig the next day. So I literally just played. The gig went well, it was good. The thing is, over in the UK they know the “Neopolitan Dreams” song from the ad on TV. So it was good; they all sing along with that. So we did the gig, and then went and saw Fleet Foxes who were fucking amazing, and then I had to go back to London. And it was for a good gig, it was for a good cause. It was support for the James Morrison show in Canterbury, Kent. So it was a good gig, but I would have liked to have stayed and camped.
So how did the Glastonbury crowds respond to the other songs that maybe they weren’t so familiar with?
They responded well I think, from what I can remember. It was a good gig. A lot of people came in off the muddy thing we were on. Typical festival. The sun was out the whole time I was there, but we had our wellies on and it rained a little bit the day before we were there, so it was all nice and muddy. Which was good; you don’t want to go to Glastonbury and it be dry. So it was a real experience. I was absolutely stoked to play it.
Last time we spoke you mentioned how much you love to travel. So did you have any time in the UK to just kick back and enjoy your holiday?
I did. I had a fair bit of downtime. I spent lots of Sunday afternoons in the nice pubs and the parks. The weather was absolutely gorgeous when I was there. The sun was out every day, and back here it’s freezing! Music-wise it was going really good. I think it takes a lot of your energy up, being in a new place. You’re very aware of trying to make friends and just being in this new place. By the end of the time I was there, my last week, I was feeling nice and settled. I think the more I go over the more I’ll build up a little network.
It seems a shame that you just get settled and then you’ve got to come back home and start promoting the album over here!
Yeah. It’s the life of a troubadour, always on the road.
So how does it feel to have Wonder finished and ready to unleash?
Very exciting. It feels like it’s been a little while in the making. I’m very proud of it. I’m very excited that I’ve finally done it.
I received a copy on Friday and it literally hasn’t been out of my stereo since. I think what makes it so addictive is that it’s such a diverse collection of songs. Does that eclectic sound come because you’ve collaborated with so many different people, or that you’ve grown a lot during the album’s conception?
That’s true what you say; it is quite diverse. I did collaborate with a few people. I wrote one track called “Stevie” with my friend Ed Harcourt. Ed’s amazing by the way; he’s really great. You should see his house; it’s like a musical instrument museum. So we wrote that song together. And most of them are my own songs. And we actually ended up using demos for a few.
The whole album is a bit of a Frankenstein, because it is literally like a patchwork quilt. And so I suppose that’s where the diversity comes into it as well. But I basically I recorded about 16 tracks with this guy, Anthony Whiting, a lovely man, oven in London about six months ago. And then I came back to Australia and me and Dann Hume (Evermore) who produced by two EPs, we ended up doing a lot of recordings together as well, we rerecorded a few things. We did “Neopolitan Dreams” together as well. It just seems to work really well, me and Dann. So we ended up recording a bunch of tracks, and we used those tracks in preference to the Anthony tracks. And then we’ve ended up using a couple of demos as well, that me and Anthony did.
So the plan that I had for the album was not how it worked out to be, but I quite like that as well. Maybe because it’s my first album, I kind of thought “We’ll go to the studio and we’ll record all the tracks like we thought we would, and that will be it.” But we recorded and then it was like “Oh, you’ve been in London for a while. Your voice is sounding maybe not as strong as when you’re in your own country.” It’s just weird how factors like that start coming into it. I think it’s kind of funny that we went back to square one, just me and Dann recording together.
Another thing that struck me about Wonder is that there are none of those dreaded filler tracks. Do you think having the time to make your album, rather than having to rush it out, helped you present such a strong collection of songs?
Oh thank you; I’m glad you think that. I had a lot of songs that I could have chosen from, which is a good thing. You want that. So that maybe means that these are the strongest tracks. But I would never be in a rush to make an album. That concept is ridiculous. Why would you rush to make an album?
Well, unless you won Idol and you had to churn one out in a week as it was in the old days.
Yeah, and that’s ridiculous. It’s terrible that you’d have to do that. I’ve just had time, I’ve not been in any rush really, and it’s the album that I wanted to make.
I also love that it sounds so organic. So often you hear an album that so overproduced that it loses a lot of their emotional intensity. Did you make a deliberate effort to resist all those studio bells and whistles?
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was mentioning before. With Anthony, the recordings we did, we recorded a lot of it live. I made a conscious effort to be unconscious. And I think one of the conscious things I did do was to go back and record with Dann, because one of the things that we do when we record is that we are consciously unconscious. Whereas with me and Anthony, we do it a lot more calculated. It just seems to work like that. The end product that me and Dann get is so much more spontaneous I feel. And the thing is, it’s not that Anthony and I don’t make good recordings together. We make great recordings together. I suppose I just prefer the sound that Dann and I get.
Certain songs I guess call for different treatments.
Well exactly. That’s exactly right. I’ve used, the track that me and Ed wrote called “Stevie,” Anthony produced that and he did an amazing job of producing it. Ed played keys on that as well and it had a really good vibe. I think the energy is the most important thing that I always get out of listening to recordings.
That track certainly has that feeling of sort of sitting around, feeling like you’re just having a jam.
That’s good. The energy of a track is more important to me than the sound or the quality, which explains using demos rather than the actual recordings.
You mentioned that you’re taking the songs all over the country next month with your Wonder tour. Are you looking forward to getting back out in front of local crowds?
Totally, I can’t wait to tour this album. The last tour I did over here was really fun, and I only had my EPs out. So now the album’s coming out at the end of the month, so hopefully people will have listened to it a bit. I’m working on some visual elements to the live shows, some props and album artwork. I’m just really looking forward to getting on tour.
And you’re getting out to a lot of the regional areas too, all over. Is there anywhere in particular you’re looking forward to seeing?
I played in Tassie with Whitley, but we’ve never headlined there. There’s a lot of little towns actually that I haven’t been to before which I’m really excited about. Margaret River; that should be beautiful. I don’t think I’ve been there before. Warnambool; I like Warnambool. Wollongong. There’s a lot of little places.
So after this tour, what’s next for Lisa Mitchell?
I’m probably going to do a tour in London, or around London, in October so that’s quite soon. Just maybe a couple of support tours. The album’s come out over there, so it’s more of a gradual build there. Then I might come back to Australia for Christmas; I’m not sure yet. I’m looking at doing a headline tour of the UK early next year, which will be amazing actually. So that’s really as far as I’m looking.
It sounds like a pretty jam-packed schedule anyway!
Yeah, nice and busy. It’s all kind of happening. I’m trying to get my band together; I’m playing this tour with a band obviously and I’m looking to take them back over with me in October. It’ll be great. We’ll be touring around the UK.
At the moment I just live like a little nomad. My home is in Melbourne, with my sister. She’s a year younger than me, and finishing school this year. So I feel that’s my home. But it’s very all over the place – London, Melbourne. But it’s good, it’s fun.
Wonder is in stores on July 31. Lisa Mitchell is touring Australia throughout August and September.
Image supplied by Warner Music Australia