Q&A: Rising Songstress Eden Rain Finds Beauty in the Mundane With New EP ‘Gutter Vision’
LOOKING AT LIFE “FROM THE GUTTER UP” — Leeds-born Eden Rain, has always romanticized the little things. It was viewing life from this unconventional lens that inspired the title for her debut EP, Gutter Vision, released May 19. Combining bedroom-pop ease with sultry, jazzy melodies reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, Rain has created a sound that defies categorization and bends rules — and it will instantly hook you.
The young artist wears her heart on her sleeve, lyrically — her music is honest, raw, and lyric-driven. She weaves complex, poetic verses over ominous melodies that ooze with emotion. Citing Winehouse as a core inspiration, listeners can instantly see the influence in Rain’s sorrowful yet spunky lyricism. Somewhat oxymoronic, her music skillfully balances multiple moods and motifs; it’s playful yet full of depth, bouncy yet melancholic, soft yet rich.
With this new EP release and more music swiftly on the way, this powerful songstress is sure to entrance more and more audiences with her enchanting prose. Read on to learn more about Rain’s musical origins, creative process, and desire to “[create] a sort of cinematic vibe around the somewhat insignificant, ordinary parts of everyone's day.”
LUNA: Your debut EP, Gutter Vision, just came out — congrats! I'd love to hear more about that and about your process of writing it.
RAIN: I've been writing it for a while, and the songs have all come out pretty much as singles so far. So it sort of came together slowly. But my general approach to writing it was like, here are a bunch of songs that I really like, and they all fit together quite well. And that kind of [created] the structure of the EP. I did have other songs that I really liked, but I felt like they didn't work quite as well combined to make the EP … I really wanted it to feel like just the right balance of stuff so that all the songs don't all sound the same but there’s still enough of a common thread throughout.
LUNA: Would you say there's a defining theme of the album?
RAIN: Yeah, so the reason I call it Gutter Vision is because my mom always said this phrase, “gutter vision,” which I'm assuming she made up, which is kind of like … I would always see everything from the gutter up. I always see the ugly, weird stuff, and I think I just have a highly over-romanticized view of life in general. So I think I sort of take little moments and write songs about them, creating a sort of cinematic vibe around the somewhat insignificant, ordinary parts of everyone's day.
LUNA: Could you tell me a little bit about your background in music and how you got started?
RAIN: I grew up in Leeds, which is West Yorkshire and up north. I love to sing but it was honestly never really something I considered I would do with my life. Then my old English teacher — she's called Mrs. Webb — she really got me into poetry. And I was like, “This is really embarrassing.” I went to a sports-specializing school. Obviously I didn't do any sports, but it [had] a heavy emphasis on them. And I was like, “This is really lame. No, I don't really want to write poetry,” but I got really into it. I think after a while I sort of realized that what I was essentially writing was just lyrics. And I was like, well, I love to sing and I'd written these lyrics, so then I just started writing. I then met a producer called Tim Keller, who was really great. We started writing together two years ago and it all just really went from there. We spent quite a long time writing and just figuring out exactly the kind of sound that I wanted to have.
LUNA: And how would you describe your sound?
RAIN: We talked about it at the pub last night when someone asked me what kind of music I make. It was decided, like, Amy Winehouse with a bit more soul with Lily Allen sort of lyrics, and a Kate Nash vibe. I really like trip-hop as well — there’s a bit of that in there. I would say [overall] indie alternative pop. I think that's the loose term because I definitely really panic when it comes to specifically labeling music.
LUNA: It's so funny you say that because when I was listening to your EP, I was instantly reminded of Amy Winehouse!
RAIN: I'm obviously obsessed with Amy Winehouse, so I feel like I'm not worthy! I can't deny that it's definitely an influence. I listened to a lot of jazz music, a lot of blues growing up. That's kind of where I learned to sing. My mom has a lot of jazz music and I would listen to a lot of Amy Winehouse and Ella Fitzgerald, but then the stuff my dad would show me would be, like, The Streets and Lily Allen, and some Bob Dylan as well — very different to the jazz stuff that my mom would play. So I think that's where [my sound] comes from — a sort of fusion of all the different genres.
LUNA: I feel like your music is kind of hard to put into just one genre, and I think that's really cool.
RAIN: Yeah, definitely. I think it's hard lots of the time with TikTok and that whole side of things and definitely the music industry; it's hard to sort of act like you're trying to not pigeonhole yourself into something, even just in a hashtag. It's hard to not feel like you have to be something.
LUNA: Do you have a favorite song on the EP? I know it's hard, like a favorite child problem.
RAIN: I really love “Close to You,” which is the one that came out most recently, mainly just because I wrote it with Tim, who really got me into music, and my brother produced it. That was our first time working together on something, which is why that's really special to me. But no, I love all my children. Definitely at different times … I'm not sitting there thinking when I'm really sad that what I really want to do is listen to a massively upbeat song — I kind of want to dwell in my sadness a bit more. So yeah, different times, different songs, I guess.
LUNA: Is there a certain way that you want your listeners to feel when they listen to your music?
RAIN: Honestly, however they want. That's the most important thing for me. I definitely don't want to create this narrative around my music where people think [they have to] be this kind of person to listen to or think about this in some way to listen to it. Someone once wrote about one of my songs and got the lyrics of the song wrong, like misheard them and read them as something else. And they wrote this really lovely piece about this song — I think it was “Crumb” — and the lyrics were wrong but they interpreted them in a certain way, which was so interesting, and way more interesting than what I originally had planned. In a way, I love hearing how other people find it without me being like, “This song is about a specific thing.” I definitely prefer that people just draw their own opinion of it.
LUNA: Your music is definitely very lyric-centered and very poetic. What is your process like for writing songs? Do you start with the writing and then build from there?
RAIN: It always depends on who I'm working with. But a lot of the time, it's really annoying because I go in with five or six different notepads. I've just got to carry all of them around with me. And I take them in and I kind of just flick through. I write a lot in my notebook and also now more on my Notes app on my phone, though it's heavily guarded. When I'm feeling a certain way about something, I find it really helps me to write. I find it really good when I'm really feeling something. Then when it comes to going into a session, I find all this material [I’ve written] when I'm right at the heart of feeling something and I can pick out lines from that and be like, “Oh, that'd be cool, I’d like to explore that a bit more.”
It helps because when there's the pressure of when you're in a session and you're writing with someone, it's harder to get into the mindset of something I was feeling at that point. So yeah, I like to look back at my Notes app and my notebooks and for a while just sit there and open the pages and hope something happens.
LUNA: So a lot of your work comes from moments of emotion?
RAIN: Yeah, and if I don't have my own thing to write about, I always use my friends and things like that, if they're going through something. I find it hard to write something I can't feel because I think if I can't relate to it I feel like no one else is really gonna relate to it that much. But that's mainly just because I'm a big lyrics person. So it's always important to me that I really believe what I'm writing about.
LUNA: If you had to pick the thing you're proudest of in your career so far, what would it be?
RAIN: I'm really excited for my show next week — that's going to be really exciting. Honestly, this is really cheesy, but every day that I wake up, I'm like, “Oh wait, this is my job!” because it's really fun what I get to do. I'm swiftly brought back down to Earth by having to go pick up dog shit, but every time I wake up, I'm like, “Look at me and my job!” And that's just really exciting. To me, it's [about] getting to do what I enjoy. My biggest goal with music in a lot of ways is just that I'm able to keep doing it and keep writing.
LUNA: Is there anything that you're looking forward to in the future, any aspirations for the next few years?
RAIN: Yeah, definitely more music. There’s stuff that I have coming up, music I have that I'm going to release after this EP already. And just more shows. It's really exciting.
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