Q&A: Henry Green Talks New Album, ‘Familiarity,’ and His Ever-Evolving Journey With Music
HENRY GREEN IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING — It’s a word that resonates with the 29-year-old singer-songwriter and producer as I chat with him about the release of his new album Familiarity but also music in general.
“I think that’s always the thing,” Henry explains. “You’re always trying to chase the sound that feels like you, but that’s never going to happen because you’re evolving constantly, and so is the music and as a listener as well [...] We all just like what we like and that’s what’s so powerful about music.”
Spanning across 11 tracks, Familiarity sparks comfort and imagination with its subtle, euphoric sounds and intimate lyrics. It takes you on that ever-evolving musical journey that Henry is on and shows you its exciting creativity and endless possibilities.
Read below to learn more about Henry Green and his new album, Familiarity.
LUNA: If you could define your music/sound in one word, what would it be?
GREEN: I think subtle is the word I’d choose because I think my sound palette and the sounds I’m naturally drawn to are generally softened or muted down or filtered down in some way. So quite often I’ll start with a sound that is maybe brash and quite harsh, and then I will gently kind of remove a lot of that from it. So I think subtle is the word I’d choose, probably.
LUNA: Even though you define it as subtle, the genre itself is electronic, correct?
GREEN: Yeah, it is. I mean, I make everything electronically. So, people always ask me, ‘What’s your natural instrument?’ I don’t like saying it, but the laptop is my instrument now because I know my way around it so well. I know exactly how to achieve what I want from it, but I always try to use acoustic instruments. A lot of my percussion sounds are all just things that I’ve hit and sounds that I’ve made around here. I’m just naturally drawn to acoustic sounds but made electronically.
LUNA: So, with that, as someone who makes electronic music, what do you think that this genre has or does that other genres don't?
GREEN: I think maybe it’s an exploration thing. I think it’s easy to get lost in the playing of it. I think that’s what I always enjoy about it. That kind of childlike play time that you have with electronics, like twisting knobs and turning things up, changing things, and, you know, running certain things through other things to get different sounds. I think that’s what’s appealing for people making electronic music. It’s playtime for adults. That’s the way I always think of it.
LUNA: Do you remember the first instrument that you picked up when you were a kid?
GREEN: Yeah, I always played guitar. I picked up a guitar when I was, like, 12, maybe, and had lessons for probably a year, and then I was like, ‘I just want to kind of work my own way around this instrument and not play it how I’m supposed to, how I’m taught to play it.’ So, yeah, guitar was my first instrument but I recently picked it back up again. I generally just play keyboard now, but I do love guitar as well.
LUNA: I guess that can kind of tie into what got you interested in this type of music. Was there an artist that you listened to when you were younger that sparked that interest, or was it something entirely different?
GREEN: Yeah, it’s interesting because I used to listen to a lot of… when I started to play guitar and song write, I obviously listened to a lot of people in the same category. I remember listening to a lot of Ben Howard at the time, and artists like Bon Iver and things like that. Then, obviously, Bon Iver naturally moved into a more electronic space. So I think artists like that who have kind of found a happy place between electronics and acoustic instruments, I think they’re always the ones that have inspired me. When The xx first came out, and hearing a soft voice like hers with the male vocalist as well, but hearing her voice around those kinds of sonics was just really inspiring and reassuring for me because I have such a soft voice.
LUNA: I could be wrong, but it was the 2010s or something like that where they kind of picked up steam. They were like the soundtrack to my youth.
GREEN: That first album was amazing—the black album artwork with the white X on it. I can’t remember what it’s called. It might just be called ‘The xx.’
LUNA: I think it was also a little bit holographic. I think! I could be wrong.
GREEN: Oh yeah! I must’ve had the CD. I know what you mean. It kind of shimmers like that. Yeah, definitely a big album for me.
LUNA: When I was doing research on you, I went on your Spotify page and saw that there was a playlist called ‘Current Inspirations.’ I went in and found some songs from similar artists. Colouring, Phoebe Bridgers, Fleet Foxes, another sound from my youth.
GREEN: Fleet Foxes are huge for me. I love Fleet Foxes.
LUNA: José Gonzales, who is like, I think, the king of making really sad music but also really lovely music, if that makes sense, and Frank Ocean…
GREEN: I remember the first time I heard “Heartbeats.” Do you remember that song “Heartbeats”?
LUNA: Of course!
GREEN: It was like on an advert in the UK, like a commercial here, and I think I must have been really young at the time, but I always just loved that, and then I went back to that album, that first album. I think it’s called Veneer. It had “Crosses” on it as well, which is like such a nice song.
LUNA: He has such a… I don’t know how to describe his voice, but there’s something so soft and almost innocent. His lyrics are like the total opposite of what he sounds like. He just punches you in the gut.
GREEN: It’s warm to me. His voice is so warm, in fact, he’s quite often a reference vocally for me. We’ve got very different voices. So he double tracks, records two takes of the vocal, and that’s what kind of gives that warmth. I do the same thing, but yeah, his voice is beautiful.
LUNA: So what with that said, what is it about these artists— those few that I named in that playlist you have— that resonate with you, whether it be lyrically or sonically?
GREEN: I think I’m realizing now I’ve spent a lot of years, you know, with my laptop in front of me, working production and working out how to make sounds that I love, but I think ultimately the thing that I’m drawn to in music is songwriting and I think that’s what I’m realizing a lot now. The songs that really stick with me are the ones that have well-written lyrics and well-written melodies.
I think with the artists that you’ve just named there, it’s primarily that. You know, their ability to kind of capture someone’s heart with lyrics and melodies and not just rely on the sonics of a song. Obviously, they all have an amazing production behind them as well, but I think that’s probably what it is. It’s the lyrics and also those gentle voices. I love specific voices where you can feel the crackles and fragility in the vocals.
LUNA: One of my favorite songs on your album Familiarity is “Final Form.” It features Colouring. Talk to me about that collaboration. What was it like working with them?
GREEN: I met Jack [Colouring] years ago. I think about ten years ago, maybe. My old manager was friends with him and we got introduced. I have been following his music since then. I think I had this song in mind, and we’d been talking quite a lot, just messaging. We’re both kind of working on our music on our own, and it’s nice to have those conversations with like-minded artists, and I just said to him, ‘I’ve got this idea for a song that I’ve tried lots of vocal ideas, and it doesn’t work. My voice doesn’t sit well with it.’ So, yeah, I just sent him over this raw kind of sketch of the track.
The structure was kind of there but probably didn’t sound how it sounds now, and he just sent back this voice recording like the next day, and it blew my mind. His ability to songwrite and react to something is just unbelievable, and then he just said, ‘Oh, I’ll write the lyrics properly next week,’ and then the next week I had this fully formed track. So, it’s amazing. I think being someone who normally writes their own lyrics and melodies to songs, having someone else write on top of something that I made instrumentally was really refreshing.
LUNA: I love how he says he’ll write the lyrics ‘properly’ but it didn’t take him long to send it back to you.
GREEN: Honestly, yeah [laughs]. He kind of sent this mumbled song the first time around, and I was, I mean, this sounds great already, like it kind of sounds like you’re singing stuff already,’ but he was kind of mumbling through, and then he sent the final one and it was like, ‘Wow. This is amazing to work with.’
LUNA: I have to ask— What’s your favorite Colouring song? Mine is “Symmetry.” I love that one.
GREEN: There’s a song on his new album that came out, I think, earlier this year or the end of last year called “Lune.” Do you know “Lune”?
LUNA: Not yet.
GREEN: It’s a really beautiful song. It’s so well written, and it reminds me of early Coldplay. Like that first album, Parachutes, there’s something about it; the songwriting just feels like it has sort of a link to that and I love that song. It’s special.
LUNA: Familiarity is your third album, but do you find that this one is different from your other two? Do you find that there’s something more distinctive with Familiarity that maybe Shift and Half Light don’t have?
GREEN: I think it’s brighter. It feels brighter to me; it feels sunnier. I think maybe my first album, Shift, was kind of me trying to find my sound a little bit. I was really young at the time, like 21 or 22, and I think maybe the next album, Half Light, I was in a really bad space mentally, and that’s kind of why I called it “half light”. I was kind of like, ‘I’m not kind of feeling myself at the moment.’ There were a lot of things about that album I’d do differently. I didn’t mix it, which is a big thing for me. I love mixing my own music, and with that one, I didn’t mix it myself, so that kind of never felt right to me. I think this album has everything that I’d want to make in an album. It’s quite varied in terms of genre but I think sonically, it’s pretty identifiable now as like a sound of mine. But I’d say brighter. It feels brighter to me. It feels a bit warmer.
LUNA: I read in an interview that you did with Wonderland in 2017 in promotion of your EP, Real, that you grew up listening to all sorts of music. Jazz, classical, soul. Do you find that one has influenced you more and is shown on this album? Or do they all show up in equal amounts?
GREEN: Yeah, it’s funny. I never know what genre is influencing me. I mean, certainly on this album, I did a few collaborations with artists who were a little bit like dancier, kind of organic house sounds. I think a bit of that fed into it on tracks like “Swim” and “Sun/Shade” as well. Kind of my interpretation of dance music, I guess. But also, there are tracks like “Isla” which is a kind of hip-hop groove underneath it, so I think it’s an amalgamation of loads of influences.
But weirdly enough, the music that stuck with me since childhood is classical music. That doesn’t show up in my music at all, I don’t think, but that’s the one that I listen to to switch off. I always just switch on the radio to listen to classical music as a means to relax. I think because it’s so far from what I make myself, it’s the one genre that makes me not overanalyze music and just listen to it because it sounds nice.
LUNA: Then there’s me, listening to classical so I can concentrate. Sometimes for me it pulls out the imagination or the things I’m trying to say. It kind of triggers that little space in my brain. Is that the same for you?
GREEN: It is absolutely the same. I very rarely do any kind of work where I’m having to write down stuff. When I do that, I can’t listen to music that has lyrics in it because I just get distracted. So classical music has always been a way to zone in, but I am actually writing an album at the moment for my side project, which is kind of influenced by classical music for the first time, where I’m working with string quartets and things like that. So that's quite exciting. That’s the first time I’ve let it kind of directly influence my music.
LUNA: I could be wrong, but this album has a lot of imagery. Pulling inspiration from what is around you and the feelings that are elicited from one’s environment. I think every song shows this but “Everything” featuring Carmody and “Uyuni” are top contenders. I’m curious about the inspiration in which this was pulled from. The video of a boy and the Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia. Can you talk to me about that?
GREEN: I think I must have been scrolling on Instagram, and sometimes, it serves up quite an inspiring video. I think it might have been a visual magazine on Instagram, where it’s an account that shares interesting videos or photos. It was this video of a little boy, definitely too young to be riding a motorbike. He was riding this motorbike across the salt flats and there’s just something about it that I think I was working on the chord progression at the time. I was writing the chord progression and must've just picked up my phone to scroll midwork and something about it inspired the sound but also the lyrics. I kind of used that image as a metaphor for when you see complete clarity and you always kind of look to the sky.
The association with the sky is always like your dreams are up there and it’s unattainable, unreachable. I think with that song, the salt flats was kind of like two worlds blending and having this moment of clarity and this moment of freedom where what you’re imagining in your head and what is real life combine at the same time and you just have this moment of peace and clarity and not so in your head about things, like the realization of something. It’s such a powerful image to me that I felt like I had to write something that was loosely influenced by it.
LUNA: I’m also always curious about the decision in finalizing a name for an album. How did you choose Familiarity as the title?
GREEN: Yeah, it's a really funny one. With my first album, Shift, I named it after the song. The second album, Half Light, was a lyric in the first verse of the first song and it kind of summed up the whole sound for me and the feeling behind it. With Familiarity, I think it was quite early on that it came to me and it’s not obviously in any of the songs. It’s not like a lyrical theme at all. It’s like a feeling. I really kind of had it the last few years where I was struggling to understand the music that I wanted to make. So often I never knew what I wanted apart from those moments where I’d stumbled across something that felt real and felt natural to me, and it had this kind of air of familiarity about it. So, that’s kind of where it came from.
I wanted the record to feel familiar to me sonically and I set that in stone pretty early on so that it all felt cohesive and it felt natural to me. So, yeah, it was quite an early decision. I finished the album at the end of last year. I probably set the title in the year before that, probably midway through the process. It kind of influenced the album as much as it did, like cap it off. It was kind of an ongoing thing where this struggle to understand what familiarity means and how something that feels familiar to me is completely different to the next person. I wanted this record to feel like me and familiar with its sounds, chord progressions, melodies, and things like that. I wanted it to feel like my definition of familiarity.
LUNA: I love that because when I was listening, there was something familiar for me in the sound from beginning to end. It sounded very familiar to a lot of the music I grew up with. A lot of my musical influence comes from my brother. He was very eclectic in his music taste, and he listened to a lot of electronic music here and there. I think maybe it was the first track on the album, “Dawning” and maybe “Sun/Shade” that reminded me of being in the backseat when my brother’s driving. Something about it made me remember being in the back of his little old Honda, and it’s nighttime, and you know when you’re driving and your head is against the window and you're seeing the lights pass. That was me.
GREEN: That’s what you got from it?
LUNA: That’s what I got from it.
GREEN: I love that. I think that’s some sort of intention of mine– for people to attach their own kind of feelings. That’s what I’m always trying to achieve. I want someone to interpret music in their own way, but to bring up some sort of familiar feeling is a nice thing to have. I get that completely. I have a few songs I listen to, and for some reason, it takes me back to a memory like that, but it has nothing to do with the song itself. Like I never listened to that song at that moment, but something about the tone of the music just brings me back to memories like that.
LUNA: But also like the feeling in that moment, you know?
GREEN: Yeah, and there’s something about being in a moving car and as you say, like at night time with the lights, that’s always such a fond memory.
LUNA: And you’re like half asleep as a child…
GREEN: [laughs]... and then you kind of pretend to be asleep so your parents carry you into the house. I just always remember music in a moving vehicle has always been a big thing. Like listening to Coldplay when I was younger in the car. That was always when I soaked up all good music.
LUNA: Circling back to that Wonderland interview— When asked if your style had changed since your 2015 EP, Slow, you said: “I think I’m beginning to paint a clearer picture of the sound in my head. I’m constantly learning and developing ways of translating my ideas and creating the music that I know I want to make. I want to move people in different ways and vary the sounds/techniques that I use in my songs. I think this EP is another step forward and a clear portrayal of myself.” Do you find that these words still stand with you today and with the release of Familiarity? Or do you find that it’s a continuous learning cycle and it’s one you look forward to constantly experiencing?
GREEN: Yes, so I think it is definitely a continuous thing. I think that’s what drives people to make music. They don’t know exactly what they want to make but they know they’re following a certain instinctive kind of need to make something deeper than themselves. Very rarely you make a track and you go, ‘Wow, this is exactly what I want to make.’ Otherwise, we’d all just kind of stop tomorrow. I think it’s a constant chasing of a sound and it’s a constant chasing of a feeling.
When I wrote that, I think I was probably still trying to understand production. I was trying to work out how to make the sounds I want to make. I’m a lot closer to that now where I’ve certainly learned a lot since then. But then again, my taste is always changing, so that’s a big thing.
Naturally, the music I wanted to make 9-10 years ago is different to the music I want to make now. It’s just a constant thing, and that’s what makes it exciting. It’s because you're constantly adapting and constantly tweaking things to suit your taste in that moment. Maybe in a year’s time, this album is going to feel really strange to me because my taste will have changed, and I’m trying to make something new and that’s the exciting part.
I think sometimes I get a little bit caught up in my head about that and kind of worry that I’m wanting to make something else, but I’m actually making this, and maybe this doesn’t feel enough like me. It’s a constant questioning, but I think that’s the very reason why we make music. It’s because we’re trying to capture the feeling of that moment and that moment is going to differ in a year’s time. It’s an ongoing thing, and I’m still trying to understand the music that I want to make, even if I have a better understanding of what that is.
CONNECT WITH HENRY GREEN
