Sarah Mengede

Making Music while the World is on Pause

I met the Glaswegian electro-pop duo Ophelia Lies, a collaboration between the producers Eugenio Dubla and Thomas Brumby, on Zoom at the beginning of lockdown in April, to chat about writing and producing new music while the world is on pause. We also spoke about their new single ‘Isolation’, which perfectly captures the zeitgeist of a global society that is currently reinventing itself.

Sarah: As well as the rest of the UK, Glasgow imposed a strict lockdown – people can’t leave the house, save for essential journeys such as the journey to the supermarket. How have you experienced the lockdown in Glasgow so far?

Eugenio: Since the beginning of this lockdown, Glasgow has been giving us this great weather – very warm, and sunny (laughs).

Thomas: It’s actually weird to see a bus – I used to get the bus every day and now I barely leave the house. I sometimes go outside, like once a day, but mostly I’m inside. It’s not that bad. As an experience it’s quite nice to be in the city centre and have the whole place for yourself. Sometimes it’s feeling a bit more like the countryside.

Sarah: How do you experience the situation Eugenio?

Eugenio: It’s quite a strange situation. . . The cool thing is that I have some cottages in front of my window. And on the first evening in lockdown, around 8pm, when I was peeling potatoes for dinner – you know we Italians have late dinners - we'd normally have this clapping-thing for the NHS. But my neighbours came up with a different idea. They started organising small gigs every Thursday; one person with a guitar, one with a bass. I was preparing dinner when they asked me to join them. So next Thursday I will join them and play some Scottish tunes, which I need to learn now (laughs).

Thomas: It’s crazy how busy we are normally – and now that we are not moving, now that we are in the same place, we are thinking like ‘oh should I speak to my neighbours now, should I speak to my family should I keep in touch with them’. You know it is kind of nice, everything is paused – and I can focus on what’s important now. I don’t need to rush around and do a hundred things. It’s a different tempo of life, I like it.

I don’t know how it really relates to the situation. But there is a guy that is living opposite me and who is actually a very good friend of mine. And he moved in like four or five months ago and I didn’t even notice that he’d moved in, literally opposite door. And now that I’m working at home, I started seeing him and realised ‘that’s my friend Dean – a really good friend’. It takes me a lockdown to notice who’s living in the house opposite me! (laughs)

Am I alive? Who is here?

No danger - follow,

The lines drawn out,

Of the invisible life. (lyrics from ‘Isolation’)

Sarah: It looks like the pandemic is bringing up the best in people – people meet their neighbours for the first time or do the shopping for them, play music together, and are thankful for the little things. But we all know that there are also downsides. For example, many people are losing their jobs – especially in the creative industry. How do you experience the lockdown as creatives? And do you think we will ever go back to ‘normal’?

Thomas: This situation is kind of showing that this ‘normal’ is not that great and for example – you know it’s a big reveal – it shows the inequality in society more clearly than ever before – like the underfunding of the NHS and people working without contract for example. . . Both Eugenio and I are working full time pretty much, but we don’t have proper contracts. Because that’s the kind of style of our work. And in this situation this is really not helpful at all, because we have no rights, no sick-pay no unemployment support. We don’t fit into the government’s system! And this kind of inequality really sucks! Ok, we are creative people working in the creative industry, but a lot of people that are doing regular jobs like working at bars or in the hospitality industry – and these people are self-employed technically and this crisis shows that this doesn’t work. Because if you have no contract, you have no rights and you are basically losing everything, because you have nothing official. And I really hope for that to change.

Eugenio: We are going through quite a big crisis within the creative industry. I have a lot of friends in Italy that are actors and really struggle now that the theatres are closed. In Italy they will probably not open the theatres and live venues before December this year, or maybe in May next year! It’s very difficult for us musicians, because we are self-employed, and we rely on gigs and live shows. Now we try to rethink our role and try to change how we approach things. How we play gigs now has changed – we need to find a way how to play gigs online. How can I work from home? And with people together? We need to think how we can develop and adapt our creative jobs – the future normality may be different from what we know. How can we change our industry to get the positive things out of this weird situation?

The music industry was forced to adapt to challenges before. For example, in the early 2000 we had a big crisis in the music industry because of the introduction of MP3, when people stopped buying CDs or records. Back then many music studios had to close, and the industry had to find a solution for this. People tried to stop the MP3, but it was unstoppable. Now, in times of the pandemic, creatives in music need to find other solutions to manage this situation. We need to stay positive and find a proactive way through this.

Sarah: And you have been very proactive as a band. You have written and produced a new track, which is great! In your new single ‘Isolation’ you talk about being proactive and positive as well. You are singing about an ‘inspiration passage’. Can you tell me a bit more about this? What inspires you these days?

Thomas: For me I always find that when big things change or something disturbs the normality, you know – it inspires me. It’s like a Christmas glass ball and you shake it up and all this snow goes up – you know these ones? When something happens in your life and it all goes (makes shaking noise) – for me that always makes me more creative. It fills my head with ideas and thoughts and sort of takes me out of the normal rhythm. It means that I have something to say. And during these first couple weeks, there was so much stuff happening. Suddenly you have to stay at home, suddenly you can’t work. And the news everyday change like crazy – like this country and that country, and it was so dramatic! I think inevitably this meant that I wanted to write and suddenly I had more time! And it gives me time to make more music. And about the inspiration passage, yeah, I think that’s a classic thing: When things happen in a different way, artists do respond.

Stuck in a quiet time,

an inspiration passage,

I read the news too many times today.

Falling under,

the spell of isolation,

Too many thoughts to take. (from ‘Isolation’)

Sarah: This is a very philosophical description. The artist as a corrective of society that responds to change. It is interesting that the lockdown inspires people while it is also restricting them in so many ways. In the UK you can’t even leave the house . . .

Thomas: I think with creative stuff often having limitation or having less stuff makes it easier to work. And I didn’t take much stuff with me – I only had like four things with me. You know in some way it’s good, because there’s not hundred things of equipment. It’s only the basic things and it’s very refreshing actually. And yeah, we didn’t intend to write a new song, we just wanted to keep busy. So, what we usually did, we would have set times to meet at the studio. So, in lockdown, we just kept doing the same thing. So, we said like ‘at Wednesday night we meet on Zoom’, decide what we would want to do, work on it together or separately, and then go back and share what we have done. And that works fine! And, in some way, it has its advantages over working together in the studio, because we both have two computers, you don’t need to leave the flat, don’t have to get the bus to the other side of town – and it’s fine.

Eugenio: And I’m not late! (laughs)

Thomas: Yeah – I would say you’re less late now.

Sarah: So, Thomas, you basically say less is more?

Thomas: Yes, less is more! Actually, I enjoyed not to be in the studio. It was nice. Like when I go back in time, when I had my music studio, I didn’t have any equipment at home for like three years and now I do.

Sarah: How did you make the song at home? Did it take you longer than usual?

Thomas: Actually, the song was quite quick. We didn’t sit down and said we need to do something, but our plan was to continue working on the EP and maybe do some kind of live thing – but we didn’t plan to do a thing on isolation. I think I was just playing around with this guitar pedal (holds a guitar pedal in front of the camera). I had a pedal sound I have never used before, you know? Do you remember this ridiculously distorted sound? At the beginning of the song?

Sarah: Yes, the intro, I remember it!

Thomas: I think it just started with that. And I sent it to Eugenio, and he sent it back and we put a bridge in. And Eugenio did a bit of mixing. And we were using a drive. We could upload new files. So, Eugenio would send me a file and say, ‘so could you do the guitar again’, and I could upload it again – it’s very fast! We sent the mixing to an Australian guy, who did the mastering. He did the mastering for our last single, too.

Sarah: How did you meet each other?

Thomas: We met him on a kind of internet forum for music production nerds, where people talk about things like ‘what’s the maximum sound of this or that’. We have two people in Glasgow too, who help us with promotion and stuff – we have a video for the single as well. Eugenio, you can say more about that.

Eugenio: It was very hard and dangerous to do that in the house (laughs). I tried different shots and camera angles, even from the ceiling! But I have a lot of stuff at home, a tripod and stuff.

Sarah: What do you film, now that you can’t go outside?

Eugenio: My girlfriend! (laughs) The video is about this girl who lives alone but who realises that she’s not alone, because she meets herself, and starts talking to herself. I noticed this myself when I was working from home before the pandemic. I started talking to myself, asked myself loud questions, while working.

Ma oggi tutto si confonde

E tanto perché ci rilassa

Cantiamo da questa finestra

Che prima o poi passa

Prima o poi passa. (from ‘Isolation’)

Sarah: Eugenio, your first language is not English. Does the lockdown make communication harder for you?

Eugenio: Talking on Zoom and on the phone is so hard! (laughs) Some time ago I used to ask Thomas to call a taxi, because I didn’t understand the Glaswegian taxi drivers on the phone (laughs).

Sarah: Well, I can empathise. Your last songs ‘Riverside’ and ‘Shadow of the Big Hand’ had English lyrics. Why did you write in two languages this time?

Thomas: With the bilingual writing thing it’s quite nice. We were starting in two languages, because it set us free in a way. I mean, I normally write in English, of course, because I can’t speak Italian. Eugenio is probably more poetic in Italian. It gives us an independence to a certain degree you know. So, what normally happens is that I give Eugenio a theme in English and then he can do whatever he wants really. (To Eugenio) you can respond to it in a way you want to, right?

Eugenio: Yes. And it was great.

Thomas: For me doing it in two languages is much more exciting, because it has more layers to it, it reaches more people. Yeah, because I can understand it in a different way than Eugenio.

Sarah: Because languages have different melodies and sounds?

Thomas: And different energy. It gives the song more richness. If it was just me for three minutes, it would be quite boring. We were listening to The Libertines a lot. They did the same, like mixing different ideas and themes, different perspectives and different energies in the song. It’s more interesting, it’s much more human. To be honest it’s very surprising with bilingual songs that it isn’t much more mainstream. You know, there are more people who are bilingual than there are people that only speak English.

Sarah: And things have different meanings in different cultures, different ideas can be expressed in the one language but not in the other.

Eugenio: I wrote the second verse in Italian. You know, we didn’t choose to do that; the process was just natural. When I started writing I didn’t think in English. I had to write in Italian. You know reading a lot about other countries, and my country (Italy), I wanted to write something for them. Something that could link these two worlds. And I also wanted to send a message of hope in some way, to all my friends and family. I wanted to write this track also for them. Thomas probably wrote the first verse one week after the lockdown, and you know we were unsure because we knew we couldn’t go back to the studio, not do anything. And I remember Thomas didn’t bring the right things from the studio. So we just had one microphone that was very bad and we just didn’t have the right things, no charger and no soundcard, so this track was a challenge to record. But in a way it also helped us to be busy and stay positive. And that’s also the message we try to deliver to our friends.

Sarah: Looks like you really make the best of this extraordinary situation. Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?

Eugenio: Not much. Maybe filming. (laughs)

Thomas: I’ll probably make some lunch now.

Sarah: Ok, thanks for the interview and best of luck with your new single.

You can listen to Ophelia Lies’ latest single ‘Isolation’ on Soundcloud or Spotify.

Watch the music video here:

You can follow Ophelia Lies on Facebook or Instagram, to keep up to date with their work