Jessica Chapnik: Squaring Off
Not too far a cry from the weekly dramas of a life in Summer Bay, Jessica Chapnik’s latest venture has taken a ‘dramatic’ turn, cementing her name in the Australian music industry. Jess worked with Ben Lee on performing the smooth and dreamy music on the soundtrack to the Aussie hit movie The Square. Though, previously singing with Sarah Blasko, the band Old Man River and the Kahn Brothers, this soundtrack has created quite the buzz around the gentle-spirited brunette. The Dwarf spoke to Jess about all things 'square'.
The Soundtrack to the square is a fairly unique album to create, what was the process for you and Ben Lee?
The process was pretty simple in many ways. He gave me all the early demo’s of the songs with him singing them. I listened carefully, and in the process fell in love with each song one by one. Then I pretty much walked into the studio and sang them. We didn’t discuss things heavily. It didn’t feel labored. It was very unpressured and light and experimental. It really reminded me about just making things with a certain care-freeness, the kind of thing you feel as a kid. It was nice like that.
The songs are so accessible to an Aussie audience, did you resonate with any of them?
Feed the Fire and Why Don’t You Come Over, they are both slow and achy and kind of like a dream. I relate to that dream feeling. Most crushes, most desire feels like that. Like you are asleep awake or awake asleep, like you are melting.
What is next in store for Jessica Chapnik?
I have some other music ideas so I’ll see where that takes me. I still want to keep acting, and I am at the moment writing a bit. I want to make things that let me ask lots of questions, in the way Woody Allen made so many films that were like essays of the things he wanted to explore, for his own peace of mind. It’s seems so satisfying to work like that.
As a musician, what influences and fuels your creativity?
Good teachers. Good writers. Good dancers. Books. Looking out windows on trains. Listening to music in headphones. Or through great speakers. Or in the car. Beatles songs. People that follow their impulses and don’t care about critics. Music videos that make you fall in love with a song. Sleeping and waking up and remembering my dreams.
If you could share a stage with any musician, past or present who would it be?
There are so many. Prince is definitely up there. I want to know the brain that writes those songs. I think he knows secret things about music that I want to know.
What is your advice to young musicians?
“Who am I?” is a pretty big, valuable question. I asked an artist for some advice once, and he told me that if he could have his time again that he would have gone to therapy sooner. He told me to ask myself ‘why I want to do this so badly?’ he told me to find out as much about how I work as I could, because it would help me be a better artist. I thought this all sounded pretty clever.
Tell us about a treasured memory from the process of creating and recording this album?
About a week after making the record, Ben and I sat together and talked about our experience. We ended up sharing all sorts of things about the process of making the album, about what we thought the other one had thought about this or that… all that unspoken stuff that ends up sounding kind of comedic once you voice it. We just let it all out and had a laugh. It was so nice to reveal ourselves like that to each other. Like students learning together how to do things. It felt really grown up and loving to say “I don’t know”.
