Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
Although neither of my parents are particularly musical, music was always around the house. Whether it was my mother’s adamant playing of Greek folk music or my dad’s love of Muse, music was always present. Despite their different tastes, they seemed to find a middle ground in classical music, and soon put me and my brother in cello lessons. In a weird way, the first big chunk of my childhood was this strange blend of secular Greek music, educational songs and Supermassive Black Hole.
Coming into secondary school, I vividly remember my friend plugging an aux cable into a bass amp at school and blasting Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’. As someone who was raised on a different harmonic diet entirely, I remember hating it. Adamantly. However, the more I listened to it the more I started to love it – the anarchy, rawness, the unfiltered lyricism. Paired with the typical adolescent rebellious discoveries of Metallica, Pink Floyd and Slipknot, my focus diverted to heavy rock. I suppose it’s this blend of distorted 90s guitars with symphonic elements that set the scene for the sound of Mount St. Helen.
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Mount St. Helen”?
For Mount St. Helen, I’m trying to grow a dedicated fanbase first through a more creative approach to social media. Through aesthetically driven promotion, I’m trying out using social media as a canvas as well as strictly promotional tool, with posts displaying a clear sense of aesthetic – both musical and visual – as well as for growing a audience steadily. I try and stay off trend-following as much as I can, just because I’ve never understood that side of the internet and try and do my own thing. If you like it you like it, if you don’t you don’t!
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
Oh, that’s a tough one, do I have to pick one? Tough! If I had to pick, I would say Bon Iver, especially the eponymous second album. The songwriting, instrumental arrangement and production all together floors me every time. The sonic possibilities that it reveals through clever orchestration – even from the first track Perth – gives this phenomenal feel of both grandeur and delicacy. As someone who usually writes expansive and thickly textured music, finding that balance is something I’m consistently trying to hone.
In terms of inspiration, it really comes from all over the place. Whether it’s a scene from something I’m watching on Netflix to a Greek saying my mum uses, it all plays a part. Movies and animation, European idioms and traditions, religious iconography – these are all things that fascinate me in how they portray and relate to large groups of people, and what emotions they can convey en masse. Once I catch a feeling, the music tends to write itself.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the song, “Helpless.”?
Of course. With news being fed to the young generation in 15 second or 30 second clips on Instagram and Tiktok, it feels like world disasters oversaturate my online attention span. It was in one of these doomscrolling stints that I found myself asking the question ‘if there were such things as higher powers, what would they think at the mess we are making of this world?’. I suddenly imagined this birds-eye view of the world slowly burning, and I guess the stress of that birthed the song. Although seemingly scaremongering and pessimistic, I wanted the arrangement of the song to pay homage to the project’s hometown, Oxford, and especially the beautiful textures of 90s shoegaze. Bands such as Ride, Chapterhouse and Slowdive all have this amazing way of combining sadness with a sense of the ethereal that feels like it’s heavenbound. As the songwriting process continued, I wanted the overarching sentiment of the song to be one of hope, possibility, and carpe diem sentiment. Pairing the lyrical theme with something stylistically chaotic but hopeful in its sound cemented the message of ‘Helpless’ as one of hope and remembering to live in the moment.
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
Oh, I don’t know – cathartic, hopefully. If it’s not your thing, probably colourless.
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording “Helpless”?
As a creative, we all suffer from perfectionism. It had been a while since I released the debut Mount single ‘Pariahs’, and release was delayed for a number of reasons – I had a degree to finish, production took a little longer than expected, and then my attention diverted to honing the project in the live setting and gigging as much as we could. I guess despite being active in other departments of the project, I was holding on to the song too tightly and feeling scared to let it go out into the world. But now the band-aid’s off, it feels great!
Q: What is the message of your music? And what are your goals as an artist?
That’s a great question. Although it differs from song to song, themes of hope, celebrating difference and optimism are re-occurring. I guess I’m consistently trying to convey the feeling of overwhelming positivity and possibility in the face of darkness, delivered and packaged in a coherent and streamlined aesthetic, sound-world and vision. I want Mount St. Helen to feel like you’re happy-crying while looking up at the sky. If I can affect one person with something I wrote, the artistic goal is met.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
Wow! I’ve already said Bon Iver, so I’ll pick another. If I had to choose, I’d love to collaborate with the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros. Despite being a fan of their work for a while – with ‘Takk…’ being one of my favourite albums of all time – I’m fascinated by artists who question norms, traditions and performance styles. Band-adjacent setups such as two drummers, two bassists and a keyboardist with a string section and brass fascinates me, and the experimentation of atypical ensembles with a sound-world such as post-rock is something very appealing to me. Their performances in Icelandic caves or open-air festivals, performing behind translucent curtains or releasing albums with coordinates as titles are both artistically poignant and innovative choices. Interrogating the notion of what a band is and can be, as well as raising interesting links and questions in relation to art and space, identity and nationality is something I’d love to soak up in a collab.
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
I don’t know how much value my opinion is as I still identify myself as someone who is still trying to enter the industry! Regardless, I’d probably say stick to what’s true to you, what you want to make, and the artist you want to be. Know who you are. I know this is said a lot in creative circles, but the repetition of this sentiment shows how fundamental it is to being an artist. I’ll take a leaf from Rick Rubin’s book and say that , contrary to business where the customer always comes first, the audience comes last. Don’t write with the audience in mind. At the point of composition, it’s all about presenting a musical and stylistic argument, and you can’t do that without knowing who you are or what you want to say.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
I’d give him a high five, tell him to keep on going, and probably some pointers on how to chat to girls.
