Together Alone

A.A. explains why she’s been covering metal and alternative classics in her Songs From Isolation videos

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO START THE SERIES? “My manager has been trying to get me to do a live stream on Instagram for forever. And I keep saying, ‘No, the sound quality’s going to be awful, and it’s gonna be done on an iphone, and I just want it to be better. So I thought, ‘Let’s just see if I can make it a little bit smart around the edges.’”

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE SONGS? “The initial idea came slightly accidentally from me putting on Instagram, ‘Hey, I wanna do some piano videos, would anybody like to hear anything in particular?’ and I didn’t think to specify that it needed to be one of my own songs. So suddenly people started suggesting Radiohead and Deftones and all sorts of stuff. And I was like, ‘Oh shit, what have I done here?!’”

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE NINE INCH NAILS’ EVERY DAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME? “Let’s be honest, there are so many good songs. To choose one that really works for the voice and works with the arrangement being stripped down, it’s a lot of work to try and find one that isn’t just gonna be karaoke. You need to make it your own and make it still obviously very closely related to its original.”

HOW ABOUT YOUR GUITAR REWORKING OF DEFTONES’ BE QUIET AND DRIVE? “I tried so many different ones, and it was about finding one that was predominantly sung, rather than a heavy vocal. It’s quite hard to figure out how to vocalise a heavy vocal, especially stripped down, without forcing a new melody onto it which doesn’t already exist. And then again trying to decide if you want a piano one or a guitar one. A lot of life just starts from me sitting down and making some noise and seeing what happens.”

WATCH SONGS FROM ISOLATION AT: WWW.AAWILLIAMSMUSIC.COM/ SONGS-FROM-ISOLATION