“I’m still trying to get my head around it…”

Victoria Segal speaks to Nina Nastasia.

Given the circumstances behind the record, did you worry about having to retell the story over and over?

“I found the mastering of the record and mixing the worst. It was very cathartic and painful writing the songs, I just dumped the songs out, lyrics on paper, then singing it and that’s it, so that really was helpful for sure during a difficult time. To record it was a good experience as well but when it came down to having to do the technical parts – trying to figure out the order for the record, writing the lyrics down, sending out the artwork – all of that stuff was kind of awful. Talking about it is odd because I’m still trying to get my head around what happened. How I allowed myself to lose myself.”

After 12 years, was there a moment when you knew there would definitely be a record?

“It’s been an ongoing epiphany because I almost felt like a shell – I was so isolated, never talked to any of my friends about what was really going on. It’s a strange thing to have such close friends and have them confide in you and you end up lying to them or make sure they don’t ask how you are, trying to dance around stuff so it’s almost distracting from knowing about me. It was an awakening; I didn’t have to do that any more. And then I started to share songs with other people in various stages and do collaborations with various people – it became fun. The idea of going on tour was a crazy idea because there was a lot of things like driving a car on tour, playing shows again, all those things I didn’t think I was capable of doing, so this whole thing for two years has been realising I am capable of things, and I am not betraying this other person by doing them on my own. So it felt incredibly empowering but at the same time it was just horribly, horribly sad, and with those epiphanies there was also a lot of guilt. I just felt guilty for realising that I was capable and being happy about it.”

What’s next?

“Certainly collaborating. I am super-excited about that because that could never be done. I hope I live another 200 years so I can figure out stuff.”