SOLO NO MORE
Emma Ruth Rundle touring with a band to ‘make it more heavy’
Emma Ruth Rundle is known as a singer-songwriter. But she’s so much more than that. She’s a visual artist, as well as an accomplished musician.
Gearing up for her current tour, she’s taking a different route.
“I’ve been rehearsing tech in Denver,” she says during a recent phone interview. “On this tour, I’m going out with a band for the first time ever. So we’re getting everything together.”
Rundle is preparing a different type of set because she’s opening for Deafheaven and This Will Destroy You, and both are known for their harder sound.
“I also wanted a change because I’ve toured several times in the States and I’ve done my set completely alone,” she
says. “This was a good opportunity to try it with a band to make it more heavy and fill it out. It just made sense for the bill.”
Rundle has been performing music since 2008.
Over the course of her career, she’s released two solo albums and released albums as part of the bands Nocturnes, Red Sparowes and Marriages.
She also has a split EP alongside Young Widows’ Jaye Jayle called “The Time Between Us.”
“The songs on my side of the split were B-sides from ‘Marked for Death,’” she says. “I hugely admire Jaye, and she was just signed to Sargent House. It was a way to support each other and is a great collaboration.”
Rundle is dividing her time between music and visual arts full time and says there’s a discipline that goes along with it.
“I have to make sure that I treat the crafts the same,” she says. “You have to show up to the instruments and move forward. I’m taking classical guitar lessons and investing the time needed.”
When it comes to writing, Rundle makes sure that there’s always emotion tied to it.
“I think waiting for inspiration is a very dangerous thing for artists to do,” she says. “I don’t think someone should write just to get stuff out there. There has to be emotion attached to it. It has to be something that feels honest and good.”
While her music and visual arts go hand in hand, she admits that many times the two don’t necessarily inform each other.
“The last time I really did something tied closely together was the art for my album in 2008,” she says. “The two are very separate today.”