“People thought that I was insane.”

Natalie Prass speaks to Stevie Chick.

Before you started working with Matthew E. White, you were working in Nashville. Were they fruitful years? “Nashville whipped me into shape as far as my songwriting chops, my singing, learning guitar and just being completely immersed in the business. But I didn’t have any money, and when I told people I wanted to make, like, a Dionne Warwick-style record, people thought I was insane, because that was not ‘cool’.”

You wrote two albums’ worth of songs during the delay between recording your debut and its release. Are those the songs we hear on The Future And The Past? “I’d planned to record this album in June 2016, but the sessions got pushed to December. By then the election had happened, and I scrapped those songs and started from scratch. I wanted to talk about all the stuff that was going on, it seemed so much more important than my relationship problems or whatever (laughs). I want to contribute to the conversation. It was extremely therapeutic for me, because I was literally on the verge of tears for months, like, any time anybody mentioned Trump I would just start crying.”

Far From You references The Carpenters. Is Karen Carpenter an influence? “Oh, big time. I’ve always gotten people saying that I look like her, since I was a little kid. I became totally fascinated by her. You can hear her personality in her voice, she just really draws you in with her delivery and her spirit. People focus on the way she died, but I wanted to write a tribute to her as a kind soul, a really talented drummer, a skilled musician… Just somebody I think was a real light within all of the darkness that the music could be, and I think it’s tragic that the darkness overtook her and brought her down.”

A couple of the songs – Hot For The Mountain and Ship Go Down – make ambitious breaks from the pop format. “Those two songs show my more experimental side. I love classic songwriting, I love the typical ‘verse, prechorus, chorus’ thing, but it’s really fun to still have a structure, but have it be a little more adventurous. With Ship Go Down, I told the band that I wanted it to build into a kind of chaotic, Tropicália freakout at the end. I think they nailed it!”

It’s a cathartic moment. Is it one of the more political songs on the album? “Yeah (laughs). On that one, I definitely tapped into my anger.”