Last fall Savannah Rae, the creative force behind Mother Runaway, packed up her belongings and moved away from Louisville. Needing to detach for a while, she found a place in Cincinnati, rented an apartment on the quiet side of the Ohio, unpacked her guitar and set up her home studio. Before long, Mother Runaway’s latest album “Champagne Heart” was born.
“For the first 5 months or so I locked myself away with my guitar, my cat and my MacBook. I wasn’t concerned with making friends or “getting out there” just yet,” Savanah said.
“I began writing, recording, re-writing and re-recording and tossing out songs that I’d spent months on and writing brand new songs and reviving songs from 5 years ago… And finally “Champagne Heart” is complete. It is an 8 track album which I plan to release this Fall.”
I first met Savannah last January at a rehearsal for her upcoming show at the Tim Faulker Gallery. I had the pleasure of playing bass in her backing band, along with Chruch Friends’ Aaron Snell on keys and Trey on drums. Savannah has since become a dear friend and she is a major inspiration for starting this blog (we just want to highlight all the cool things our friends are doing, OKAY). I reached out to Savannah to songwriting, asthetics, and the inspiration behind Mother Runway’s fall release “Champagne Heart.”
et’s talk about Champagne Heart. You’re a prolific artist- it seems like you are constantly writing and reworking material. How did you decide which songs made the album?
I chose these eight songs for Champagne Heart because they are cohesive. It feels more like a single work of art, rather than 8 individual pieces. They each express something that to me feels very genuine, pure and honest. As an artist that is the most important thing to me.
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the album? How did these songs come to existence?
Each of these songs came about differently. Some of them I started writing while doing the dishes and aimlessly singing aloud to myself. Then I took the words that stuck out to me and sat down with them and my guitar and built the song around them. Some of them I wrote purposefully from the mindset of a fictional character. For instance, one song “Howl” is written from the perspective of a ware-wolf. Songs like this, “Baby Down” and “The Wire” tell a story.
There are songs on the album that came directly from my personal life and my own experiences. These songs were my way of pulling things from my subconscious to better understand my own thoughts and feelings. These are the kinds of songs that pour out of you quickly and easily. “Nightingale, “Dans la Lune” & “Fine” fit this category.
“Warm” I wrote years ago while living on E. Chestnut St. It’s simply a love song. Oddly enough I remember praying before I sat down to write, that I could come up with something great. I was 22 at the time and still had a very fanciful view on love. In a way it reminds me of the way love songs use to be in the 50’s & 60’s.
My very favorite song on the album “Lux” was written on Hepburn Ave. in my bedroom. I was just getting in to Mitski and felt inspired to write something poetic and sweet. I wrote the song with only women in mind. I thought about the soft, effortless, nurturing way that women are able to give love. Not just in romance but in friendships. I thought about the specific lure that women alone have. I thought about the way you feel as a kid when you’re upset and a woman wraps you up in her arms to comfort you. That kind of warm, enveloping love. The song can be translated in so many different ways though. That was just my process.
Lux is a gorgeous song. You recently shot a music video for this one as well. Can you tell us about the process of making that video?
The music video I’ve been working on for Lux is my way of expressing this kind of love visually. I only appear in the video a few short times. I’m more concerned with bringing the images in my head, related to the song to life. It’s more exciting for me to be behind the camera than in front of it. I mean of course I enjoy that too. I’m a performer after all. But I love the process of creating. I love that in photography and video we’re able to create these fantasy scenarios that take people out of their own thoughts and brings them into something dreamy and mysterious.
Essentially that is the general theme of my work. That is why I am so excited to release Champagne Heart. I feel like after years of writing, collaborating and trying to express this part (my favorite part) of myself I’ve finally done it.
Lastly, Louisville misses you. When are you moving back home?
I find myself constantly being tempted to pack up my things and head back to the city that holds my heart, Louisville. Louisville’s music scene had a huge impact on molding me into the artist I am today. I am and forever will be grateful to the music/art community there for inspiring me, encouraging me and supporting me. However as things are right now I have no current plans to move back just yet. I’ve gone back and forth on the subject more times then I can count now, but things have finally begun to take off for me in discovering the music scene that Cincinnati has to offer. I’m eager to expand my horizon a bit, to learn what this city has to teach me and to collaborate with as many people as possible until the next step for me appears.
Luckily the place that still feels like home to me isn’t too far away. I am grateful to have opportunities to play shows in Louisville and to work with all of the unbelievably talented friends I have there.