Something you notice very quickly about Meg Remy of U.S. Girls is how easy it is to talk to her, even if it’s the very first time — a very Midwestern quality for someone whose formative years were spent in Chicago.
This ability to move seamlessly between a casual chat and thoughtful insights seems to have a twin on the music side. Because it turns out Remy is also one of those people who can jump into the creative process with a fully new band in a completely new town (in this case, Nashville) and create a record steeped in soulful, effortless groove and joy.
Scratch It, she shares, is about tapping into that soul groove that makes the bell in your heart ring. It’s about tracks grabbing onto those songs of yore like James Brown’s “Get Up Offa That Thing” and letting it ripple and reverb-inspire you, decades later (specifically reflected on the U.S. Girls single “Like James Said”).
With her Nashville live band, the Toronto-based Remy found joy in the Tennessee city’s bread and butter sounds of country, funk, soul and disco elements — an American pop music blend that’s been finely tuned over the past few decades.
But don’t think that Scratch It is just a one-off exercise in trying on some new genres and new musicians. It truly feels as though Remy is all about finding that nugget of joy among all the squashed down hardships of the day-to-day, and those trials and tribulations that build up over a life.
The intent was to write songs with no aim at perfection, then simply record them and seal them — “warts and all,” as Remy put it — after one or two takes. This lightning-in-a-bottle approach flavors a lot of hard stuff and some bubbly stuff that not only goes to your head, but also your heart (and feet).
Remy was able to achieve this with the help of some pretty incredible musicians: Dillon Watson (D. Watusi, Savoy Motel, Jack Name) on guitar, Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, Loretta Lynn) on bass, Domo Donoho on drums, Jo Schornikow and Tina Norwood on keys and legend Charlie McCoy (Elvis, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison) on harmonica. I hope it’s not the last time she works with this crew, because they’ve got a natural groove.
I got to speak with Remy about the genesis of U.S. Girls and the root of its musical inspiration shortly after the release of the record in late June, right as she was getting down to touring.
The following was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
On the struggle to nail down “Like James Said”:
This was one that we were really struggling with the arrangement. We had met before the sessions to work on some songs, and we had an arrangement up for this one that was kind of like reggae-ish, and it was not working. I remember my husband heard it and he's like, “It sounds like ‘The Monster Mash.’ This is not good.”
And then it just happened. Because we found the form, we were really able to lean in. We said, “Let's straight up reference James Brown. Let's put a drum break in there.” It was fun because of how it sounds and just everyone was grooving, but also because we collectively cracked this code.
The energy was so high because we had gone into the day feeling really down on this tune, and then to just work together to flip it around was so pleasing. And we said it in the room after we tracked it, we were like, “It's the first song in the record. It sounds like an opener.”
On where she gets her inspiration:
I'm so influenced by all of the music I hear that it's hard to pull out any one person, but I can say that I'm influenced by my body and what other music does to my body. When I listen to music and I'm having a physical reaction, I can feel my soul being fed. Because I know how that feels from listening to others' music, I can replicate it in mine so that when my soul bell rings “ring-a-ding” … I know I'm onto something here, and this is good. I love to dance and I love a groove, so I'm always looking to try and achieve that.
On rebelling against perfection:
I think we're living in a time of everything being so fixed. Music, everything's tuned, everything's just perfect and filtered and processed, and every picture we take, we curate and fix. It kind of felt like I wanna be really contrarian and do the opposite … and kind of just let it be what this is and say, “This is what it sounded like when these six people recorded on this day, and this is how it sounds like, warts and all. I hit a bad note here, but the emotion was right, so let's leave it and go with it.”
On comfort being the enemy of creativity:
I loved going elsewhere to record. [There’s] just something about leaving home and being in a new setting and not near anything familiar I found really conducive to creativity … just expressing myself and kind of just really going for something.
I'd love to go to the U.K. and make a record there and really remove myself from what I know. One thing I have not done is work with a producer that I don't know and have someone do the full-on “I'm producing you” kind of thing. I'd like to try that. … I don't wanna do the same thing over and over again. … It's good to mix it up and keep it fresh for oneself, 'cause if it's not fun for me and I'm not engaged by it, I'm not gonna be making good music.
