While in the middle of a European tour, present time London, Diane Birch was cool and generous enough to give us our first interview. Thoughtful and endearingly honest, she easily lets us in on a bit of her past and experiences with her first album, Bible Belt, which debuted a year ago. Fortunately, Birch is no-where close to calling it a day, least of all musically. In her world, she’s just getting comfortable, and just getting started.
HW: The first word that always comes to mind when I think of your voice and your music is soulful. Do you feel this sets you apart in any way from other singers?
DB: Not really. I think there are a lot of soulful people out there. I’ve never considered myself as a soul singer or anything like that, so when it comes to my voice I feel pretty humble about it. I’ve never considered myself to be this amazing singer. I feel flattered when people, you know, say nice things about my voice (laughs).
HW: I can understand that. Well, did you, or have you ever, had a specific vision of the type of artist or singer you wanted to be?
DB: No, I think I really just kind of went with what I had really. I never considered myself a singer early on, it was really more I just considered myself a pianist. So it was after a while I finally started taking myself more seriously. I never really had this grand vision for my voice or anything. I just sort of let it be what it is.
HW: Ok. Well, with your debut album, Bible Belt, you have to make a living of-course, but did it matter to you how well it would sell and how popular it would be?
DB: Not really, I mean, I didn’t have any major expectations. I just kind of imagined that I would go in and record all the songs kind of analogue, and it would be much of a sort of indie thing. But I think because the songs are part commercial, they’re more straight-forward pop songs, and the way it ended up sounding is a lot more commercial. I mean, I never imagined it would be played on the radio or anything like that. Whenever I hear it on the radio I’m just like “Oh! Weird” (laughs).
So, I always imagined it, a lot, kind of, smaller sounding in a sense. In another sense also, I imagined some parts having a lot more space, I imagined things having a lot more reverb on them. I guess it would have given them a very different sort of vibe.
HW: You’ve been quoted as saying “I felt like an outsider” in regards to your family returning to America when you were 13 years old, from traveling all around the world. You lived in Zimbabwe, South-Africa, and Australia. That’s an incredible experience, but do you still ever feel like an outsider?
DB: Oh, yes, totally! I definitely feel like an outsider, and small correction, I was actually 10 when I moved to America. I see it says 13 a lot of places and I’m like “Where do they get 13 from?”. But yeah, I still feel like an outsider in a lot of ways. I think when you’ve grown up feeling that way it’s really difficult to- I mean I have to say I definitely feel really at home in Brooklyn where I live, I live in Williamsburg and I guess that’s probably, out of everywhere I’ve lived, I feel the most at home there in a way. But otherwise, New York definitely has a homey feel to it because there’s just so much of everything and every type of person going on. So yeah, I still feel like an outsider in a lot of ways but maybe a lot more at home than I did when I was a kid.
- Do you ever feel restricted, musically? Has there ever been something you wanted to sing or write that has been off limits for any reason?
- So is your new album almost complete? Can you tell us?
- What should fans expect to hear from your upcoming work?
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Love the interview! Can’t wait to hear Bible Belt, I guess Diane is one of the new upcoming artist.