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| Photo by Sonya Jasinski |
Lucie Silvas was raised in New Zealand, but Nashville is her current home. Her body of work is impressive — she’s shared the stage with the likes of Elton John, Lionel Richie, Kacey Musgraves, and Tom Jones — and her latest self-titled EP is fantastic. Let’s have a listen to “Letters to Ghosts” now.
We recently caught up with Silvas over email to discuss her latest EP.
I love your voice. When did you start singing? What did you love to sing early on?
Thank you! According to my parents I started at about 2 or 3…. I’m pretty sure I drove everyone up the wall with my constant singing or humming. My fav thing to do was go into the garage when I was about 7 years old and sing at the top of my voice. It was a concrete garage so it had a huge echo and I would pretend I was singing to thousands! I sang Stevie Wonder and Jackson 5 songs on repeat!
Tell me about when you were writing the songs for your self-titled EP. What was going on in your life, and what influenced the songwriting?
There was def a lot going on! The songs are of course very personal and all taken from past experiences and my view on things, not only from my own perspective but from what I’ve observed and learned from people around me too. “Shame” talks about my lack of tolerance when it comes to Judging others, that everyone has stories and no one has the right to say what’s wrong or right for another person. A lot of my mistakes are documented in a song like “How to Lose it All,” and kind of admitting that I’ve gotten it wrong many times! My life has has changed so much over the past 5 years–both personally and musically, and my lifestyle here in the States has definitely influenced the direction of the songs musically and the sound of the record itself.
My favorite song is “Roots.” Can you tell me about that one and what it means to you?
I’m really glad you love that one. “Roots” hits home for me a lot as it found it especially cathartic to write about something that plagued me for so long. Writing can be such a learning curve for your own emotions… I was trying to talk myself out of a storm. I still have trouble singing it sometimes, as it feels more poignant to me than most.
What do you like about living in Nashville?
Too many things to list! But… mostly the community of people in and outside of music. It is a truly inspiring and supportive place. I wanted to get to the root of why I chose to do this as a career and Nashville brought it back home for me, and helped me to see it as something I love to do, no matter the challenges. It’s also such a fun place, there’s always things happening and new music rising up, right on your doorstep. I’m very lucky to call it home and to have found the family and friends I have here. It’s not even really that vastly different to my upbringing in New Zealand, but here I’ve learnt about a whole new culture and way of life that I had literally only seen in the movies!
Finally, I know you were raised in New Zealand. If I spent a weekend with you in New Zealand, where would you take me?
Well my family lives in Auckland so we could start there….First we should take a boat over to Waiheke Island, and take our fishing rods with us… it’s so beautiful over there and you’ll get to experience the volcanic islands right before your eyes. Go to one of the Vineyards there and get someone else to drive the boat back to Auckland! At night we could go to one of the bars by the viaduct Harbor, really lovely on a warm night. If you had more than a weekend we would have to go to the South Island and there’s so much to do, beautiful! We would also have to go to Takapuna Beach and go paddle boarding; I went with my sister Nikki a few months ago when I was there and we paddled with a view of Rangitoto, which is another volcano, amazing view! Somewhere in there you should see a Maori Show, which is so much fun and important part of seeing New Zealand.