Ahead of what would have been a 20-stop tour, real name Ella O’Connor Williams wasn’t particularly worried about a pandemic slowing her roll. To be fair, neither were many Boston residents. When we sat down to grab tea at a French-Asian artisan bakery in Allston, she briefly recounted her winter tour through Europe, mentioning that she traveled solo for a chunk of the journey – just her and her gear on trains, buses, and planes through countries, among languages totally foreign to her. With that, it was clear to me the 23-year old Leo Sun/Cancer Moon/Scorpio Rising, who now uses the childhood alter ego Squirrel Flower as her musical moniker, generally doesn’t let much slow her down.
On March 7th, the weekend before shit got real with coronavirus shutdowns in Boston – when social distancing was just a twinkle in the eye of the CDC – fans of Squirrel Flower gathered at Great Scott to hear the band’s twang-tinged indie folk rock. The audience swayed shoulder-to-shoulder, sipped on beers (not quarantinis), and the only things at least 6 feet apart were the stage stairs and the venue’s swinging bathroom doors. Allston was the third stop and the homecoming/record release date on Squirrel Flower’s tour in support of her January release, I Was Born Swimming.
Back in the bakery, Williams donned blue denim overalls, her distinctive red curls, glittering eyeshadow, and a certain je ne sais quoi about her demeanor. At the time, there was so much ahead: the road, stopping through several places she’d called home, the momentum of her January release compounded by completing that February tour, even the weather becoming warmer felt like a hopeful signifier. Maybe the chaotic energy of hopefulness buzzing off this incredibly talented artist was almost tangible, because Williams has done a lot in the time that preceded Swimming.
When we sat down for a chat over take-out cups steaming with green tea, we talked about what led up to her breakout full-length, and continued to postulate what her future held. Read our conversation below.
Allston Pudding: I know you grew up in Arlington and then moved to Iowa for school. What made you move— had you been there before?
Ella O’Connor Williams: No, I was there to visit the college when I got in. I applied to colleges and it was one of the few I got into, and they gave me a shit-ton of financial aid. So the decision was kind of made for me. And it seemed like a really sick place so I went and made this crazy transition, and took four and a half years to graduate because I took a semester off in the middle. I moved back here after I graduated last winter, and have been working at a cafe and touring as much as I can, and obviously I recorded the album that I put out and it’s been a busy year. It’s weird to not have the same structure because I’ve been in institutions my entire life pretty much. And now all of a sudden it’s like— I do work many hours a week doing music and there’s so much administrative stuff to do. But it doesn’t feel like a job. It doesn’t feel like I’m structured in the same way. So it’s weird to think about the past year and be like, “Oh, that was a full year.” Because time passed in a different way.
AP: It’s crazy that you had an interview with Rolling Stone, first of all.
EOW: It was insane.
AP: Congratulations! But I was reading that interview and a few others where you talked about growing up, and you said parents were musicians.
EOW: My mom’s a teacher, but she loves music and is a big part of that too. And my dad’s parents were musicians.
AP: So, do you find it hard to relate to other folks who haven’t had that musical structure and support in their life?
EOW: No, it wouldn’t say so. I obviously have a ton of friends who are musicians, and some of them were not raised in music and broke out of that and decided to do something and take a huge risk. Some of them were raised by musicians. But a lot of my friends have nothing to do with music.
AP: Do you have siblings?
EOW: Yeah, I have two siblings. My older brother is playing guitar with me tonight.
AP: So are they both involved in the music scene
EOW: My older brother, he’s a cellist and a bass player and a guitar player. My younger brother is at Grinnell, where I went. He’s about to graduate and plays trumpet and does sound mixing for shows. He’s more into union stuff – he’s a union organizer and does radical computer science stuff.
AP: Got it. My family is not musical at all. I’m one of five and am very much the outsider in that way, so that’s why I ask.
EOW: Totally. I think about it a lot. There are a lot of people making music, that it’s really challenging for, who decided to do that. People are shunned by their families for doing it. I’ve never experienced that, it was just a natural thing to happen. I’m very lucky.
AP: If you weren’t doing music, what would you be doing?
EOW: Probably academia of some sort or visual art. In college I studied visual art and gender/women’s sexuality studies. So I’d probably go into that. I wish I did that more alongside music. It’s really hard to keep up with everything. But that’s what I would be doing.
AP: You have time to focus on different areas you’re interested in.
EOW: Yeah, and I have an idea that one day I’ll go get an MFA for visual art or something. Who knows.
AP: Are you into painting?
EOW: I paint, I do video art, I do sound art. What else? A little bit of sculpture but less so now.
AP: So how involved with your music videos were you, on the editing side?
EOW: Honestly not very much, For the music videos for this album I wanted to try and let a director hear and song and decide what they wanted to do. Obviously we did work together and there was a feedback loop.
AP: The director for “Headlight” was Bao, right?
EOW: Yeah she’s amazing. She has such a strong visual eye. Her color work is incredible. It was really fun to make it with her. She came up to Boston from New York and we did it all day. We borrowed a convertible from one of my mom’s colleagues.
AP: That’s amazing. What roads were you driving down?
EOW: Fuck, where were we? Something borough— Marlborough maybe? About an hour outside of Boston.
AP: Can you talk to me about the music scene in Iowa?
EOW: Oh man, I haven’t thought about it in a minute. The most visible part of it is Mission Creek Festival. I’m playing it for the third time this year. It’s just truly amazing. It’s literature and discussions and it’s music and it’s just so vibrant. There are just so many amazing bands in Iowa City. I was in Grinnell, which is an hour from Iowa City and an hour from Des Moines. It’s a 9,000 person town and it had an incredibly strong music scene too, outside of the college. There was this venue called the Stew, it was run by the Grinnell Area Arts Council and they had shows all the time and community events. I found it to be a really non-competitive, incredibly supportive community throughout the whole state. I miss it a lot. I wish I stayed out there and will honestly probably move back there soon. I mean, I love Boston too. It’s weird because I do feel a part of the scene here in some ways but it’s also weird because over the past five years I’ve been here and I’ve been there and I feel like I haven’t gotten a chance— like every time I’m here and feel solid in living here I have to go travel and tour or go back to school. It’s also lovely here.
AP: I imagine the scenes are very different.
EOW: [Laughing] Yeah I feel like I’m not an authority to speak on it.
AP: But that gives me a good image on what you think is special about Iowa. What’s your favorite song to play alone?
EOW: Alone? Probably just new shit. There’s no better feeling to be practicing a new song alone and then it clicks and you’re like, I just made something special and I’m the only one around to hear it. Not to be cheesy, but that moment is why I make music. It’s sharing it with people, too. But the moment of creation, it just spills out, and you’re like— that’s art, that’s a song, and it captures something that can’t be explained.
AP: What about live?
EOW: It really depends. Sometimes I prefer to do solo songs. Sometimes I prefer to do shit like “Red Shoulder” that’s really loud, distorted guitar. It really depends on how I’m feeling. Luckily my sets are – even when I do full band – they’re really dynamic. I think it varies a lot, the arrangements and the sounds, full band versus solo. I’m using my loop pedal a little bit. There’s something for every mood that I have
AP: I mean, that makes sense. What’s the first CD that you chose to buy?
EOW: I think the first CD I was given, I say it’s Led Zeppelin but I think it was actually Britney Spears. I was six and loved it, listened to it all the time. But then my dad bought me a Led Zeppelin compilation and I loved it so much. I would flip through the CD booklet and kiss all of the pictures of Robert Plant.
AP: That’s so funny— Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin announced a tour recently and I remembered kissing my Ricky Martin CD when I was a kid.
EOW: [Laughing] Dude, I would be using tongue on these pictures of Robert Plant. I don’t know if I still feel that way, I mean, he’s alive. I hope he doesn’t [read] this. But then, Avril Lavigne, that one— what was it called? The one where she’s in those huge pants? The classic one. I loved that, I listened to it all the time. Those are my three CDs.
AP: What’s your favorite mode of transportation?
EOW: Honestly, trains. Long distance trains. Some subways. When I was in high school, I loved taking the T. The T was really special to me in high school.
AP: Why’s that?
EOW: Because I would take it to go to shows. I was sixteen or seventeen and going to DIY shows in Jamaica Plain and it felt so cool. It felt very free and I was experiencing this scene that I was not really a part of, but just like, kind of blown away by. Like “Belly of the City” is about coming home after a show when I was eighteen right before I left for college, just that moment of being alone after an amazing concert.
AP: I grew up in Florida and when I moved here, public transportation was a big deal.
EOW: Transportation is so important, and it’s so important that it is free. But it’s not and it needs to be.
AP: What’s inspiring you lately? Imagery or music, local and national?
EOW: I’ve been feeling very doom-y lately. I don’t know. I think it’s a product of the times. It’s interesting. I feel like there’s a lot of apocalyptic music being made, lately, in the past three years. That’s been something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, particularly pertaining to climate. Like, I don’t write climate change songs, but I’m definitely influenced by being totally terrified and in awe of natural elements. And feeling doom-y about it, playing open long chords.
AP: A doom record? Is that what’s happening?
EOW: Ok, I tweeted that a couple weeks ago. There are gonna be some doom songs on there. Very traditional folk, as well, returning to classic folk songs.
AP: I love that possibility of those intertwining.
EOW: We’ll see if it works!
____________________________________________________________________________
See below for photos from the show (in order: Squirrel Flower, Lady Pills, Houndsteeth):