One of the most interesting acts coming out of Australia right now is Empress, the Melbourne/Naarm-based six-piece collective with soaring three-way harmonies and mellow beats. Their recent single Lately has solidified their brilliance. We spoke to the collective about their formation and what's next:

Tell us how the six of you met? When did you know you had to create together? Tell us how it all unfolded!

"Five out of six of us actually went to high school together at Princes Hill Secondary college! That being said, we were all pretty spread out across the years. However, highschool was where the three singers, Grace, Stella and Matilda, all began their journey singing together. We were lucky to have gone to a school that had a really unique singing program, with multiple vocal groups and choirs and countless performance and collaboration opportunities. Us three really began singing together in year 12 when Stella moved to the school, and we realised our three voices blended perfectly together in register and tone. We also just became really close friends who loved the same music! As we all left school, we joined the other three musicians, Noah, Christy and Matt,  at VCA studying jazz, and all connected within a bunch of University ensembles and projects. It wasn’t until 2019 when we realised how much we missed vocal groups and the connection that comes with singing in harmony from our high school days. This is when the idea of forming Empress began! At the time we just decided on the three other musicians as they were the best (in our opinions) at what they did! We didn’t really know what Empress was going to be, or whether it was even going to be a band where we wrote music together. However we are so lucky now that we ended up being such good friends and collaborators and we really think that our community connections throughout our formative years were so integral to our collaboration today."

How do you work together? Does one of you usually take the lead on writing the lyrics, another on production?

"Our songwriting is an extremely collaborative process actually, and it really varies with each song. Some of our songs come into rehearsal sessions basically fully formed, and others come in as a tiny seed of an idea which we then workshop together. The majority of the time, it comes about in one of two ways, starting with either a vocal idea or an instrumental idea. Matt, Christy and Noah are all fantastic writers and producers, and we have a shared google drive where they upload beats, chord progressions, bass lines etc etc for us to then write over in our own time. A singer might then take it home and write something, whether it's just a hook or a whole section, and then we will workshop harmonies and band arrangements all together. We are often surprised with how quickly songs can come together with six collaborators! Other times, a singer will write a vocal section which will then be brought into rehearsals to have harmony/groove added to it. This is how songs like “Grandma” and “Baby” were born, as they are usually more vocally dense. As a group we are extremely collaborative across the entire writing and producing process, obviously leaning into our strengths whatever they may be, but we really like workshopping everything together and trying everyone's ideas until something works perfectly."

We really love your music. Lately is the new single which we’ve had on repeat all weekend. It’s great. How did the song come to be? What was inspiring you?

"Thank you so much! Lately is actually probably our favourite song so far as a band. Lately was written super accidentally back in mid-2020. Grace and Stella organised a catch up to try to work on another song we had on the go at the time, which was just not working for some reason. They sat side by side at the piano for hours, not able to make anything work and getting super frustrated and delirious. Deciding to give up, Grace just started playing around on the piano with random chords. Suddenly Stella said “keep going, I can hear something to this”, and within 10 minutes the main chorus to Lately was written. We then workshopped it with the band, where it went through many different renditions, grooves and keys until it fell into its fully fledged form that it is today. Vocally, this song is heavily inspired from one of our favourite songs “Sing to the Moon” by Laura Mvula, however as we started arranging it James Blake became a key influence for this song. When we wrote Lately, a lot of our songs weren’t lyrically that vulnerable or personal, more just a vehicle for our harmonies and melodies. Lately was the first time we started opening up with the lyrics, and writing lyrics collaboratively is great because the different sections and phrases mean different things to all of us about what we were going through during that time, but collectively the feeling and emotions are all synonymous."

Do you think growing up in Australia has shaped your sound in any way?

"Absolutely, your environmental surroundings when beginning to learn music are all super integral to shaping your sound and influences as musicians long term. We were all in fairly formative years when the big neo-soul birth happened in Melbourne, with the emergence of bands like Hiatus Kaiyote in the Australian scene. Like many musicians our age, we're heavily inspired and influenced by these bands and the flexibility of genre that came about in Melbourne throughout this time. In reflection, so called Australia has a really unique music scene compared to other places in the world, and despite its large variety in output, the scenes can be small and intertwined. This can mean that some of your biggest influences and favourite musicians studied at the same University as you, went to the same school as you, worked with the same people as you, played the same venues as you at any one point in their career. This definitely fosters a sense of excitement and hope within emerging musicians that is really quite special this scene."

Your harmonies are so beautiful. Who are some singers or other collectives that inspire you?

"Thanks so much! As mentioned, we were really lucky to go to highschool at Princes Hill where the vocal program was one of the strongest in the country. We credit a lot of our knowledge in harmony singing to our vocal director/teacher/biggest role model Miriam Crellin, who had us singing complicated SATB arrangements when we were 13 years old. As a result, we grew up singing a bunch of voice and choir music, from Barbershop to Gospel, to more contemporary vocal arrangements. Our biggest influences vocal harmony wise probably come from those such as The Staves, Mountain Man, Dirty Projectors, Tune Yards and Becca Stevens - all music that was mostly introduced to us by Miriam. We are also heavily influenced by singers such as Laura Mvula, Ngaiire, Bjork, Erykah Badu, Lauren Hill and even pop queens like Doja Cat. Being so exposed to interesting and unique vocalists and arrangements so young means our influences now are super varied and we are constantly inspired by countless groups that are using voices in unique ways. As a broader collective, our sound production-wise is also heavily influenced by the Tune Yards and Ngairre, but also James Blake, KAYTRANADA, Hiatus and more. We love finding new influences together and nerding out over a diverse range of music, and we like not being pigeon holed into one genre or sound."‍

A Kaytranada collab would be iconic. Who’s on the Empress bucket list to work with?

"A bucket list producer for us would be working with Rick Rubin, he's made so many of our favourite records, he’s a genius. We also are massive fans of Tune Yards and they have inspired so much of our writing and producing, any chance to collaborate with them we would then happily die. On the same token, James Blake is a massive inspiration and getting an opportunity to merely be in his presence would make our little hearts sing. We would love to work with some rappers/vocalists that we love, like Moses Sumney, Ngairre, Rhapsody, Little Simz, Sampa the Great. I think another bucket list for all of us would be to have our music featured in a film, we think that would be such an incredible feeling! We would love to work with some incredible directors, we are big fans of London based Bafic, and the queen Fleur Fortune, also obsessed with Matilda Finn's videos. I’m sure the more we learn about the scene the more this list will continue to expand, there are so so many amazing artists we are constantly surrounded by!"

You’re currently on tour. How has it been? What has been the best part?

"It has been a crazy whirlwind and a new experience for all of us! It’s definitely been a humbling shock to leave our comfortability in Naarm and head to other cities where no one really knows us - however we have all really enjoyed connecting with wider groups in more intimate settings. We played some really intimate shows in Canberra and Eora, and got to collaborate with amazing local bands and really feel connected to these scenes that we have had little to do with prior. We felt like we were dropping the Empress seeds along the way, and it was exciting to know we now have a small yet beautiful foundation of people in these places outside of home. In terms of the best parts, I think we all really enjoyed the little things that were exciting - like flying together, and hiring a van to drive for 4 hours crammed with keyboards and synths, having to then carry these ridiculously heavy keyboards and synths up many flights of stairs, getting to have big band sleepovers in quirky Airbnb’s and learning everyone's coffee order by heart. Being on the road and playing consecutive shows really meant a lot of time together - and a massive learning experience for us all - but all of the laughs along the way has definitely been the highlight."

For those who don’t know, why ‘Empress’?  

"When we had the idea to form the band, us three singers were feeling fairly deflated with the lack of female fronted bands in the electronic/dance Melbourne music scene at the time. From major festivals having little to no female/GNC diversity in their headline acts, to more local, seeing the same bands of predominantly cis-het white male bands on every “hip” lineup. At the time, we were still studying at VCA which is an extremely male dominated, and specifically male instrumentalist dominated environment. We were tired of always being the only female identifying person in every group, also tired of the tokenistic “one female singer” in every ensemble that is so prevalent in tertiary music education. So when we decided to make a band that was going to be part of this scene but with three female identifying vocalists at the front, it just felt right that our name reflected powerful femininity. Empress just felt right."

What’s something you guys would love to use your platform to draw attention to - aside from music?

"As mentioned above, we are really proactive about finding platforms for women/GNC musicians in the electronic music scene, which is still struggling with diversity.  As much as conversations and awareness has improved, many spaces are still often created by or for men, and we actively try our best to promote diversity within these structures and encourage more lineups with female fronted collectives. We have all had separate experiences feeling objectified, rejected, unsafe and disrespected as female musicians, and we had to have a lot of conversations before we even figured out that these situations which felt so common were not normal or okay. Our priority from the beginning was working to create safer platforms and opportunities for women, especially in the Melbourne electronic music scene where there seems to be an under-representation of female-fronted bands. This is predominantly reflected in our lineups and artist collaborations, where we also take intersectionality extremely seriously as privileged white cis-women. Listening to others is key, and we are constantly having conversations and working to educate ourselves on the systems that we still benefit off as colonisers. We want to make the spaces in which we perform safe and inclusive for everyone and we believe a key part of this begins with representation across the board." 

What’s next for Empress…? Can we expect an album? :)

"Yes! We are currently finalising all of the recording/production for our debut album, which is looking like it could be 10 tracks! It’s definitely a more rigorous process than what we thought but we are stoked to be working with incredible collaborators along the way. We are aiming for a Feb/March release if all goes well… Our hometown headline show is coming up on December 16th as one of the final shows of our tour, and we are so excited to be playing to our community here in Naarm. Headlining the Northcote Social Club with pop legend Franko Gonzo, and a new project from Quartz Pistol and Moses Carr called “Plastiq”. We are really excited for this one! Other than that, we are super stoked to be playing at Sun Cycle with a bunch of bucket list artists, as well as heading over to Tassy to play PANAMA with Sampa the Great and Confidence Man, which will be so fun. "

Listen to Empress HERE.

@empress.theband