Interview: The Good Graces study anxiety & life with new album, ‘Prose & Consciousness’

Duality is the natural order of things. Where there’s sunshine, there’s also black of night. The rumbling of a tractor’s engine, a kitten’s gentle purr. The warmth of a woolen, threadbare blanket, the icy bite of winter breath. Beings comprised of stark contrasts, we’re constantly at odds with the world as much as ourselves, and learning to juggle, or perhaps reconcile, every possible dichotomy is a boundless expedition. Such complexities serve as the baseline of The Good Graces‘ brand new record, Prose & Consciousness, which draws its emotional materials from the obvious “pros and cons” expression. Lead singer and songwriter Kim Ware nuzzles her voice through a swampland of opposition, as a way to contend with her own growth and the past’s snaky rearing head. “I guess writing songs about the opposing sides helps me choose one, maybe? Or at least helps me process things,” Ware, whose voice continues to blossom, writes to B-Sides & Badlands over email.

“For better or worse, I’m such a devil’s advocate sort of person, too. And I think it comes with anxiety ⏤ the worry over making the ‘wrong’ decision,” she says. “Like my therapist said ⏤ when I told her I once shopped for rugs online for an entire day and didn’t even order one ⏤ ‘What’s the worst that can happen? You get a rug, you don’t like it, so you send it back.’ Duh. Sometimes I make things harder than they need to be.”

“Wants + Needs” stretches and snaps the metaphorical rope tying her sense of being together. “I need to behave / But I want to be bad,” she splits her tongue, a forked serpent emerging. Her vocal wraps around every last syllable until her identity and perception of the world come into clearer view. “I joke that I’m a Gemini so it comes with the territory. And on the one hand, I kind of love that. I like it when someone has a certain opinion of me, and I can surprise them,” she says. “For years, I played drums, starting out in a noisy, punky rock band; it often surprised people because I seemed so quiet and mild-mannered. So, I guess I’ve always had that more rebellious side in me, but I tend to keep it under wraps because I’m also such a rule follower. I definitely find those two things are often at odds.”

“Sit on Your Hands” tugs on two lovers’ earnest reservations, their infatuations for one another spilling over, but never nearly soon enough. “Just sit on your hands / If that’s what it takes not to touch me,” she sings, a sly smile curling her lips. “I’ll cover my lips / ‘Cause that makes it harder to kiss your mouth.” Her dry wit is one of many weapons in her songwriting arsenal, and it somehow unpacks further emotional luggage and punctures the tension all at once. Later, with “Story to Tell,” Ware’s combat with anxiety collapses and erupts all over the page, an apt counterbalance to remind the listener of what it means to be tortured and torn. “Well, on the inside, I could be doing better,” she howls on the song’s apex. It’s the pinnacle of the record, the bedrock foundation of emotion and grit and heart and unruly angst, and Ware exposes her truth with raw nerve.

“I tend to challenge myself ⏤ shoot a little higher than what’s natural for me, hoping that it’ll help me be a little less anxious in my day-to-day. That’s the case for my musical side and my more buttoned-up, 9-to-5 side,” she offers. “Like, I used to really hate playing solo, but I just kept doing it with the hopes of it getting easier (it has). And I’m a manager at my day job, and there’s an expectation there to ‘keep it together.’ I care deeply about what people think about me, so if it’s clear that someone has expectations of me, it’s really important for me to meet them. And if you’ve struggled your whole life with anxiety, I guess the upside is you get really good at faking things.”

Prose & Consciousness, recorded inside Green House Studio in Marietta, Georgia, also peels back layers of instability to expose the beauty intrinsic to understanding existence. In her everyday life, Ware admits yoga and meditation have been vital to her journey. “Especially the meditation part, and similarly, journaling,” she adds. “I find that both of those exercises force you to sit with things. To not rush to a solution. It’s so necessary, and it took me a long time to learn that. I’m from a family of fixers ⏤ if there’s a problem, our first instinct is to fix it. A lot of people are like that, I think. But sometimes the ‘fix’ is actually going to be much more of a real, lasting solution if you give it time. Over the past couple of years, I also came to realize that if everything just went according to plan, I would have missed out on so many beautiful adventures. I’m a former control freak, so it was hard to let go of that, too. But now I can say I really am OK with letting life happen in a more natural, less controlled way.”

Below, Ware goes in-depth into issues of being, handling life at its worst, getting older and essential cuts.

What was the hardest lesson you had to learn in that process of uncovering beauty?

That it can be really uncomfortable. It takes a lot of effort. And it’s not like it’s just a switch that you can turn on or off. It can be hard to make it stick. I had a lot of years of old, bad habits stacked up, and I still fall back on them sometimes. So, I have to learn and relearn, over and over!

“Spider Lily” is particularly moving. The lyric “you left when we least expected / but we should have expected / that you couldn’t stay here” really hits the heart. What is the exact weight of that line for you?

That song was written as a birthday gift for a close friend and to help her heal. Around this time last year, she lost her beloved dog, Lily. And the day after Lily passed away, I noticed a spider lily had popped up in my front yard. It’s my favorite flower. I sat on my porch, thinking about both the flower and the dog and just, life, and how it all can be so beautiful but fleeting. In the case of Lily, the dog, she had always been sort of sickly; it was a challenge for my friend to keep her alive as long as she did. So, we really should have expected it, but it sure was heartbreaking when we lost her.

What things do you feel you could do “so much better” with?

That line sort of means a few things to me. One, I could simply “feel” better. But I was also thinking more universally… we all have our shit. I think all of us could name something that really bothers us that we just wish we were a little better about handling.

“Snow Angels” has some of the most interesting emotional layers of the record. I know it’s a Wyatt Espalin original, and you stripped it back to make it even sadder. In that process, what things did you come to miss about your own past?

Oh gosh, those lyrics really hit close to home for me. When we were recording it, I had been dealing with a conflict with a family member, and I kept remembering back to when we were kids, and things just seemed so much simpler. There’s also the line about the old man dying… and I was making the album as my dad was getting closer and closer to the end of his life ⏤ he passed away just a few months ago. So, I definitely feel the nostalgia that song gets at. I miss the closeness of my family and just the realness of everything. Looking back, I definitely couldn’t wait to get older, but [I miss] growing up watching my dad farm, going to ball games, fishing and swimming at the lake, and just being really present in all of it. It was a gift.

There is such an immense feeling of loss of innocence in this song, perhaps because snow angels evokes that sense of freedom as a child. When you think of snow angels, what comes to mind?

Beauty, simplicity, nature. But again, something fleeting. It’s really a sad but beautiful image.

It’s a strange thing ⏤ of getting older and longing for simpler times and things. What has your journey been like through that process?

It really is! When I was a kid, I just couldn’t wait to be an adult ⏤ to have more freedom. I was pretty sheltered as a child. I hated that. Now, I often just want someone to tell me what to do! But on the upside, my mom is such a positive example. She’s 81 years old, but she’s so active. She’s such a free spirit. She exercises like mad every day, is super social and is just really fun. She has shown me that it doesn’t mean you have to slow down, and you can keep learning new things. And I think music helps in a way, too, to keep me feeling a little younger than my age. I was always a really creative kid, putting on little performances for my parents. But outside of the house, I was painfully shy. I’m no different now, really, but holding on to that creativity has somehow at least provided some sort of constant for me, which has helped.

Is there something you’re glad you didn’t know when you were younger and you’ve come to truly appreciate now?

When I was much younger, there was no way I could grasp the finality of someone you love just suddenly exiting your life. I have a better understanding of that now, having experienced it with my grandmother about a dozen years ago and more recently, my dad. It definitely helps me appreciate the people I love a little more, and I think it helps me appreciate my own life more, too.

On “Three,” you sing: “I’m so afraid of missing out on something I don’t know a single thing about / So afraid I’ll live to regret or even worse than something that you just forget.” It strikes as someone trying to reconcile staying in a relationship while being tugged elsewhere. What is the story here?

Each verse is about something different. But the first, and the choruses are very much about being middle-aged and childless. It’s a decision I’ve really struggled with (obviously) ⏤ often when I play the song live I intro it by saying, “Here’s a song about wanting to have a baby but not wanting to have a baby.” It’s weird to struggle with a decision that seems so foreign, to me. To so many women, it’s a natural thing. They have that nurturing side of them, and they just always know. I never had that. Now I’ve pretty much missed my window of time, so I sometimes wonder if I’ll regret not having one. And it’s sad to think they’ll be no one to pass things down to, no one to remember me, so I guess I try and use my songs for that. (Just send me the bill for this therapy session) [laughs]

You set about recording this album pretty quickly compared to previous albums. Do you feel that forced you to focus in a new way?

For sure. I’m so bad about making quick decisions! I want to deliberate everything. Try on all the options. I did that with my last record, and I’m super proud of it, but I just knew for the sake of my sanity that I needed to do this one very differently. So, we didn’t overthink things. I think it comes off a little more natural, organic and live. And I had always wanted to make a record that way, that was more a reflection of the live, full-band version of [us]. There are so many different things we could have done with these songs, but I tried to just focus on the heart of the song. I do think it’s more cohesive than my previous releases, even though it does some genre-jumping.

Did you discover anything new or perhaps startling about yourself in this process?

When I was deciding on what songs to record, I made a list of about 14 or so, but realized if I left just two of them off then, there wouldn’t be a single breakup song on the record. That really surprised me, that I could actually write an album that wasn’t largely focused on breakups! So, I really leaned into that. I tried to be as honest as I had in previous records but just focus more internally. I think it made me more comfortable with admitting my flaws and challenges. Knowing that’s all part of it. I’ll probably realize more that I learned from it down the road ⏤ but I guess the biggest part is like I said, and I think it’s a Pete Holmes quote, maybe, from his podcast, “Our shit is our shit.” We all have something about ourselves we’d either like to change or we’re a little uncomfortable with. Change is more likely, or at least we’re more likely to just accept it if we finally admit it to ourselves.

Is there a lyric you can name that could sum up the album for you?

Dang, can I pick two? Or… three? The entire “Wants + Needs” song really sums it up for me, thematically. But I think you also nailed it with the “Three” lyric, the second half: “I’m so afraid I’ll live to regret, or even worse be something that you just forget.” There’s an anxiety to the record, obviously, and I hoped that talking (or singing) through my fears would help me. The other would be: “All we have to believe in is home,” from “His Name Was the Color That I Loved.” Over the past year or so, family and my roots have become a bigger focus for me. It’s an anchor, the compass for navigating the chaos. When things get crazy, I can look at my parents and my upbringing and know that I do have a really solid foundation. I come from good. I hope I do them proud. My mom really likes the record, and I like to think my dad would have, too.

Photo Credit: John McNicholas

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