GRACE CUMMINGS
- 5 hours ago
- 9 min read
Interviewer/Writer: Aysha Swanson
Photos: Jeff Andersen Jnr
There are some albums that ask to be felt. Grace Cummings’ album Bloodhorse! is one of those records. I went on a walk in Yeronga memorial park to listen to this album for the first time, but I ended up having to sit down. I was struck by Cummings' brutal honesty and by the way she embraces the grotesque rather than shying away from it. Bloodhorse! is visceral, it doesn't ask you to look away from the ugliness but to sit with it. Ultimately, Cummings' highlights the parts of herself that most of us try to hide. That sense of emotional honestly, translated so beautifully into song, is what drew me to Cummings' music in the first place. And on Bloodhorse! it reaches new heights.
Her voice takes on a physical presence, capable of breaking, soaring and unraveling, while the arrangements create a world that feels both theatric but deeply personal. Given Cummings’ background in theatre, it makes sense that Bloodhorse! feels so grand. But as she explains, music is the one place where she isn’t performing. Instead, it’s where she is most exposed.
Ahead of the release of Bloodhorse!, I spoke with Grace Cummings about the theatricality behind the record, finding truth through exaggeration, the power of an imperfect voice, and turning pain into something that might help someone else feel seen.
AYSHA: Firstly, congratulations on Bloodhorse! It’s such an incredible album. It really took me on an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I wanted to start with the title. Bloodhorse! is such a vivid image. When did that become the right encapsulation for the record? Did it begin with the song, or did the title come later?
GRACE: I’m glad to hear you say that because that was my intention.
It took me a long time. I think I’ve done this with every album I’ve made. I had multiple titles, none of which felt right. You choose one and stick with it because there’s something about it, but it never quite feels like the title.
The song wasn’t called Bloodhorse! either. It had a working title, something like “HHWF,” for Happier, Healthier, Flashier, because I just didn’t know.
I was on the phone to Jonathan Wilson, who made the record with me. We often spend hours talking about music, life and whatever else comes up. He said something, I genuinely can’t remember what, but it sent me down a path that led me to the words blood horse.
The thing Jonathan really encouraged, though, was the exclamation mark. That became completely non-negotiable.
I felt like if the record was a piece of punctuation, it would either be an ellipsis or an exclamation mark. It moves between those two things. When we were getting all the artwork together, people on my team kept asking, “Is the exclamation mark really part of the title?” And I was like, “Absolutely. It’s not going anywhere.”
It’s meant to be shouted. That’s the important thing about the title for me. It’s meant to be said with passion. It’s dramatic, it’s vivid. If the only thing you ever did was read the title and shout it in your head, I’d be happy with that.
AYSHA: I was actually going to ask about the exclamation mark next. I love that it was so intentional — it really does encapsulate the album. Zooming out a little, you’ve trained as a stage actor, and you’ve spoken about commedia dell’arte and how exaggerated archetypes can reveal deeper truths. I feel like that theatricality comes through, particularly in your music videos. How does theatre still live inside your songwriting and performance, especially on this album?
GRACE: Acting in the theatre is my favourite thing ever, and it’s led me to so many other passions, learning languages, discovering music from different periods of history.
I’m trained as an actor, but I don’t think the crossover is as obvious as people might think, because music is the one place where I’m not acting at all. Obviously, the way I express myself is dramatic and theatrical, but that’s because it’s how the world feels to me. That’s why I loved theatre in the first place. The world is bizarre, and processing it through something grand, imaginative or vivid is the way I experience it.
The thing about commedia dell’arte is that you’ve got these masks. They’re not about covering yourself, they reveal the deepest truth of a person. You’d have the mask with the big long nose, and everyone immediately understood who that character was. It’s a grand exaggeration that reveals something true.
I feel that in music too. There are string parts and instrumental moments on this album that try to encapsulate a feeling on that same grand scale. A lot of this album is an attempt to confess something, reveal something or process something within myself, using the way it actually feels, which is big, overwhelming, chaotic and bizarre.
AYSHA: I loved what you said earlier, that music is the one place where you’re not acting. It makes so much sense. It feels like acting and music are two different ways of expressing the same part of yourself.
GRACE: Yeah. Lots of people have different ideas about acting, and you can approach it however you want, but when I’m playing a role, I don’t think it’s about becoming another person.
Some actors get a script and ask, “What’s this person’s entire life been up until now?” But I’ve always thought there’s no way you can actually be somebody else. Every morning you wake up as yourself. You never wake up as anyone else. Even if you’re playing someone completely different, even someone evil, the only way you can access that character is through your own experience.
That doesn’t mean you’ve lived the same life. It just means your eyes and ears have to be open to the world, and your judgement has to get in the bin. Your expression can only come from what you know. There’s no other way. You can’t actually become someone else.
That’s what’s so beautiful about acting though. Every actor brings their own understanding to the same character, so you end up with completely different interpretations.
AYSHA: Your voice is one of the most incredible voices I’ve ever heard. It’s so distinct and immediately recognisable. Were there any particular singers or styles that shaped the way you use your voice, or did it come instinctively?
GRACE: I think it came out authentically.
I was talking yesterday about having autism, and it’s something I didn’t realise was such a big part of my life. Outside of singing, I use my voice to calm myself or to breathe, and I’ve included some of that on this album.
I’ve been singing since I was a kid. People always said, “You’ve got such a big voice, where did that come from?” I don’t know. That’s just what comes out.
What I’m drawn to, more than technically brilliant singers or musicians, is feeling. I have to believe them.
The artists who’ve shaped me are people where that’s really apparent. Sinéad O’Connor, for example, there’s something almost like keening in the way she sings. It’s primal and emotional. It’s not just about hitting the notes.
I wish I could sing in a technically perfect way, but that’s never been the focus for me. The emotion is the focus.
When David Bowie’s voice breaks in “Heroes”, that’s the best part. When somebody growls, or when you can hear desperation, hurt or a plea in someone’s voice, that’s when I’m completely in. John Lennon screaming in “Mother”. Anything that captures humanity.
AYSHA: Your music is so emotionally exposed, and that’s something I love about it. The song that immediately came to mind for me was “Mother” by John Lennon. I’m a huge Beatles fan, and I loved hearing it referenced on the album.
GRACE: One of the greatest songs ever written and performed. It’s insane.
AYSHA: I actually have to skip it sometimes because it’s just too much, depending on where I’m at. Jumping into the record more broadly, I noticed this constant push and pull between beauty and grotesqueness. Was that something you wanted listeners to feel - to leave them a little unsettled?
GRACE: I don’t think I set out to make people feel unsettled.
When I’m writing music, I don’t think anything should be filtered. It’s real. A lot of what I’m writing about is incredibly full-on for me, but it’s also painfully ordinary. So many people, especially women, experience these things every day. That’s deeply unsettling, and that’s how it feels.
At the same time, I think there’s beauty in everything. There’s beauty in doing something with fear, which I still have around this record. Isn’t it beautiful that you can share something so unsettling with somebody?
It’s not my intention to make people feel bad. I’m not expressing anything we don’t already know.
I hope the record is more about processing pain than creating it. It’s about opening that pain up and expressing vulnerability, in the hope that someone might feel seen or heard.
I think we’re all encouraged to show the best version of ourselves, especially online, but that’s not what life is like.
Over the last couple of years I’ve realised that not being afraid of being ugly - in the true sense of the word, not the superficial one - is really important to me. That’s how we all feel sometimes, and I don’t think there’s any good in pretending otherwise. It’ll make you sick one day.
AYSHA: I wanted to dive into one of the songs, “My God”. I read that you wrote it with the brief of writing a hit. What does a “hit” actually mean to you?
GRACE: Whether it was my desire is questionable. I needed to write a hit, that was the brief. So I thought, “Right. I’ll just go and do that.” I sat at the piano and started almost as a joke. I thought, “Okay, Grace, you need to write something.” Then I stopped myself and thought, What even is a hit?
I decided to make it as simple as I possibly could.
I just thought, Be as simple as you can. Everyone comes from the same place. What can you do?
So I sat at the piano, picked two chords next to each other, and just went, “Uh-huh.” Everyone can make that sound, no matter what language they speak, or even if they’re non-verbal. I thought, let’s just start there.
It started from a very simple place. The first step was making it primal, and then it grew from there.
AYSHA: I loved the transition between “Fake” and “Bloodhorse!”. Those songs feel so deeply connected. “Bloodhorse!” almost feels like an emotional release, as though you’re running away from the previous song. What made it important for those two tracks to run into each other?
GRACE: I’ve been asked a lot, “Is this drone supposed to be so long?” Yes. It is. It’s in the fucking album.
Both Laugh
GRACE: It’s a really important part of the first act, or the first side of the record.
Fake is an attempt at confession. Actually, no - fuck it. It was courageous. It still scares me. I’m worried about people hearing it and talking to me about it was an attempt to be courageous within my vulnerability, my ugliness and the grotesque parts of myself.
When we got to the strings, I kept saying, “You’ve got to be sucked into a fucking rip in the ocean and just go down.” The drone is like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. You have this very real confession, then suddenly you’re falling somewhere completely different. That’s why I wanted it to last so long. I wanted people to get a little bit lost before Bloodhorse! throws you into this urgent, vivid, chaotic, desperate rush.
It’s almost the antithesis of the previous song. It’s this grotesque urge to change yourself. It’s just running and running and running. That’s how I feel when I wake up. I open my eyes and I start running towards something I don’t even know if I want. Maybe if I wasn’t me, things would be better, or at least they’d look like they were.
That’s not true, but that’s the feeling.
AYSHA: Those two songs together really create a world. The transition completely pulled me into it, and it achieved exactly what you’ve described. I wanted to ask about the second side of the record. It felt like a completely different emotional space. There’s the dissociation of “I’m Not Crazy”, the childhood comfort of “John Lennon”, and the childlike wonder of “Which Witch”. Did those songs feel like the calm after the storm of the first half, or were they a different emotional landscape altogether?
GRACE: I think it is a kind of falling down the rabbit hole, and then finding this wonderful world of dissociation.
That’s what it feels like for me. Things begin to lift. I say thanks to people like John Lennon, and I turn painful thoughts into a party of witches.
Then it all comes back to the way things really feel with “My Island and Me”, which was partly inspired by I Am a Rock by Simon & Garfunkel, just a lot less cheerful.
It’s really about coming out of the horror while still experiencing it under the guise of a kind of dream, happiness or dissociation.
FIND GRACE CUMMINGS HERE
Comments