Grace Mitchell
Photography by Mallory Turner. Makeup by Debra Macki. Styling by Jordan Blakeman. Interview by Heather Hawke.
The very first concert Grace Mitchell attended was an all-ages show her mom took her and her best friend, Carmen, to when she was eleven or twelve for an Australian artist called Missy Higgins. As a kid, growing up in Portland, Oregon, Grace was always doing creative writing and writing short stories similar to Junie B. Jones starring her as the main character. When she started taking guitar lessons, and after some encouragement from her mom and guitar teacher, she began to write her own music and found that songwriting came very naturally to her. “My first ever song I wrote was at 10 years old. It was inspired by “Dear Mr. President” by P!nk and it was called “United.” At that age, it wasn’t clear to her that her mom’s political influence on the songwriting process of that song, but now she sees it was more about her frustration with George W. Bush so she’s not sure if it counts as her genuine first ever self-written song.
Her cousin Julia, she says, was a huge influence on what she listened to because, as she was older and had more knowledge about music, she put her entire music catalogue onto Grace’s iPod when she was a kid. “As an elementary and middle schooler, I listened to Radiohead, The Verve, The Strokes, Semisonic, The Beatles, Fiona Apple, Led Zeppelin, Coldplay and so many more.” The biggest inspirations on her musical career though, have been Alanis Morissette, Beck, and Kings of Leon.
She had a difficult time making friends in school which was a minor reason she dropped out in high school. Saying that her best friend from High School is still her best friend today, “We met on the junior varsity volleyball team my freshman year of high school. I took a solo road trip back to Oregon to visit her this summer and we went camping near Crater Lake.”
As traveling is a huge inspiration for her, she travels a lot; “I go on weekend trips with my friends to the desert, or to Las Vegas, recording everything with a VHS camcorder just so I can get inspired.” She says that most recently Vegas has been a really inspiring place to travel to for its history and “enticing darkness”, as well as it’s “beguiling lavishness.” She’s currently exploring the aesthetics of Elvis-inspired glam-western wear, with a southern California 1970’s desert-psychedelic twist. “I’m also inspired by where I live; in a small cabin in the Hollywood Hills, neighboring where Jim Morrison, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young have all lived.”
Grace was signed to Casablanca/ Republic Records in 2013, at the age of 16, and has since released her debut EP, Design, in October 2014, her sophomore EP, Raceday, in August 2015, and a “playlist” instead of a conventionalfull length, 21st & Motley, last November. She says the reason for releasing it as a playlist is that in the current state of the music industry, to her, it’s really difficult to release a full body of work and have every song on the album get all the recognition an artist should get. She was fearful of releasing an album and having some of the songs get more recognition than the others, since each track is completely different from the next (with some of them dating back four years) and there’s not quite a specific rhythmic or energetic flow to it.She wanted to release music in the playlist style format where she could release something every two or three weeks to make sure that all the songs had their moment to shine.
She’s now left her label and has become independent, saying that it’s given her an opportunity to look back and observe what really went down when she was signed to them. “Becoming independent was disorienting and challenging and it’s been something I write about all the time. It’s hard to not have some major infrastructure to fall back on.” Everything she does or makes now is entirely her, but she relies a lot on her friends to help out with her creative vision; whether it’s doing a photoshoot, making a music video, or helping her tailor an outfit for a show.
If she’s not writing songs on a specific day, you can find her doing something else creative to put attention into like painting, tailoring clothes, drawing, or taking long walks to kick start the inspiration. “Yesterday I went to Trader Joe’s and there was an employee that inspired me to write a song. Sometimes inspiration will happen randomly because I said something or heard something good.” She’ll then write it down in her notes or sing something into her phone then flesh it out when she gets back to her studio. Since songwriting is such a vulnerable process, she says that it’s hard for her to write something meaningful with other people around as she’s get afraid of being judged, especially by people she doesn’t know well or haven’t met before. “These days I mostly write completely by myself instead of collaborating with people because a lot of my songs are about my parents, or people I’ve dated.”
