ABBY HUSTON INTERVIEW — Interlocutor

Abby Huston is a Richmond, VA-based singer and songwriter. They first picked up a guitar to perform My Chemical Romance’s “Summertime” for the eighth grade talent show, then by around the age of 16, they progressed from covers to writing their own music.

While studying sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University, they met collaborator Cameron Smith, who also produces under the name Not Kevin, while working at the media lab. Smith produced Huston’s first album Rich, which was their love letter to the local music scene in Richmond. Their latest album, AH HA, furthers their focus on crafting dreamy, introverted guitar pop songs with graceful electronic production touches.

Interview by Interlocutor Magazine

You started off studying sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University, which is where you met your music collaborator Cameron Smith. Did you wind up finishing your course of study in sculpture? Do you think that if you hadn't met Cameron your creative path may have remained more focused on fine arts rather than music?

I did finish my sculpture degree with two minors! It was chaotic with work and random mid-week shows and Richmond stays busy with events, so I think that's why I only got one album out while I was in school.

I know I would still be playing if I hadn't met Cameron because before I met him I had played a benefit show, Garbagefest, in this amazing house in DC that hosts their city's Food Not Bombs chapter. I was so nervous and got drunk for one of the first times and I left without my slides, but singing for people felt like such a transformative release for all the tension and fears I have about singing for people. I was eager to do more, but music felt really inaccessible to me — just as a person who was being too hard on myself — and figuring it out on my own without the belief that I would be able to.

That's actually how I played for Cameron the first time. I was staying after hours where we worked in the innovative media lab at VCU because Garbagefest was releasing a sampler album of one song from each act that had played. I met him as a new hire after I spent about fours hours restarting and restarting a single track for an acoustic cover of Arcade Fire's “7 Kettles.” He offered to be the grounded computer guy and we got started recording the originals for Rich about as soon as we finished recording the cover.

Meeting Cameron helped me see that participating wasn't so out of reach [for] me. He was a catalyst for a ton of growth for me in music, but meeting him wasn't a determining factor in making music. [McKinley Dixon’s album] The Importance of Self-Belief also came out in 2018, and McKinley was another co-worker of mine. His albums and conversations stuck with me, he was one of the first of the most inspiring people I had met in the city. The album really was called Rich because of how I felt to be around people making music in the city. I know a lot of people who are outgoing singers or had relaxed fingers behind a guitar as kids and teens so for a while it felt silly for me to try, but I was just minimizing myself, as if I don't deserve whatever calls me, and a lot of people came to help me see that. I feel really lucky to be learning to forgive where I need to grow through making music and art.

You began writing your own music when you were 16 and before that you had been playing covers. What do you think drew you to playing music early on? Is anyone else in your family musicians or was it something you wound up pursuing on your own?

No one really played around the house but me, but my parents had been taking me to live shows since I was a baby and my dad had some guitars from when he played as a young person. I think there's a story of my being like 9 months old in the Black Cat. My dad is also a record collector and would buy local music often.

Both your debut album Rich and your new album AH HA involves a cast of local musicians. What is particularly special or personal to you about the Richmond music scene? Do you see yourself remaining based there for the long term?

I've loved living here. I haven't visualized the future and I wont! No, I'm just kidding, I'll consider. But presently I feel really lucky to be here, there are so many people who challenge me here and care about my growth.

I do feel like I grow a lot every time I'm away too, and I've loved going New York for short periods for a few years now. I enjoy bouncing back and forth a bit for perspective, with anyone who has been willing to let me stay with them.

In sculpture, I spent a semester getting internship credits as an artist's assistant up there on a couch that belonged to a friend from elementary school. I've also gotten far too familiar with the floor at Port Authority, unfortunately. Music in New York feels different and I really admire how hard-working and creative a lot of people I've seen up there are, but you [would] almost have to pay me to leave Richmond. I love the community. I love seeing people grow and change with what they do.

There’s an interesting personal story behind the title for AH HA involving your initials carved into your first drumsticks. Could you talk a little about that?

I'm not sure how the story got a little twisted but it was spray-painted on by my friend's older brother! We weren't allowed to use spray paint so that was a very cool detail to me at the time. Actually, [it’s the older brother of] the same elementary school friend who let me stay in their living room in New York. I guess I just admired the sticks and was a little fixated on their order, A or H first. Not fixated on keeping them in order, but just how much the mood changed when I'd go back and forth.

“Promise,” the opening track on AH HA, was inspired by “the voice of a brokenhearted TV-drama boy band character, very much in the same vein as Jess from Gilmore Girls.” Why do you think you connected so much with this as an inspiration, and in what ways do you think “Promise” as an opening track sets the tone for the rest of the album?

I think I just go through cycles of clarity, where I can see how I've been feeling, asking all the wrong questions and adding intensity to things that don't have to be so intense. I've lived the experience of looking out the car window with my hair in front of my face and Avril Lavigne/My Chemical Romance in my headphones, around the same age I was carrying around my AH HA drumsticks. You should've seen my skull hoodie.

I had a huge crush on Jess of Gilmore Girls as a kid and it all just adds to the humor because he was such a moody character. Altogether it's easier to smile at now, it's a little funny to see big feelings in a little body. I could've shaken you with my sincerity too. "Promise" felt like a good opener because it's lighter than most of them. It brings me to all those feelings that are a little funny.

In what surprising or unexpected ways do you think your music has evolved so far over the course of your two albums? Where do you see yourself headed in the near future creatively?

I think I've grown a better sense of myself. It's funny cause those things can be discovered and then shaken up again but it's nice that you asked because it's good to recognize the growth. With Rich the whole thing felt like first discoveries and [with] AH HA I had settled into the fact that this is a thing that I do, and I think you can hear it a little in the energy. I was really afraid of how I sound when we worked on Rich, and I can still be really insecure but I've pushed through so much since. I'm a young adult!

AH HA is available now.

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