MNZ Interview: Vanessa Tottle

Muzic.NZ team member Amani caught up with Vanessa Tottle prior to her Auckland show on 21 February.

What are some of your earliest memories of wanting to pursue music as a career?

I’ve always been able to sing right from when I was little, standing on my mum’s couch with a hairbrush and singing into it, pretending I was famous. When I was 11, I used to write songs and then life happened and I put it on the back burner together with the fact I didn’t have much confidence in myself. Then in my 30’s and 40’s, I started to enter singing and karaoke competitions. And I used to get quite far, but then that good old confidence imposter syndrome kicked in and I would just leave it.

And then in 2022, someone said to me, how could my daughter look up to me if I wasn’t following my dreams? Because her dream is to become an actor. And although that was quite harsh for them to say, it was that kick that I needed. And I thought, you know what? let’s go for it. So April 2022, I stepped into a recording studio to do a cover of a Lady Gaga song, because I’m a bad Lady Gaga fan. And the rest is history!

Which musicians do you take inspiration from?

Lady Gaga mainly. When I was in my teens and early 20’s, I used to listen to Dido, Massive Attack, and Neneh Cherry, which, of course, I later found was trip-hop.

I started to produce my own music in 2023. And when I went to my sound engineer, he said to me, “You do know you’re not pop, you are trip-hop.” And I said, “What the heck is that?” He said, “Well, it’s this.” And he gave me a listen. I started to research it. And I thought, wow. Then I burst onto the music scene and naturally evolved into the genre that I am, which I absolutely love!

What exactly is trip-hop?

It’s a blend of electronica, jazz, R&B, soul, and it’s like down-tempo vibes and quite synthy bass. If you think of Alison Moyet in the 80’s with her own stuff, not when she was with Yazoo, that kind of thing. And I always reference Dido and Gorillaz. One of my songs that’s on the new album, when I’ve sung it previously, people have come up to me and said, oh my god, I didn’t even know what trip-hop was, but that’s so Gorillaz! And I’m like, yep, that’s exactly it!

When writing a song, where do you tend to get your inspiration from?

It’s generally heartache and past experiences. It could be a person that I know has broken up with their partner and I’m feeling their energy, and all of a sudden I am overwhelmed with either a sound or a little melody, so I just start to write. One of the songs on my album is called Good Till It’s Not, and it was a conversation I was having with someone at the time, they were talking about a relationship they had with a friend, and they said to me, “you know, it’s good till it’s not, you know what I mean?” And I went, “Oh yeah, I know what you mean.”

So I guess I like to write songs about heartache or about a troubled time but then try to put an empowering message in: leave those toxic people, give your love back to yourself. And then of course add a trip-hoppy synthy earworm that just gets people.

Can you tell us more about your debut album, Take Control, and what we can expect from it?

Take Control is a collection of 10 songs, five of which I’ve already previously released, because I believe that, songs need to be heard as singles sometimes and not just collectively put on an album. Generally, people will skip to the ones they only like and leave the others, so I wanted to have certain ones having their own time because they’re really special to me.

I want the listener to find that the album is something they can really chill to, but have their foot tapping as well, and something new and different to what we hear on the radio because trip-hop isn’t mainstream. And I want to give some taste of what traditional trip-hop is.

Where will we be able to listen to Take Control?

I’ve made physical copies, so people can reach out to me on my website and I can courier them out. They will also be for sale at Real Groovy in Auckland, and on all streaming platforms!

You can listen to Tottle’s new debut album here, or wherever you stream your music, and you can head down to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s Real Groovy record store to grab a physical copy. You can catch Tottle performing in Hamilton at Nivara Lounge on Saturday 1st March or in Napier at The Cabana on Saturday 15th March. “I’m nervous as hell, but I also can’t wait,” said Tottle before closing our interview.

Photo Credit: Nikita Weir / Antonia Pearl Photography