Jealous of Naomi. [Interview/Photos]

Naomi Hamilton of Jealous of the Birds, YES Basement, Manchester.

Lit up by blue ambience, Naomi Hamilton stands front of stage with charisma and a guitar. From subtly to saturation, Naomi creates art with her music. She is Jealous of the Birds, and we are jealous of her. Using all five senses, she tells us about her conflicting feelings. Her imagery leaves permanent patterns on our subconscious as we listen to the craft behind the words. Expect pant suits, tambourines and a backing band that make the songs come to life. Whilst "Parma Violets" was riddled with songs about crush culture and angst - a true coming of age masterpiece - her new EP coming out in February is about stepping into maturity. The title "Wisdom Teeth" is fitting and a poetic metaphor for this.

"Parma Violets" explored recalling conversations in a confessional style, offering us new views like "poetry is medicine", and sensual imagery. Each song personal and saturated with botanical imagery - bluebells, pollen dust, Kurt singing in the pines. They feel like they're addressed to a particular person, showing compassion. She is also seeking reassurance. It was released shortly after she came out. She uses synesthesia, claiming to be "methylene blue", and using this colour association to explore how she feels. 

Summer gave us "The Moths of What I Want Will Eat Me in My Sleep" which opens with a punchy bass riff in "Plastic Skeletons". It's a new style from Naomi with rhetoric poetic lyrics, asking "Do you want to love like a poetic can't?" Old favourites such as Miss Misanthrope appear on this EP, showing Naomi isn't straying too far from her poignant, mellow style. October gave us "Marrow", a self-assured stream of consciousness and manifestation. It's an insight into what the new EP will give us - more concrete imagery such as mountains but with the same delicate descriptions of daisies and daffodils. I caught up with Naomi during her first UK headline tour in the YES Basement in Manchester to ask about tour life and the new material coming out in February.

How has the tour been so far?

It's been really good. Things have been so smooth. They're all like grungy really small little venues so it's such a sight. Birmingham was cool. All the stages have been so small, I think we're just grooving into it now. Chameleon Arts cafe in Nottingham was really good cuz it had graffiti on the walls and it was super good energy. And the crowds have all been nice so thats sweet. We're in a van this time and we can bear each other in a van now so we're all good.


What can we expect from the new EP in February?

I would say kind of like more maturity in my songwriting. Cuz I think there's been a good bit of time between Parma Violets came out and more new music. So a lot of the qualities that were in that before. The grunginess, more like anthemic stuff mixed with stuff like "Marrow" that just came out. Stuff that's more mellow and indie but with more production and instrumentation.

Is the name "Wisdom Teeth" a metaphor for you growing into yourself as a person and as a musician?

Totally, yeah. That is exactly it. I feel like especially over the past couple of years, just so much has happened. It's just kind of the growth and nurturing that has gone on the past couple of years. I felt like a lot of the music was leaning toward that direction. And the EP definitely captures that. Growing as an artist and a person

Is it from anything or did you just come up with that?

I just wanted it to be shorter than "The Moths of What I Want [Will Eat Me in My Sleep]" one because everybody kept asking me "this is an intriguing title" so I thought I'd just keep this one to two words maximum. And also I just like the image, how it's keeping things really concrete.

Did you do the artwork for it?

I did, yeah. I painted the canvas. That was just something I did in my spare time and then I thought it might work really cool for this.


There's a lot of references to literature in your songs, for example, Virginia Wolff. How important is this in your songwriting?

It's important but not as significant as people make it out to be. Yeah, I feel like there's so many different art mediums that I draw inspiration from. Like I love painting, other people's music, photography, film, that kind of stuff. And it's more like the moods I get from them that I'm kind of drawn. Cuz I'm not a super well-read person. Like I studied English but I'm very specific about what I read. I wish I could read way more than I already do. But I think it's definitely influenced me a lot because I started writing before I did music. When I was 12 or 13 I wrote poems and stories and stuff like that. So it was before I started writing songs so it feels really natural to me. So I guess that kind of literary thing has just filtered though. But it's not like every song that there's a cheeky little literary reference in there.

I've noticed both a change in both your personal style and songwriting style over the past few years. You wear more colour and have more colour in your lyrics now. Would you say you underwent a transition?

Yes. I think so much of my own growth has come from coming out. Cuz I only came out when I was 19 and I feel like once that happens, you feel more comfortable in yourself in general. And your late teens, you're going through your own shit anyway and you're growing as a person. So I think so many different parts of my life kind of clicked into place after that. And especially with doing music, I realise "this is what I'm supposed to do" and you just kind of go into it and love it. I think I embraced so many parts of my personality that I was suppressing for a whole bunch of other reasons.


When was the moment you decided to go from just singer-songwriter to having a full band?

I played solo for a year before we got the band together. But that was mostly because it was before or around the time of Parma Violets and so many of those songs they were fuller instrumentation and it wasn't just like the Capricorn EP when I did it all at home. So I kind of wanted to translate what was on the record into live shows and getting a band together just made sense for that. And it also just means it's more fun. Like I've tried the Divine Comedy tour that was just me opening for them solo and it was a whole different experience that when you're travelling with your friends and you're really having fun and every show you're all just bouncing off each others' energies. So I think the full band thing works in both the practical sense and then just "this is really fun" and you're hanging with your friends.



How was signing to Atlantic Records?

It was cool but it was also so weird and surreal. I'd never experienced anything to compare it to so the experience was just weird. When it actually came to signing it, we did it in this tiny little side room in the Atlantic offices in New York and the guy who is the head of Canvasback got champagne out of a little mini fridge and we drank it from paper cups and it was like "cheers, welcome to the Canvasback family!" And that was that. But I feel like because there's so much of a build up to it to actually signing, I had time for it to sink in before everybody else knew. But yeah, wild.


Do some of your songs start off as poems and who inspired you to start writing them or thinking about lyrics more deeply?

Yeah, I think a lot of my songs now grow out of journal entries that I do. And they're not like journal entries "I woke up and had toast", it's more like emptying your brain on a page and then I'll go through and then redraft stuff. So sometimes songs happen like that or I'll be very deliberately like "I'm going to sit down and write something completely unrelated to what's in my journals". In "Love is a Crow", that little poem/spoken word part was a poem that I just kind of tacked on to that song so sometimes it happens like that but not all the time. The first person who really got me to think about words was Bob Dylan but it wasn't until I really explored poetry that I found Allen Ginsberg and a lot of those poets. I like very impressionist images and not censoring yourself.

You use a lot of senses in your writing, is that because you come from a creative writing background?

Maybe. I feel like it's more because that's how I experience the world. Like I've always been aware of what's around me or what feels good or smells good. Colour, different forms of art. Because life is so much like that, I want to synchronise that into a song, kind of capture it. A lot of times when I listen to music, it's like you've got a little movie playing in your head and I kind of want that to be a thing with my songs. I want to create that.


Would you ever publish any poetry aside from the songs?

I hope so. I would love that. Writing a book or releasing a book of poems has been in my brain since before I started music. But I guess that's the cool thing about music - I can do a bit of both. The music side of me is being used but also the writing side. But releasing a book of poems, I'd love that. I don't know how I'd do it but it would be so cool.


What song do you wish you had written?

Literally anything off Joni Mitchell's "Blue" album. I feel like that's one of those albums that I've never turned that on and been like "not today". It's just like one of those ones that you always listen to and you're like "this is good".

What's your dream outcome for the band?

To be in a position to be able to make and write music as freely as I'm currently doing. To grow the live side of things too and bring people in and get to be tight as a band. We're going on a nice little ride. I'm happy with how things are going.

Naomi plays to a small crowd in Manchester with a confidence. She talks about 'Tonight I feel like Kafka' - "I had an intense crush and hadn't come out at the time either so it was double the pain". It seems she has come a long way since then. Her wish, as described in 'Russian Doll' is to "be bolder [full with red, yellow and blue]". It appears her wish is coming true with her name now on everyone's lips.
Listen to Marrow below:

Tracklist for Marrow EP, dropping 2nd February 2019:

1. Marrow
2. New York Has a Lump in Her Throat
3. Blue Eyes
4. Kosiskelu
5. Clementina

Naomi with backing band