SPOTLIGHT: Surrendering to Fantasies and Self-Destructive Tendencies, Molly Willis’s Dark Universe Unfolds With “Hypocentre”
WE ALL LOVE SLEEPOVERS — right? The artist known as Molly Willis was born during a sleepover when a group of friends decided to form a girl band. After first calling themselves Spice Kids and Blue Sistas 5, eventually every member grew out of the “I want to be a singer” phase. All except for one: Willis.
Writing most of her songs on the margins of her notebooks at one of her old jobs, she has very little memory of how her latest single, “Hypocentre,” came to life. The track sat there for years before being developed into an actual single, as Willis wasn’t exactly sure how to do that.
When her songwriting finally developed, she described it with the words “creepy, destructive, yet fun.” Now, Willis is finally ready for something more upbeat, paying homage to the late ’90s pop-rock music she grew up loving.
Willis started playing guitar and writing her own songs when she was a teenager, heavily influenced by her mother, who signed her up for lessons and introduced her to female singer-songwriters such as Alanis Morissette and Carole King. However, Willis didn’t begin releasing music until after she graduated from university.
“I thought I was going to be a journalist, but once I was out of that environment, I didn't miss journalism, but I still missed the thing I'd been neglecting since I was a teenager: music,” she shares, remembering her post-grad years.
Surprisingly, she had never experimented with the electric guitar until recording her first EP, Bad Art, which, the artist jokes, “made me more comfortable experimenting with stuff outside of the ‘sad girl with an acoustic guitar’ mold.”
Willis’ artistic foundation is the late ’90s and early 2000s female singer-songwriters she used to listen to as a teenager — the first song she had ever learned was one by Sheryl Crow, followed by Michelle Branch's entire discography. Among more contemporary artists she draws inspiration from, she mentions Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, and Angel Olsen.
But these aren’t the only acts she’s currently inspired by — for her upcoming project, she let herself be inspired by Julee Cruise, Marianne Faithfull, and Father John Misty, along with various vintage horror soundtracks.
Although they were written very close together, her latest singles “Escape Routes” and “Hypocentre,” are very different songs. The former is a disco-y pop track that explores procrastination and escapism during the pandemic. “Hypocentre” is the rock version of this, following that same underlying theme of surrendering to fantasy or to your destructive tendencies as a coping mechanism.
“Having been more intentional about the sound and style than I have in the past, this project is built around the concept of a vintage horror movie [in which] someone purposefully goes insane rather than confront their circumstances,” she explains.
Willis goes on to say, “The subject matter of my songs can be a little dark and depressing, but I wanted to have a bit of fun with them as well. Creepy, destructive fun... but still fun.”
“Hypocentre” was produced by Jack Gascoigne from Mama Oh No, who was attending a music production course taught by Jonny Cole, who has worked on Willis’ debut EP and thought of introducing the two. It was Gascoigne who took the track in a more psychedelic direction than Willis had intended.
Unlike most up-and-coming artists, Willis weighs in on whether she really wants music to be her full-time job. “Obviously, I'd be lying if I said that I don't dream of doing music full-time, but focusing on that as my main motivation isn't healthy,” she says.
Rather, Willis wants to protect music as a space for joy, fun, and self-expression, separate from the stress and materialism of most careers to provide for herself financially. This rejection of materialism also inspires her to collaborate with more local artists from her own city, which she believes has an awesome music scene.
Since her live performances were cut short by the pandemic, Willis definitely wants to give it another try with a tour of her own, perhaps while getting her debut album ready for release after working on it for four years.
“I'm really proud of the songs and the concept, and getting this thing out in the wild will be the biggest accomplishment of my life, no matter how many people listen to it,” she concludes about the album.
