Art Begets Art

Hana Piranha
13 hours ago
5 min read

Check out the podcast here

It’s the end of July, and I’m counting down to a huge life event at the end of the week — I’m moving to Spain! After two months of living in a shepherd’s hut, I’m looking forward to having a freezer, a washing machine, and an oven almost as much as I’m looking forward to living in a new country.

After our podcast The Dark Place, a fan (and now friend), Pete, shared a beautiful poem he’d written, inspired by the podcast, called The Undertow. It was an audio recording, which you can hear on the show. That poem inspired Mish, and in turn became the subject of this week’s episode: Art Begets Art.

One of the most amazing things about consuming art — listening to music, reading a book, watching a film — is that it sparks the urge to create. The best gigs I’ve ever attended have left me coming home with an overwhelming need to write a song.

My earliest inspirations

My earliest memory of being inspired by art goes back to when I was six, writing The Lion King fan fiction (😳). That grew into Harry Potter fan fiction (😳😳), and later, inspiration from Shakespeare in my teens. Mish’s creative beginnings were in writing songs for Jesus, which eventually turned into a musical about the Crucifixion featuring Korn and Rage Against the Machine — the perfect meeting of her Christian upbringing and her love of rock.

An ex of mine, a producer who worked on a lot of ad music (including soundalikes), taught me tricks for “stealing” from other songs. He’d often say, “Talent borrows, genius steals.” His advice: change the key, alter the tempo, shift the riff to a different beat, then reshape it. It’s a great way to start when you know what you want to write but feel stuck.

But after a period of immersing yourself in art, inspiration often arrives as if by divine intervention — when your subconscious has been quietly collecting ideas like a magpie.

When art comes from darkness

On the other end of the spectrum are the songs born from huge, often traumatic, life events. For Mish, that’s songs like The Trouble or What the Water Gave Me from Birdeatsbaby (listen to the podcast for more on this).

People often say it’s self-indulgent to listen to sad music when you’re sad — I think that’s rubbish. There’s a difference between sitting with your feelings and deliberately seeking out more pain. Sitting with your feelings, through music or art, can be deeply therapeutic.

One of my most personal songs, My Nerves Were Made for Grinding, came from this place. It’s one of the most “grrrr” songs I’ve ever written — recorded twice, but never released. Another is Chipping Myself Away from Cold Comfort, which I wrote on the bus after waking from a drunken blackout I deeply regretted. It poured out in a stream of consciousness, and I knew it was good because I couldn’t stop listening to the demo. That song was inspired by both the opening scene of Rules of Attraction and a magazine article I’d read.

Closing circles in songwriting

These days, I feel much less pressure to be heard. I’ve written so many songs out of necessity, but with our last album Wingspan, I put a lot of my traumatic past to rest.

The producer ex I mentioned earlier and I wrote a lot together, and when we broke up, it felt like my songs had been ripped away — like losing custody of our children. I resented that for years. But recently, after Wingspan, I wrote a song called Wild Eyes (on our next EP), which borrows lines and vibes from our best songs together — a way of reclaiming them and putting that chapter to bed.

As writers, the core of what we’re expressing rarely changes. Going full circle and revisiting old ideas with new eyes is a unique and powerful part of being a songwriter.

Mish on regrets and growth

Mish believes regrets are important in songwriting — without them, you risk writing from a place of control and never growing as a person. Painful collaborations and bad experiences teach you your limits. You just have to keep moving forward and letting go of some songs.

As she says: “The next greatest song is another ten songs away — and you’ll never get there if you keep fixating on the past.”

It’s like the dirty tap analogy: you have to let the weak songs flow before the clean water comes through.

Quick Q&A

What’s the collaboration you’ve most regretted?

Mish: Feast of Hammers. The songwriting got lost in production. Fans loved it, but it put Birdeatsbaby in a niche I didn’t want.
Hana: Cold Comfort. I loved my collaborators, but I was too inexperienced to make my voice heard among stronger personalities.

The collaboration you’re most proud of?

Mish: HVIRESS — my songwriting has flourished through this partnership. Our song with Wendy Rae Fowler is a huge highlight.
Hana: HVIRESS too (and a plug: the album’s out soon!). Outside of that, my work with Case Hardin — an Americana band I was part of for years — feels timeless.

Hana’s Quick-Fire Questions

Favourite film?

Mish: Suspiria (remake). Dark, witchy, feminist, and Tilda Swinton in three roles.
Hana: Silence of the Lambs. It’s my comfort film. Also, I have a weird crush on Hannibal Lecter.

Favourite book?

Hana: Jane Eyre. Dark, wildly romantic, and probably the root of my troubled relationships.
Mish: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath — it put words to the chaos I felt as a teen.

Favourite TV series?

Mish: Dexter. The perfect balance of silly and brilliant.
Hana: Better Call Saul. Who makes a spin-off that’s better than Breaking Bad?

Favourite painting?

Mish: What the Water Gave Me by Frida Kahlo. Weird, surreal, and like a doorway into other worlds.
Hana: Boulevard Montmartre at Night by Pissarro — the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Question of the Week: What are your “waterfall” songs?

(Songs that produce an endless stream of inspiration.)

Mish:

Ruin – Lamb of God
Microcuts – Muse
Smooth Sailing – Queens of the Stone Age
Guiltless – Martin Gretsch
A Moment’s Rest – The Devil Makes Three

Hana:

Pilgrimage – Nine Inch Nails
Looking for the Rain – UNKLE ft. Mark Lanegan
Violin Concerto No.1 (2nd movement) – Bruch
The Twilight soundtrack
Amahl and the Night Visitors – Gian Carlo Menotti

Weekly Whinge

Mish: Tribute bands. Where’s the space for new artists?
Hana: Moths. Living in a hut has put me way too close to them. One even got under our mosquito net. The horror.

That’s it for this week. Tell us your waterfall songs — and keep making art. You never know who it might inspire.