Natalie Nicole Gilbert – Easy on Me

By starrymag | September 19, 2022

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) What made you want to cover Adele’s single “Easy on Me?”

 

A) From the minute I heard the solo version I heard harmonies in my mind that seemed it could thicken it and give it a different dimension. I completely understood why they kept it intimate and solo voiced.

Then, after I’d recorded my solo version, I got to know Chris Sloan and we began talking about collaborating on something, maybe a new song. He has such a soulful sound, though, that I wondered if we should turn my solo version into a duet with him. I pitched him the idea and he was willing to try it on. It seemed like instead of being a monologue, it could be a dialogue where both parties in a couple could recognize and admit they were struggling, asking the other to meet them where they are – to try to find middle ground. It gave the same lyrics a different translation to make it two people talking to each other rather than one person sort of talking at the other. After we’d recorded our duet version, I heard Adele had also done a version featuring a male artist – but her team had decided to have him sing harmonies throughout rather than giving him solo sections himself; so it was validating to see our ideas and directions were different, and yet many of the harmonies in her second version were not wholly unlike our harmony choices.

 

Q) How did you come to work with Chris Sloan on the song?

 

A) We met via Instagram, having mutual contacts. To this day, we still haven’t met in person. But we VoiceNote each other and share funny stories with each other, with plans to get coffee at some point when we’re in the same state.

 

Q) Talk about the process for reimaging the song to make it your own.

 

A) Chris and I have areas where we overlap – especially in the soul space. He has a “cry” in his voice that’s not so different from mine. But we also have different overall audiences and branding – he’s a little edgier, grittier, more rock with some intersections into blues. I grew up on rock, jazz, 90s ballads and R&B, so I tend to dip in and out of all of those – even within the same song sometimes. I think we were both pleasantly surprised that despite the differing genre circles we move within, our voices mixed and matched so well, and our harmonies blended easily. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll even bother releasing my solo version now – I think I would miss those sections where I’m used to hearing him come in, and the ways our voices answer and reply to each other on the bridge.

 

Q) I love the piano under your voice and the guitar under Chris’. What was it about these instruments that you felt added to the words you were both singing?

 

A) Originally, we had the guitar and piano throughout the entire time, but somewhere along the way I asked Robert (my producer) to back out the piano on the second verse to let Chris’s raw tone simply sit with the guitar. Then it made sense to remove the guitar on my sections and it morphed into this duet where I was the piano and voice and Chris was the guitar and voice, with both of us uniting – piano and guitar, male tones and female tones – toward the end of the song. It’s not so much that we gendered the instruments as much as we let each have its own voice and part in the conversation.

 

Q) Were there other songs you considered covering or “Easy on Me” speak to you in a way that made it a must-do?

 

A) I was going through a personal chapter change (big decisions and opportunities on the horizon) and I think “Easy on Me” really resonated with me because it was almost like a song to yourself. I recognize Adele wrote it for her Ex, but I think all of us also have a lot of self-soothing we need and deserve. I remind myself all the time to give myself grace – that I am always only acting on the information I have at the time and I can’t judge myself through a lens of what I could or should have known at a time when I had less data. Though I’m a creative and an artist, I’m also very much a spreadsheet and statistics sort of gal, so I constantly remind myself that the world is not black and white, and I have to let myself stumble through the color palette finding my way. We are none of us born with a perfectly formulaic set of instructions for every situation we encounter, no matter what creeds or books we value. Life will always throw us dynamics that we can’t predict, and they say in that Sully movie, we can’t measure ourselves against what we knew later – we have to measure ourselves against what we knew, and we were trying to discover as we crash landed the plane on the river.

 

Q) Since you are a part of social media, what kind of fan response have you been receiving to the song?

 

A) I don’t why cover response always sort of surprises me. I often forget to tag in artists I’ve covered because I don’t cover them to get that artist’s traffic – I’m quite picky about the songs I cover and much of the time I cover songs people have never heard before by lesser-known artists or B sides that never made it to radio. This was a rare circumstance where I actually covered a song that was quite popular at the time. And there was some risk to that. I usually like to cover male songs or switch the genre entirely, and when I began working on this as a solo, I was keeping those elements the same – same gender, same genre. Some read that as taking an attitude that I automatically bring something new or different to it than Adele does; sure – I do – by nature of being a different person and hearing the lyrics overlaid on my own life. But that doesn’t mean I think my version is better (though I love the harmonies in our rendering). Even in the same genre space, I think comparing the two is apples and oranges. Even the same vocalist doesn’t interpret the same song exactly the same way every time – that’s why we always do a variety of takes. We all add our own flavor and spice to the recipe. You listen to her version when your heart is breaking. You listen to mine when you’re trying to mend the pieces.

 

Q) What do you think it is about her music that fans connect to?

 

A) I think by and large it’s always her honesty. As a Brit she doesn’t over sensationalize her lyrics. I think American fans especially aren’t used to hearing soul that isn’t over-dramatized. Yes, there’s fire and rain, but there’s also just exhaustion and requests for turning down the volume, admissions of hesitation and something adjacent to regret that’s wishful. Sam Smith has some similar qualities for similar reasons and Calum Scott, too.

There’s also a timelessness to all three of them. Their best hits could also have been hits in the 00s, the 90s, the 80s. A simple piano and voice will always reign supreme in my mind. A guitar too, to be fair. But there’s something about a solo instrument and a solo voice that’s so raw and nakedly honest and authentic. Listeners can never quite get enough of that – especially when they’re listening alone in their corner of the world.

 

Q) Will there be a full album or EP coming in the near future?

 

A) Yes, we have an album coming out later this year full of originals and covers designed to be soundtrack-ish. Perhaps we will tuck the solo version of this one on that one as well. Other tracks in that forthcoming collection include a ballad rendering of “Friday I’m in Love,” “Delicate” (of Damien Rice) reimagined, “When Christopher Calls” (Vance), “Like Blood, Like Honey: (Brook, now Grey) and possibly some of my originals recorded by other artists reimagined by me, the original author. We’ll see how many of those songs I’m bold enough to admit I wrote myself and tuck under my name. Still making track list decisions.

 

Q) Who would you most love to collaborate with on a song in the future?

 

A) Oh gosh. I think everyone always wants a famous celebrity name here. And sure, I’d love to collaborate with someone like Charlotte Church, Craig Ferguson, Seth MacFarlane and others better known from other creative spaces or who people haven’t realized have evolved in their sound into other genres. And I certainly wouldn’t say no if Lara Fabian, Anggun or Snow Patrol knocked on my door (though I might ask them if they were originally looking for my neighbor).

But there’s also this wealth of dear artist friends in my life that I’d love to song-write with, sing with, harmonize with or tour with if our schedules ever aligned a little more – a saxophonist here in LA, a musical theatre composer in London, a guitarist in Reykjavik – but I won’t make them blush by listing them here as they’re all reasonably shy souls. The one in London was sent a piano ballad I started, and he may finish it. I’ve learned not to rush these things. Sometimes we wind up collaborating and releasing a duet fourteen years after we met or sixteen years later I admit I knew who they were before I met them and oops…had covered them live in a concert recording I’m now releasing to the public over a decade later, so I’m happy for them to hear it from me before they discover that girl they invited over for dinner in 2008 is now showing up in their royalty reports with a datestamp of 2006.

I’m also crazy joyous over those I already HAVE collaborated with – a number of whom I still haven’t met in person yet. In fact, in four days I’m meeting one of those kind souls in person for the first time, invited to house and catsit for her while she goes abroad to tend to her ailing mother.

So, you see, we make music not just for our listeners to connect with us and themselves, but also to connect with each other. It’s wild how much two artists from two totally different places in the world like Croatia and Los Angeles can find they’re so similar with such identical songwriting sensibilities. Those kinships always amaze me. It’s a magic you can’t manufacture or even seek out – it has to happen of its own accord in its own time.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who are fans and supporters of you and the beautiful music you make?

 

A) Aw, thanks love. First, thank you. Not merely for your support, but for entrusting three to five minutes of your time per song to my hands and my voice. Thank you for using it as your backdrop as you dance, the soundtrack for your fanvids and social media videos, and the music you play while you drive and clean your house. I’m forever grateful that my recordings from a small studio here in Los Angeles meander and find their way into homes in England, Australia, Japan, Canada, Germany, and all those other countries I see in my download and stream reports. Even though I understand it conceptually, I can never quite comprehend how a voice or a song travel so far and impacts people I may never meet or may pass on the street forever unaware my song got them through a stressful day or inspired them to call someone and tell them they love them. And those little victories will always mean more than any gold trophy I could take home claiming I’m the best this or that.