Megan Washington

Megan Washington has never had any problem with witty banter, as she talks to me from Berlin, quips and one-liners are easily thrown in as if entertaining on all levels is in her nature.
However, it’s her way with words and retrospective writing that resulted in a concealment of her true emotions and experiences in her songs. From the outside, it wouldn’t occur to the average listener that any concealment was taking place, but for Samuel Dixon (producer and song writer) he could see the truth hidden beneath her poetic and ambiguous word choices.
“I feel that’s kind of what Sam saw in me, and that’s what he focused on bringing to the foray,” she says.
“I wonder if someone else may have seen some of that in me and endeavoured to bring that out. But no, I don’t think anyone else could have done what Sam did because there’s only one Sam. I was really ready to work with a producer who felt more like a coach in a lot of ways, and that’s absolutely how I found Sam for sure.”
On the first day of working together a song was created. Megan had entered into a new level of song writing, but it wasn’t the easiest transition to make. Dixon let Megan write for months and it wasn’t until she showed him a song when he questioned the truth behind it – unravelling her clever and creative writing to get to the crux of her emotions.
“There were moments where it was really tough. To me song writing is quite hard and I don’t really enjoy it that much,” Megan adds with a laugh.
“I do enjoy it on a lot of levels, but it certainly isn’t an escape for me. It’s some weird mixture of therapy, fantasy and memory and I really don’t sort of go, ‘Yeah fun, another day of writing’.
“It was really difficult to go through a lot of the realisations and revelations that I drew in that record [There, There], but I think in the end it was worth it and there were definitely some very difficult moments.”
This new process of writing saw Megan delve into past relationships, engagement break-offs and depth of the soul type content, all of which was released in her sophomore album, There There [2013], also touted as her most honest release to date.
Now almost two years later, Megan has since done a tour supporting the release, and is returning for another tour (one of her longest to date) in a more intimate setting.
With the rigorous process of writing each song for There There, it’s hard not to wonder what the memories contained in the songs mean to her now?
“When the song is in the process of being written it is coming from a place of, for me, this is only true for me I don’t know if it’s true for anyone else, but when I’m writing something I’m really in it, I’m really there. I’m in the memory and I’m in the moment and I’m trying to make an association in the song that will mean something to someone else,” Megan says.
“Once the song is written, especially once it’s tracked and recorded, it just becomes a piece of repertoire. It’s almost like all the gross feelings and emotions are vacuum sealed into a little bag of songs. Singing the song is not so much about opening the bag, but holding the bag up in front of the audience and saying, ‘This exists’ and that’s kind of how I think of performing the music after it’s been written. It really doesn’t hurt me once the song has finished.”
In this string of shows, 26 to be exact, Megan will be stripped back performing an acoustic set and welcoming any and all chances for the show to evolve. She even jokes of it potentially turning into a spoken word event, something I’m sure everyone would still enjoy.
Much like her second album contrasts the first [I Believe You Liar, 2010], this tour is a stark contrast to the tour supporting her debut, one that proved to be a real eye-opener for the musician.
“There’s all these real structured boxes to tick, and so I suppose with my first record I really tried to tick all the boxes and basically kill myself in the process. I got pneumonia three times and stopped touring and I had zero love life and I was just a maniac,” she says.
“At the end of it I was just really tired and that was kind of all. So I guess my focus really shifted from trying to get and build and grow and sell more records to actually making things that I thought were good and spending my time with people that I think are good and trying to actually be a human not like a music machine.”
Now with a new angle on the industry and being a musician, Megan can return to how her love for singing as a 10-year-old began, simply to perform on stage and entertain (or in her words “show off”).
When & Where: The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine – August 19, Music Man, Bendigo – August 20, Karova Lounge, Ballarat – August 21, Barwon Club, Geelong – August 26 & Northcote Social Club, Melbourne – August 28
Written by Amanda Sherring