For 15 years Ruth Radelet fronted the endlessly cool and globally influential band Chromatics, finding herself singing and playing the occasional guitar at some of the biggest venues and festivals around the world, including one eminently popular fictional one, the Bang Bang Bar (AKA The Roadhouse) for multiple stints on Twin Peaks: The Return.
However, for the past two years, in the wake of an August 2021 disbandment announcement from her and two other band members, Adam Miller and Nat Walker, the famously kind Radelet has embarked on what could be her most interesting challenge yet: a solo career. And she’s doing so without getting bogged down by the past.
“It’s been an extremely transformational period in my life — not just in my career, but on a personal level,” Radelet said in a Zoom chat recently with Vehlinggo. “I’ve had some tragedy and loss and big changes, and… I’ve learned a great deal.”
The Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and guitarist has been making music for most of her life — well before she joined Chromatics in the mid-Aughts, she and her father were known buskers around their native Portland, Oregon, in the late 1990s. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the end of Chromatics did not spell the end for her musical pursuits.
For this chapter in her life, Radelet is often working with Filip Nikolic, a friend and former Poolside member who has produced her debut EP The Other Side and some additional singles, including the exquisite “Shoot Me Down.” He also has played in her live band. (When I saw her Rainbow Room show in New York City last year, Nikolic was on bass.) Theirs is a creative partnership rather than a top-down order-execute dynamic.
“He is not controlling in any way, shape or form, and he’s not a lyrics guy, so he stays entirely out of that, which is nice,” said Radelet, who is preparing for a bunch of live shows that include Miller’s band, Inner Magic, opening for her and her own opening stint for STRFKR (which has some crossover with her live band). That one with Inner Magic is on Feb. 15 at Golddiggers in LA and it’s already sold out.
In this interview, edited and condensed for clarity, Radelet spoke about becoming a solo artist, her creative approach, performing live, what her future holds and more.
Vehlinggo: The internet was abuzz when you began releasing your solo material in December 2021. Let’s think back to the work you were doing before that first song, the cover of Elliott Smith’s “Twilight” and then the original singles such as “Crimes” that followed.
How did it feel back then to jump into a solo project after having been part of a somewhat insular band for several years?
Radelet: Yeah. I think it was both liberating and scary at the same time. I definitely felt some pressure, but honestly not as much as I probably expected. I was just excited to have full creative control and to bring some of these songs into the light that I’d had sitting around for a bit — some of the songs on that EP I had written a couple of years prior. It’s a real shift in everything: direction, band members, the whole thing. So yeah, it was a big move.
How much of those songs did you have when you left the band? Just lyrics or just music or more?
Lyrics and music. Most of the songs are fully written by the time I take them in to work with a producer. Filip Nikolic, who produced my EP and I work with often, encouraged me to write bridges. So I think I’d have a song fully written and he would be… very kind and delicate about suggestions. There were a couple of songs where he was like, I think this would really benefit from a bridge. So a couple things I thought were written, and then I went back a couple of years later and added a part, which was an interesting challenge as well.
The way that I write: I’ll write on piano or guitar and it’s kind of just the bones of it, and then I hit a dead end. I have this full lyrical melody idea, but I don’t know what it’s going to sound like as a finished product. I’m not a producer, so that’s when I really need somebody else to come in and help me flesh out those ideas. I can’t really do that on my own. Sometimes I’m surprised at how well something might work in a way that I’d never expected, once we start developing it in the studio.
So your dynamic sounds like a really nice partnership. Essentially, he’s supporting your vision — you’re hanging out in one of your studios or maybe some Zooming? Or what is the process?
We do hang out in the studio. We hang out anyway — we’re friends — but as far as the creative process, it usually starts with me. I kind of have to start most of my writing by myself. I don’t do well in the room trying to build something from scratch. I get a bit self-conscious. I have to go away somewhere and work on it by myself, so I usually have the basic idea and then I’ll give it to him. Some of it happens remotely, even though we’re in the same city. I think that he also works better alone for some of it.
So I’ll send him what I have and then he’ll start building around that and be like, “What do you think of this direction?” And we’ll go back and forth about that. I haven’t played many instruments on the recordings so far, but I’m getting back into playing more guitar. It’s been inspiring me again. It didn’t for a while, so now I’ll probably be tracking some guitar in the studio, which will be fun. But usually we just go back and forth remotely. Or I’ll go over and we’ll talk about it in the studio, but I’m not usually in the room when he is recording parts. So it’s kind of an interesting process. But then I’ll come in and we’ll do vocal comps together sometimes, because I’m really particular about that.
Your mention of guitar has me thinking about something I read maybe a decade ago. You’ve been a guitar player for quite some time, right? You were a busker in downtown Portland?
I did that with my dad back when I was a teenager. I didn’t sing publicly at that time. We were just doing instrumentals. We would kind of jam on the street corners. We were kind of like local legends. People still come up to me and say that they remembered us. [laughs]
“I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix.”
That is so cool. I love that you grew up in a musical household.
Yeah, I had an interesting upbringing. I was homeschooled, and so it was an unusual life. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but that also really gave me the time and angst to lean into my passions. I think painting and drawing was my first love. I thought I would be an artist, and then I got into the guitar and became obsessed with that, and kind of only later started being able to even write songs that were half decent.
Sometimes I have a problem with finishing things. I’m obsessed with this one thing. I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to be the best lead guitar player, but I couldn’t write songs. I couldn’t flesh out the whole thing. So I’m doing that now. Hopefully. [laughs]
I’d like to think that you’re doing some good stuff right now.
Thank you. I wanted to thank you for that review that you wrote of the EP. It was very kind and thoughtful, and I thought you really hit the nail on the head as far as where I was coming from, and that was nice to see. It was one of the better ones that I came across, so thank you.
Thanks. The EP really did resonate with me thematically, beyond my own assumptions about where your creative intent was.
I think one of the things you hope for the most as an artist is for your work to resonate with other people and for them to be able to write their own story to it. It takes on a life of its own once you put it out there in the world and it’s not all about you anymore, which is kind of a beautiful thing.
That reminds me a bit about something I encounter and think about a lot: There are people just discovering Chromatics. This many years later. Talk about taking on a life of their own.
Yeah. That kind of blows my mind
Going back to your solo career, what kind of goals did you have for how you wanted it to pan out in terms of personal goals or project goals?
That’s a broad question. There are many goals, I guess.
Ha. True.
The first goal would be to make something good, because Chromatics was a somewhat popular band, and I am proud of a lot of the music that we created. To follow that up with something subpar would be — I wouldn’t feel good about that. That being said, I try not to let that influence my decisions. I think I’m pretty good at separating things like that from the process. I don’t like to be in the studio thinking, “How am I going to make this sound a certain way, where it’s going to be more popular?” You have to forget about that stuff. I mean, you think about how to make it cohesive and how to connect the songs to each other, but you just can’t worry about what people think too much.
“… You just can’t worry about what people think too much.”
You’re authentic to your creative self?
Yeah.
Which sounds good to me.
Yeah, and I think that’s — as you have picked up — authenticity is a big part of the story here for me, starting a career as a solo artist. Because in the band, I had a totally different role than I have now. I wasn’t a main songwriter; didn’t have a lot of creative control. I’m not a controlling person. I’m not like, yes, now I’m pulling the strings. It’s not like that — but just to be able to really express myself in a way that I wasn’t able to before is a really wonderful thing, and I would love to just keep doing it as a career and to be able to sustain myself and tour and play for people around the world; and keep putting out records and hopefully they don’t suck. [laughs] I guess those are some main goals.
Another goal is actually just to broaden my horizons after working just in this sort of insular world of one band for a long time without doing a lot of collaborative work. It’s been really fun for me to meet new musicians and to play with them live and collaborate with different people, and write in a different way based on someone else’s ideas. It really opens up the world. So I think more of that also is a goal. I enjoy that a lot.
What have you learned about yourself in this process in the last couple of years?
So much, oh my God, where do I start? I think I’ve learned to trust myself more than I was able to before. I think I have learned who I am as a person on a deeper level. There are no shortcuts to that. I think sometimes you have to go through extremely difficult times in order to really figure that out. I’ve learned how to lead a little bit better, because that’s my role now. It’s my own project, but that wasn’t necessarily a role I was familiar with.
Within music I have trained my ear a bit better, because I work closely with Filip in the studio, just listening to mixes and things like that. I think at first I could hear something and I wasn’t sure what it was, and I didn’t know how to describe it. Now it’s a lot easier. Like, oh, this guitar is a little bit too treble-y, or this hi-hat’s not right — or just minutiae that I probably could have never been able to pick out before.
So you’re developing a producer’s ear, it sounds like.
I’m not saying I’m good enough to be a producer, but I do listen much closer than I used to. And he’ll ask me stuff, too: What drum pattern is good for the song? I have no idea. I didn’t think about stuff like that, but now I do.
That makes me think of a song from the EP that has this great drum part — it has that Phil Spector/Brian Wilson rhythm to it. Boom, boom-boom, chuck.
Yeah, is it “Stranger”?
[Vehlinggo plays “Stranger.”]
So it’s the chorus for “Stranger” that you’re talking about.
I’m revealing my limited language for percussion [laughs].
I want to take some credit for that. Filip did all the drums for that song, but I recall having a conversation in the studio about the chorus specifically, and I was asking for that boom-boom-boom-chhh type of beat, and so he changed it. I really love it in that part of the song.
I’m jumping around a bit here, but I was thinking about what you said about your different role now. One thing that is consistent is that you’re still front and center. For some people, you are the only Chromatics member they really recognize; especially if they were introduced to you through Twin Peaks: The Return and “Shadow.” I guess that comes with the territory as a frontperson.
Nevertheless, when I went to see your show at the Rainbow Room in NYC, your name was on the marquee. What’s that like? Nerve wracking? Freeing?
I was definitely nervous at first. I think I just did a tour recently where I played nine shows in 11 days, and it was kind of bootcamp for getting back out there. That felt really good. So I think the nerve wracking part is less of a factor than it was in the very beginning. Certainly when… my first show was opening for Wild Nothing, I was terrified. It felt like a lot was riding on it, but it went great. I was first of three, but a lot of people showed up and the room was full, and that was really touching to see.
I think because now it’s under my name, and it’s all very personal, that it just means a lot to me in a different way than it did as part of the band. Even if I’m playing smaller venues and might not be on such a large scale, it kind of means more, arguably, to me.
Right on. That makes a lot of sense. So what are you working on right now that you can discuss?
I have a few irons in the fire and some of them I can’t talk about yet, including a soundtrack. And then the biggest plan is trying to write a full-length album next. Right now I’m in the stage where I’m thinking about where I want to take it directionally. I’ll be working with Filip on a lot of it and he’s been asking for a playlist of references for the record, but I don’t know yet. It’s a bit hard to map out right now, but maybe I’m overthinking it. [laughs]
I also have some shows planned.
What was most surprising for you about embarking on a solo career?
Maybe the biggest surprise is just how well it came together in a sense. Looking back, it really all came together and it wasn’t as daunting as I thought it was going to be. I mean, it’s hard work and there are always challenges along the way, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Also, people have been really supportive. Chromatics fans have stuck with me — maybe not all of them, but a lot of them. And people don’t seem to be expecting me to sound exactly the same, which is typical when you change projects. I think people miss the old stuff and whatnot, but people have been very respectful and supportive.
