Molly Martin's 'What You Need' Ep Is Exactly That

AN INTERVIEW WITH MOLLY MARTIN ON HER NEW EP, WHAT YOU NEED. 

Molly Martin’s What You Need EP is exactly that. The four track project has it all. It’s the perfect combination of indie and rock and a great listen if you're in need of some honesty. It’s message is authentic—although it’s less of a message and more of a realization—a realization that if you keep focusing on other people you're never going to feel fulfilled. I got the chance to catch up with Molly and ask her a few questions about the EP. Read our interview below. 

CONGRATS ON THE RELEASE OF YOUR WHAT YOU NEED EP! ARE YOU CELEBRATING?

Yes! I actually have a show tonight. It’s my first one since March so that’s really exciting. And it’s sold out which is great. 

WHEN DID YOU START WORKING ON THE EP?

I first got in the studio a year ago, last October to be exact. My producers and I, we just kind of picked dates here and there. We would go in, record a song, take a couple weeks off, and then go back in and write another one. 

DID YOU KNOW THIS PROJECT WAS GOING TO BE AN EP, OR WERE YOU MORE FOCUSED ON PUTTING OUT SINGLES AND THEN IT EVOLVED INTO SOMETHING BIGGER?

I knew it was going to be a four song EP, mainly because that was what I could afford. I was thinking about how to maximize the EP, and my distributor, Tone Tree, was like, “What if we put out three singles and then put out the EP with the fourth single?” I really liked the idea, but it definitely made the process tougher for me. I had to keep thinking of ways to keep people engaged for months on end, but things popped up that I never could have imagined that helped me do that. 

WHAT HELPED YOU KEEP YOUR FANS ENGAGED?

I was in a radio competition with Lightning 100, which is a local independent radio station here in Nashville. It was called Music City Mayhem and out of 350 bands or so they picked 30 to compete in a bracket style competition and I made it to the top four. It was so fun and it helped create hype around the project in a very hypeless time. 

HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT THESE SONGS WERE RIGHT FOR THE EP? 

I knew these were the four songs I needed to record. They were all written within a few months of each other. I feel like whenever I’m writing, I write a lot of songs in a short period of time when I seem to be in a specific place in life. I decided to call the project What You Need, because all of these songs came from a period of time where I was so concerned about what others needed from me rather than what I needed from myself, which I think is a common theme in my life. There’s a lot of growing in the songs, as well as, a lot of self reflection. Rather than trying to make the project inspiring and change my message, I did a lot of sitting with my emotions. 

WHAT WAS THE WRITING PROCESS LIKE?

I write a lot in spurts. I’ll have a month or two where I’m writing a lot and then I’ll have a month or two where I go quiet. I think I’ve recognized that rest is really key to my creativity. I’ll usually write the song in one sitting and then come back and edit pieces of it. Then I have to listen to it a bunch of times and send it to a few trusted writer friends and get their intell. 

SO WHEN YOU ARE IN THOSE REST PERIODS, WHAT DO YOU DO TO GET YOUR MIND OFF MUSIC?

I try to read. I listen to podcasts. I’m out in nature more. I meditate. I focus on myself and I feel good about it. And I don’t shit on myself for needing that. I used to get mad at myself for not being able to write eight songs a week, but I’ve realized that that quiet period is vital for my creativity. 

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND LAST SONG YOU WROTE FOR THE PROJECT? 

In terms of what I wrote first and last, “Don’t Come Calling Me” was the first track I wrote and “Like I Do” was the last. I think they have a similar theme between them in that they both talk about being invested in someone else as a way to not be invested in yourself. It’s just funny because in all of the songs, they all ended the same way. There was no big surprise or moral change. It was like, “Yeah, duh. If you continue putting other people before yourself you’re going to keep getting the same result.” But it’s been cool to see the difference between what I was writing then and what I’m writing now. 

SO DID THE RELEASE OF THIS EP FEEL LIKE AN END OF AN ERA FOR YOU?

It does. Those songs are all yearning for a certain validation for someone else to give me what I couldn’t give myself. 

ARE THERE ANY LYRICS THAT REFLECT THAT?

The chorus in “What You Need” is “Tell me what you want/I’ll give you everything that you need/I’ll sacrifice my sanity/I should stop because I’m only hurting myselfby thinking that I’m what you need.” That’s why I decided to call the project What You Need. That theme runs through all of it. It was cool to recognize that I was writing these from a similar place and that they needed to be a project.

TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE FINAL TRACK ON THE PROJECT, “LIKE I DO.”

The story behind this one is great. I was in the south of France playing a surf festival and I wrote this song because four days from then I was going to meet up with this guy I was seeing in Paris. We were going to have this 13 day European vacation. We had been seeing each other long distance for about two or three months, and the premise of the song was me asking him if he liked me the way that I liked him. So we get to Paris, and on day one of our European Vacation I was like, “So what is this for you? What are you feeling?” and he was like, “I feel like this is a good time that will come to a definite end.” We haven’t talked since. It became so clear to me that I had no idea who he was, and that I was going to finish the trip by myself. I ended up going to Ireland. My mom’s college roommate has family in Dublin and they basically took me in and made me food and showed me around. It was the best experience and it all worked out the way it was supposed to. I just have to laugh about the story now. 

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF ABOUT THIS PROJECT?

I am most proud of the fact that sonically and production wise it sounds like me. I found the right producers who let me take the songs that I wrote on a guitar by myself and pair it with a full band and still have it sound like me, and not me trying to sound like someone else. 

WHAT DO YOU HOPE LISTENERS TAKE AWAY FROM THE TRACK?

I just want people to listen to these songs and feel a sense of their own humanity in them. I’m just anybody trying to do their best and stumbling along the way. 

YOU CAN LISTEN TO MOLLY MARTIN’S WHAT YOU NEED EP ON STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SPOTIFY AND APPLE MUSIC. GO LISTEN AND MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO TWENTY MINUTES LATER FOR MORE MUSIC RELATED CONTENT.