Getting to Know… Molly Grue | Interview

For interview #7, The Musical Hype interviews the talented Krista Acheson, who discusses her music projects Molly Grue, Krista D, and Hoo and the Peter Guns.

Sometimes, a musician is so unique that he or she requires several aliases… facts.  That’s the case with the multi-talented, Canadian musician, Krista Acheson.  Acheson is the definition of the hyper-creative, restless artist, hence why she releases music as Molly Grue (our main focus for this interview), Krista D, and Hooha and the Peter Guns.  In addition to her musical endeavors, Acheson is also a visual artist and guess what – she has separate aliases for that as well! Prepare for an ultra-engaging ride for Interview #7!

Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype (BF): Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes you/your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

Krista Acheson (KA): Molly Grue is a side project I started so that I could release some soft rock material. I divided my song catalogue up by genre and am doing separate EP releases for each batch of songs. I think the only unique thing about it is that it’s 1 of 3 projects and sounds nothing like my recent EP release and will sound nothing like the EP release that will follow it. That’s generally the main thing that grabs people; they have a hard time believing that my material sounds different enough that it warranted being separated into 3 projects when it’s all been written by the same person.

Samples:
Molly Grue, “Anyway” (Unmastered)
Krista D, “Land Mine”
Hooha and the Peter Guns, “The Offence”

BF: Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your band form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

KA: I started recording in my teens, in the 90’s, as Krista D, and like most young artists I had hoped to sign a record deal. The closest I ever got to that was when I was invited by an A&R guy from a major label to fly to the US to meet with some songwriters to kind of ‘see where things went’. My immediate reaction was that I wasn’t really interested in singing songs written by other people, I felt that was silly, so I didn’t even explore it as an option – not that there was a guarantee in the first place, but in my youthful stubbornness, I didn’t even entertain it. As the years went on and I learned more about the industry, the less I felt I’d ever really fit into it and all of my regrets about not, at the very least, exploring that route kind of faded. I don’t think I would have been happy, even if it had panned out and I had been offered a deal. I think I just want to write songs to express myself… that’s what makes me happiest.

BF: Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

KA: I guess all of my goals are entirely personal now. I still release publicly because, like a gambler, you always kind of hope you’ll ‘win’ something. I like to hope that people will enjoy what I’m creating and choose to support me… but I find it’s a very different landscape now, so I don’t really have any standard success type goals.  I had taken 10 years off from recording and when I came back to music, the market had changed to the point that I barely knew the first thing about navigating it. Now your mainly judged by your social media following and an artist has to be well branded, fiercely competitive and be able to ride trend waves and/or sound extremely similar to whatever is the biggest thing for this minute in time. It would mean constantly fighting for attention and I’m just too old for that/don’t have the money to do it. So, my main objective is to go my own way and just enjoy myself.

BF: Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

KA: I think I’m just a collage of influences. I don’t have any particular bands I listen to and that’s mainly because I listen to very little music. I grew up not being able to listen to anything apart from Christian music, due to living in a strict religious household, and I was still actually fairly religious into my early 20s. After I finally left that lifestyle, you would think I would have consumed music like I was starving for it… but I actually ended up having a very passive relationship with it. I’ll listen to the radio or what friends suggest or play for me but I rarely listen to music when left to my own devices. So, I’m guessing the music I write will kind of remind you of everything you’ve heard before, while not sounding exactly like anyone in
particular; like it’s both familiar and new.

BF: Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

KA: I’ve not begun performing as Molly Grue yet, other than one acoustic show at an art gallery, *but* I did have a fun performance with my Krista D project recently. I had a terrible time finding live musicians to hire so I just dragged some mannequins to the venue and performed karaoke style with them. I made band shirts for them, I hung instruments on them and introduced each one as Miranda. It was the wackiest, yet smoothest, performance ever. I may actually rebrand that project as ‘Krista D and the Pantsless Mirandas’.

BF: Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

KA: That’s a hard one. I have a favorite from each project, actually. For my Krista D project, I think my favorite is “Land Mine” but mainly because it ended up with over 719,000 streams on Pandora radio – meaning it paid for its own recording, and that was a first. So, based on that – it might win out as my all-time favorite.  For my Molly Grue project, I think I like “Anyway” the best, but that’s mainly because I haven’t finished recording the EP yet. For the tracks slated for my ‘Hooha and the Peter Guns’ project, so far, I’m most fond of “Get Up.” The unmastered version of that one is streamable for free at http://www.hatpg.com.

BF: Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

KA: Well, aside from the weirdness of releasing under 3 music project names; I also operate under 3 visual art aliases. I’m actually mainly a visual artist and I create 3 series of work, in different styles, and have gallery shows under each. I’m extremely compartmental when it comes to my creativity. I guess in an effort to not overwhelm people with my ‘muchness’, I
divided myself into 3 so that people can pick, and follow, the alias/project they like without the confusion of never knowing what to expect at an art show, or on an album. I just link them all off of one webpage, http://www.trimorfik.com.

BF: Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward. 

Photo Credits: Krista Acheson