On her fourth studio album, Plumb explores the world of electronica and dance music as a new background for her eloquent and emotional songwriting. Known in the dance world for the song "Damaged" that was covered by Plummet, Plumb's song "Cut" has recently been remixed to spread her message to new audiences.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: You wrote and originally sung the song Damaged which was then covered by Plummet. How did you react the first time you heard their cover version?
Plumb: It was sort of a bittersweet moment the first time I heard Plummet's version, because the song is about a girl who was sexually abused, and when I heard Plummet's version I thought she was either unaware of what the content of the song was or making light of it. What I found out was that they knew what it was about and they were really touched by that subject matter and they were just doing a different format to reach a new audience. I was very humbled because it was such a huge compliment. I think they did a good job and I completely changed my opinion, so that was a pretty humbling experience for me.
RS: Was it exciting to see the song become such a huge international hit?
Plumb: Yes, it was. I don't want to say it was surprising because I feel like the content of the song is so rich and meaningful and that sort of proved that it can transcend genres and cultures.
RS: Talking about transcending genres, as you so eloquently said, your new album, Chaotic Resolve, seems to do that. I listened to it and there's a lot of dance and electronica throughout it especially with Good Behavior, Manic and Motion. Was that sort of a direction you took with this album?
Plumb: I think that the records more or less are a really true reflection of me where I have ballad personality moments, pop moments, rock moments, and dance moments. Someone told me recently that he can hear the whole record and even though there's rock/pop ballads, dance, whatever all on it, at the end of the day it still sounds like Plumb. That's such a huge achievement as an artist to be paid a compliment like that, because you feel like you've actually achieved one of your goals, just to have your own sound, regardless of the productions behind you. I don't know what influences me necessarily to go that route, but my producer, Matt Bronleewe, is certainly a catalyst behind that - trying new things and different things. Sometimes they fit and sometimes they don't, and this time a lot of it did really work and kind of went together so sonically it sort of blends really well together.
RS: Matt Bronleewe, who is part of the remix team Bronleewe and Bose?
Plumb: Yes, absolutely.
RS: They also remixed the song off the album called Cut, which is about a really strong subject like Damaged. Tell us a little bit about the song Cut?
Plumb: It's more or less that a fan on the message board said she was a cutter and she was asking if there was anyone else out there that was a cutter and she had a huge response from some people. Self-cutting is unfortunately a growing form of abuse. She said in her message that her family doesn't understand, her friends don't understand and even sometimes she doesn't understand, but just sometimes she feels so numb inside, just to feel alive she wants to cut the skin. That was just so powerful and poetic to me that it was the inspiration behind Cut, and I certainly didn't write it because I understand it completely and I know how to fix that problem. It was more or less to create conversation so that when someone hears it, if nothing else they feel less alone knowing that there's someone else out there like them going through a similar thing and to give them a tool to start talking about it. Because that's one of the first steps of healing, is to be able to communicate and write it out and talk it out and have a conversation about it. So if nothing else, that would be a goal of the song. It's already doing that and I'm really excited about it.
RS: It's rare that a dance song has such strong lyrical content with such a serious issue. Were you at all concerned when you heard they were going to do dance versions of the song?
Plumb: No, because I've learned that there's just different genres of music that really grab people. There's definitely genres that don't grab me that I'm completely turned off to hear and there's certain things that my ear absolutely is a magnet towards. I know that there's a complete culture of people that love dance music. So to have a song be able to transcend its own genre of inception and to be remixed into a completely different version shows the integrity of a song. If nothing else, I'm flattered as a songwriter that my music can do both.
