Adelaide, the songwriter from Ferndale, Michigan (and now Chicago) is trying to channel something slightly different on their new record Mulberry Tree: happiness. Sitting in the conference room of the Empty Bottle office on a very hot September afternoon, there’s a softness and lightness to Adelaide that comes through both their presence and music. An ease. “In the past a lot of the songs have come out of grief or sadness,” they say, “but this one is more so strong feelings of joy and appreciation,” which is why they find this collection of songs “particularly special” and “healing.” The music feels pleasantly sun-soaked and tranquil at times, like waking up and peering out the window first thing. The songs are juxtaposed with both expansiveness and minimalism. A few of the recordings are initial demos where the lightning was caught right in the bottle, while others swell and bend and build with beds of soft synthesizers, guitars swirling, vocals doubled and tripled and quadrupled. It’s an artifact of childhood, summertime and warmth, a beautiful record.

Mulberry Tree comes out Friday, September 27th with a special release show at The Empty Bottle with Alga & Kingfisher the same evening. Tickets are available here.

Conversation recorded & transcribed in the Empty Bottle conference room on September 17th, 2024.

CHRIS: Ok, thanks for coming. We’ve never met before, this is our first time meeting.

ADELAIDE: Yeah [laughs].

CHRIS: Nice to meet you.

ADELAIDE: It’s very nice to meet you too.

CHRIS: This is going to kind of all over the place. It’s supposed to be fun.

ADELAIDE: Ok, yeah let’s go crazy.

CHRIS: What is your earliest memory? 

ADELAIDE: This is very convenient because I was just talking about this with somebody. My earliest memory is falling down the stairs when I was little. I was very small. I think I was probably 3, maybe a little bit younger. I remember going to the top of the stairs in my childhood home because I was excited to tell my Dad something. I remember tripping and falling and he was watching television with a few of his friends on the sofa, and he heard me falling down the stairs. He came and scooped me up at the bottom of the stairs. I was completely ok but I remember bursting into tears. On the sides of the stairs there were all these spirals that my Mom had painted on the wood and I remember looking at them when I was falling and then getting caught and crying. 

CHRIS: What is your sign and how much do you subscribe to astrology and horoscopes? 

ADELAIDE: I’m a Taurus and a Sagittarius moon and a Cancer rising if you want the nitty gritty details. I think there is some truth to it but I feel like it’s all up to interpretation a lot of the time. Especially when people are using apps to figure it out. I feel like I could resonate with a few things. 

CHRIS: Do you feel like there’s any Taurus qualities that apply to your personality or your being? 

ADELAIDE: The go-to things that people say about Tauruses is that they’re stubborn, that they like to rest and eat and that they’re very curated in the way they make their own spaces. I feel like in some ways, yes. I don’t feel like I’m an incredibly stubborn person but I think I certainly can be [laughs]. I do appreciate having a comfortable space to come back to. And I feel like I find different ways to be grounded so I guess that plays into the whole “Earth sign.” My sister, who’s my best friend is a Scorpio so we’re sister signs.

CHRIS: I’m a Scorpio too. 

ADELAIDE: We’re sister signs [laughs]! It seems to make a lot of sense just in the way we get along really well even though we’re very different. 

CHRIS: There was a comment on your song “Anyone I Know” on On YouTube that said “thank you algorithm for showing me this masterpiece. You’re like if Princess Diana made music.” Would you like to respond to that comment? 

ADELAIDE: I didn’t even see that comment [laughs]! Oh my gosh. Well… wow! That’s very sweet. I like Princess Diana. I think I’ve gotten that because of the haircut a few times. Not the music part. That’s a big compliment, I’ll take it. I’ve got to check my comments more. 

CHRIS: In “Song for Ei (Ivy)” on your new record there’s a sweet voicemail that you can barely make out, and it kind of made me a little emotional hearing it. What’s the story with the voice note?

ADELAIDE: The voicemail is my friend Emma (Ivy). So it’s a song for her that I had written, she lives in New York. She’s a really special friend to me in a lot of ways. I don’t see her very often, so the song is an ode to being friends with her and still feeling that love from a far distance. The voicemail is one that she sent me in 2020 when she had gone home and I was in Michigan and we hadn’t seen each other in a while. I remember that she had to go work and she wanted to call and say that she appreciated me and I remember getting that and feeling very emotional and grateful and saving it immediately. And then I called back and we talked I’m sure. She’s a very loving person and I feel like the voicemail exemplified that in a lot of ways. It’s just a song about a sweet friend. 

CHRIS: This is more of a statement than a question but I love your song “Clip-Ons.”

ADELAIDE: Thank you! That song is really fun live. It’s a really intense song, more so than the other ones on the album.

CHRIS: Are you going to play it at your show? 

ADELAIDE: Oh yeah, I think we’re just going to play straight through the album and see how it goes. And a few of the songs the band have already played before. We usually play a medley of old and new songs but this time we’re just gonna play new ones to share with people. But that’s one of the most fun [songs]. I played it the other week at this show at Subterranean and I fucked my finger up really badly because I was going too hard on the song. 

CHRIS: So we’ll expect blood at the show. 

ADELAIDE: Who’s to say! Hopefully it’s not as intense [laughs]. I looked at my guitar the next day and it was terrifying. 

CHRIS: Do you have a favorite Empty Bottle memory? 

ADELAIDE: Yes I do, it was the first time I went to the Empty Bottle. I believe it was not this past Fall but the one before, and I went to go see my friend Grace Bloom play. I love her music, I have all her songs memorized. I had only gone to a few shows but my friend Jacob was videotaping and I remember I was wearing a flowy dress and dancing. My friends were taking a lot of footage of Grace and her band performing. That was really special because I had never been to this space before. I knew it was a nice place to be immediately. Everyone seemed so lovely and Grace had a wonderful time. I also went to Strapped the other week and that was pretty sick too. 

CHRIS: What is your ideal date? 

ADELAIDE: Like romantic date? 

CHRIS: Yes. 

ADELAIDE: Well, I’m lucky I’m in a relationship where every date seems to be ideal. 

CHRIS: Aww. 

ADELAIDE: I guess doing something outside. One time my partner and I, when we were first seeing each other, we made a kite and flew that. It didn’t work, but it was really fun. The notion of creating something and going outside is really special. Going to climb a tree or reading with somebody. I think that’s the ideal thing. Something outdoors in the summer or fall. 

CHRIS: Are there any overarching themes that you found yourself writing about or expressing on this new record? What is the significance of a mulberry tree to you? 

ADELAIDE: Really nice questions. The mulberry tree is certainly the all-encompassing thing in the album for me. As for the themes, reckoning with childhood and the more happy memories in that. It’s mostly about summer childhood memories and why they seem so happy. Approaching new intimacy or relationships and how that can lead to anxiety. You have to trust in yourself. Warmth and friendship and being grateful for where you are now, trying to hold those who are close to you and the memories that you have about people who were once close to you. Those are the main things, I think. 

Mulberry trees are very important to me. Growing up in the midwest in the summertime, that’s something that most people see on the sidewalks even if they don’t know what they are. Just smashed up, rotten fruit on the sidewalks that stain your shoes. When I was younger there was a few different mulberry trees in the neighborhood and me and my sister would go out with containers and we would shake the branches or try to pull off the fruit so we could go home and make something with it, or wash it off and eat it. Even though it doesn’t taste the sweetest, it was just nice to have some kind of abundance. I always knew that I was happy at the time of the year when there were mulberry trees around. And now being in Chicago, there’s mulberry trees too. There used to be one on the street that I lived on here. And around most streets. They always bring up a feeling of love and joy. I used to pick mulberries and climb trees in the summertime often. And so the final song (“Mulberry Tree”) is about two different trees, one being the mulberry tree near my house growing up and the other that was in a field by this church down the street that I would climb up in and sit. And I would look at this string that somebody had tied on the branches. I climbed up the tree last summer when I was home visiting family and I saw that the string was still there but the tree had grown around it. Then immediately I wrote the song and had the idea of what songs would be put together on the album. 

CHRIS: Beautiful. Do you have anything else that you’d like to express per this conversation? 

ADELAIDE: I’m really excited about the album. And I’m really excited about the people I play music with right now. The band that I play with is always cycling depending on who’s free. Every person in the band has their own musical project so we just come together because we’re friends, when they’re able to. So I just have endless appreciation for people giving their time. And for the friends who have been supportive of it. And also for the Empty Bottle because, talking to all my band members, we played here a few months ago and it went really well and it felt very, very special. It’s a lot of the band members’ favorite venue so it’s really nice to be able to come back and play here again.