"Krone" interview

Avec: It still needs a lot more down-to-earthness

Vöcklabruck, the Ireland of Austria - at least for the Upper Austrian musician Avec.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Jim Bob Records, Kidizin Sane)

Avec took five years to make her new album. In these five years, no stone has been left unturned, neither privately nor professionally. Her fourth studio album "Avec" is as much an inner navel-gazing as it is a free ride to her own responsibility. In the "Krone" interview, the artist gave us a closer look.

Music history shows that a self-titled album is an unmistakable sign that the artist is going into medias res with themselves, digging particularly deep and sharing their most intimate thoughts, worries and emotions with the public in the form of songs. But what does a self-titled album mean in the case of the Upper Austrian musician Avec? A woman who has been taking her heart in her hands with every single song for ten years now, wringing it out and making it available to everyone? "During the writing process, I realized that I still have a lot left in me," laughs the likeable musician in an interview with "Krone", "my last album was a whole five years ago. I've released a few songs and EPs, but a lot has piled up in my life during this time that had to come out again. There's a lot of love in this album, but also a lot of anger - everything I've experienced in the last five years."

Only with family
"Avec", the fourth studio album by the Amadeus Award winner from Vöcklabruck, is emotional navel-gazing in a singer/songwriter corset. It is equally a penetration into the personal world of an introspective personality, but thanks to the delicate instrumentation and the striking vocals, it always conveys a broad meaning that can also be interpreted in one's own sense. However, the artist and musician Avec only exists with a family, which is perhaps even more emphasized on this album than ever before. While her first successful song "Granny" exactly ten years ago was a loving ode to her own grandmother, this time other women also come more to the fore. The opener "Veronica" is dedicated to her mother Veronika, while "Sun Moon" is about her special relationship with her sister.

"We are fundamentally different - like day and night or sun and moon. I am the childless artist who lives in Vienna. She lives down-to-earth with her family in Upper Austria. It's sometimes difficult because we have a lot of conflicts to deal with. We're not best friends and never will be, but I can rely on her. She's always there when I need her and I love her more than anything. This song just had to come out of me." The songs "Silently" and "What's On Your Mind" revolve around the topic of loss, which the singer has been confronted with on several occasions. This is one of the reasons why she named her newly founded label Jim Bob Records after her beloved uncle, who died of cancer in his mid-40s in his adopted country of France and played a fundamentally important role in Avec's life. "He was so far away at the time of his death that making peace with the subject was all the more difficult. When a loved one passes away, you deal with it for the rest of your life, but in my music I can at least keep the process going."

Vöcklabruck instead of Ireland
"Silently" and "King Of Spain" ultimately marked the beginning of the journey that led to this album after long and hard work. The previously mentioned down-to-earth attitude was particularly important to Avec for this album. "Of course, as with the second album, I would have liked to go back to Ireland to record it there. But we simply didn't have the financial means to fly the musicians and the team there. So we worked and tinkered with it at home in Vöcklabruck." Avec fulfilled a long-cherished dream for the picturesque promo photos with the many sheep. "We wrote to a local farmer who has 120 sheep. Shooting with animals requires a lot of patience and a completely different approach. When the sheep approached me, I was incredibly happy. I don't need much more in life," she laughs, "the farmer didn't know my music beforehand, but of course I invited him to my concert."

Prior to the concert, Avec parted ways with her management for the second time in her career. She is now holding the reins in her own hands and wants to embark on a more independent future. "To put it simply, there was far too little going on for me. We had fewer and fewer live gigs as a band, even though I wanted to play a lot more. Sometimes I had the feeling that I was the only person in the project who was still really motivated and that annoyed me. After the first change, I swore to myself that I wouldn't stand by for much longer in a situation like that, so I started the process of change." Avec's own label not only serves as a basis for her music, but can also be used as a test run for further projects. "I could well imagine helping other young artists at some point in the future as a label, with management and also booking - in other words, all-round. I've seen and experienced so much in the last ten years that isn't okay that I could certainly help in a knowledgeable way."

Down-to-earth attitude needed
Avec sometimes struggles with the usual mechanisms in the music business, even though she has become accustomed to many things. "The most important thing in life for me is honesty. In the music business, everyone is cool with each other and everything always works out somehow. Then there's social media, a make-believe world. In the five years leading up to this album, I woke up to that. I'm very introverted and it's hard for me to gain confidence or surround myself with people. The music world is often not real, but I need to be grounded. I know where I come from and where I belong. Maybe I lost myself a bit at times, but I searched for myself again and eventually found myself. It's easy to make small talk in my scene, but that's not enough for me. I'm much happier having in-depth conversations with people I know and trust."

After ten years, Avec is now a musician and entrepreneur. With "Avec", she is releasing her fourth album as an entrepreneur, who is also increasingly freeing herself economically from external factors. "For a long time, I was the young and naive girl who said yes and amen to everything. Now I'm jumping in at the deep end, I'm aware of that, but it feels good. For the first time, I have full control over myself and my career. But I don't want to talk down the past either. All the experiences have brought me to where I am now. I am this person because things happened the way they did." For Avec, this also means that older songs are returning to her lap. "Old contracts are coming to an end and my older numbers are now coming back into my label." In the not-too-distant future, she could also surprise musically. "It's not so unknown that I grew up with country music. Maybe I'll go in that direction one day."

Austrian tour in spring
Avec can often be seen live this year. On January 25th, she will be playing the FM4 birthday party at the Ottakringer Brewery in Vienna, which is already completely sold out. Her tour for the new album will then take her to the Posthof in Linz on April 4, the Orpheum Graz on April 8, the Salzburg Rockhouse on April 9, the Treibhaus Innsbruck on April 10, the Spielboden Dornbirn on April 11 and then the Vienna Arena on December 16. You can find all the dates and information on concert tickets at www.officialavec.com.