There is a certain je ne sais fucking quoi look and celebrities, the rarified, the beautiful people, the stars? They have it. And the rest of us don’t.
And pop star on the horizon Emii has it and how. It is not that she is beautiful, she might be if she had the occasional slice of pizza, but she is wafer thin and her body seems disproportionate. However, this slightness works on camera and she carries herself like a woman who just knows the effect she has on people, and while she deems to meet us halfway, it is Emii who is lowering her standards. Look at the pictures, whether in stiletos or in civies, Emii overwhelms you.
Woody Fuller and I meet Emii along with my friend Melissa Berlin from Rock Ridge music and Chrissie, also part of Team Emii, at the ad agency I work for. Emii is in town for a showcase that evening (check out Woody’s review), to meet the radio, to meet the press, to push the new epic EP being distributed by Universal and essentially to leave us feeling like crap for losing her to the West Coast. “I used to live here”, she explains. “I was working in music while I was here. I went from Ohio to New York. I was here for five years.
“I played with bands, I worked with producers, different artists. With any one I could work with just to get better as an artists I performed at a lot of the clubs, at the tribeca Film festival. This was years ago. Hammerstein Ballroom. Don Hill’s, which is great because I’m going back there tonight and will be a bit of memory flashing back.”
At the time Emii was setting the stage for what she is playing today: “Pop, rock, pretty much anything whatever I feel like…” she mulls the words as she says them. “When I say pop, I mean music that can be played on mainstream radio, that can appeal to a wide variety of people. The chorus is catchy. It is an easy tune, more people can understand it. But within my pop there are my rock influences. My r&b influences. A lot of the music that I listened to growing up, you can hear traces of it in the music that I write. The Pretenders, Elvis, Michael Jackson”
“I know that sounds weird but the thing is that I love pop music, I love rock music, so I don’t necessarily need to restrict myself when I write which lead to a struggle in finding the right music to support me. Naturally a lot of people will stylistically try to shove you in a box. They want you to only do pop or only do rock. They have a certain idea in their mind that they want you to conform to. Which I wasn’t about so I’ve just linda been doing my own thing, pursuing what I love since I was young. Many years… not that many years ago!”
Long enough to take Emii from Youngstown, Ohio -an industrial city that never recovered from the closing of steel plants in the 70s and certainly the Youngstown Emii knew, despite a big college campus, has been a city in disrepair. Emii discusses her home, er, carefully but the bottom line is she and a boyfriend with nothing much more than a suitcase came to new york to seek their fortune.
Today, Emii is getting asked about Lady Gaga wherever she goes. The reason is the first single “Magic” sounds like a Gaga rip. The other songs on the EP don’t but “Magic”… “I know, I know” she signs resignedly. So what are her excuses? “It’s not really an excuse. The repetition of a certain phrase or a certain syllabel… it’s been used in pop music in general beforeso that’s not a big thing. The song itself was written before ‘Pokerface’. We were in the studio when we heard it. “Magic was written, oh my god, two years ago. Wow, it’s been a wild ride. But, yeah, I mean, it’s cool, it’s cool.”
When you read an interview, the writer tends to delete all the pauses, all the errs, and yeahs, and verbal tics. Except here. Emii has none and the only time she seems not entirely on firm ground is about the Gagaism of “Magic”. I have no doubt, Emii’s timeline for the writing of the song is accurate just as I have no doubt, neither Emii nor her producer Adrian, failed to work the song into a more populist bent. Having said that, the song veers into rock half way through so…” Yes, it’s a little chaotic but then so am I” she says. “It’s a good representation of who I am”.
An independent label Slippery Eel Productions released it in April and Universal are distributing and it is getting pretty good traction. “That is very nice, I am really grateful.”
Emii keeps on saying we though she is essentially a one man band. “When I say we I mean my producer Adrian Gurvitz”. Gurvitz is a journeyman musician who has been around since the 60s and, famously, performed with Ginger Baker. He is also something of an expert at girl bands.
“In general, the team that I have found myself with, including these guys sitting at the table, they really are my support.
“I’ve just gotten back from Chicago and ‘Magic’ is doing well. Right now we are # 36 on the Pop Indicator chart and on the media base, which is only monitored stations, we are either #60 something or #70 something. We’re surrounded by a plethora of amazing artists and it has this little bullet next to it.”
It’s wonderful to see?
“Yes, absolutely.”
Emii’s entire career has a little bullet next to it. She wowed em at Don Hill’s. She wows em wherever she plays. Everything is in place for something magic to hit the pop charts.