The Makings of a Good Childhood
There’s nothing that warms my heart more than when a musician admits they actually had a good childhood. Yet despite a positive upbringing in a nurturing environment, they’ve still found it in themselves to embark on the soul-baring adventure of a music career. Better still is a brand-new duo have named themselves Good Childhood and have written a song about someone who potentially might not have a good childhood. It’s called ‘Violet’.
Good Childhood are Ben Schrecker and Alice Grey.
Good Childhood are made of up vocalist and guitarist Alice Grey with multi-instrumentalist Ben Schrecker. We’ve written about Grey’s music on two previous occasions. First for her festive collection, ‘This Year’s For Me And You’ in December 2020, and for her celebration of Autumn and Halloween entitled, ‘What’s In Your Head?’ the following year. A prolific songwriter, Alice’s other 2021 EPs include ‘Almost My Birthday’, the Valentine’s Day inspired ‘The Vein That Bleeds’ and ‘The Ones That Got Away (Three Tales Of Friendship)’.
Ben Schrecker has released music under multiple aliases. The Rust Bowl Blues Band released their EP ‘Rusty Bucket’ in early 2018. A year later, Ben put out an album under the name Vanity Project entitled ‘No More Dancing’ with a follow-up in 2020 called ‘Auto Corrected Motion’. Later that year Schrecker became ‘The Problem With Radar’ alongside Tom Bullen and released an album called ‘To Experiment With Reason’. His most recent work takes the name Endless State Machine and is a collection of drones recorded between the year 2000 and 2021, he’s called it ‘The Drone Variations’.
Good Childhood have been playing gigs together since the summer at London venues such as Luna, The Cock and Bottle and The Gladstone Arms. The duo have been a part of Islington Radio’s Acoustic Showcase and are set to play more dates before the year is out. One of the songs in their set is entitled ‘Violet’, which Good Childhood have just released as their debut single.
‘Always thought you were funny, 'til your best joke didn't land, swore that you were a talent, 'til they kicked you out the band.’
Ben Schrecker’s influence on Alice Grey’s songwriting is clear from the start, his lush piano breathing further life into Grey’s intricate storytelling, which is again on form with ‘Violet’. Alice always has the ability to inhabit her characters, as if every song is sung from experience, even if it isn’t. ‘Violet’ tells the tale of a wayward couple whose answer to all their problems is having a child by that name, a premise strong enough to potentially warrant an entire album’s worth of material.
The production and arrangement of ‘Violet’ is a strong beginning too for Good Childhood, with Schrecker’s piano bolstered by strings that first rumble in the lower register, but stab later on with understated menace. Alice Grey’s vocal harmonies are subtle but highlight important lyrical moments, ‘You told me a plain clothes cop in the corner shop took your details but let it go.’ And finally, the muted rhythm is crucial in helping to lift ‘Violet’ from its pre-chorus to the first chorus and beyond, a production detail that progresses the music in motion with its lyric.
Good Childhood have thought of everything for their debut single, without overdoing their sound - they’ve even carefully considered their music video. This reads as an expansion of their words, the idyllic future painted by the protagonist without the wallowing of the present, as if we’re seeing a dream from their point of view.
‘She's gonna be Violet, and this is gonna be it.’
Continue reading for our Q&A with Alice Grey. We ask about the beginning of the Good Childhood project, including more insight into the characters of ‘Violet’. Alice tells us more about recording the track, plus what’s to come in terms of further music and live performances. All this and more below!
1. A New Era: Alice Grey and Ben Schrecker are setting out as Good Childhood! How long has this project been in gestation for? Did you set out to be a duo on equal footing from the start?
Ben and I met in July 2021 on BandMix, which is one of those websites where musicians seek collaborators. Ben might have been the very first person who I connected with. We had a few rehearsals, liked the sound and went from there. We did have a guitarist for one practice but he broke his arm.
2. You've just released your first single, 'Violet'. How did the writing process for this track evolve? Tell us more about the character of Violet.
I wrote this in the pub waiting for some friends to arrive. A few of my friends have started having, or thinking about having, families, so a lot of baby names are flying around. So I wrote the song about a couple envisioning their first child. In the story (which I should stress is fictional), this child is seen as the antidote to their disappointments and solution to their problems. There is an almost menacing insistence on having a child, it being a girl and it being called Violet - and that being 'it' - done, fixed.
3. 'Violet' was recorded in two halves, one in a studio and the rest at home. Would you talk us through the recording? What studio did you use?
Ben recorded the piano part to a guide track (along with the piano for two other songs we have in the pipeline.) It was boiling - right in the middle of that spell of mid-thirties weather. We recorded it at West London Studio with the help of Gianna Boscarino and Martin Tauchman. We then recorded the vocal to that, in my equally sweltering bedroom.
4. Good Childhood's first music video doesn't actually feature you at all, who originated the concept of the school children being the central characters?
I liked the simplicity of the concept - a well-socialised, athletic, academic child featuring in a montage of relentless perfection. I also can't act for shit (but we're going to try for the next one).
5. I know both of you have had your own musical projects going on in the past few years, are you both continuing with those concurrently with Good Childhood? Or is this your sole venture for the time being?
That remains to be seen, and will likely be contingent on our energy levels. I grew quite attached to my seasonal releases (and Ben has a lengthy back catalogue of his own out there to be discovered!), but expect the focus will be on Good Childhood for now.
6. You've already undertaken a few live performances together, are there more in the diary for people to check out your new music?
Absolutely. We'll be sharing the full calendar soon, but November will see us play at Half Moon Putney, The Gladstone Arms, the Coach & Horses in Stoke Newington and The Old Queens Head in Islington, with more dates to come.
7. In your songwriting together or apart, what's a lyrical subject you'd love to explore that you haven't had a chance or found the right words for yet?
I write the lyrics, but Ben has a hand in the melody and overall orchestration of the song. As for unexplored themes - I wanted to write a good, sad Christmas song. Maybe there's still time?
8. This wasn't the only piece of music you recorded, what can you tell us about the songs that are yet to come?
We've got another one set for release before the end of the year. It's quite a contrast with Violet - dramatic, self-indulgent, dark. And next year, we're aiming to have an EP out by the end of the summer, featuring a few spruced up re-releases (Man in the Sky, Cooler, Empire) and two new tracks (one of which features the lovely Steinway Grand.)
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‘Violet’ by Good Childhood is available to download and stream in all the usual places.
Explore the previous works of Good Childhood by visiting the Bandcamp pages of Alice Grey and Ben Schrecker.
Follow Alice Grey on Facebook @alicegreymusic.
Follow Ben Schrecker on Instagram and Facebook @benschreckermusic.
Follow the adventures of Good Childhood on Instagram @goodchildhoodband and on Twitter @alicegreymusic.
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