After a string of Really Very Good singles, Emily Burns has finally announced her debut album ‘Die Happy’. As she delivers the title track, read our latest Dork Mixtape cover feature.
Words: Stephen Ackroyd.
Picture the scene. It’s a few minutes to midnight, and somewhere, Emily Burns is probably refreshing her phone – checking links, getting social posts prepped, making sure Spotify has updated properly. There’s a flush of excitement and a whole heap of anxiety in the air – the potential for what comes next is tangible. Five minutes of chaos throwing out digital missives and confirming there have been no disasters, then a gasp for air. It’s a dance that she’ll have done plenty of times over the last few years, building track by track, EP by EP, but pretty soon, it’s going to feel different.
Finally, Emily Burns is having her moment. Not the kind of fifteen minutes-of-fame, fleeting buzz that comes and goes without a trace, but the sort that comes after years of hard graft, self-discovery and commitment to ‘the art’. Her debut album, ‘Die Happy’, is finally – officially – on the board.
“Things are feeling pretty good today,” Emily says, her excitement palpable as we catch up the day before the album’s title-track is released, and she preps for yet another midnight drop. “I’m celebrating with a trip to the driving range tonight!”
Burns is an artist dedicated to her craft, but she’s not boring about it. There’s a sense of humour that runs alongside the realness – something she’ll have needed through years of new releases, creative bursts, development phases and building the live shows.
As you’d expect, the last few months have been hectic – but also positive. “I’ve had a great summer so far,” she enthuses. “I’ve been releasing loads of music, playing live, writing lots of new stuff, and also managed to go on a couple of trips away, too. It’s been busy! I feel like my life is 100 miles an hour all the time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The frenetic pace seems to suit Emily – but now she’s on the home straight to delivering that much-anticipated debut, the adrenaline will doubtlessly kick in. ‘Die Happy’ is the culmination of long-held dreams and years of work. “It feels really good to be able to talk about it now!” she admits. “I feel like I’ve been building toward this moment for a really long time.”
“I feel like my life is 100 miles an hour all the time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way”
Emily Burns
The album’s creation was nothing if not a labour of love – long nights and big plans, drawing in old favourites and new material. “It’s hard to give an exact timeline for making it because there are a few songs on the album that I wrote 3 or 4 years ago and some that I wrote much more recently,” she explains. “About a year ago, I sat down with my manager and played him a ton of stuff – old and new. We were trying to decide what to put out next, and he was like, ‘You’ve got an album here – why don’t we just put twelve out?’”
From there, the process kicked into higher gear. “It took a few months to re-record tracks, re-write bits that needed work, and produce them in the right way and with the right instrumentation, etc.,” Burns recalls. “I got to work with some of my best friends, and I loved every minute of it. Hopefully, people will feel that when they listen.”
With a clear vision, Emily approached the album with a desire to find something authentic and relatable. “I just wanted to create an album that I would love listening to if I wasn’t me,” she says with a characteristic laugh. “Personally, I’ve always loved songs that tell stories, when you can feel that the artist is being really honest in their writing. My main goal was to create an album that was overtly honest and tells true stories about my life. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it feels like a book with twelve chapters, and in each chapter, you delve a little further into my brain.”
So far, so existential – but it’s a style Burns attributes to the maturing perspectives that develop through your twenties, as adulthood gets a stronger grip and those big emotions start to build up lived experiences. “I think my writing style has just matured a little, I guess,” she reflects. “I’ve experienced more, truly fallen in love, and looked harder at my future and what I really want out of life.”
The album’s title-track, ‘Die Happy’, really showcases the shifts in perspective. It’s “all about realising that success in life isn’t necessarily measured by the things you have, places you’ve been, or money you’ve made, but more about finding true happiness,” Emily explains. “I feel like that’s just part of growing up. That theme features a lot in the album.”
Love plays a central role in Burns’ recent material. Her girlfriend Grace is prominently featured in both her music and the accompanying visuals. “Oh, don’t get me started – I’ll get all emotional!” she exclaims. “To put it bluntly, there would be no album without Grace. When I was going through a really low point in my career, Grace single-handedly picked me up, dusted me off, and encouraged me to keep going. She completely reinstated my faith in myself, and I honestly wouldn’t be releasing this album without her.”
Mushy, yeah, but in the best way – it’s a marker for a deep, emotional connection that both supports and inspires. “It feels completely natural that she features in the music videos – I just wouldn’t feel comfortable acting alongside anyone else, and I know that would come across on screen,” Burns explains. “Plus, Grace is a brilliant actor – and is very beautiful – so all in all, it’s a win-win.”
The album isn’t just a showcase of Burns’ personal growth and big relationships; it’s also a testament to her evolving artistry – and nobody has a better understanding of that than the person closest to her. “Grace’s favourite is a track called ‘Stay’,” she confides. “It comes eleventh on the album and is a really vulnerable love song about asking someone to stay with you because you can’t cope without them.”
Grace herself is unafraid to go big. “It’s just so different. I think it’s a masterpiece,” she glows. “I love them all, but I’m SO excited for the world to hear ‘Stay.”
“It feels like a book with 12 chapters, and in each chapter, you delve a little further into my brain”
Emily Burns
As you’d expect, the creation of ‘Die Happy’ wasn’t an easy road to go down. Like every record, there are struggles, too. Burns admits she had a struggle with what she calls ‘demoitis’ – the attachment to the first take of a track that makes working it up a constant battle. “When I’ve written a song, recorded a rough demo, and fallen in love with it, I find it really hard to then have to re-record it and not miss certain aspects of the demo,” she admits. “I had a lot of that going on with this album, where I couldn’t get the new recordings to feel as good as the original demos, but in time, and with a lot of patience, I grew to love the new versions, and I’m super proud of them.”
But despite the challenges, the creation of ‘Die Happy’ has also been a learning experience – both in terms of life as a musician and as a person. “The main thing I learned is gratitude,” Emily reflects. “To be grateful for the amazing things I have in my life and not so worried about the things I might not have achieved yet.”
As for what we can expect from the record, there’ll be some surprises. Like Grace, she admits ‘Stay’ is “very different vocally from anything I’ve released before”. At its heart, though, she believes that a great debut album is one where you can feel the life invested into it. “For me, I love an album where you can tell that someone really knows themselves and has faced a certain degree of hardship to get to that point,” she explains. “Corinne Bailey Rae’s debut album sang straight to my heart, and I still adore it now. That, to me, was perfect. Lizzy McAlpine’s debut album is also one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. It’s like one long train of thought, so open and vulnerable. Big, big fan.”
As November and the release of ‘Die Happy’ grow closer, Emily already has her plans in place. “I’ve always wanted to release an album, so this genuinely feels like years and years of work have led up to this moment,” she says, clearly struggling to hold the buzz of it all in. “I’m gonna play as many live shows as I possibly can – I’m desperate to travel and play this album to everyone who wants to hear it.”
“I just hope you love it,” she says. “I’m really proud of it and very grateful to be in a position to release it.”
Honest and truthful, ‘Die Happy’ promises to be a profoundly personal and intensely relatable record. A record that’s both a window on a life, and a mirror to the shared emotions and experiences that shape our own. It’s pop music with heart and soul, run through with a vulnerability and openness that gives it meaning. For Emily Burns, all those long nights are about to be realised. ■
Emily Burns’ new track ‘Die Happy’ is out now. Her debut album of the same name is out 8th November 2024. Follow Dork Mixtape on Spotify here.
Leave a Reply