MYSTERY ACHIEVEMENT? NOPE. RUBY FIELDS WORKED FOR IT
- 30 minutes ago
- 5 min read
LET’S NOT MUCK ABOUT with something easy, some palate cleanser, for Ruby Fields – whose real name is Ruby Phillips, but that’s not important right now – but instead take something lifted directly from a song on her new album of lightly caffeinated, regularly punchy, rock-that-hasn’t-forgotten-how-to-do-pop which goes hard on community resilience and renewal, finding a purpose and holding together. Oh yes, and love.
What’s it like falling hard for someone so that you would declare “I would ruin myself any day for you”?
“I think we all feel a certain way when you first kinda fall in love with someone. There are things at the beginning that maybe you would put aside parts of yourself for that eventually you wouldn’t, but at the start it feels like this all-consuming obsession with somebody,” Fields says. “In terms of my love for my partner now – I’m still with the person I wrote the song about, three years later – it’s like ‘I would still do anything for you, but probably not all the crazy shit that I was doing’.”
That feeling, that completely losing yourself and maybe everything you thought you believed, is such a thrilling feeling that people lose their heads looking to lose themselves in it. Letting it go so you can be a little more sensible, a little more realistic, a little more adult … was that hard to do?
“I don’t think so. I think naturally, or the way I would like to view what I think is a healthy relationship, is that the love and obsession is still the same but it changes its form into other things,” she says. “While I’m still deeply, deeply in love and happy, in my mind [it’s]in a similar way when you were a child: I still like all the things I liked as a kid, but the things that I thought were boring as a kid I have an appreciation for now. My horizon and scope for things that I can appreciate have deepened.”
Boring!
“Love can sometimes be like that where at the very start you’re just doing the most crazy exciting things because of the whole novelty – you’re going out, drinking and being crazy – and I think we still do a lot of that, it’s just that there’s appreciation for the more calm, secure moments,” Fields responds calmly, refusing to fall for the bait. “It’s really beautiful when it does settle into sustainability and you can give that relationship longevity by working on those ‘boring’ things like how we coexist in a space, how we respect each other’s boundaries blah blah blah blah blah.
“I would say you’re always going to look back so beautifully on the initial months of something – you can’t repeat novelty – but I don’t think that diminishes the meaning and the beauty of the familiarity of someone.”
Hmm, I wonder if this is connected to another point from this album out today, Small Achievements: Fields sings at one point that she lost her edge. What happened to her edge, and what brought it back?
“My edge? I think a big part of it was Covid. For me I was about 21 when Covid hit and to that point I had only ever been a child, in high school, and then went straight into the music industry.”
Which is just childhood, with more money or better drugs.
“Or less money,” she smiles.
This is true.
“As soon as Covid hit I was like, ‘ok what other skills have you got? What’s your personality besides thinking you’re cool for getting on stage and drinking a beer? You need to actually grow as a person now.’ And I think I did a lot of that through Covid, or I tried to, and when we went to release our first album another wave of Covid hit and I started to lose myself a little bit. In a previous relationship, for sure, but just as much in my own mind.”
And then?
“Then the last few years have been this slow progress of growth back into who I am, what I want to do, my passion, my ambitions. Obviously, at a point where I met my current partner, who plays lead guitar in the band now as well, when I met him, as much as I loved to say life doesn’t come to you, you make it happen – life comes from you, not to you – I definitely think I did a lot of hard work to get myself out of the rut I was in.
"But … a little sprinkling of a fresh love can really help to fast track a few things to get you feeling good about yourself again. And as you can see half the songs on the album a kind of about it.”
One of the skills that Covid and lockdown unlocked completely in Fields is the crafting of and repair to guitars, something which began when she was 15 and intrigued by the skill of the a former aircraft engineer and surfer working on her guitar. A 6-pack of beer, an open mind to knowledge, and obvious interest saw her invited to watch and learn, then learn and work.
Is there something spiritual in working with the wood, with her hands, with the making of what makes music? Meditative even when everything else around her might be going nuts?
“[Her teacher]’s approach was half spiritual, half physics, which is how I’d almost describe myself. I’m very much rooted in this logical world of mathematics and physics but I’m also in this whimsical world in the other part of my brain which is really creative,” she describes.
“Working with wood is such a peaceful thing to do, as a craft, but combining the electronics and learning about magnetic fields and all those things, actually building something and having that sound come to life, the whole process of it feels, like you said, very meditative. There’s a feeling in there that I don’t even get on stage.”
It’s not a big leap from the way each instrument Fields crafts being something special, an achievement even in a small way, to the new album’s self-declared interest in and encouragement of exactly those small achievements.
“I wanted to – and look, I’m not splitting the atom with the concept – have another reminder that a small achievement is anything that you want to set it as. You’re allowed, very much so, dive into the celebration of an achievement whether it’s a hard conversation with somebody, you booked a flight somewhere or you quit a job. Anything that you’ve done to contribute to your own and other people’s happiness is an achievement.”
But deeper down it feels like an encouragement across the record to find a reason to value yourself, and then all the other things around it. Small achievements that maybe no one else will see or recognise but that you value and build from. See small things, see smallness, but see value in them.
“I couldn’t agree more with that, finding parts about yourself to value.”
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Small Achievements is out today.
APPLE MUSIC: Listen to Ruby Field - Small Achievements
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Ruby Fields plays
The Croxton, Melbourne, April 24
Manning Bar, Sydney, May 2
Princess Theatre, Brisbane, May 9
The Gov, Adelaide, May 14
Freo Social, Fremantle, May 16