Through its exploration of the depths of lockdown-induced isolation and the tumultuous journey of a relationship breakdown, So This Is Love serves as a testament to Cash Savage's extraordinary capacity for heartfelt expression.
The album opens with its titular, mournfully cathartic track, So This Is Love – where Savage explores the aftermath of her marriage dissolution. “I intentionally was really vulnerable in the lyrics – more vulnerable than was comfortable for me,” she admits.
“As much as I wasn’t intentionally trying to highlight fragility, I was fragile,” Cash continues. “But for me, one of the hardest parts of this album is how vulnerable and open I’m being, which is a very uncomfortable space for me to be in.
“And it may come across as it isn’t – but it really, it is. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m actually quite private.”
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Singing “I’m not mine / You’re not yours / So this is love / It’s everything I wanted it to be”, Savage captures the essence of the album’s title, which stems from her reflections on love. “If you measure a relationship by time, it doesn’t actually measure how happy the people are in it, or whether it’s good for either for them.” Cash explains. “It’s like – so this is what I asked everything I wanted in my love. I’ve got it all. But it isn’t working.
“I had a really successful relationship with my ex. And we still have a relationship, but it’s just in a very different phase. We loved other and still do – but it’s just not what either of us needs now. So, it’s changed.”
During their recent overseas tour, Cash Savage and The Last Drinks found themselves with a rare three-night break. Seizing the opportunity, they decided to tackle all the keyboard parts for their album in French château (“château is a very fancy word for what was an AirBnB in a small village,” she corrects me. “But it was definitely a French house.”)
This unique setup and the “incredibly thick walls” of the château – sorry, the house – allowed for a collective recording process. It involved not only Cash Savage, Roshan Khozouei, Nick Finch and Nao Anzai but also the rest of the band members in Dougal Shaw, Kat Mear, Rene Mancuso and Ed Fraser – whose contributions enriched the final result.
“It’s not something you’d plan for – because three nights off in Europe cost the band a lot of money. It just worked out like that,” she reflects.
“Each day, we would record all through the day and then we’d have a big cook up and sit on this huge long table and eat together. We made up a card game – we would argue over the rules of the card game. And then do it again the next day.”
Although they have been playing together for over a decade, the intensive nature of their last European tour took the band’s friendship to new heights.“You get to know each other pretty intimately – I mean, you’re side by side on a tour bus for hours on end. It adds a real level of camaraderie to the team. There’s a lot of respect in our strengths, we’re all very respectful of each other as humans and as musicians.”
In the end, the closeness among the band members created an environment where Cash Savage could comfortably share vulnerability within her songwriting. “I feel pretty held by them,” she acknowledges. “I’m not presenting these songs for the first time to the world without having given them first to my friends, you know?”
“I’ve been working with Nick since I was 14. Some of the members are also my best friends and my confidants. When I bought these feelings to them as songs, we had already been discussing them as, as people, you know – just as conversations.”
Through Cash Savage’s raw vulnerability and the collaborative efforts of The Last Drinks, the album encapsulates a cathartic journey of self-discovery, resilience and the bittersweet beauty of love’s complexities. “I hope that people can identify and relate with the songs. But that’s about as far as I go when it comes to what I want out of it.
“Because the songs aren’t mine anymore. I do think of it as giving them away – it’s actually part of processing my feelings, to give those songs to everyone else.”
Cash Savage and The Last Drinks are playing The Corner Hotel on June 23. Tickets here.
