Success From Surrender
Breast Cancer Awareness month lends the perfect opportunity to acknowledge the triumphant journey to Carla Patullo’s GRAMMY win for So She Howls. With over 100 TV and film placements of her writing (including Spa Night, Teen Titans Go, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Skins (U.K.), Sabrina the Teenage Witch, L.A. A Queer History, etc.), the composer-artist-songwriter’s Best New Age Album win came as a surprise and she says, “I still feel lucky because this is tied with my survivorship of going through breast cancer, so there’s a lot of emotion there.”
Drawn to music from the singing and storytelling of her Italian grandmothers, Patullo turned to writing to navigate the grief of her grandparents’ passing when she was a teenager, recorded her first full-length album at 15. “I knew that I wanted to put out albums. Writing was something that I always wanted to do and felt I could really express myself doing,” she reveals. While touring and releasing albums with her band White Widow, Patullo met Sandra Bernhard and invited her to a show.
Liking what she was doing, Bernard invited Patullo to tour with her. “She brought me through this world of storytelling, developing those skills and looking at it from the audience’s perspective,” shares Patullo. “That helped me grow as an artist, gave me more dimension, [and] led me to film scoring. Instrumentation lines became cinematic [and I wanted] to find my voice with that.” Feeling fortunate for Sandra’s mentorship, Patullo hopes she can do the same for others, and that more independent [and underrepresented] artists get recognition.
Her creative methodology adapts to each project and Patullo considers herself genre-fluid, adding that White Widow was a raw, brash collaboration of musicians. Her film scores differ rom her personal music as they are more collaborative. “It’s a very different process when I work on my own songs and experiment more—sometimes [it] just flows out.” It usually starts with melody. “I learned post-cancer that if I'm feeling blocked creatively, there's something physically going on,” she says.
“I have to move, switch off, and keep things flowing. I write better and faster that way.” She emphasizes the importance of leaving space for the listener. “One of the hardest things for me as a composer is not overwriting,” she admits. “[Not] everything has to be a masterpiece. Putting that pressure on yourself is taking you in the wrong direction. Focus on what you need to say or feel, ask yourself what the piece is about—it should be a straightforward answer.”
The magic of So She Howls stems from its universality. “I was sharing my story but, in some form or another, [something] we all go through. Everything fell into place. It felt natural. I didn't have to push.” The record connects us all with a universal healing conversation that people often don't like to have: words unsaid and moments taken for granted that suddenly become a core memory. ”Cancer made me say, ‘Hey, this is it. This is life. Live it now,” says Patullo. “I was really tired while recording, but kept a lot of the vocals. Old Carla would've edited all that, but I kept [the] raw tracks.”
The process reminded her of her grandmothers’ recordings. “You're capturing this moment. Nowadays we have so many tools and we've gone crazy perfecting everything. It’s taking away the moment. Embrace the flaws.” Upcoming projects include a studio album for the musical Hurricane in collaboration with librettist Cory Hinkle, a solo electro-acoustic album that could include some teenage recordings (with the release of the first single next month), and a collaboration on an animated documentary about 1920’s pioneering European film director Lotte Reiniger.
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Experience Carla Patullo at carlapatullo.com
