Although it’s been long since the death of East Coast bohemia, glimmers of it still shine in the locus of Trash Mountain, a house that is painted pink sitting atop a decommissioned landfill site in Burlington, Vermont and has become a hub for artists, of any sense of the word, in the area. Bringing together creatives, musicians, and friends-of-friends, Trash Mountain is a central locale for hosting neighborhood clean-ups, pot-lucks, and gigs from local and touring artists; it’s also the foundation of singer-songwriter Lily Seabird’s most recent album, aptly titled Trash Mountain.
Seabird didn’t necessarily intend for her career to become what it is today but following her bass accompaniment for psychedelic-folk artist Liz Cooper’s 2022 tour, the road called and she answered. Her performing career is just now slowing down after having been in perpetual motion, going back-to-back on tours, both solo and with other Vermont-based artists Lutalo, Greg Freeman, and the aforementioned Liz Cooper in 2022 and 2023.
Despite its significance throughout the entirety of her discography, Lily Seabird isn’t originally from Burlington. The Pennsylvania native moved to the city seven years ago and has resided in Trash Mountain for the past two. It was the first place she truly considered home.
Lily Seabird’s intentionally sparse vocals, grounded lyrics, and overall intimate ambience in Trash Mountain make for something in music that I look for every single time: Comfort. Whereas her first two albums, Beside Myself (2021) and Alas (2024) explore themes of grief and death with an intense, poignantly-unsettling approach, her junior album is rationally more placid, a reflection of the way grief settles over time.
I sat down with Lily following her first performance of the Trash Mountain tour and discussed her high-school whereabouts, the parallels of bad weather between Burlington and Manhattan, doodling, and her rockin’ songwriting skills.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You were in an all girl punk band in high school, which is really cool but your newest album isn’t necessarily punk in the definition. Would you say the creative process in making music for a punk band versus this more individual singer-songwriter, folk approach differ from each other?
I feel like I’m still writing from the same point of view. For something to be punk, it doesn’t have to be loud from an outsider perspective. The core of all my songwriting has always started in more of a softer, writing-in-my-room-on-the-guitar type of thing and Trash Mountain is a record that sounds like that but it’s all flowing from the same space of creativity.
Do you ever plan on making more punk music in the future or do you still make music with that genre in your own time?
My last album still had some really heavy aspects. I mean, we were just fucking around when I was 15 with guitars, so probably not, but it was really fun to incorporate elements of that into songs. This album has softer parts to it but it definitely also has those loud parts that I focused on in high school too. It’s not like I’m making quite folk rock now but I think it’s a dynamic thing. If you come to a live show there’ll be parts that are really quiet and parks that are extremely rocking, it’s both.
On your stage name, I think it really matches this more recent music you’re putting out. Is there any significant story behind the moniker?
Yeah, it was actually given to me when I was 15- so like 11 years ago- by some stupid guy I was dating in high school where we’d break up and then get back together all the time. My real name is Lily Seward, but people always mispronounce it to where it sounds like Lily C-word, like c-word as in cunt and this guy was like, oh, Lily C-word because like you’re such a fucking cunt and I was like, “what the hell?”.My boyfriend at the time’s friend who I always imagine in a stoner voice kept calling me a seabird like, “Dude, she’s a seabird, man. She’s a seabird,” because c-word also sounds like seabird. He said something about how I always fly above all the shit he was saying or something. The friend was also a friend of mine that I used to play music with as a teen and we would always hang out,play guitar, and smoke weed.We all played in little bands together and they all just started calling me seabird after that. By the time I graduated high school, I don’t know, people just called me Lily Seabird all the time and it stuck with me and was always my name on the internet. I grew up in the time where my parents were always like, “Don’t put your real name on the internet” so when I was getting on the internet for the first time in high school and people were calling me Lily Seabird, I’d always use it as my internet name. A lot of people don’t know my real name.
A big part of your music, especially in this most recent album, is about what you call home and the fact that you’re from Burlington is also quite ubiquitous in all your media, so clearly your hometown means a lot to you. That being said, how do you make all the different places you visit during tour feel like home?
I’m not originally from Burlington, I moved here seven years ago but it’s definitely the first place I’ve really felt at home. The community is super awesome here and there’s a really special music scene. A lot of people make awesome music.The culture of Vermont and our small city is very small arts centered, music centered, community centered. I know all my neighbors and it’s just a really special place, I love it here. I don’t feel like I ever try to make it feel like home during tour. The road is like the second place I’ve found gives me that feeling of home. For the last four years, the web of people doing this is so fucking sick and beautiful. I love touring, but it’s always nice to come home to Burlington. I’ve only lived at Trash Mountain for two years and I’m actually moving out in a couple months so this record does feel like a very special timestamp. I feel like at the end of the day, all that matters is community and love and friendship so living here is really important to me and having found this place is really special to me.
I remember in my Spotify wrapped in 2023 my city’s genre was Burlington, Vermont and I was like… what is that?
Oh my gosh, yeah. Dude, people say this to me all the time. I literally remember when that happened and at first I was like, this is so weird because it told me I lived in Burlington, Vermont. And I was like, I do but I always wondered if it was a tourism thing that Burlington paid for to get more people to come here. It’s so funny but also probably just because Bernie Sanders lives here, it’s just all very progressive and liberal and gay and they’re like, “You listen to music from progressive liberal people”, so maybe that’s why.
I read that songwriting comes very naturally to you. Do you think there’s a specific reason why it’s so easy for you?
That’s a funny question. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question before, but it’s a good question. I’m a very intense feeling person and I honestly had no intention of trying to do this as anything besides because I wanted to. It feels super surreal that I’ve been doing this now for four years and don’t have a real career job. I went to college because I thought it was going to work at an environmental nonprofit. I never really saw this as like my future and it’s cool that it’s happening because I kind of just let things happen and go with the flow. I’m not too judgmental of a person and I don’t really think things through that much like I’m not a big planner. When I’m writing, I just go wherever it takes me and then it’s there. Maybe that’s why songwriting is easy for me, because I don’t have any expectations which is also why all my albums sound different.
Touching on your first two albums, they were written in the span of a year but Trash Mountain was written in three months which is obviously a very different time span. What factors contributed to the brevity of which you composed your newest album. Is there a reason Trash Mountain took a significantly less amount of time to create?
Most of the songs were all written at the same time, but there were a couple that are from the span of a year. There were multiple years between when I finished writing Alas where I wrote a bunch of songs that are not recorded now but might be recorded later. Then I thought, I like these three a lot and these will definitely be an album but I don’t want the rest of the songs on this album to be the ones I had previously written and ever since I’ve been on tour. I feel more connected with music in terms of all aspects of my life because I’m spending more time playing music than ever. I still have a lot of imposter syndrome and still feel so weird about everything but in the past, I kept thinking to myself, “Oh I’m not an artist, I don’t know what I’m feeling, and I don’t feel confident in myself,” Something clicked and I was like, “Shit, I’ve been doing this all this time. I’m a musician now, I should go write this next album.” I told myself that I’d write a song every day and really focus on it. Every time I felt inspired, I’d grab my guitar and just start writing. I came home last spring from tour and I was trying to get my shifts back from the restaurant that I worked at because when you come back from tour they don’t like to give you any shifts, but I was in a fucked up void where it was cold when I wrote this album. One song released in May, and the other came out in March, but the bulk of them were written in April and April sucks here. It’s cold and there’s garbage flying around everywhere that melted from under the snow so I was in a void of time and space and just sat in my room or outside playing guitar. That’s why it was different, because I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“Trash Mountain (1pm)” and “Trash Mountain (1am)” obviously have very similar titles. What is the significance of having the time difference?
Yeah, it’s actually funny because I didn’t call them that at first. It was just going to be part one and part two, but my manager knew I wrote one in the morning- well it was morning to me because I got back from tour, so really it was 1 PM, and then 1 AM. I wrote that one when I was really drunk and stoned walking home from the bar through the old north end of Burlington, where I’ve lived for like the last six, seven years, to Trash Mountain which is where I live. It looks like SimCity, it’s town, town, town and then my house and then the town ends. When you look out, it’s just darkness, but in the morning it’s beautiful too. The songs were me thinking about my time here at different times of day and different mindsets and in the end, I finished writing them in my yard, looking at Trash Mountain and then I came inside and recorded them so that’s the distinction. It’s also a bittersweet thing. I was journaling about this last night like, but my life is changing in so many ways.
Your main form of art is obviously creating music. Are there any other mediums you enjoy besides songwriting and performing?
I love to doodle. I was doodling while I’m talking to you in the corner hahah but I’ve always played in so many bands. I’ve played bass and guitar and toured the country.I’m always down to play in people’s bands but no I’m not really good at any other mediums. I tried to take up knitting but I’m not very good at it haha.
Yeah, that’s how I feel about crocheting.
I should try that, I heard it’s easier