By: Alejandra Gil M
Q) How would you describe your sound?
A) I like to describe my music as introspective indie pop. My vocal tone is uniquely me and it’s what brings consistency to all of my songs. I love working with different producers, so the style of production varies from song to song based upon my listening habits at the time, but my songwriting will always be the core of my music. Songwriting is the way I process my emotions, so my lyrics are normally very thoughtful, genuine, emotion-based and accessible.
Q) Your single “will i ever feel like this again?” came out at the top of the year and I have been listening to it on repeat. Talk about the story behind it.
A) Aw, I’m so glad you loved it! Thank you!
I wrote this song when I started to realize the person that I thought I loved was very wrong for me. Our relationship was so toxic, and I knew I needed to walk away, but he made me feel something I had never felt before. I knew I was being used and manipulated so I wrote this song to process those conflicting feelings.
Q) The single navigates the levels of apathy and heartbreak inside toxic relationships. What do you hope people take away from it?
A) My hope is that people who listen to the song will feel less alone in their conflicting emotions. Walking away from any relationship is never easy and it takes a lot of courage to let go. I hope this song resonates with those who are going through a similar situation, and it makes them feel understood and comforted in a way.
I end the song with the lines, “it’s a little sad but I know / it hurts less when you let go / I’ll grow up and I’ll move on / but sometimes… / I don’t wanna fall for another / I just want you here to pull me close.”
I felt trapped because I knew it was hurting me to stay in the relationship, but I knew it would also hurt to leave. At the end of the song, I came to realize that I could only heal if I let go of the relationship. I also recognized that it would be difficult and there would still be some days when I missed aspects of this relationship. I chose to walk away, and it was so difficult at the time, but now my life is so much lighter without this person in it.
Q) A music video was also posted with the song, both the song and video dropped via Quadio Records. How involved were you in developing the concept for the video?
A) My best friend Jade and I developed the entire concept for the video together. It was really fun to create it together because she knew all of the details of the relationship that the song was about, so we were able to make the video very personal and symbolic.
Q) Since the debut of your single “lost in brooklyn” from 2018, you’ve gathered over 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and over 1 million streams on the song, but a lot of people don´t know that you lost your voice for more than a year before releasing your latest single. How did that affect you?
A) In 2018 I was living in Sydney, Australia and I flew to LA to record vocals for “lost in brooklyn.” I got sick on the plane ride there and was already losing my voice by the time I got to LA. I decided to push through and record vocals anyway, but I ended up really hurting my vocal chords in the process and I couldn’t sing without pain for a year afterwards. During that year there were periods of time where I would completely lose my speaking voice for weeks and sometimes when I couldn’t even hum. There were so many times that I thought I was going to have to give up my dream of making music, and I really struggled with depression a lot that year. It would hurt to talk so I spent a lot of time on my own reading, writing and playing instruments. I never really fully realized how much joy singing brought to my life until it was stripped away from me. I moved to Nashville in 2019 and started seeing a vocal therapist who inevitably helped me to get my voice healthy again toward the end of 2019. During that time, I realized how precious of a gift the ability to sing is. I always loved singing, but I never really liked to sing for people because I used to be very uncertain about my voice and vocal style. That year I promised myself that if I could ever sing again without pain, I would stop second guessing myself and give everything I had to make music.
Q) I know the video was filmed throughout Downtown Los Angeles and alternates between scenes that represent phases of loss and acceptance. Why do you think it was important to represent that in the video?
A) Healing comes in waves and recovering from any sort of trauma, loss, or breakup is always a process. We filmed three different scenes to represent three different phases of emotions I was experiencing at the time. The first scene in the blue room represents numbness, apathy, and fear. The rain room represents the sadness and loneliness I felt when I realized I needed to walk away. The third location where I’m running in the underpass represents the freedom I experienced when I finally decided to walk away.
Q) What was the writing process like for the song? Do you have the lyrics or the music first?
A) I wrote the song “will I ever feel like this again?” a year and a half ago in Nashville, after getting back from a trip to Los Angeles. I always secretly loved one of my best guy friends who lived there, but I always knew he would be bad for me, so I always tried to ignore my feelings. On this particular trip I realized how much I was attracted to him. Even though I knew he wasn’t right for me, he made me feel something I had never felt before. I was so conflicted on telling him how I felt because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I loved making music with him and I knew things would get complicated if he felt the same way.
I just started playing the piano and singing to process how I was feeling and wrote most of the song in that first sitting. I later finished writing the song and I knew I wanted it to be produced with a mix of guitar and soft electronic elements. I sent the demo to my friend Seth Lopez who is an amazing jazz guitar player, and he wrote some guitar parts for it, then my friend Ryan who goes by the artist name “ry flora” produced the track from there!
Q) And now you’ve dropped “whole foods parking lot.” Tell us about the new song and are the two tracks connected?
A) Yes! Both of these songs are about the same person, so they’re definitely connected! I decided to walk away from the relationship after I wrote “will i ever feel like this again?” Our ending was very dramatic and complicated. I ended up having to cut him out of my life completely and block him on everything. I was honestly pretty terrified of him after I left and I never wanted to see him again and then two months later, I ran into him in the whole foods parking lot in DTLA. I freaked out and had a panic attack in my car then I came home and wrote this song.
Q) What was it like when you finally decided to release “whole foods parking lot” after it took off on TikTok?
A) Initially, I had no plans on releasing the song or even finishing it. I only started writing it to make myself feel better because I was freaking out and I didn’t know what to do. I recorded the chorus right after I wrote it and posted the first take on TikTok. I opened TikTok a few hours later to find so many comments of people saying they loved it or related to it and that gave me the courage to finish it. I was so scared to release it because it was so real and specific, but that’s also what made the song so special to me. I was also nervous to release it because obviously he will know it’s about him if he hears it and I didn’t want him to think I wanted him back in my life because I definitely don’t. [laughs]
Q) You have been writing poetry since you were seven years old, competing in sports and pageants. How did that prepare you for your dive into the music industry?
A) I’ve always loved running and exercising and that’s definitely taught me how important it is to keep showing up, regardless of how you feel. Competing in pageants gave me a lot of practice singing and speaking on stage which was definitely helpful, but poetry has definitely had the biggest impact on my music career. I’ve always been obsessed with reading and writing poetry and that’s what first enabled me to start writing songs. When I first started, I would just take lines of poetry I had already written and sing them over chords. I’ve taken a lot of poetry classes and I use a lot of what I learned from analyzing poetry in my songwriting.
Q) With concerts currently on hold, what do you miss most about live performances?
A) I miss concerts sooo much!! I used to go to a few shows every week, so this past year was so strange without them. I was lucky enough to be able to go to a few drive-in shows recently, but I’m dying for live music to come back. Going to shows has always been my favorite thing in the world, but I’ve actually never performed my own songs outside of playing small acoustic sets for my friends and family. I’ve always loved performing though so I’m so excited to actually play my own show some day once that’s possible again.
Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?
A) I looove collaborating, so I have a really long list of artists that I would want to work with! A few of my dream collabs right now would be brakence, eden, dominic fike, jeremy zucker, alexander23, dayglow, briston maroney and conan gray.
Q) What would you like to say to fans and supporters of you and your music?
A) Thank you sooo much for all of your support and sweet messages!! It means the world to hear that something I wrote connected with you. Any time someone messages me that they love my songs or playlists, it makes me so happy. So, thank you so much for streaming my music and helping me make my dreams come true. <3