By: Karen Steinberg
Photo By Andrea Riba
Q) Your music is often described as “indie pop,” but how would you describe your sound?
A) I’d describe my sound as a “Laurel Canyon Western.” It’s cinematic, nostalgic pop that pulls a lot from the ’60s and ’70s, Laurel Canyon, Old Hollywood and the American West. With HOLLYWOODLAND, I kept joking that I wanted it to sound like if David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino made a country record. There’s a lot of orchestration, western guitars, big harmonies and vintage textures, but ultimately I still love pop music and really strong melodies. I like making music that feels like it could have existed 50 years ago but still feels current.
Q) Who are some of your musical influences?
A) I grew up listening to so many different kinds of music and I think that really comes through in what I make. For HOLLYWOODLAND, I was listening to a lot of ABBA, the Bee Gees, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Fleetwood Mac, Glen Campbell, Burt Bacharach, ELO and Chris Isaak. I’m also hugely inspired by film. Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch were probably just as influential on this project as any musician was. I tend to think about music very visually, so movies, fashion, photography and places are always part of my musical influences, too.
Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “Hollywoodland.”
A) “HOLLYWOODLAND” at its core is about trying to find real love in a city where dating can feel incredibly transient. It’s supposed to be one woman talking to another across the bar in a very Dolly Parton-esque way. The whole HOLLYWOODLAND universe is this romanticized, fictional version of Los Angeles that I created in my head. It’s glamorous and beautiful on the surface, but there’s something slightly lonely and cursed underneath it. The song really became the thesis statement for the entire EP because it captures that tension between falling in love with the fantasy of Hollywood and experiencing the reality of heartbreak and loneliness within it.
Q) The song features live orchestral elements and drums. Why was that so important to you?
A) I wanted this project to feel alive. So much of the music that inspired HOLLYWOODLAND was made before you could endlessly perfect everything on a computer and I love the humanity that comes from hearing real musicians playing together. We used live orchestral elements, real musicians, and drums cut to tape throughout the project. I wanted everything to have movement and warmth and little imperfections.
Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?
I think there’s something very universal about romanticizing a place or a person and then realizing the reality is more complicated than the fantasy. “HOLLYWOODLAND” is specifically about Los Angeles and dating here, but you don’t have to live in LA to understand that feeling of wanting something to be this beautiful movie in your head and then having real life refuse to follow the script.
Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?
A) My favorite way to listen to music these days is in my car. Living in LA and the South Bay, I spend so much time driving and inevitably sitting in traffic on the 405, so a lot of the music I fall in love with becomes the soundtrack to driving around Los Angeles. People tell me a lot that my songs are “car music” since they’re songs they put on for road trips or while they’re driving, haha, which I love.
So, I thought it would be beautiful to make the visuals for this project driving through LA in a vintage convertible. It’s also a little nod to my own life because I drive a convertible (although definitely not one as cool as the one in the music video). There’s something about driving through Los Angeles with music playing that feels incredibly cinematic and old school to me and I wanted the videos to capture that feeling.
Q) HOLLYWOODLAND is also the name of your debut EP. What was it about your move back to LA from Paris that inspired this EP?
A) When I moved back to Los Angeles from Paris, I think I needed to find a way to fall in love with LA again. Paris is a city where romance and history are everywhere, so coming back to LA felt like such a dramatic shift.
I started romanticizing this imaginary version of California from the ’60s and ’70s…driving Highway 1 at sundown in a convertible, dressing up in oversized sunglasses and snakeskin boots, house parties in Laurel Canyon. I was making playlists from that era, researching the clothes and films and eventually this entire world started forming.
At the same time, my actual life in Los Angeles was pretty messy. There was heartbreak and loneliness and confusion happening underneath all of that glamour. So, HOLLYWOODLAND became this fictional 1974 movie that allowed me to turn what I was actually experiencing into something beautiful.
Q) What is your songwriting process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?
A) I actually think I start by writing worlds before I write songs. I usually have a very clear visual universe in my head first, almost like I’m scoring a movie that doesn’t exist yet. I make these really detailed creative decks with films, photographs, fashion, colors, production references and music that I want the project to feel like.
Once I can see the movie clearly enough, the soundtrack starts revealing itself. From there, the actual songwriting can happen in different ways. Sometimes a lyric or concept comes first, sometimes a melody does and sometimes we’re building the production while I’m writing. I don’t think I have one rigid formula.
Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?
A) A large hand. I have a lot of opinions when it comes to the production, mixing and mastering of my records and I like to be really involved at every stage of the process. I know so much of that work is done virtually these days, especially mixing and mastering, but whenever possible I really like being in the room.
I can get pretty in the weeds with that stuff because I think every stage of making a record is so important to how the final song feels. I feel incredibly lucky to work with such talented producers and engineers who are willing to collaborate with me to bring whatever crazy vision I have in my head to life.
Q) Which song(s) off HOLLYWOODLAND holds a special place in your heart and what makes it stand out so much to you?
A) Honestly, they all hold a special place in my heart, but I have a particular love for the instrumental moments on this record like the horn solos in “FOREVERMORE” and “KODACHROMATIC” and the strings intro of “HOLLYWOODLAND.” I just have such a love for orchestral arrangements and those moments in the songs where everything suddenly comes together and reaches this beautiful crescendo feel so cinematic to me, like they could be the soundtrack to a scene in a movie.
Q) What do you hope listeners take away from listening to your debut EP as a whole—either as a message or emotion?
A) I don’t know that there’s necessarily one specific thing I want people to take away from the EP. What excites me most is the idea that these songs might become the soundtrack to special moments in someone else’s life and, eventually, take on meanings completely separate from what they meant to me when I wrote them.
As a songwriter, obviously you make records about specific experiences from your own life, but I never want to impose what a song means to me onto the listener. I want people to be able to take these songs and let them become whatever they’re supposed to become in their own lives.
A funny example is John Mayer’s version of “XO.” That has become my airplane takeoff song. I listen to it every time my plane takes off and now I associate it with this feeling of launching into a new adventure. I’m pretty sure that was not what anyone had in mind when they made that song [laughs], but that’s the meaning it has taken on in my life. I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about music. Once you release a song, it doesn’t really belong only to you anymore.
Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?
A) The places that feel most significant to me are the venues I played growing up in Seattle. I was in a girl band with my sister and cousin and we performed all around the city growing up. A lot of those venues we played multiple times, so I have so many core memories attached to them.
The Crocodile, The Neptune Theatre, El Corazon, The Vera Project, Fremont Abbey and Neumos and MoPop all hold a really special place in my heart. Going back to those places now immediately reminds me of being a kid and falling in love with music.
Q) What can fans expect from a live Tiger La Flor performance?
A) I want it to feel like you’ve walked onto the set of a variety show in 1974. The live show is an extension of the same universe as the records and videos, so I’m really interested in making it feel like more than just getting onstage and playing the songs.
I also grew up playing in bands, so the musicianship and chemistry of having a real band onstage is really important to me. My sister plays drums and my cousin plays bass with me, which makes it especially fun because we’ve been playing music together for years. I want it to feel glamorous and cinematic, but still like a rock-and-roll show.
Q) What songs off your EP are you looking forward to performing live?
A) Definitely “BAD COMPANY” because I get to do my ABBA-esque dance moves to that one. I also love performing “FOREVERMORE” because the song is just so over-the-top and dramatic. One day I would love to have live mariachi horns onstage for that one.
Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?
A) I really love artists who make music bilingually. I lived in Barcelona when I was in high school and later lived in Paris, so I speak Spanish and some French, so I’ve always loved discovering music that moves between languages and cultures. There’s a long list of artists I’d love to collab with who exist somewhere in that intersection like Tao Mon Amour, Niko Rubio, Vendredi sur Mer, Sofía Valdés, Cuco, Claudia Bouvette, Estrada and Pink Pablo.
And if we’re talking dream collab, I’d say the Spanish artists I discovered while living in Spain like Rosalia, Marc Seguí, Pol Granch, and Sen Senra would take the cake for me. I just think they’re the coolest people on planet earth, haha, pretty sure I’d just physically melt if I met any of them.
Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?
A) Who I’m listening to is constantly changing, but I just looked at my playlists and apparently I’m on a major kick of revisiting all the artists I loved in high school. I think the music you listen to in middle school and high school just gets embedded in your DNA somehow and you always have a special place in your heart for it.
So, lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Blood Orange, James Bay, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Father John Misty, Men I Trust, The Head and The Heart, The Marias, Cigarettes After Sex, Grizzly Bear, Japanese Breakfast, Rex Orange County, Khruangbin and Orville Peck. Those artists all have a special place in my heart.
Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?
A) Just thank you. Truly. One of the strangest and most beautiful parts of making music is creating something out of these incredibly personal experiences and then watching people you’ve never met find pieces of their own lives inside of it.
I put so much of myself into HOLLYWOODLAND, not just the songs but the videos, visuals, storytelling and entire world surrounding it. So, seeing people care about it, share it and make these songs part of their own lives means the world to me. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who’s been along for the ride, whether you’ve been here for years or you just discovered my music today.