Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: My artist name, which is technically my second first name, is Carmina. I was born in 2002 in Berlin, Germany and am currently 21 years old. I’ve been making music ever since I was a little kid. As a child in elementary school, I used to go to choir practice weekly, where we would have different musical performances every year. It was just in front of the students and parents but for me it felt huge. Music and performing gave me a way of expressing my feelings and creativity that I couldn’t do otherwise. It helped me to process my feelings and find my own voice. When I was little, I mainly listened to classical music from the choir and music from Disney movies like Arielle. I was 9 years old when I first consciously discovered music that I was head over heels with. My best friend at the time gifted me her 2012 TOGGO CD with the top hit songs of the year. It had stars on like Carly Rae Jepsen, Sia and Justin Bieber but who really stood out to me was Katy Perry with her song „Part Of Me“. This song immediately struck a chord with me. I didn’t really understand much of the lyrics back then, because I couldn’t speak English yet, but I knew that this, being pop music, was what I liked and that I wanted to do the same. It was that day, when I realized I wanted to do music for the rest of my life and that this was my passion. Ever since that day, I listened to that CD up and down, learned all of the songs on it and started looking the lyrics up on YouTube. This opened me up to a whole new world, being the internet. From ages 9 to 12 I would spend hours everyday watching music videos like Starships by Nicki Minaj, watching lyric videos and cover songs of Megan Nicole. Learning song lyrics and watching celebritiy interviews is actually the main way I learned the English language. At age 11 my uncle Ingo, who played in a small rock band in his teenage years, began teaching me how to play the guitar. He was a really skilled guitar player and I was mesmerized by his talent. Although my focus has always been and is still more on singing, I really wanted to learn how to play the guitar, so that I could accompany myself with it, learn how to play my favorite songs and also write my own songs with it. My uncle, who was a carpenter, gifted me my very first guitar on Christmas 2015, which he customized with pink, glittery paint and a silver lining. I was about 12 years old when my uncle started regularly teaching me how to play the guitar. This was at around the same time I joined the „rock band“ of my high school as one of ca. 3-5 singers. From then on, I went to weekly band practices, which would always be the absolute highlight of my week. I loved the feeling of making music with other people and trying to find the best way to harmonize with each other and make the best out of every performance. It wasn’t always as easy though. Us having been always around 3 to 5 singers every year, there was a lot of drama on who was the better singer or who got to sing the better part or get a solo song to perform at the graduations at the and of the year. This competitiveness was the part about making music that I didn’t like. It was also challenging to find the right songs that we all as a band of ca. 12 people could agree on, with some people like me being more into pop and ballads and others being into rock music and heavy metal. But at the end of the day, I stayed in that band for 5 years and enjoyed every moment of it. It was the first time I got to perform as a singer in front of ca. 500 people and it helped me a lot to grow as a person and learn how to work with other people. Back then, I was heavily focused on the sound of Pop music and ballads but as I got older, ca. age 15, I also got into other genres like indie rock, alternative, singer songwriter music and dance music. When I was 13, I began posting cover videos to YouTube, just trying to get my voice out there, even though my videos weren’t of the best quality. Shortly after, inspired by Meghan Trainors performances with her Ukulele, I got myself a ukulele and started practicing on it and writing songs with it. I have also written a few simple songs before, since I was 9, but this was the first time where I really understood how chords and music worked and really got into songwriting as well, besides singing.
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Carmina”?
A: For now, I am planning to grow my fanbase by sharing my music and also some covers of my favorite songs on my social media as well as participating in multiple music related contests for indie artists in Germany. Besides that, I want to start playing at small venues and open mics in Berlin in order to get my voice heard. To anyone who discovers Carmina I would say „get ready to cry, fall, stand up, kick back and dance“.
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
A: I can’t really pin down who inspires me the most as an artist to one person. I have recently this year gotten really into Chappell Roan and Tally Spear. Chappell inspires me, because she is unapologetically herself and stands up for what she believes in. Also, she doesn’t just do music, she is music, she breathes music. Her music is like none other we’ve ever heard before since the 80ies. She has a unique style, an incredible, very distinguishable voice, funky instrumentals and extremely catchy lyrics. I like that she isn’t like anybody else and that when you see or hear her you can immediately say „This is Chappell“ without a doubt. Tally Spear, I also discovered this year. She is an independent indie pop/rock/punk artist, with a sound similar to early Avril Lavigne. I absolutely adore her and her music, because it is really relatable – it feels so unpolished and real. It’s basically the definition of rebellion and individualism. And I’m rooting for that. I also love that Tally uses real instruments like the drums and the electric guitar that she and her band play. You can tell that there is a real passion and a real human behind her music. Besides that, she’s also vocally incredibly gifted. She has a strong, yet sort of soothing tone that makes you want to scream your heart out. What I also enjoy about her is that her music isn’t focused on romantic relationships, like many other artists focus their work on, and it’s also not about status symbols of any sort. It’s about real life experiences anybody could relate to like feeling like an imposter or anxiety put into a catchy, rocky sound. It’s all feel, no pretend. The other two artists I currently enjoy are Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams. Sabrina Carpenter, I have listened to since 2014 and have always thought she was a really gifted singer and songwriter. She started so early, and still had no misses ever in my opinion. I love how self assured, sassy and confident she is. I think Sabrinas music is the definition of „cool and catchy“. She makes you want to dance and put on a little show for yourself in the bathroom. But she isn’t limited to that. She also has a variety of songs going deeper into her personal experiences and feelings. Her songs resonate deeply with me and she is one of those artists that make me feel understood, like I’m not going through my struggles alone. To me, Sabrina Carpenter is proof that if you consistently put in the work and don’t give up on your dreams, it will pay out. She’s 10 years into the industry and only recently made it big. I am so happy for her and proud of her that she is getting so much recognition right now. Gracie Abrams, I recently realized I’ve actually listened to since 2021, but I didn’t know who she was back then. Recently I discovered her newer songs and fell back in love with her sound. What I like about Gracie as an artist is how simple really she keeps her aesthetic and her music. Her songs have a clear tone and a clear message about her personal experiences. They seem to give a really raw insight into her life and mind and I appreciate how she managed to make her vulnerability into art. I love the softness and the emotion behind her voice. I love the lyricism and the stories her songs convey. She sings about struggles in relationships that I believe many of us can relate to. She puts into music, what words alone can’t express. And this is exactly what I want to do too.
My inspiration when writing my own songs comes mainly from remembering life experiences, talking to other people about their stories, walking through nature and of course also by listening to other artists and finding a sound I like. My inspiration for starting to play the ukulele as somewhat of a „signature“ in my songs (that have yet to come out) actually came from Meghan Trainor. I used to be a huge fan of her when I was a Teenager and desperately wanted to learn her song „Just a Friend To You“ on the Ukulele, so I immediately got one and started playing the Ukulele at age 13 and it stuck with me ever since.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the song, “Not Sunny.”?
A: Not Sunny is partially about my struggles dating somebody that didn’t actually care for me and constantly told me about other girls they used to see that were quite the opposite of me (one of them actually called Sunny). I didn’t want to face reality at that time, because I genuinely cared for this person, but deep down I knew they weren’t serious about me and secretly wanted something else and were also talking to other people behind my back. This “situation” ended when they met a girl at a party and immediately went official with her. I had to realize, it wasn’t that they didn’t want a relationship – they just didn’t want a relationship with me. They didn’t truly appreciate me for who I was and actually longed for someone exactly opposite from me, character wise and also in looks. That is why I chose Louisa to play Sunny in my music video, because she is exactly that, but in the best way possible. The song is also generally about feeling pressured by society, especially by men, to fit into a specific picture or norm of what is considered attractive and fun, and therefore comparing yourself to others and struggling to accept the way you are. “Sorry I’m Not Sunny“ means two things for me: „Sorry I’m not her“ and „Sorry I’m not as outgoing, joyful and spontaneous as you want me to be“. I would say that I’m someone who sometimes tends to be in their head a lot and to worry about the future a lot, when I’m not doing music, which for some people can seem like I’m too reserved and not fun enough to have a good time with. The „Sorry“ in my song isn’t supposed to be an actual apology for how I am, it is more of an rhetorical way of saying „Well, I will never be Sunny and if you can’t accept that you should just tell me and leave me alone instead of leading me on“. The message I want the listeners, especially young women, to take from my song and my music video is that it is okay if somebody doesn’t like you. You should never feel like you need to fundamentally change who you are in order to be liked by someone else. There is someone out there for everyone, who will love you exactly for who you are and you shouldn’t settle for anything less. I would rather be left for who I am than to be loved for who I am not. This is what I tried to show metaphorically in the last scene of my music video, where I put the flower stem onto the ground, after fully picking the flower (the He loves me, He loves me not game) and finally come to terms with the fact that „He loves Me Not“, this relationship is over and for him „in the end it’s always Sunny“ (as in the type of person he wants). Also, I want to make clear that in this story there is no „better“ girl or person you should be. Me and Sunny/Louisa are both beautiful and valuable in our own individual ways and both our perspectives are equally valid. Basically the message of the song is that you should stay true to yourself, no matter how hard it may be.
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
A: pure
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording “Not Sunny”?
A: My main challenge writing Not Sunny was that I actually started writing it over 2 years ago, while the situation was still ongoing, and only recently finished writing it, now being in a new long term relationship, where I can’t really relate to my younger self as much anymore. Back then, when I started writing the song, I was incredibly heartbroken, angry and emotional. Now, I don’t think about that person at all anymore and I am actually glad we never officially got together because I din’t really like their personality as much either, because they indeed were very different from me. Realizing this, it was challenging for me to go back in time, trying to reminisce how I felt about this person and generally how this situation made me feel. The second verse of the song was written last and it describes the kind of connection I had with the person the song is inspired by. It took me quite a while before it came to me what I could write about on this section that doesn’t describe „the other women“ Sunny, but my relationship with the person. When recording the song, what was difficult for me was going into myself to look for the same feeling I had back then and convey it with my voice. I think I partially succeeded with that but to me it is clear that I am truly over this situation and I do not care anymore. If I wrote any other song like this, concerning dating issues, it would probably also be more retrospective, because I have changed a lot the past few years and I am a lot less insecure in my personality.
Q: What is the message of your music? And what are your goals as an artist?
A: The message of my music in general is that your feelings are valid, your perspective is valid, you are not going through your struggles alone and sometimes it’s also valid to cut things or people out of your life that don’t serve you.
To me, music is a way to communicate, to feel and to connect with other people. My goal isn’t primarily to become well known or extremely successful. I want people to find me, that will resonate with my music and the topics I write about on a deeper level. I want to make them feel seen and heard. I want little girls to look up to me with a smile, trusting that everything will be okay. I also want to inspire people to follow their on path in life, not feeling like they have to follow the footsteps of their parents or any societal norms.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
A: I would love to collaborate with Perrie Edwards, former member of Little Mix. I have been a big fan of her back when she was in Little Mix and I am very excited for her new solo era as well. I like her new 60ies/70ies vibe she got going on and that she is finally finding her own personal music style. I think it aligns quite well with mine. And also I just think Perrie seems like she would be super sweet to work with.
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
A: Do not wait for other people’s approval to go do great things. Do not wait for someone else to believe in you. Before anything, you need to believe in yourself first. The only thing you need to create art is your voice/instrument and your unique story and perspective, that nobody else has. This quote I’ve stolen from somewhere but I agree with it so much „No one is you, and that is your superpower“. We all have our own purpose and part in this world and for me I believe it is to inspire and unite people through my music. My other advice to people trying to enter the music industry, like myself right now, is to finally publish that song that’s been laying around for years and to finally go to that Open Mic Show, or contest you always wanted to attend. Also, try to gather as many creative people you know to build a little network in the industry, no matter how small. Contacts are everything. I couldn’t have filmed my music video if it wasn’t for calling up my old class mate, who became a colorist, to help me film it. You don’t need to work with the most renowned people and expensive equipment or a label in order to achieve a good result.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
A: Do not let anybody try to tell you what you can and can’t be. You are the only one in charge to build your life. And any decision you make, could completely turn your life around. Take that risk, don’t try to take the easy way out of things.
