Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: I grew up in a little town right outside Portland, Oregon called Lake Oswego. It’s only a 15 minute drive outside the city, but Portlanders will tell you it’s a day trip, ha! I started singing at a very young age, and had my first solo in kindergarten at my school’s yearly choir concert. As someone with dyslexia, I didn’t excel in many school classes, but singing was something that I understood, loved, and felt successful doing. As I started getting older I developed a passion for Pop music, and I was always really interested in the back story behind songs, how they were written, how they charted, fun facts, etc., and it made me want to start writing my own music. When I was 15 I got a keyboard for Christmas, and would poke out little melodies that I started writing lyrics to. Again, I felt successful doing it and shortly after writing my first couple songs I knew that a career in music is what I wanted.
Q: And what other artists have you found yourself listening to lately?
A: I’m in love with everything Jessie Ware is doing right now. She does a really good job of making disco sound modern and new. Ellie Goulding’s new album has also been playing a lot in my car. I’m enjoying her throwback 80s vibes.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences?
A: The Spice Girls were my gateway into Pop music. I was, and still am, a devoted Spice Girls fan. Britney Spears is my Pop queen, and it’s hard to find a song of hers that I don’t thoroughly enjoy and don’t know by heart. I’m also really influenced by the man who wrote and produced everyone’s favorite Pop songs, Max Martin. I can usually tell when a song is produced by Max Martin when I hear it. Feel free to quiz me some time 🙂
Q: You have just released your new single, ‘Outta My League’. Is there a story behind it?
A: I dated someone when I was 18 that I for sure thought was out of my league. I used to see him at this club I’d go to every Saturday, and I never approached him because I just thought “What’s the point? He won’t be interested.”, and after a few weeks of staring at him like a creep, he approached me and shortly afterwards we started dating. I had a journal back then that I used to write song ideas in, and jotted down the title “Outta My League” just because I liked the title. Cut to 2019, long after that relationship ended, I stumbled across that journal and opened it up to the page with “Outta My League” on it. It brought back all the emotions and thoughts I had at that time, and suddenly I found myself writing lyrics and creating a song around those memories.
Q: Can we expect a new EP or even an album from you in the near future?
A: Yes! There is an EP that I plan on releasing later this year. I just finished recording the final song off that EP, and I cannot wait to release it. It’s been a long time in the making.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: I enjoy making music with uplifting melodies, modern 80s vibes, and witty lyrics. I hope listeners pick-up on my desire to keep things light, and they find themselves immersed in a world that makes them smile, laugh, and dance.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: I mean, I’m always looking for more, but I do get a huge rush of serotonin whenever I create a song and hear the final product. Making music really fills my cup. I took a hiatus from making music for about four years, and during that time it felt like there was something really missing from my life. Turns out the thing that was making me feel incomplete was the lack of music creation in my life.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do you usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: My process is very long and super inefficient, but hey, it’s been working for me. The process usually starts with me humming a tune that I don’t realize I’m humming, then once I realize I’m humming something that sounds quite good, I hum it into the voice memo app on my phone. From there I start playing around with words or phrases that have a nice ring and flow to them, and fit well with the melody I created. Once I’ve nailed something down, I dive deeper into the words I just created, and ask myself “what could these words mean? Why did these words pop up in my mind? Is there something relevant in my life that these words could describe? What story could these words tell? I start creating lyrics around the answer to those questions, and it can sometimes take weeks, months, or even years (look at “Outta My League”) of me writing and rewriting, leaving the song and coming back to it, trashing the original idea and coming up with a new one, before I have completed the lyrics. When they’re done I create a rough draft of the song on Garageband, and then I send it off to my producer to help me bring the song to life. This is the usual process, but I have many more.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: As an independent artist it feels like you spend 10% of your time doing the thing you love (creating music, performing, etc.) and the other 90% trying to book gigs, creating assets for social media, setting up photoshoots, figuring out where to best allocate your limited funds, designing your website, updating your EPK, copywriting, promoting yourself, and playing the role of so many other people that would be doing all of this stuff for you at a record label so you can just do what it is you do best as an artist. It can be taxing, especially when all you really wanna do is be an artist,but despite these challenges, when I step out onto a stage, or hear people singing and enjoying my music- it’s totally worth it.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: Last year I got to play the mainstage at Portland Pride, and it was a very (no pun intended) proud moment for me. I spent many years trying to get on that stage, and it felt like all my hard work paid off…all that 90% of work I do outside of being an artist.
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