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: Hey thank you so much for the opportunity to do this interview! My name is Agathya Visveswaran, I am 20 years old, born and raised in Rochester, New York, and I currently attend the University of Michigan. The biggest reason I wanted to start a career in music stemmed more from an absence of music in my life, rather than purely a love for it. I started college in the Fall of 2020, during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. I had been formally learning music my entire life up until that point, to where I had become sick of music itself. Three months into my first semester of college I got diagnosed with Covid-19 and had to quarantine alone for two weeks. The culminating isolation hit a deafening point. I distinctly remember opening up Garageband on my laptop one of those days, just for fun. Immediately, I was hit with an overwhelming sense of freedom and joy that I hadn’t felt in months. Time felt meaningless, as I was in a complete flow state. At that point, alone and isolated from the world, everything sort of clicked and I knew that my purpose lay in music. I love making music, but the reason I started a career in music is because I genuinely can’t live without it.
Q: Did you have any formal training, or are you self-taught?
A: I started learning classical guitar at the age of six, at the Hochstein School of Music. I would go on to learn jazz guitar at the Eastman School of Music, trumpet in middle and high school, and even took lessons in classical Carnatic South Indian vocals.
I do most of my music making on my own and am self-taught when it comes to the production and engineering aspect of my songs. I learned the basics through YouTube, but most of my experience in production and engineering simply comes through curiosity. I keep experimenting with different sounds and textures until it feels right, and when it does, I just know.
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences, and why the name ‘Agaaze’?
A: My first musical influence was my dad. My dad is a jazz drummer, and I would frequently attend rehearsals/gigs for the jazz combos he played in, as well as private lessons he took. I subconsciously soaked in as much as I possibly could as a five-year-old observer and would even play games with my dad where he would put on a track and then I would try to guess who the drummer was, based on sound and technique.
My strongest musical influence is Kevin Parker, aka “Tame Impala”. I discovered Tame in my senior year of high school, and something about his music resonated deeply with me. It wasn’t just the fact that I loved it, rather, hearing his music for the first time gave me this strange calling of “wait, I feel like I can do that”. It was almost like there was a part of me in his music that I hadn’t discovered yet. As I learned more about him, I found that his perfectionist ideology and experimentative approach to music was exactly what I sought after as a listener. The fact that all his albums are also solo projects was icing on the cake to get me started. I chose the name “Agaaze” because, firstly, I wanted a part of it to include my realname, so I chose the letters “Ag”. I also love space, and when I make my music, I try to imagine it as the feeling you get when you look up and gaze at the stars (so a play on the word “agaze”). I purposefully added the extra “a” because, being named “Agathya”, I learned that people are more likely to remember you when you have a unique name, even if they can’t exactly pinpoint what your name is (and even more so if they can’t pronounce it right!). So, yea, there’s a bit of personal connection as well as some psychology to the name.
Q: You have just released your new album ‘For You’. Is there a story behind it?
A: The story behind “For You” is one that is ever evolving. It started with a girl, bled into self-love, then my love for music, and eventually culminated into gratefulness for simply being given the opportunity to live my life how I want to. As a listener, the story can be however you’d like to perceive it. Think of something you love, and just go from there. The heart of “For You” is a love story, but it’s purposefully structured loosely so that the focus of the album shifts more towards your own imagination than the actual musical components.
Q: What is the message of your music?
A: The message of my music is to show that creativity always prevails. I want my music to be heard around the globe, not just for me, but to show others that they can be successful in whatever they pursue, by doing it in a way that resonates the most with them. When it comes specifically to music, I want to inspire people to make what they think is the coolest thing on the planet, and not run away from those ideas because they don’t think it is commercially viable. My drive for making and releasing music stems not only from love of creation, but also frustration and anger to where it feels like you must fit a certain mold to be financially success as a creative these days. I know that if I feel a certain way, there are probably at least a million others who feel the same. I hope that I can encourage all those people to start creating and releasing the music they love.
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: Whenever I listen to music, my ears naturally tend to gravitate towards the production and overall sound first (so even if I’m listening to a voice, I always focus on the timbre first, as opposed to the lyrics). I think that reflects in the sound of Agaaze. As mentioned in other interviews, I wrote almost all the lyrics to “For You” before making the music, However, I still produced and mixed the entirety of the instrumentals before recording and carving the vocals to fit the space of my mix. I love feeling how the overall sound of any song bounces and buzzes off my ears first, before diving deeper into understanding the production and thematic elements of the tune. Psych-Pop is a good overarching description. However, I also envision the sound of Agaaze as the feeling of Déjà Vu- the memory that feels so nostalgic, yet you’re not even sure if it was an actual memory or just a figment of your imagination.
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 feel as though my music is giving me so much more fulfillment than I can even fully process in the present moment. However, I don’t feel as though my music career is giving me as much fulfillment as I currently want. That feeling of bigger expectations for my music career constantly chips away at the rush of adrenaline I get from simply creating something new, to where there are times when I don’t feel as excited as I would if I was simply making, as opposed to simultaneously pursuing a career in music. However, there are also times where the rush of adrenaline in the making process is enhanced due to the possibility that the rest of the world may feel that rush too, after my music is released. At the end the day it’s the life I chose. I trust that the place I’m currently at in my music career is exactly what’s right for me, and that expectation of wanting something more is necessary to drive me forward.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do you usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: I am starting to understand my creative process more and more as I go. Aside from bumps in the road, a general outline of my process is:
- Absorption- 2 to 3 months of listening to new music, researching the business, and updating my knowledge on how to think creatively.
- Idealization- 1 to 2 months of combining the absorption phase with generating new ideas for an album.
- Creation- 4 to 6 months of loose/strict isolation from the outside world, to create, build, and immerse myself in my own world (aka my new album).
- Finalization- 1 to 2 months of finalizing all the materials (from artwork to music to promotion strategies) for release.
- The 3Rs- Release, Relax, Repeat.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: I think the most difficult thing in my life is the phase I’m currently in, to where every single day I am forcing myself to wake up, believe, and create a reality for myself that isn’t where I’m at today. The life of doing music full time, touring, collaborating with other big artists, etc. is one that is a little while away, but something that I must fully and clearly envision, before it can occur in the outside world. It’s easy to do when alone, but tough while going through the everyday routine of a college student, constantly surrounded by external stimulation from peers, school, and just life in general. I consistently wake up with that nagging tinge of uncertainty, and every day I must convince myself that the path I am carving is the one that I’m meant to be on, and that all my hard work will pay off. I just have to take it one step at a time.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud, or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: The proudest moment of my music career is when I released my first song, “Set Me Free”, back in January of 2021. I genuinely could not sleep for an entire month leading up to that release, as the fear of the whole situation was something that felt like it was out of a nightmare- yet I still knew it had to be done. Oddly enough, my biggest love is making and sharing music, and yet it’s also one of my biggest fears because I am so attached to what I create. Once I took that first step though, the ball started rolling, and there was no looking back. Although I have had and will certainly continue to have many more difficult situations, nothing will hold the same power as when I had to release “Set Me Free”. I will only continue to be more comfortable in the uncomfortable, embracing my role as a musician and the incredibly fulfilling world that lies ahead.
