Speaker 1: Pushkin, soaring, lush, and steeped in soul. Anastasia has a
Speaker 1: voice that feels distant and intimate all at once. She
Speaker 1: was scouted in high school for a career in pop music,
Speaker 1: but after some strange dealings, set out down the road
Speaker 1: of self discovery. What she uncovered about herself and her
Speaker 1: artistry you can hear on her serene new album Tether,
Speaker 1: easily one of my favorites this year. The album was
Speaker 1: recorded live in studio and is stripped to the bone,
Speaker 1: allowing her voice in poetry to shine through, unencumbered by
Speaker 1: any clumsy production. I spoke to Anastasia about her journey
Speaker 1: through music to this album, which includes earning a four
Speaker 1: year degree, opening for Lenny Kravitz and co starring and
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar's Luther music video. This is broken record, real musicians,
Speaker 1: real conversations. Mhmm. Before getting into the conversation, here's Anastasia
Speaker 1: performing her song Satisfy Me.
Speaker 2: Ah through the craven that you won't have they a
Speaker 2: very good time.
Speaker 3: I wonder where you so you didn't have.
Speaker 4: The answers all alone?
Speaker 3: And you wonder treads so lightly over mountains.
Speaker 2: And rivers and valleys, dolls.
Speaker 3: And you under.
Speaker 5: I gets sorry.
Speaker 3: As of history is in no way repeeding.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 5: Satisfied, me.
Speaker 3: Satisfying. How called you all a bad day?
Speaker 4: I think you chose realized kind of game we have
Speaker 4: to play. How am always looking for the upside?
Speaker 3: Trying to stay off line? When for the world to breathe?
Speaker 4: And you wonder why see sky? It's because of money
Speaker 4: outside and I'm looking, and you wonder I dream so freely.
Speaker 4: It's because I'm never ever really all that's sash fine.
Speaker 5: Satisfied, silence, FI satisfied.
Speaker 1: Oh man, you could say anything. Lyrics could mean anything,
Speaker 1: you know. Oh my god? When did you figure out
Speaker 1: you had that voice? This voice, the voice that you have,
Speaker 1: it's like the most gorgeous voice.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean it developed over years, but the first
Speaker 6: time I realized I could sing somewhat was when I
Speaker 6: was fourteen and I did a school talent show and
Speaker 6: it was mostly everybody else's reaction. I was like, well
Speaker 6: what And my voice has dropped much since then, So
Speaker 6: I think that was the first time I realized I
Speaker 6: had a tool that I could wield or begin to home.
Speaker 1: Wow. So before the talent show at fourteen, were you
Speaker 1: interested in singing. Did you sing a lot or no?
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 6: My parents aren't musicians, and they're both in creative field.
Speaker 6: They're they're in fashion. And I didn't really have any
Speaker 6: particular interest in singing or music or anything. And the
Speaker 6: way that I thought, oh, maybe, well I wonder if
Speaker 6: I can sing is actually kind of messed up. I
Speaker 6: went to this school that was predominantly white, and a
Speaker 6: lot of the kids would bully me because probably was
Speaker 6: the first black person that they had ever seen, and
Speaker 6: one of the lung the many stereotypes that were shouted
Speaker 6: at me. They were like, they would ask me to sing,
Speaker 6: like at lunch or after school, and they call me
Speaker 6: a jukebox, and they like, sing us a song, jukebox,
Speaker 6: sing us a song. And of course I would never
Speaker 6: sing for them, because you know, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 6: a pantomime. And but for some reason, like became a
Speaker 6: warm in my brain and I went home and I
Speaker 6: I was like, let me just try and sing something.
Speaker 6: So I think I first song I tried to sing
Speaker 6: was Whitney Houston's I Want to Dance with Somebody of
Speaker 6: the songs.
Speaker 1: Ever, I love that song so much, But that's wild
Speaker 1: that that was the first song you chose, I'll say
Speaker 1: that you couldn't have picked the worst starting point. Though
Speaker 1: it's all worked out.
Speaker 6: It was very hard to sing and not in my
Speaker 6: my range at all. Even at that point. It was
Speaker 6: too high for me, and I think I I learned
Speaker 6: it fully, but I was like, this doesn't feel quite right.
Speaker 6: So the song I learned after that was Valerie Amy
Speaker 6: white House's version, and that's the one I performed at
Speaker 6: the talent show and you know, everybody their socks that
Speaker 6: day because they're like, oh wait, she actually actually you
Speaker 6: actually can't sing. And yeah, that's how I fell into that.
Speaker 6: And then my music teachers at school kind of took
Speaker 6: me under their wing and taught me vocal jazz. I
Speaker 6: was a musical theater. It was just wherever I could
Speaker 6: get some sort of music education through my school, I
Speaker 6: did because there wasn't like money for extracurricular and stuff,
Speaker 6: so I just learned that way for many years.
Speaker 1: What was your parents' reaction to you, to my voice,
Speaker 1: to your voice?
Speaker 6: I think they were surprised. I can't remember. Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: my dad, when I first started writing songs, I think
Speaker 6: I played one for him and his reaction was eh,
Speaker 6: you're pretty good. You should write twelve more. And I
Speaker 6: was like, twelve, Like I just for one and it
Speaker 6: felt like the hardest thing I've ever done. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: but if you're serious about it, you should write twelve more.
Speaker 6: And if you'd write twelve then I'll take you seriously.
Speaker 6: Until then, I'm just going to assume this is a hobby.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: And so that was his reaction. My mom was a
Speaker 6: lot more generally supportive, you know, showing up to any
Speaker 6: performance that I had and always always being very proud
Speaker 6: of me and smiling from the sidelines. But it wasn't
Speaker 6: like they're not showbiz parents. They're not the type of
Speaker 6: parents that like, just because I was good at something,
Speaker 6: I was now suddenly like we're going to try and
Speaker 6: you know, make a buck off this kid kind of energy.
Speaker 6: So it was really left up to me if I
Speaker 6: wanted to pursue that. They're like, oh, that's cool. You
Speaker 6: have that gift that they left me to figure out
Speaker 6: what to do with it.
Speaker 1: Was that a typical response from your dad? Like that
Speaker 1: kind of is that how he sort of oriented?
Speaker 6: Ye, He's like a very serious artist. So he was like,
Speaker 6: if any of my kids are going to be artists.
Speaker 6: I need them to understand what that means, like what
Speaker 6: that role in society and in the world is. What
Speaker 6: it is to be an artist. It's not like a
Speaker 6: it's not a light thing, it's not a casual thing.
Speaker 6: It actually comes with a lot of responsibility to observe
Speaker 6: and distill the world, and then also honing your craft
Speaker 6: and your ability to execute an idea from thought to fruition.
Speaker 6: It's like it's something that I was taught at a
Speaker 6: young age and taught to take very seriously. So I
Speaker 6: think it translated into my music to all my other mediums,
Speaker 6: like that dedication to process and to craft. Yeah, just
Speaker 6: so I can feel like I'm doing my job as
Speaker 6: a artist.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you when you brought that
Speaker 1: song to your parents?
Speaker 6: It was fifteen.
Speaker 1: Fifteen, So what do you do at fifteen? And says, right,
Speaker 1: did you write twelve more? Did you?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 6: I didn't write twelve more. I think I got to
Speaker 6: like seven, but none of them were as good as
Speaker 6: the first one. So I got discouraged. And then I
Speaker 6: was doing covers with my friends and like a you know,
Speaker 6: high school band kind of thing. We were singing a
Speaker 6: lot of Bill Withers and read out Chili Peppers and
Speaker 6: Pink Floyd and shit, and I just went into study mode.
Speaker 6: I was like, actually, I don't know enough about writing
Speaker 6: songs to be writing songs yet. That's what I realized.
Speaker 1: Did you have an ideal at that time when you're
Speaker 1: like fifteen sixteen of like what a songwriter was or
Speaker 1: what a song a good song was?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean my reference point was Bill Withers and
Speaker 6: Nina Simone. Those are my two favorite songwriters at that chapter.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, the bar was definitely said high.
Speaker 1: It's a high bar, but a good bar. That's a
Speaker 1: good bar. Yeah, both, and both really different because Bill
Speaker 1: is so Bill Withers was so matter of fact indirect,
Speaker 1: there was no and it wasn't about he had I mean,
Speaker 1: he'd every once in a while like have a vocal
Speaker 1: run that'd be like stunning, but he was even his
Speaker 1: delivery was pretty just matter of fact, folky. He didn't
Speaker 1: want a lot of wisdom in it, you know. And
Speaker 1: Nina could just you know, great songs, great pick picked
Speaker 1: great songs, but then also could similarly maybe to you
Speaker 1: like she could also just sing nonsense and you're gonna
Speaker 1: be even raptured, you know, it's.
Speaker 6: Like, yeah, yeah, she had this like yeah, like you
Speaker 6: put you put it very plainly. It's like Nina had
Speaker 6: this magnetism and it was for me the way that
Speaker 6: she performed the songs, that's what I was learning from her. Yeah,
Speaker 6: because yes, a lot of the songs were picked as
Speaker 6: she wasn't writing them, and her the way that her
Speaker 6: voice made those songs come alive in a way that
Speaker 6: when other artists sang them it just wasn't the same. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I learned from her theatrics in that sense of the
Speaker 6: importance of dynamics and tone and the presence that you
Speaker 6: bring to a word or to a form. Yeah, the
Speaker 6: emotion that you bring to it and what that actually
Speaker 6: is when you break that down technically. And then with Bill,
Speaker 6: where there's yeah, exactly, a very matter of fact storytelling,
Speaker 6: like Okay, this is the history. Yeah, and there's not
Speaker 6: a lot that gets in the way of hearing the story,
Speaker 6: which I think is really important for songwriting. It's like
Speaker 6: balancing the poetic language with here's what happened, Here's what
Speaker 6: I want to tell you, and then delivering it in
Speaker 6: a way where people feel your words as well as
Speaker 6: hearing them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think of yourself in any way it's theatrical?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, gently so.
Speaker 1: Gently so in life or only in song.
Speaker 6: I think I live cinematically, Yeah, more cinema than the theater.
Speaker 6: Theater I associate with like a dimension. It's like there's
Speaker 6: so many there's planes, where a cinema is more five D.
Speaker 6: It's an experience, or a theater. It's like you are
Speaker 6: viewing something and there's a front stage, there's a backstage.
Speaker 6: There's like literally layers, whereas life to me feels more
Speaker 6: like a movie with infinite camera setups and and plot
Speaker 6: lines and options.
Speaker 1: It's the magic. It's like, it's the magic you get
Speaker 1: from a movie. That's what you feel in life.
Speaker 6: That's what I feel in life. But that's what I's
Speaker 6: what I pursue in life. I think it helps me,
Speaker 6: Like as a songwriter, if you're you live in that
Speaker 6: mentality of like your life is an unfolding story, then
Speaker 6: you're constantly processing it in that way, it makes it
Speaker 6: a lot easier to to condense. Or when you're hearing
Speaker 6: somebody else's story, or you're you're witnessing somebody else goes
Speaker 6: through something and you you immediately put it in that framework.
Speaker 6: But then that requires, yeah, a certain propensity for drama,
Speaker 6: not in the like toxic sense, but in the sense that,
Speaker 6: like the contrasts that are naturally there in life are
Speaker 6: a lot to chew on, and if you open your
Speaker 6: heart to like feeling all of it, it is quite intense.
Speaker 6: It's quite intense, and up and down mountains valleys. It's
Speaker 6: it is theatrical without even adding much to it or
Speaker 6: doing much to make it so right.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about that a lot myself in general,
Speaker 1: Like the drama is a better way. I was thinking
Speaker 1: of theatrics myself, but drama is a better way I
Speaker 1: think of explaining it. You hit on something more interesting.
Speaker 1: But Nina, so Nina as this person who could be
Speaker 1: simultaneously dramatic or theatrical but also like impossibly cool at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's a really hard balance, and I
Speaker 1: think I worry even for myself, but in general that
Speaker 1: in the quest to be cool, we've lost what it
Speaker 1: is to be dramatic and the actual and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun in that. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of music and music especially when you lose that, there's
Speaker 1: an element missing, and it is that formative elopment, the
Speaker 1: way you say something versus just saying something, And there's
Speaker 1: so much of that in you're saying, which I think
Speaker 1: is why, like your album is so deeply resonant, you know,
Speaker 1: within not to put you on the spot, but it
Speaker 1: just came out and I feel like no one's had
Speaker 1: a bad word to say it, that's heard it, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean I'd be interested to hear if they found one,
Speaker 6: because so yeah, it's it's it was crafted with so
Speaker 6: much consideration, so many, so many viewpoints, over so much time.
Speaker 6: Not that I was making it in the desire to
Speaker 6: please anyone, but my attempt was to make something that
Speaker 6: felt so innately human that everybody could find themselves in it.
Speaker 6: Joni Mitchell said once that if you if you listen
Speaker 6: to a song and you see my face, and I failed,
Speaker 6: but if you listen to a song and you feel
Speaker 6: you see yourself, then I've done my job. And so
Speaker 6: it's like that process of trying to remove my a
Speaker 6: censortain level of my ego from the music. I think
Speaker 6: it's what has led to the people resonating it with
Speaker 6: it in this way, because it's not it's when they're
Speaker 6: listening to it, they're hearing their own experience, in their
Speaker 6: own story.
Speaker 1: How do you get there? How do you get to
Speaker 1: the point where you can create something that's personal but
Speaker 1: your ego isn't in it?
Speaker 6: Oh, goes. I think back to that need with that
Speaker 6: coolness that you were talking about in need to add
Speaker 6: It's like when you do dive into the extreme extremities
Speaker 6: of life, it also brings about a certain level of objectivity.
Speaker 6: It's like it's like looking at a roaring river and
Speaker 6: deciding to jump in that you have this agency and
Speaker 6: you can decide to be outside of the river watching it,
Speaker 6: or you can decide to be in the river, and
Speaker 6: when you have the strength to do both, and you've
Speaker 6: honed that strength over time to do both and not
Speaker 6: get overwhelmed by being in the river and going with
Speaker 6: the current and not being able to swim and just
Speaker 6: being like, well, I trust this, I'm going and then
Speaker 6: knowing when it's time to step out, I'm too exhausted.
Speaker 6: I can't handle this. I have to sit back and
Speaker 6: watch and observe the coolness. That's the calm, that's the objectivity,
Speaker 6: that's the be here now of it all, Like I'm present.
Speaker 6: Everything in this moment right now is fine. And with songwriting,
Speaker 6: it's like there's so many different phases. And that's why
Speaker 6: time is such an important ingredient in my work is
Speaker 6: because the thing happens, life happens. You experience the heartbreak,
Speaker 6: you experience, the trauma, you experience, the joy, the ecstasy,
Speaker 6: and it might in that moment it inspires you. But
Speaker 6: for me, at least, it isn'tn til months later that
Speaker 6: I can distill it into language or into a melody,
Speaker 6: into a song, and so then it comes out in
Speaker 6: one of my You know, when I'm sitting on my
Speaker 6: own practicing or writing. Usually while I'm practicing is when
Speaker 6: the songs come and it comes through or recorded or
Speaker 6: track in some way to reference it again, and then
Speaker 6: I don't really touch it for a minute, and then
Speaker 6: I come back to it and I'm like, Okay, what
Speaker 6: was I saying there? And is what I'm saying fair?
Speaker 6: Is it fair to the people involved? Have I considered
Speaker 6: all sides? What's the lesson that I learned here? Like
Speaker 6: I try and look at each experience, like how do
Speaker 6: I take myself out of this? And if I take
Speaker 6: myself out of this is there still a story here?
Speaker 6: And that's what I try to do with all these records,
Speaker 6: Like with Be Kind, like that was a if you
Speaker 6: wanted to break down the song, it's the front half
Speaker 6: is completely my life. It's little vignettes of my life
Speaker 6: that were going on at that time. Super niche, super specific.
Speaker 6: Looking at a pile of CDs under a tree. It's trash,
Speaker 6: but there's something beautiful about the trash, like dancing for
Speaker 6: three days straight to Moroccan music in July and New York,
Speaker 6: like you know, sleeping on a couch and wishing that
Speaker 6: I had this California King bed I didn't have to
Speaker 6: worry about Bill, Like. There are all these little moments,
Speaker 6: and I give you guys so much of my life
Speaker 6: and my experience. But in those you see that time
Speaker 6: that you struggle, You see that time that you like
Speaker 6: let go and had fun. You see that time that
Speaker 6: that you found the mundane so beautiful that it almost
Speaker 6: made you cry. Because my experiences aren't unique to me.
Speaker 6: They're just refractions of our group experience. And then I
Speaker 6: zoom out and I say, and I deliver this mantra
Speaker 6: that has absolutely nothing to do with me, which is
Speaker 6: something that we've all been taught on some level, which
Speaker 6: is like, I won't do unto you as you as
Speaker 6: I don't want done unto me right, I want to
Speaker 6: treat you with kindness because I want to receive kindness.
Speaker 6: And I won't be heartless if you won't be heartless.
Speaker 6: I won't be callous if you won't be callous. That
Speaker 6: message is not it is not mine even it's it's
Speaker 6: it's it's when I've learned growing up in church. It's
Speaker 6: when I learned from multiple mentors and teachers of my life.
Speaker 6: It's like something that I returned to through all the
Speaker 6: noise of the front half of the song, all of
Speaker 6: these niche experiences. It's like the common thread through it
Speaker 6: is this human thing of Wait, actually, we're all here
Speaker 6: together now to love and to care for each other,
Speaker 6: and we just need to clear the noise and sit
Speaker 6: and listen to it. There's no ego in that move,
Speaker 6: but in that song, I kind of like dip in
Speaker 6: through the ego and out the other side.
Speaker 1: That's like your way in is thing ego. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with more from Anastasia after the break be kind.
Speaker 1: When you wrote the song, how done was it or
Speaker 1: how much of that work to strip some of your
Speaker 1: ego out of it. Did you have to do since
Speaker 1: you brought that up as an example.
Speaker 6: You know, not much, because I was quite humbled at
Speaker 6: that point by my life experiences. I had just moved
Speaker 6: back to California after trying to live in New York
Speaker 6: for a few years, and New York just destroyed me mentally,
Speaker 6: destroyed my health, Like I was not good. Oh, I
Speaker 6: was not well, and I'd run back to California with
Speaker 6: my tail between my legs. And yeah, I was sitting
Speaker 6: in the quiet of valley home and the sun coming
Speaker 6: through the window and gentle breeze of spring, and like
Speaker 6: just such a sharp contrast to where I was the
Speaker 6: noise and the bustle and the grit and the smog
Speaker 6: and the uh and I don't know, the song just
Speaker 6: came out. It came out, and the front half came
Speaker 6: out because I was just like trying to purge that experience.
Speaker 6: And then and then I literally said to myself, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 6: stop complaining, and then the second half came out.
Speaker 1: But the city in the same sitting.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I usually write my songs in one sitting two
Speaker 6: at max, but not in any large swath of time
Speaker 6: between the two, because it's like when it's coming through,
Speaker 6: you have to catch it to kind of like catching fish.
Speaker 6: They'res slippery and they might not come round again, so
Speaker 6: you gotta when it comes through.
Speaker 1: What is practice look like for you said, a lot
Speaker 1: of your writing comes from just out of practicing. What
Speaker 1: is when do you practice? And what does that look
Speaker 1: like for you?
Speaker 6: You know, practice is a funny thing for a musician
Speaker 6: who's become professional musician because then he's like, you actually
Speaker 6: don't even time to practice anymore, which is what even
Speaker 6: got you there in the first place, is all the practice.
Speaker 6: So now I have to like carve out time, and
Speaker 6: I haven't been so good at it, which is why
Speaker 6: I haven't been writing that much. But what it just
Speaker 6: looks like is practice. It's like just exploring the neck
Speaker 6: of the guitar, seeing different finding different chords, finding different tunings,
Speaker 6: finding different voicings, different melody lines. And then for me,
Speaker 6: when I find a new melody line or I find
Speaker 6: a new chord progression that almost directly inspires language. It's
Speaker 6: like almost like a synesthesia, but with words like hearing
Speaker 6: a sound and it reminds me of like a memory
Speaker 6: or a moment or a color, and then I just
Speaker 6: follow that I start describing it, and then it's like
Speaker 6: then it's just like pulling the thread.
Speaker 1: Is there any songs on the album that you found
Speaker 1: the melody on the guitar before you found the words,
Speaker 1: before you found your voice around it.
Speaker 6: Well, it all happens at once. I write all my
Speaker 6: songs on the guitar by myself in my room. Yeah,
Speaker 6: all of the songs were already written before I went
Speaker 6: into record the album, and then I just taught everybody
Speaker 6: the songs and we worked on the arrangement and recorded
Speaker 6: their band arrangement. But every single song that I write
Speaker 6: or put out is written in that way where it's
Speaker 6: me in this moment of practice with my guitar and
Speaker 6: they dance together the melody and my hands and the
Speaker 6: words and the lyrics. It's not linear the process, and
Speaker 6: sometimes it'll be like holes that need to be filled
Speaker 6: where I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say,
Speaker 6: Like Villain was one of those. Like when Villain came through,
Speaker 6: I wasn't just in a very angry place, and that
Speaker 6: one it came the lyrics never changed. It came through
Speaker 6: like that done, but when I revisited it, I was like, Okay, wait,
Speaker 6: this isn't actually about my anger. Actually this is about
Speaker 6: something else. And then over time the meaning of the
Speaker 6: song evolved and that changed how I sung it wow,
Speaker 6: and how I performed it, because at first, it's like
Speaker 6: this angry song of like, just I don't want anything
Speaker 6: that you left. It's kind of it's kind of like,
Speaker 6: you know, all your stuff is in the closet. Taken
Speaker 6: and go was the energy of when I wrote the song,
Speaker 6: But by the time I tracked it over a year later,
Speaker 6: it was like, oh, actually, the song is about taking
Speaker 6: accountability for the shadow parts of yourself and the way
Speaker 6: that you hurt others in the process of trying to
Speaker 6: love them, and that there's a lot of forgiveness there
Speaker 6: for yourself and for the other person, because it's not
Speaker 6: that there was an effort, it's just that you didn't
Speaker 6: have the tools right. And we like to craft all
Speaker 6: these narratives about who did someone wrong and who's the
Speaker 6: villain and who's the hero, and who's the victim and
Speaker 6: who's the aggressor, and it's like, well, it's actually quite
Speaker 6: most often very nuanced, and we exist in these polarities
Speaker 6: and sometimes, like you, choosing to be the the victim
Speaker 6: is a type of manipulation, and you know, vice versa.
Speaker 6: And when you again you zoom out, you're like, oh,
Speaker 6: if that actually freedom from this cycle is being okay
Speaker 6: with having done harm and taking accountability of that. But
Speaker 6: that is not where I started. When I wrote the song,
Speaker 6: That is not where I was. I was fully in
Speaker 6: petty zone, like you know, I just had nothing good
Speaker 6: to say about this other person at that time. And
Speaker 6: that's an example. I think of how the songs like
Speaker 6: they come to me, but they teach me as I'm
Speaker 6: living with them. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm
Speaker 6: singing about, but the words are there, the song is there,
Speaker 6: it's done, and the lesson I learned from it comes
Speaker 6: much later.
Speaker 1: Wow, the songs are teaching. The evolution of the song
Speaker 1: is evolution of the thought process of the thing that
Speaker 1: you're going through. Yeah, have you written a song? Maybe
Speaker 1: not on this album because it's relatively new, But do
Speaker 1: you have any songs that you've written that X amount
Speaker 1: of years later or now that you you don't feel
Speaker 1: so connected to or you don't.
Speaker 6: You're like, h, that was yeah all the time, for
Speaker 6: one that hasn't been sitting right with me has been power,
Speaker 6: Which is funny because people want me to sing that
Speaker 6: one all the time, and I think it's because it's it.
Speaker 6: The song was at a point in my life where
Speaker 6: I was playing the victim all the time, and to
Speaker 6: be fair, there was a lot of shit going on
Speaker 6: that was really unfair, and I was being exploited by
Speaker 6: multiple industry factors and I didn't feel like I had
Speaker 6: any power, and especially as a black woman, just like
Speaker 6: seeing the way that I was being treated when and
Speaker 6: then looking at my peers who are not black women,
Speaker 6: and like, I don't see a difference in talent, So
Speaker 6: what's going on here? And feeling powerless in that dynamic,
Speaker 6: that's where I was writing that song from. But when
Speaker 6: I sing it now, because I'm not in this place
Speaker 6: of that type of victimization, self victimization. I'm in this
Speaker 6: place of like what is for me is easeful, and
Speaker 6: I don't need to fight for it. I don't need
Speaker 6: to prove myself constantly, like I know who I am now,
Speaker 6: And I wrote that song when I was like twenty
Speaker 6: years old. I'm thirty now, So it's just there's been
Speaker 6: so much time since that thought, and now when I
Speaker 6: go to sing it, I'm like, I'm just like, you're
Speaker 6: so silly, you're supposedly for thinking that. Yeah, and I
Speaker 6: don't even want to finish the song, So it's like
Speaker 6: I don't really relate to it anymore. But I understand
Speaker 6: how for other people it's like they really need to
Speaker 6: hear that, because everyone's been in that position where they
Speaker 6: just feel like they cannot get a grasp on their
Speaker 6: own power, their own like free will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of powerless. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of powerless people out there, you know, and an illusion.
Speaker 6: It's an illusion that you're powerless.
Speaker 1: Often so often. So I think you're right. I think
Speaker 1: you're right, you know. I mean, you certainly seemed to
Speaker 1: have figured out how to arrive where you wanted to
Speaker 1: probably go most of the time. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know a ton about you, but I mean you you
Speaker 1: did get signed kind of early, and we're like, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe you can just tell the story. I don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I was discovered at school in high school.
Speaker 1: Performing arts.
Speaker 6: High school is just a regular high school. College prep
Speaker 6: school had a lot of bougie people going through there,
Speaker 6: but it wasn't a performing arts school. And I was
Speaker 6: standing outside in the carpool lane waiting for my folks,
Speaker 6: and I was just singing to myself and somebody's parent
Speaker 6: came and was sitting next to me, and I kind
Speaker 6: of noticed him because I was like, he's sitting weirdly close,
Speaker 6: but I was minding my business, kept singing my song.
Speaker 6: Then after I was done singing, uh, he came up
Speaker 6: to me and he was like, do you want to
Speaker 6: be a pop star? It's like, what, who were you?
Speaker 6: I was just like stranger, danger, it was this man.
Speaker 6: And then he started asking me questions. He's like, do
Speaker 6: you dance? Like how's your fashion sense? Like what you know?
Speaker 6: Kind of music are you into? Do you like pop music?
Speaker 6: And I was like, you should talk to my parents
Speaker 6: because ye like he was like an old man, and
Speaker 6: so he talked to my parents and he was very
Speaker 6: serious about tracking a song with me, and I went
Speaker 6: over to his house with my parents a few weeks
Speaker 6: later and track the only song that I had written
Speaker 6: at that point. So it was called what was it
Speaker 6: called some? It was think it was called something.
Speaker 3: Something you don't know about me?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 6: Amo?
Speaker 3: Then my bones I've been here before, you know me.
Speaker 6: Sadly they owned the publishing on that and it's never
Speaker 6: coming out.
Speaker 1: We won't pay him.
Speaker 6: And yeah, that was the only song that I'd written
Speaker 6: at that point, and I tracked it and he produced it,
Speaker 6: and then the label was super jazz about it. They're like,
Speaker 6: whoa this voice? Whoa this girl? Oh she's only seventeen?
Speaker 6: Oh shit, okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: And did he was was it like a had he
Speaker 1: built the popster?
Speaker 6: No, it was like it was an imprint, And yes,
Speaker 6: he kind of had. He he was like a big
Speaker 6: producer for all that era of Disney that was like
Speaker 6: the Cheetah Girls, Hillary Duff, like he was on all
Speaker 6: of that.
Speaker 1: He had done all of that. But this is look
Speaker 1: some time later, so he removed from that. But that
Speaker 1: was his okay, okay.
Speaker 6: That was his like claim to fame. And they had
Speaker 6: another big artist on their on their label at that time,
Speaker 6: who who had done quite well for herself as well,
Speaker 6: and so it was legit like it was a legit thing.
Speaker 6: It wasn't some like garage label, you know, they were
Speaker 6: they were fully backed and it was all a thing.
Speaker 6: But I, you know, didn't have money for a lower
Speaker 6: proper lawyer, and you know, I fell into that trap
Speaker 6: of like, oh, well, we'll cover your legal fees, like
Speaker 6: it's all good. You know, we got you your friendly
Speaker 6: neighborhood label. And I let them do that and ended
Speaker 6: up in a contract that was really really suffocating and
Speaker 6: and quite quite intense and should be illegal. And I
Speaker 6: didn't really it didn't turn sour till about two years
Speaker 6: after that point. I was learning to write. I was
Speaker 6: writing with all of these amazing top liners and a
Speaker 6: few Motown folks who were still around, and every day
Speaker 6: we would just sit at the piano and write songs.
Speaker 6: And that's how I like learned how to really craft
Speaker 6: a song, very meticulously a pop song.
Speaker 1: And you would bring an idea, I would write it.
Speaker 1: I would write it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would write every song, okay, but he would
Speaker 6: help me like craft melody and hook and and all
Speaker 6: these things and turn them into like traditional pop songs.
Speaker 1: That's interesting to experience at that time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was cool to get a
Speaker 6: lesson in that and to have that mentorship and to
Speaker 6: really stretch my ability in that way. And and and
Speaker 6: I think that training is what still informs a lot
Speaker 6: of my practice, like I've since like broken a lot
Speaker 6: of the molds that I was taught. But with that knowledge,
Speaker 6: you know, I think it's good to learn your basics
Speaker 6: and then and then explore from there. So for me,
Speaker 6: that was my basics, and you know, it was it
Speaker 6: was fine up till the point. And then I when
Speaker 6: I started to come into my own as an artist
Speaker 6: and realized like, oh, here's what I want. Here's that's
Speaker 6: when there was this deviation with the label system.
Speaker 1: When you were ready to move past the basics, breaks
Speaker 1: of rules, exactly find your own voice.
Speaker 6: Right then it became a problem and I was shelved,
Speaker 6: and I didn't know what that was. I kept coming
Speaker 6: to them with new music and new stuff, and they
Speaker 6: were just they wouldn't even tell me of a shelve.
Speaker 6: They would just keep being like, oh, yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: we'll submit it. We'll see like maybe we can get
Speaker 6: you something a budget, or maybe we can put it
Speaker 6: out maybe maybe maybe maybe, And they just kept pushing
Speaker 6: my boundaries like they were like, oh, you need to
Speaker 6: drop out of school if you want us to think
Speaker 6: you're taking this seriously. So I dropped it to college.
Speaker 6: So you need to you need to be in sessions
Speaker 6: every day, so I was like working three jobs on
Speaker 6: top of going to sessions till three am, like I was.
Speaker 6: I was so exhausted at one point, and I remember
Speaker 6: coming home and I was living with my parents and crying,
Speaker 6: and my mom and my dad were like, you know,
Speaker 6: this is supposed to be fun, like music.
Speaker 1: Is supposed to be fun.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like and it doesn't look like you're having
Speaker 6: any fun. And for me, that was that you know,
Speaker 6: realization point. But I was still so young, and I
Speaker 6: was like, Okay, well maybe I need to make pop
Speaker 6: music again because that was the last time this was
Speaker 6: kind of fun. So that I did that, and then
Speaker 6: the final straw was getting offered like an even somehow
Speaker 6: more predatory deal for the album cycle, and I took
Speaker 6: one look at that. My mom took one look at that,
Speaker 6: and even as not being lawyers, she was like, there's
Speaker 6: no way you're going to survive this. If you sign
Speaker 6: this deal, I'm afraid you might off yourself because you're
Speaker 6: already so depressed and you're so you're unfulfilled, you feel trapped,
Speaker 6: and then you're going to sign a ten album deal. No, yeah, no,
Speaker 6: you're getting on a plane and you're going back to
Speaker 6: college tonight. Literally that day, I went back to Boston
Speaker 6: to go back to Universe City, and I called the
Speaker 6: label from there and it was like I'm quitting.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: And then they were like, okay, well, if you're quitting music,
Speaker 6: then there's no need to let you out of your contract.
Speaker 6: So and I didn't have any any rights to to
Speaker 6: fight that, so I just ended up having to wait
Speaker 6: till like, like you know, a while.
Speaker 1: So it's a weird experiences, a weird way to have
Speaker 1: your college experience. Like that's just like a what what was?
Speaker 1: And you you graduated college, right, so you did political
Speaker 1: science in political science and were you just like did
Speaker 1: you at a certain point imagine that that music as
Speaker 1: a career was behind you?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean when I when I when I went
Speaker 6: to school, it was like I kind of just accepted
Speaker 6: that I stopped playing guitar. I would sing occasionally in
Speaker 6: like college bands and stuff, but I just was like, Okay,
Speaker 6: this is a hobby. Like I don't even I don't
Speaker 6: know how I'm men to get out of this deal.
Speaker 6: I don't know how, Like they just completely cut off
Speaker 6: my hands in a metaphorical sense to be able to
Speaker 6: make music in a way that would even be sustainable
Speaker 6: as a job or as like a livelihood. So it
Speaker 6: was off the table for so long. So that's how
Speaker 6: I got into my other mediums and other things. I
Speaker 6: was passionate about sculpture, papermaking, cinema, photography, painting. I had
Speaker 6: so many other creative outlets that music for a while.
Speaker 6: Being on the back burner was fine, but it was
Speaker 6: something that kept like knocking at the door. And I
Speaker 6: never stopped making music. I just I just was constantly
Speaker 6: readjusting my goals. And then by the time I was
Speaker 6: out of that contract, I was like, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 6: to do this independently and see how far I can
Speaker 6: go because the major label system is so corrupt and
Speaker 6: so sickle. Yeah, that for what I'm trying to build,
Speaker 6: it doesn't make sense to engage with it at all.
Speaker 6: I knew at that point that the type of music
Speaker 6: I was trying to make was the type of music
Speaker 6: that would be considered a classic in fifty years, and
Speaker 6: that kind of music wasn't going to survive in the
Speaker 6: in the cultural climate of you know, the twenty tens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just wasn't the pop music of the twenty
Speaker 1: tens was not going to produce. Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, And it's like maybe maybe in fifty years, we're
Speaker 6: gonna we're gonna think of, like, I don't know, pink
Speaker 6: Print as a classic record. I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a good record, but it's probably was never the
Speaker 1: record you were going to make.
Speaker 6: No, it's not the record I was ever going to
Speaker 6: make it. It's a good record, and you know, it
Speaker 6: was fun. It's fun exactly. And it's like maybe when
Speaker 6: that comes on, when like we're all, you know, super
Speaker 6: old and crusty, were like you back.
Speaker 1: In the day, I will already do that.
Speaker 6: But I think that's a little different than like hearing
Speaker 6: a Bill Withers record or hearing Anita record, And I
Speaker 6: maybe that's just like future nostalgia kicking it.
Speaker 1: That's not the goal of you might get classics in
Speaker 1: the pop industry these days, but it's not the goal.
Speaker 1: It's incidental, it's not like it's not the goal.
Speaker 6: That's a good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you were you were smart to like observe
Speaker 1: that and remove yourself from it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, disengage. Yeah, and you know, it's like short term
Speaker 6: gains over over long term legacy. It's not the music
Speaker 6: industry this these days is not really in for a
Speaker 6: long term legacy. They say they are, but the function
Speaker 6: of what you see in the back end is that's
Speaker 6: not the That's not the case at all.
Speaker 1: So in your parents both were in fashion, you you
Speaker 1: also work in fashion? Used not anymore?
Speaker 6: No, I quit modeling in twenty twenty two. Technically, like
Speaker 6: for myself, I just stopped. Stop submitting for jobs, stop
Speaker 6: doing the casting, stop doing the whole scene of it.
Speaker 6: Occasionally things come through and if it makes sense and
Speaker 6: I'll do it, but it's not like I'm no longer
Speaker 6: engaging with fashion as a model, like just a face.
Speaker 6: Somebody wants to engage with me as an artist, great,
Speaker 6: I'm they're awesome, But fashion as a model from that
Speaker 6: industry side, I just outgrew it.
Speaker 1: Is that What was your relationship to fashion as a kid,
Speaker 1: like with your parents being in it, was it like
Speaker 1: you admired that they were in it and you wanted
Speaker 1: to participate or was it a bit just that's their thing.
Speaker 6: No, I actually wanted to be a fashion designer, and
Speaker 6: my dad was like no, flat up thought out.
Speaker 1: He was like no, and what was his reason?
Speaker 6: He's like this is one of the hardest careers you
Speaker 6: could ever choose for yourself, So just I don't want
Speaker 6: that for you. And then I chose music, which is
Speaker 6: the second hardest, which is maybe the first hardest, I
Speaker 6: would say, but I don't know. I think there maybe
Speaker 6: neck and neck these days, but yeah, very very tough
Speaker 6: industries to be in fashion and music, because you know,
Speaker 6: there's a there's this aspect of scale that you need
Speaker 6: to be quote successful in both and I don't Growing
Speaker 6: up like, I was just so enamored with my parents'
Speaker 6: work and their work ethic, their creativity, their ability to
Speaker 6: like sculpt the body with fashion and and create something
Speaker 6: from scratch to like beauty, and how they manufactured beauty
Speaker 6: from their own vision. It was something that yeah, I
Speaker 6: just knew that I wanted to be a part of.
Speaker 6: Like I knew I wanted to manufacture beauty as well.
Speaker 6: I wanted to pluck it out of our existence and
Speaker 6: show it to people. However I was going to do that,
Speaker 6: and it wasn't clear as a kid, but because I
Speaker 6: had fashion designer parents, it's like, oh, I'll just be
Speaker 6: a fashion designer, like because that's what you guys do.
Speaker 6: And you're like no, be a doctor, be a lawyer,
Speaker 6: anything but this. And yeah I'm anything but that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, no, it's but you did, but you
Speaker 1: did circle, you did come back to it at certain
Speaker 1: point then I did. Yeah, is that like during college?
Speaker 1: Your college?
Speaker 6: No, it was my accident. It was my accident. I didn't.
Speaker 6: I didn't set out to be a model. I was
Speaker 6: working at a gallery. I was an intern, and randomly
Speaker 6: I helped. I got called that day to help a friend,
Speaker 6: like with a shoot she was shooting for her brand.
Speaker 6: She's like, hey, a model dropped out, like could you
Speaker 6: just jump in? Like it's just a few shots. So
Speaker 6: I told my boss and I was like, hey, is
Speaker 6: it okay if I leave early today? And she's like yeah, yeah, fine, go.
Speaker 6: So I went over to her house I did this shoot,
Speaker 6: and at that shoot there was this makeup artist who
Speaker 6: was saying that Nike had been looking for musicians for
Speaker 6: an ad and I was like, oh, I'm a musician,
Speaker 6: like I could do it, and she's like okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: and I'll take a photo. I'll send it over. She
Speaker 6: sent it over and then I got booked street cast
Speaker 6: off of that, and Nike's notorious for street casting people
Speaker 6: and underpaying them. So I think I got paid like
Speaker 6: five hundred bucks for the shoot, which at that time
Speaker 6: was a crazy money to me because I was like
Speaker 6: in cafe jobs and making five hundred dollars every two weeks.
Speaker 6: Like yeah, I was like one day, five hundred dollars
Speaker 6: crazy and I was like, yeah, of course I'll be there.
Speaker 6: So I did it and it was It was a
Speaker 6: really fun, fun shoot day, had a great time that
Speaker 6: ended up being an international billboard cam pain. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6: The severity of which I was underpaid is like criminal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what about I don't know
Speaker 1: a thing about anything. Yeah, but I know that sounds
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 6: They really they really took advantage for sure. And I
Speaker 6: was like in every subway, multiple billboards across New York,
Speaker 6: La Paris, London, Turkey. My mom was in Australian. She
Speaker 6: has a picture of me literally like twenty feet tall,
Speaker 6: like everywhere everywhere, my face Nike. But you know, it
Speaker 6: launched my modeling career.
Speaker 1: You did get more jobs, so they kept hiring me.
Speaker 6: Actually, Nike was hiring me for like years after that. Uh,
Speaker 6: you renegotiated, and I renegotiated once I learned what the
Speaker 6: what the actual going rate was because I was doing
Speaker 6: it independently because no modeling agencies would sign me. Yeah,
Speaker 6: they just didn't see the vision right, and I wasn't
Speaker 6: gonna force it upon them. I was like, whatever, I'm
Speaker 6: booking jobs directly, it's fine. But eventually I did find
Speaker 6: agents and then that became my main source of income
Speaker 6: and allowed me to stay in the music game as
Speaker 6: long as I have, because like, there's no money in music,
Speaker 6: there's no If you're an artist and a singer, you're
Speaker 6: in like one of the worst positions because you can't
Speaker 6: really play for other people. You can't like like you're
Speaker 6: you're so specific. It's like you can only do your thing.
Speaker 1: Explain that for me at least.
Speaker 6: It's like I don't I don't produce traditionally. I don't
Speaker 6: like I can use DAWs, but I don't like using them.
Speaker 6: I'm not the best at it, so it's like I'm
Speaker 6: not doing that for other people, and I also don't
Speaker 6: want to give the time to doing that for other people.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't call myself a guitarist in the sense that
Speaker 6: I can go and play other people's music with like
Speaker 6: two hours notice and learn everything that quickly. Not a pianist.
Speaker 6: I don't play any other instruments to that level of competency.
Speaker 6: I could write for other people, but I am such
Speaker 6: so personal about my writing that I don't really enjoy it.
Speaker 6: So you've knocked off like any of the other income field, right,
Speaker 6: And it's like I don't I don't really play covers.
Speaker 6: So it's like wedding bands are out, Like there's just
Speaker 6: no there was like no way for me to make
Speaker 6: money musically unless I'm doing my own thing. And I
Speaker 6: was so dedicated to my own thing and to figuring
Speaker 6: out what that was that I wasn't interested in making
Speaker 6: a musical career out of doing other people's things. I
Speaker 6: just wasn't. And so making money for music and sustaining
Speaker 6: myself off of it, it's it's it's a dream I
Speaker 6: still haven't even realized because now even I'm I'm not
Speaker 6: able to pay my bills off of music. And that's
Speaker 6: the reality of the industry. That is a separate, long conversation.
Speaker 6: But in the meantime, like fashion and commercial work has
Speaker 6: like sustained me and allowed me to have enough free
Speaker 6: time to be an artist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask how this place. I mean,
Speaker 1: you probably just answered it, but I would like to
Speaker 1: talk about I mean, you're I didn't even really realize
Speaker 1: this until like i'd seen it, and then later I
Speaker 1: heard the mute, and then it took me a long
Speaker 1: time to put two and two together that you were
Speaker 1: in Kendricks see their video?
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, super random?
Speaker 1: Like what was that? How did that happen?
Speaker 6: How did it happen? I'm Corrina, a director. She is
Speaker 6: a fan, and she came to a show I opened
Speaker 6: for Charlotte Day Wilson a few years ago, and she
Speaker 6: was at that show and she just remembered me, and
Speaker 6: she DMed me on Instagram. She's like, hey, I don't
Speaker 6: know if you remember me. We met the back stage
Speaker 6: like two seconds. But I am directing this music video
Speaker 6: and I want you to be a part of it.
Speaker 6: And I was like, I don't really do other people's
Speaker 6: music videos, like I'm not really a model anymore. She's
Speaker 6: like no, no, no, just like please, like I'll send you
Speaker 6: the treatment signed the NDA, like I think you're gonna
Speaker 6: love this one.
Speaker 1: You didn't know who it was.
Speaker 6: I didn't know who it was. No, she couldn't tell me,
Speaker 6: and so I signed the NDA and then so then
Speaker 6: she can send it over. She sends it over and
Speaker 6: I see it's for Kendrick, and I'm like, oh shit, okay.
Speaker 6: And I read through the treatments, A beautiful treatment, a
Speaker 6: film about you know, intimacy and connection and longing and
Speaker 6: yearning and like wanting to show up for someone and
Speaker 6: not really quite knowing how yet, but like wanting to
Speaker 6: give them the world, and I yeah, I just love
Speaker 6: the concepts and I love that that I was being
Speaker 6: considered for as a muse for that medium, that that feeling.
Speaker 6: And then it almost all didn't happen because I was
Speaker 6: I was out of town and there was like scheduling conflicts,
Speaker 6: there was almost no way for me to get back
Speaker 6: in time to shoot it. And then the LA fires happened.
Speaker 6: The whole thing got canceled.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 6: Then a few months later they were able to bring
Speaker 6: the production back up and they were like, hey about
Speaker 6: you buy any chance like free and in LA and
Speaker 6: I'm like, I am, okay, well you still be in it?
Speaker 6: And I was like, yeah, I would love to and
Speaker 6: it all. You know. I like to just take on
Speaker 6: little side quests when I can, And that just seemed
Speaker 6: like a fun thing to do.
Speaker 1: It was such a cool treatment and done so well
Speaker 1: that it's like, I get why you would take this,
Speaker 1: I mean beyond just like the thrill of it's like
Speaker 1: it's the song is incredible and all that. It's it's
Speaker 1: a great treatment.
Speaker 6: It's really beautiful. I was really grateful to ask be
Speaker 6: asked to act, And you know, it's something that I'm
Speaker 6: like softly looking into, not looking into acting, but like
Speaker 6: people have been asking me more and more and I'm
Speaker 6: open to exploring it now. So it's nice to do
Speaker 6: it softly in that way, no words.
Speaker 1: How'd you prep for it?
Speaker 6: How'd I prep for it?
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 6: I didn't prep for it. It was all pretty like natural.
Speaker 6: I mean, I come from a performance arts background. In college,
Speaker 6: I had a company with a few other women where
Speaker 6: we explored like dance and movement through silence and then
Speaker 6: using our own bodies to compose sound for the pieces
Speaker 6: like as they were going on. And a lot of
Speaker 6: that practice was intense, like eye contact and staring into
Speaker 6: each other's eyes and like understanding intimacy between dancers enough
Speaker 6: to interpret each other's movements through through prolonged improvisation. So
Speaker 6: it's like I have. I have like all of these
Speaker 6: things in my life that have kind of prepared me
Speaker 6: to show up and just like stare into a stranger's
Speaker 6: eyes for six minutes in an elevator. It wasn't really
Speaker 6: like a large task, And I didn't really care that
Speaker 6: this is Kendrick because like I was raised to believe, Yah,
Speaker 6: everybody's just a human being. So you know, I'm interfacing
Speaker 6: with him as not as this person who's done all
Speaker 6: of these amazing things, but just as another person. And
Speaker 6: is something so vulnerable about sharing exchanging eye contact for
Speaker 6: that amount of time. Doesn't matter who that person is,
Speaker 6: you really have to just be there with them. So
Speaker 6: I didn't feel like it needed much preparation aside from
Speaker 6: you know, getting my braves redone and pulling up on time.
Speaker 1: Making sure your own point.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's so you really that work in college
Speaker 1: allowed you to feel like, allowed you to be ready
Speaker 1: to because it's an interesting thing, like you're really having
Speaker 1: to express something really only through body language, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is like that's a that's you know, way less tools
Speaker 1: and you have available to you as a singer songwriter
Speaker 1: or you.
Speaker 6: Know, like kind of it's all the same it's all
Speaker 6: the same, the subtleties with which I make the choices
Speaker 6: to sing certain things, the same as how you show
Speaker 6: up in your body and convey with like without words,
Speaker 6: with just eyes and a few gestures. It's it's actually
Speaker 6: all in the eyes most most storytelling.
Speaker 1: Really, I think. So even before you take it to
Speaker 1: the stage, like before you like so even in the
Speaker 1: recording process, are you are you aware of your body
Speaker 1: in that way?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Well, with recording, I often when I sing, I
Speaker 6: close my eyes because I'm so aware of my body.
Speaker 6: I'm pulling it out of my body. And I'm not
Speaker 6: performing from the sense of like being perceived or filmed
Speaker 6: or watched, but from the perspective of trying to channel
Speaker 6: all of that that that that aspect of our humanity
Speaker 6: that can like watch ourselves from the outside in. And
Speaker 6: I'm cutting that sense off closing my eyes, and I'm
Speaker 6: projecting it inward in order to deliver it with my voice,
Speaker 6: just my voice, kind of like concentrating the energy.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. Just go back to your trajectory a little bit.
Speaker 1: You had that weird experience with that label, and you're
Speaker 1: in a weird contract. You eventually start making some independent music.
Speaker 1: It sounds very different still from what you've just put out.
Speaker 1: It was good thinking of like Sacred uh, Sacred Bowl, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a really cool project, but it's really it's
Speaker 1: just it's still not like was was is the music
Speaker 1: you just made with Tether? Is that like was that
Speaker 1: what you've been envisioning all along? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I remember with Sacred Bowl, I was really frustrated
Speaker 6: because all these producers kept telling me that it was
Speaker 6: too expensive to make music with live musicians. They're just like,
Speaker 6: it's too expensive, it's too complicated, we don't have the
Speaker 6: right room, and they're right, there are certain things that
Speaker 6: you need to do that and we had, you know,
Speaker 6: essentially a vocal boose at a closet and a bunch
Speaker 6: of computers like in no money. So Sacred Bowl was
Speaker 6: a beautiful product of a lot of hustle and grit,
Speaker 6: Like we were just making music with what we had
Speaker 6: and I'm proud of that. But my voice couldn't come
Speaker 6: through because I was having to rely on these producers
Speaker 6: to craft the sonics and the sound, and there was
Speaker 6: so much in that collaboration that just got lost in translation,
Speaker 6: and it didn't have enough room for my voice. There
Speaker 6: was not I couldn't tell my stories how I wanted
Speaker 6: to tell the stories. And when I was done with
Speaker 6: Sacred Bull and I did that tour with Lendy Kravitz.
Speaker 6: When I did the tour, I brought a band. I
Speaker 6: was able to bring a band, and we did a
Speaker 6: we did all rock arrangements of Sacred Bowl, and I
Speaker 6: was like, I was freaking right. I was right, Like
Speaker 6: the music makes sense in this context when there's a
Speaker 6: band and there's room to like breathe and we can
Speaker 6: like push and pull and like the songs themselves come alive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much more. There was a live version that
Speaker 1: you I don't know if you band camp, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's very different from.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like it actually it has yet life in it.
Speaker 6: And that's when I was a shift to me. I
Speaker 6: was like, yeah, I'm just not going to waste my
Speaker 6: time with producer projects anymore. Like I I can't. I
Speaker 6: can't exist on the grid. I cannot fit in the grid.
Speaker 6: So everything that I do now it's free time. It does.
Speaker 6: There's no metronome. The metronome is us. We got one
Speaker 6: built in so we don't really need a metronome. And
Speaker 6: was my first foray into producing from that perspective, like, Okay,
Speaker 6: what if I just teach real musicians at the real
Speaker 6: room the songs, and then we discuss our choices and
Speaker 6: then we go in there, we take it a few times,
Speaker 6: one track through, one take through after one take, after
Speaker 6: one take, and whichever the best take is makes it
Speaker 6: on the record. And that's that's how they've been doing
Speaker 6: music for a long ast time until we had computers
Speaker 6: and all this fancy stuff, and so even even there
Speaker 6: was just then from that point a process of refinement
Speaker 6: revival was like my first step in that direction. I
Speaker 6: was still kind of finding my voice again after so
Speaker 6: much trauma and psychological warfare and musically trying to find
Speaker 6: my confidences as a as a producer, as a leader.
Speaker 6: And by the time I got around to recording Surface Tension,
Speaker 6: which we recorded at chendri La, that was like when
Speaker 6: we really honed in on the sonic world, which was
Speaker 6: just like the type of mic that we're going to use,
Speaker 6: the type of room that we're going to be in,
Speaker 6: the type of guitar we're going to use, and have
Speaker 6: a mic on that guitar like bread and butter. Just
Speaker 6: that kind of Minutia was the core, and then experimenting
Speaker 6: on what can we fill the space with but very
Speaker 6: tastefully so that was surface tensions experimentation. So by the
Speaker 6: time we got to Tether and recording Tether, it was
Speaker 6: like all of that was so honed in that when
Speaker 6: we brought the band in it was like it wasn't easy.
Speaker 6: There was still a lot of work and there's still
Speaker 6: a lot of wielding and like talking to everyone crafting it.
Speaker 6: But this but the between Jason and I, the way
Speaker 6: that it was going to be recorded and engineered.
Speaker 1: It was just locked.
Speaker 6: Yea, yeah. The sound, the sound was found at that point.
Speaker 1: I feel like your voice is first and foremost the
Speaker 1: thing that's like, you know, wow. The arrangement for sure
Speaker 1: is like the second thing that it's like, this is
Speaker 1: beautifully arranged, you know, in the whorreas. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's so like I guess maybe people think about arrangements,
Speaker 1: and people probably spend time arranging the records, but the
Speaker 1: way this is arranged, it's just like it's it's really thoughtful.
Speaker 1: You don't even notice it, but when you start trying
Speaker 1: to pay attention to do it, you're like, it's really
Speaker 1: smartly done. You know, it's so cool.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's so cool.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Yeah. It sounds like not as much work
Speaker 6: as people think it is. It's like it's a lot
Speaker 6: of me letting the people, choosing the right people and
Speaker 6: then letting them do what they do best. Yeah, that's
Speaker 6: the way I like to produce things.
Speaker 1: Why do it any other way?
Speaker 6: It's just easier that way. It's like, I don't I
Speaker 6: don't have all the knowledge. I'm going to go to
Speaker 6: the person who spent the last fifteen years learning their instrument. Yeah,
Speaker 6: not try and tell them what to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you had a play drum stress my good
Speaker 1: love it.
Speaker 6: I am. He's my favorite drummer ever. He's actually ruined
Speaker 6: all drummers for me, because if abe isn't free, I
Speaker 6: just would rather not have drums.
Speaker 1: He's really good. He's a beautiful human. I want to
Speaker 1: play another song.
Speaker 4: You get.
Speaker 6: There's a.
Speaker 4: He CD in the corner over there, sharing the ground
Speaker 4: with the t.
Speaker 5: That's the saving.
Speaker 3: The surrounding boys and hunger than us there.
Speaker 6: Get on Die.
Speaker 3: I find it a different His spile of the movie.
Speaker 5: Crow is lying there.
Speaker 8: I dance three days I does three days.
Speaker 6: I died three days in the arms of my lover,
Speaker 6: and I met in the growing.
Speaker 3: Face holds onto my growing movie, and I deserve to
Speaker 3: rest in a California.
Speaker 2: Cum maid of my arms outstretched and my dreams reading
Speaker 2: from my.
Speaker 6: Live into the sheets.
Speaker 3: Instead, help me beyond choose.
Speaker 4: You lost surrounding son Ali, He's surrounding in a lamb
Speaker 4: that I deserted.
Speaker 3: For a better end.
Speaker 4: How does a better hand?
Speaker 5: You see? Hi, never learn.
Speaker 6: To be kind?
Speaker 4: But I hear you get used.
Speaker 3: To the pain, heart break again then again.
Speaker 8: H m hmmm mm hmmm mm hmm.
Speaker 4: I won't be heartless, so don't be hatless with me.
Speaker 4: I won't be Calns, so don't be callous with me.
Speaker 4: I won't be Carolins, so don't be carless with me.
Speaker 4: I won't be calds. S told me be Calas, who
Speaker 4: won't be heartins? So this is.
Speaker 7: Holy Calais. Son't hang me call is? How becaid.
Speaker 5: Fun?
Speaker 8: Be okay?
Speaker 4: How becad.
Speaker 1: Fun?
Speaker 4: Be fu?
Speaker 1: Be you me? This is a real magic in your
Speaker 1: This is a real magic in your performances. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: You mentioned briefly Leney took you on tour. Yea has
Speaker 1: he heard this record.
Speaker 6: Yes, actually, and when he got when we were in
Speaker 6: mastering process, I finalized the masters in his basement. Nice,
Speaker 6: so he has heard this record and he was listening
Speaker 6: to it and he just kept going, girl, what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, after every song you're.
Speaker 1: Like, what the yeah, that's that's the right response. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, you're like a body high listening, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was experienced listening yesterday doing right now.
Speaker 1: It's incredible and it's so different from like that Lenny
Speaker 1: heard something in you Earth. I mean, it's so beyond
Speaker 1: You're so beyond where he found you. You know, the
Speaker 1: this is it's just like whoa. You know, it's the
Speaker 1: only intelligible thing I have to say. And then thank
Speaker 1: you so much for for for sharing by yourself and
Speaker 1: your music, and thank you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thanks for your question.
Speaker 1: Yeah. An episode description, you'll find a link to a
Speaker 1: playlist of some of the songs we talked about in
Speaker 1: this episode, and also to Anastasia's album. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to
Speaker 1: see all of our video interviews, and be sure to
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod You
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help
Speaker 1: from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
Speaker 1: love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
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Speaker 1: back Anny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.