Could you explain your origins as an artist and in music?

 

“I was kind of born into it in a way. My family is very musical. My dad was a drummer in the 80s’ and my brothers were in bands when I was growing up, and so was my sister. And they still make music. And my aunt makes music and she still plays in a band in Nashville... So it’s kind of just everywhere. I was kind of just born with a guitar in my hand.”

"I feel like every younger sibling, you always want to do what your older sibling is doing.”

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"...I guess the origins are just like my family influence and being led that way, but also loving every second of it."

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When did you take the step to start writing your own music and not just playing instruments?

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I’ve been writing songs since I was six years old, and I still have some of those original songs I wrote as a six-year-old, and it’s pretty funny, but it’s cool to see growth. Specifically just in the past few years because I don’t really consider that my peak songwriting when I was six years old.”

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What genre would you consider yourself to be in if you had to choose?

 

“I always struggle with the genre question… but usually we say dream pop is what we would call it. Like indie pop, dream pop, just because a lot of the stuff that I first put under this project was a little more jangly, like beach rock kind of stuff. But yeah, I just got into using synths and samples and stuff like that, and also just like kind of being confined to a smaller recording space— being in an apartment versus being in my house where I have a full basement studio basically, is much different as a freshman in Centerville. And even now, I live in Trow so it’s not anything huge”

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Do you hope to pursue a career in music after college?

 

“Yeah, that’s kind of the main goal. I mean I’ll be happy in any sect of the music industry, but ideally, it’ll be as an artist."

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With such a passion for music, why did you choose to go into marketing?

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“Going into college I knew I didn't necessarily want to be a music major, and since I wasn’t going to a specific music school, that’s kind of like the sole reason I became a marketing major...I knew that ... I could still be in the industry in any way if I could have a marketing degree.”

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“And I do a lot of design stuff currently, and a lot of marketing stuff, so that’s super beneficial just for like my own marketing endeavors, but I kind of just did it to figure out how to brand myself and how to really market myself."

 

Where do you get your inspiration to create music, and has it changed overtime?

 

“Yeah, I definitely think so. When I was younger and in high school and stuff, I didn’t really have that much to write about because I don’t know, I was a child. I wasn’t going through emotional breakups or things like that.“

 

Now "I feel like love is definitely a big theme in a lot of my music, and a lot of that is from personal experience"

 

"My friends Josh and George, they play in a band live, and over the past couple of years I’ve started collaborating with them more. Josh and I put out a new song today! It’s been fun to shift to a more collaborative style of work.”

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How many instruments do you play?

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“I think it’s seven: guitar, bass, piano, drums, saxophone, and then I sing. I can’t really play the banjo that well anymore, but I can play the banjo a little bit. Pretty much just anything with strings, I feel like I can just feel my way around because I tend to learn most stuff pretty much all by ear. I took piano lessons from ages five to ten probably, and then I took guitar lessons from ages six to 16 or something, and then kind of branched out and taught myself everything out there."

 

How has music benefited your life?

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“I feel like it’s lead me to a lot of really cool opportunities and a lot of really cool people, and just like introduced me to really supporting communities. I mean like, we’ve gotten to go on tour... I’ve got to travel the east coast in a van with my friends, and that was just of our own doing. I was a freshman in my dorm basically cold calling/ emailing venues and promoters trying to set up shows, and we’re not big artists so it’s more difficult, but luckily just having connections in different cities (through) staying at different band’s houses or whatever. It’s cool that there is a really strong sense of community in that sense; it’s very widespread. It’s not like you have to be right in the center of it, which I think is really cool.”

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“We also go to play Firefly which was probably the craziest of them all because that was just like a fever dream.”

“I’ve just like met a lot of really cool people and like most of my friends have come from music, honestly.”

“I don’t really know what my life would be like without it so… it’s interesting to think about it though.” 

 

Has COVID-19 impacted your music endeavors?

 

“Yeah, definitely. We played two shows in all of 2020. One in January and one in February and then we were locked down. But prior to that, I think in 2019 alone we played around 30 to 40 shows. But at the same time, I think it was good too in the sense that a lot of my success— in my head a lot of my favorite things that I’ve done musically-- have honestly been throughout COVID. I think I have 15 demos just kind of waiting kind of inline just to be released.”

 

“So yeah, it was good for that. And I think that on a personal level it was a lot of self-reflection and stuff that went into that, and kind of just figuring out more of a direction of what I really want to do with my music and where I wanted to go and just trying to like fine-tune it and just trying to make things the best they can be. So I think it was good for that, but I do miss playing live shows because that is a whole different thing than just recording songs in my basement.” 

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Interview and transcription by Sarah D'souza, edited by Jordan Tisaranni