Donna Missal Seeks Enlightenment

Can you hear me?

I can hear you. Ok. I feel relieved. Sorry about that.

No, you're good. How are you?

Good. Good. I've been sick for a couple days. I went to Mexico for a week, which was really, really fun, but I came home with a little cold.

I just went to the gym for the first time in a while to try and sweat it out. Where are you based?

I'm from Long Island. You're from New Jersey, right?

Are you in Long Island now?

Yeah. I hate it here.

I get it. I hated New Jersey for a really long time. But you come to love it for all of its little flaws especially if it's where you're from.

You just grow a kind of tenderness for it. Have you lived somewhere else before?

Yeah. I lived in Atlanta for a few years. You’re in LA?

Yeah I’m in LA. It doesn’t look like it but I am. It’s been the most gloomy of times. It’s gloomy as fuck.

What's your big three by the way?

What's my, what?

Your sun, moon and rising?

Oh my God. I'm a Capricorn and I don't know my other ones. I feel like I'm supposed to because I’ve lived here for so long.

I definitely have them on hand in an app. But for some reason they won't penetrate, I can’t memorize them. I know I have a lot of Capricorn placements. Do you know yours?

I'll send you my chart.

I posted my chart once because I've been asked so many times, but I left out a couple of things because I heard you could get into some witchcraft shit. People could cast spells on you and curse you with it.

It’s not really in my belief system but it’s the internet. So, you never know.

So what have you been up to since you dropped Lighter?

Oh I've gone through existential crisis, I suppose. I was dropped from the label after I made the EP that followed Lighter.

I made that EP because I couldn't get the funding or support to make another album with that label, but they wouldn't let me go. I was really trying to understand what my place in the world was, which I’ve come to find is the process of enlightenment.

It’s ironic because in our Western culture, we usually hear about enlightenment from privileged White people on youtube talking about yoga and going on retreats and shit. I was approaching it from a genuine place of losing material possessions, material comforts and experiencing housing insecurity.

What would you say the main idea behind Revel is?

It really ended up becoming this album about enlightenment but from the perspective of being really broken down. While I was writing it, I was living in my car and didn't really know what I was gonna do next.

I needed to reach for something outside of the material and pull myself out of this darkness by imagining what was beyond the capitalistic climbing of the ladder. I was looking for growth and expansion from a more emotional place.

I discovered that if you want to find light, you have to accept that there is a lot of darkness to hold both things in balance.

How did being independent influence the sound of your album?

I spent a lot of time being really influenced by the structure that the label wanted for me. I wanted to do the opposite of whatever they said.

It’s a rewarding experience to follow your intuition but you also lose a lot of relationships with people that are trying to create a product to market.

After I went independent, I was left with this big empty space to fill by myself. So there's just a lot more freedom and fluidity in this record. It's funny because I was in a place in my life where I felt stuck but I was really free.

I know that your brother plays the guitar and a lot of people in your family are musical. When did you realize that you wanted to be a musician?

Oh, man, I grew up singing, like my earliest memories are singing. I come from a big family, there's six of us and we were home schooled. So we just spent all our time with each other.

I didn't really have anyone watching over me or monitoring me so I was constantly singing, making up my own songs and writing poems in my journal. When I got older, I went to theater school and discovered my love of being onstage and performing.

But, I always imagined that I would just write music for other people because I thought it was more practical. I guess that’s where my Capricorn energy comes in. I wanted to save myself the heartbreak.

When did you stop being afraid of heartbreak in terms of pursuing music?

Oh, I'm still afraid, my heart's broken all the time. It feels a little bit like it’s permanently broken now. That's how I approach music. I've just come to terms with heartbreak as part of the experience.

I think in the early stages of my career, I was getting a lot of validation and encouragement from people at major labels. They were blowing smoke in from every direction.

It's easy to believe what people tell you.

Do you enjoy interviews and talking about your work?

I don't get to do this a lot anymore and office is one of very few publications that I really respect. I enjoy interviews when the conversation is meaningful. You know, there's a difference between answering for the 1000th time “Who are five artists that inspire you”? versus when you're asked about your process.

You get to really think about why you do what you do. I’m really obsessed with growth and evolution, it’s inherent to all the creative work I do.

Where do you want your sound to go next?

I think as long as it’s really authentic, I don’t care. I made a decision recently not to fixate on how my music is perceived or how it’s going to turn out or whether people like it or not.

I understand how difficult that can be to wrap your head around as a consumer but I just decided that if it's gonna be smaller, I need to keep it genuine. So, I'm just gonna keep approaching music like that. I mean to be totally honest, I don't know if I'll even be able to make another record. I think that's why this record is so important to me.

I'm really in a place of putting one foot in front of the other and just kind of hoping for the best, that’s what being independent is.