In a midst of a cultural moment in which the most significant barometer of evaluating self-worth is how many likes your photo gets on Instagram, JIL packs a powerful message within the atmospheric and hypnotic beats of “Track 3.” Music with a message never fails to float our boat.
Watch the “Track 3” video, below.
Born in Baltimore and later moving to New York City, serpent's musical influences have always been informed by his surroundings. Whether watching Missy Elliot's music videos at a young age or dancing in clubs in his 20s to the humming of a bird while on a walk, serpent's ear has always been attuned. This sensitivity to his environment is palpable in the projects he meticulously crafts and the sonic worlds he intricately constructs. From his 2016 EP 'Blisters,' an experimental pop and alt-R&B exploration of the queer experience, to his 2018 debut album, 'Soil,' a reinforcement of serpent's falsetto voice and genre-bending style, his latest album, 'Grip,' threads all of his artistic desires. "Within my canon, the story has just got a little bit lower on the body," he notes. "It started more lofty, up in the head, and now it's a bit lower. It feels like a natural succession."
With dance-centric tracks like "Damn Gloves" featuring Ty Dolla $ign and Yanga YaYa to sultry melodies like "Lucky Me," 'Grip' pulsates and simmers, blurring the lines between the dance floor and personal reflection.
When I speak with serpent, it's a week after our shoot. A cold Los Angeles morning backdrops our call, and the multi-dimensional artist and I get right into our conversation. Serpent touches on how his work is all about brevity, the influence of nightlife on his music, his latest project, 'Grip', and how he enjoys every stage of the creative process.
Read the interview below.
How are you?
I’m doing well. How are you?
I’m doing well! Congratulations on your newest project, 'Grip.' You’ve undergone various chapters as an artist, and I wonder if you have to shed bits of yourself to arrive at a new chapter, or do you just build upon each one?
That's a great way to think about it. Perhaps it's a bit of both. It's almost like leaving a trail behind as you get to the new self, but you never discard the trail. The footprints are important, but it's also important to be new.
In this new chapter, you’ve created a more uptempo project, which is a slight departure from past projects, though it is just a building upon. What was the arrival like with this album?
I don't think we ever see a seed and say, “I hope the seed never has colorful leaves.” The potential for something vibrant was always evident to me. When I look at my first EP, someone may describe it as avant-garde, or they may describe it as experimental. But in my opinion, the way that I flirt with the instrumental and the way that I arrange vocals is such an obvious nod to R&B. When I was recording, I was thinking about Faith Evans and Brandy and so many icons that I loved. That expression of what I was thinking about, maybe, is not so evident, but it's there; the seed was there. I always knew that, eventually, the leaves would be colorful.
All of your projects bear vulnerabilities, though this one listens as a meditation on intimacy and this celebration of love, connection, and raw emotions. When creating a song, from writing the lyrics to the production, do you ever hold back how much of the personal you pour out into a project?
I'm always interested in brevity. The older I get, the more I get better at brevity. That's always the goal. How can I pack a punch in four words versus 15? If 15 words are necessary, so be it, but brevity is always the goal.
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That balance is apparent in your craft. With this album, your artistic sensibilities are laced throughout. Still, the narratives you explore are a bit new–a celebration of Black queer intimacy, connection, and hot and sweaty club culture, specifically queer spaces. What inspired the delving into these themes? Did a song or specific experience inform the album?
If we were to try to locate a thread throughout my work, that thread would be the desire, the willingness, the courage, the vulnerability to express that desire, that longing, that yearning. I would say that would be the thread for the first few projects. I centered the heart, the mind, and the spirit. In this new project, I wanted to center the body, and it was time to center the physical. I don't think it was so much “Oh, this is the right time to write work like this” or “ This is the right time to create music with this bpm.” I had the concept in mind for a while, but I was able to pull it together now. Within my canon, the story has just got a little bit lower on the body. It started more lofty, up in the head, and now it's a bit lower. It feels like a natural succession.
When songwriting for this project, was the process similar to past projects, or did you diverge a bit?
I'm always thinking about a concept or working on an idea. I don't think that ever stops. When it comes time to be in the studio, it varies. There's not one way. Sometimes, it's responding to an instrumental, or the instrumental was birthed out of a sensation I want to document. Then the lyrics follow, but there's definitely no one way.
Do you find yourself in social situations writing lyrics or leaving a social situation and recounting through songwriting?
Typically, when I'm having a great time, I enjoy it, and later, I may jot down some ideas, but that's a huge maybe. I have a pretty good memory, so I can recall at least a feeling or one thing that really stuck with me. It could be from a few years ago, and I could still recall it. In my work, especially this album, I'm not trying to write about my life in a literal way. Since I've started making music and sharing it publicly, it's never been autobiographical. It's going to be colored by my perspective, but I tried to push to the edge of the universe and raise the stakes a bit–be a little hyperbolic.
Your beginnings in the church choir to training in classical and opera could have led you down a more traditional path, though you began experimenting with your voice and genre. Did that shift happen in undergrad or after?
Everything that I've learned is still with me and has stayed with me. But then there was also this urge to do my best to find something new within all of this data I had. I graduated college in my 20s, and I just had the urge to make sense of all this information. It's a lifelong pursuit to make sense of this information. I think the beauty and the fun of having a classical background, growing up in church, doing musical theater and jazz, and loving R&B and pop music are that they would expand on different narratives and perspectives that I was familiar with. There were so many different storytelling approaches. What was fun for me was to start to figure out where I fit in all of that and how I could use the melodrama that I witnessed in the classical and operatic world. Or use the tongue-in-cheek humor used in musical theater or the sensuality you find in R&B. And how do you put that all into one thing? I'm still making sense of that.
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Your 20s are definitely about making sense of all this new information and experience. I want to touch on how this album celebrates queer club culture and the intimacy and connection it cultivates. What was your introduction to nightlife?
After college, I didn't go back home, so I learned a lot about nightlife and clubs while I was in New York. It was a journey. The beautiful thing about a city like New York is it's infinite. There's always something new. I learned a lot about the clubs that played the best music and which parties had the best DJs; it was a fun exploration for sure. There was so much great music. I remember that being a very huge part of my experience, just being amazed about what I heard from the speakers.
New York is on a different level when it comes to nightlife in the states. Are you still someone who goes out or explores those scenes?
Not as much. I got out sometimes. Miami is wonderful, and Atlanta is wonderful. I love to dance, and I love when DJs enjoy making you dance. I really appreciate that. And this idea that everybody is out because they just want to dance.
Have you witnessed a shift in club culture and nightlife since your early days of going out?
It depends on the party, to be honest. Every space is different. Our world is different now than before, and things have just changed a lot. But you can still find parties where people dance and leave sweaty. It's just a matter of finding the right parties, but it's definitely still out there. I'm always looking for the best DJs and the best crowds, and they are always fun to find.
Where does inspiration strike most for you?
I don't mean to sound obnoxious or self-important, but I think the inspiration is always there. I don't think it ever leaves. Sometimes, I deliberately leave my air pods at home and won't take them with me so I can be connected to my environment. So if it’s the sounds of streetcars or the soft song of hummingbirds or if that's hearing people kicking a soccer ball around, I just want to be connected to that. Because I think the inspiration and the questions that want to be answered are always there, but it's easy to be distracted. There are a million ideas that are sort of like, “Oh, wow, I've never thought about that,” or “Oh, maybe I'll write about that.” There’s always something there, but there is the fear of writer's block or the idea of writer's block, and I think that happens when you don't take an inventory of the world around you.
Do you like the process in its totality? Or are you someone who enjoys writing more, production, or finished work?
I love all of it. This album showed me that, especially because we worked on the stage show "Heart of Brick" as well. And the album Grip was the soundtrack for "Heart of Brick." What I really enjoyed was having an idea but then working with people and seeing how that work lives in the rehearsal space, seeing what my choreographer and dramaturg thought and hearing his opinions, or hearing what my director thought or what the set designer thought. Everybody's working hard and overtime to bring these ideas to life. I enjoyed every process from day one of rehearsal, trying to figure out which version of the choreography we would stick with because there are some songs in the stage show where we reworked choreography six different times. I love that process. I think the same about the songs. We worked hard to find the right drums and try different snares, or did we want to have no percussion? I love every stage of the process. I always knew that, but with this album and its stage show, it was evident that I love the process. I also really love collaboration, I love hearing what other people think. Because I'm just me, I can't see what I can't see. So it's really nice to hear and witness other people's brilliance at work. And I've grown so much because of it. And yes, I love the process from beginning to end.
What do you see yourself exploring more of? Would you tap into your roots and work on an opera or with the theater?
I hope to continue expanding, and my branches continue to grow. I hope my leaves get even more colorful. There are many different areas that I want to continue exploring. One of those is theater. I want to explore the stage more, and I want to explore the screen more. I love TV and film. I want to keep expanding for sure.
Your upcoming tour starts in May. Do you approach this one differently than past tours or performances? What’s the process like?
I am going to talk about what I mentioned in the earlier part of the conversation– brevity. Brevity is a goal. With each tour, I am trying to figure out how to distill all that I'm feeling. It’s the same thing with this [tour]. How do I take a lot of the energy from this album to make it clear on stage and concise? But also make it a colorful ride. I enjoy the process of figuring it out.
Your collaborative work continues to be so strong and incredible. What's your process when collaborating with an artist for your project or theirs?
Every artist I've either featured on their work or featured on mine, I respect what they do, and I'm a fan of what they do. When I'm featured on their album, I figure out how to do my best to step into their world, or at least in the world they're creating, and bring some of my perspective to it. Collaborating has been such an important part of my career because I've learned so much. You hear somebody's process or how they can take one idea and give it life on a record–which is not easy to do. To take a concept and then try to make it catchy or relatable. And so, witnessing artists' writing process has taught me so much, and I'm able to take those lessons with me. I'm thankful to have worked with a lot of really skilled, skilled musicians.
"Altadena" is phenmonemal. You and Kelela are a match made in heaven.
Thank you.
Not to do this 180 pivot, but I'm interested to know if there are any Northstars or people who offer advice on navigating love, relationships, self-love, and dating in your life? And how do you take that advice or guidance and translate that into the work?
I wouldn't say there's any one person. I’d say it would be my dynamic community, and some of that community are friends, some are professional peers, some are writers, and the work they've written has been a guide. It's a dynamic situation; I don't think it's just one person.
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I reached out to a few supporters of yours and wanted to open this conversation up to them and have them ask you questions.
Jess Callejas - What intentions do you have before moving forward with a new project?
The first thing that I want to challenge myself, maybe that's the first thought.
Ryan Luis Fuller - What are you listening to right now?
That is a great question. Right now, I’m listening to a lot. I'm listening to Brent Faiyaz, 6LACK; Willow’s new music has been incredible. Those have been some of the things I've listened to.
Justin Jackson - Your lyricism and cadence are so spiritual. How do you tap into that when writing and building your arrangements?
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. What I'm after is honesty and trying to get to the center of the feeling. That's the pursuit: how do I get to the center?
Can we expect more theatrical productions from you?
I hope that we're able to do more stuff on the stage. I definitely do hope we can.
Violeta Valdez - Your 2022 performance with björk was life-changing, gorgeous, and so magical! What inspiration or impact does 90s music have on your current art? Are there any artists in particular who have influenced what it is today?
I would say so much about the music from the 90s, and I think it's hard to divorce the music from the music videos. They were so imaginative. I often think about the production, songwriting, and vocal performances of Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, and Destiny's Child. Even look at what björk was doing in the 90s. There was so much imagination, so much color. The music videos and the songs are still iconic. There was so much ingenuity in the work. As I create, I'm always trying to challenge myself. I grew up really admiring all the artists that I just mentioned. What they did sartorially, what they did sonically, and the worlds they could create are still mind-blowing.
The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions gives me the feeling of my favorite memory. Which memory exactly, I couldn't tell you, but the feeling is there and that’s more than enough. As the album rolls out, I think a lot of reviews are going to use words like “nostalgic” or “familiar”. These descriptors are, ultimately, personal and up for interpretation by definition, which is exactly what Joseph wants.
“I think it's better to present a question than an answer — it forces someone to have their own opinion about the music and that's great. Whether it's right or wrong, it doesn’t matter.” He follows with, “Having people walk away from any type of art with more questions than answers, strikes up an interesting challenge for me as a creator.”
The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions is the representation of deep growth for an artist learning how to let go and look in. “This record took a lot of trial and error and waiting to see what would work. I was also interested in seeing if things still affected me after the initial excitement of them,” describes Joseph. He goes on to compare his current self to his past self and how he used to “produce his way out of problems" but isn’t interested in that anymore.
“As an artist, you want to be better at the things you feel like you should be better at. I ended up canning this philosophy and decided to play to my strengths even more. I don’t care about a complicated chord progression so much as I do just trying to capture a feeling as quickly as possible.”
This newfound approach is how songs like "Another 9 Days" and "Halo Flip" were made. Even though the album took about five years to make, Joseph’s favorite bits and pieces were made in a matter of weeks.
It's obvious in talking to Joseph that this free-flow state is something he has, subconsciously or not, been working towards as a musician. Time and letting go have seemed to offer him the space to change his workflow and reflect on himself as an artist.
“You won’t find the answers in a self help book, that’s just coping”, he pauses and after a momentary reflection, chuckles. “It makes me wonder if all I am doing is just coping, not actually dealing with anything. I am sort of projecting it out there and making everyone suffer. In a way, making this album is a way of letting go.”
The locations chosen for The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions’ music videos, directed by friend and longtime collaborator Joshua Gordon, were made to feel like the dancers were dropped around London, giving a sense that “you may have seen them before.”
As I watched the dancers move together in "Makeshift Tourniquet", I got a sense of watching someone else’s found footage. It reminded me of being a kid and filming myself with friends just because we found an old camera in their parent’s basement. It’s intimate and feels more familiar than you’d expect.
This is a constant feeling and theme throughout the record and in Joseph’s overall work. There is this innate nod to nostalgia, in thinking on how the pieces will live now and how they’ll feel to look at later on.
Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds (2019)
In our conversation, he mentions the cover art for Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds. It is a photograph of himself as a kid on his Dad’s shoulders in front of a big dinosaur at the National History Museum in London. This photograph is similar to one we’ve all seen over and over, but Joseph asks, “How many people have this exact photograph with their parents?”
“It's nice to have these shared pictures or experiences because we live in such a hyper-connected society that actually feels devoid of any real connections. This is why I tend to gravitate to things more lighthearted and friendly, even though my music has a lot of sadness.”
That feeling, right in the middle of lighthearted and melancholy, is what Joseph seems to capture best as a musician. The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intention achieves connected nostalgia for listeners from all over, who have probably never met and never will. They’ll feel innately nostalgic for different moments, places, or things, but still — we’ll all be experiencing the same nostalgia, wherever we may be.
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When Taraneh was writing her first two albums, she was making music for people to listen to in their rooms. New Age Prayer, releasing on Kiss Me I'm Famous, is comprised of cross-genre references that Taraneh describes as an entirely new sound, that while ethereal and a little moody (perfect for listening to in a bedroom) is better in person. When the album drops, she, Scarlet Rae and Prints will grace the stage at Mercury Lounge so keep an eye out. ;)
The singles you've put out so far sound wildly different from your past projects. How would you describe this record?
Yeah for sure, it's super multi-genre exploring a lot of very new sounds for me in terms of genre and the way that things are presented. And it's really exciting because we've entered this era where genres are almost dead in a way. I don't know if it has to do with the way that we consume media, but that genres kind of blend in this interesting way that I've never really experienced before, at least in my lifetime, or as far as I know in the past. I feel like I'm seeing more artists who are more and more kind of liberated in terms of what they present in their music. And this record is very much that as well. I wanted to do grunge tracks. I wanted to do a tele-disco. I wanted to do industrial, lo-fi, whatever. It's a bit offbeat to have an album that is so all over the place, but there is this cohesive thread of the voice and the songwriting ultimately bringing everything together.
I've been hearing people say that — that genre is dying, but it feels like more and more people are just realizing that music is just sound, and so artists are more open to experiment to create sounds that evoke feeling rather than fitting into a specific genre.
Totally. And no shade to the artists that do stick to a genre, it's cool and valuable to find a niche but I feel like we've entered an era where it's gone steps beyond that, in which genre and subculture are just blending in such a new and interesting way. I feel like we're going to see more and more multi-genre projects.
Or maybe just no genre. Would you say that it's something you're doing intentionally or it just happens naturally?
Yeah, no genre, just something completely new. I'd say that's kind of my goal as an artist in a lot of ways. I don't think there's any point in doing something if you're not bringing anything new to the table, whether that be a new feeling that you invoke for an audience, or a sound. I'm not going to sit here and call myself a pioneer or anything, but I do think that the way that this record specifically crosses genres and almost circumvents them is something that is relatively new. Some people get it, some people don't at this point, but I don't know, I'm sure that will be something we see a lot more of.
How do you feel about some of the more energetic songs on the record, like "Artificial" with Evanora:Unlimited?
I feel like this record is the first time that I brought my singing voice above a certain place in terms of volume. My past work is very soft and intimate, which is the writing style that feels very comfortable to me. But with this one, I wanted to get louder and louder. There's something very powerful about singing soft songs, but there's obviously something equally as powerful about being able to yell and scream and so songs like "Artificial" are super exciting to me.
Which song was your favorite to make?
So everything is co-produced by me and my friend James Duncan. He did all of the drum programming, he did all of the synth patches, he had all the bass parts, and I did the guitar. The most fun I had writing was probably on "Superstar", just because for that song in particular, I wrote the bass line, and bass isn't really my instrument. I know how to play, obviously, but that day, James and I swapped instruments, so he did guitar, I did bass and that was a really fun experience, taking a different approach to songwriting.
When did you write "Superstar"?
"Superstar", we wrote, I think February of 2023. So a little over a year ago. The first song I wrote for the record was actually the title track, "New Age Prayer", but we recorded that one last. I wrote that in 2022 when I came back from the first tour I did in Europe with Evanora. I actually wrote it originally with Evanora and Ivy in mind as features for it, and they both wanted to hop on the track but the timing didn't end up working out. But it's super exciting to see everyone reflected in the features. So I played this show in January of 2023, and it was me, Evanora, Ivy Knight, and LUCY (Cooper B Handy), and that show honestly changed a lot for me. It was the first really big show I played where audience members were actually singing my songs.
Is that where the four of you met?
No, we didn't meet there, but that show almost represented an era for me. The features say a lot about what that specific event and coming together of sound really represented in my life and career.
This being your third full-fledged project, what made you choose the title New Age Prayer? Are you a religious or spiritual person?
I'm not religious, but I am spiritual, and honestly, the title just kind of came to me. I was having a really hard time thinking of a title for the album, but I wrote the album already knowing that I wanted this to be the album art, the one that we selected. It's an image that was on a poster in an apartment I moved into in Boston just hanging on the wall and it would never come off when I tried to take it down. The night before I moved to New York, the whole poster fell off the wall. I have it in my room now. So this was on my wall the entire time when I was writing this record.
Did you find out where the image is from?
I had no idea what the origin of the image was. The front of the poster says 'Death Community,' like some monastery having funeral processions, and the back says , "You will die here," which is very ominous, but I did a reverse image search, and it's from this publication called The Whole Earth Catalog. It was in circulation in the seventies, and it was the publication that inspired Steve Jobs to make Apple or something. It was his favorite publication. I knew that I wanted to use the image before I found all of that out, but I was like, Holy shit, that's so sick.
So I guess you're the next Steve Jobs? [Laughs]
Maybe? You heard it here, folks, I'm the next Steve Jobs. [Laughs] But back to the question. I'm definitely a very spiritual person. I was raised Muslim, and even though I don't follow any sort of institutitional religion, I am culturally Muslim so that's imagery that has presented itself again and again in my work. But one day, I was looking out that window [points] and I was like new age prayer, that's it, that's the title. Grant Lepping was the engineer, and Kris Esfandiari, King Woman is the executive producer on the record and we were all in a group chat where I sent the title, and everyone was like, What? No, that's not it. I was like, No this is it, trust me guys. It just resonated.
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Do you pray?
I do pray. For me, music is prayer in a lot of ways. I think music is magic and the words that we speak are prayers in and of themselves.
Like the opening track, "Ask and Receive”.
Totally. Our words hold immense weight and meaning. When I'm writing songs, it's not even an intentional thought process for me. It's more like I'm channeling a message. Not to sound totally offbeat, but lots of times I'll write something and it won't make sense to me until years later I'll listen back and be like, Oh my God, that is what it means for sure. You know what I mean? And this is the first record where I don't have very dark, depressing imagery in my lyricism, and that was a very intentional move on my part, just because I've spoken with so many friends who also make music, and the consensus is that what we put into our songs does really come true in a way. So the imagery in this record is very intentionally calling in what I want to experience.
Our words are so powerful. Even our thoughts and dreams.
Yeah, for sure. dreams are also such an important part of how I navigate my life. I honestly determine who I work with based on my dreams. If I say I'm going to work with someone and I have a bad dream about it, I just don’t do it. And it happened three times when I was choosing who to work with on the release of this project. If something is not meant to be, I'll just have a nightmare the night before. I'm supposed to sign the contract the next day, get this message and wake up like, Sorry, I’m not interested anymore.
I believe that, it’s how you align with what’s actually meant for you.
Totally and in my family lineage, we definitely have very intense and guiding, almost prophetic dreams. I was named based on a dream. My dad had a dream with the wife of Abraham which is why my middle name is Sara. It’s not common in Persian culture to have middle names. My dad wanted to name me Sarah but my mom was like, No, we're not going to name her daughter Sarah. They decided to make it the middle name.
Remind me what your first name means.
My name is "Taraneh" in Farsi. It means "melody".
So "Prophet" came out in January and you've released two singles and music videos for each. Talk to me about that process a little bit.
Yeah, "Prophet" came out in January. "My World" came out in February, and then "On Repeat" just dropped a few weeks ago. Prophet is also a song that I wrote later in the process of making this record. And it's just a very exciting, totally new sound for me personally. It's really fun to perform. It's very energetic in a way that a lot of my other songs haven't been, which is really exciting. I wanted to make music that people can dance to. That's another thing. When I was writing, like my last record, like A Fleeting Feeling, which I wrote before I ever played my first show, I wasn't writing with performance in mind. I was writing songs to listen to in your bedroom. That's what I was doing with it. But I started performing and I was like, I want songs that people can dance to.
Yeah, you can't play a downer in the middle of an amped up show unless people are expecting it. Everyone's going to think you're being weird.
For sure. I mean, if that's the show that you're signing up for, then definitely, but I feel like I always play with friends who make crazy, loud music that's really energetic. So I feel like it is kind of dope to be like, okay, you were just dancing to some crazy shit and now I'm going to play this really sad song. The music finds its audience for sure.
What do you feel threads the entire album together?
As multi-genre as the record is, each song has a sister track. That's kind of how I played it out in my mind. So "Prophet" and "Artificial" are like sister tracks to me. And then "Ask and Receive" and "Superstar", "Reckoning" and "Burn". That's definitely a thread that I wanted to continue throughout. Then "New Age Prayer" stands on its own as the title track. There's nothing that's really quite like that one.
Have you done that before?
No, never, but looking back, I'm really glad I did. Like "Ask and Receive" and "Superstar", James did the drum programming and it was just a long project file that continued so I was like, what if we wrote a second song with the same drums from the last track, but it's a completely different song?
Now that you mention it, I do see that, and love that intention behind the pairing. How would you compare this to your last two projects?
So I've put out two full albums; all of my albums are 13 songs, that will continue forever. But my last two records, the first one I wrote when I was 15, then I recorded it when I was 21. I did all the production, if you can even call it that. It was very lo-fi, and that was intentional. I was like, I just need to get these songs out. That was Grab Bag. And then A Fleeting Feeling was a little bit more advanced. James was my co-producer on that as well. And I had a full band for the recordings. But this is the first one that it’s really like, I'm doing this. The fact that I got to work with so many of my favorite musicians and my closest friends on this has been such a pleasure and privilege.
How does it feel to be increasing your output in terms of rollout this time around?
Like the videos, the photo shoots. That's new. That's all new. When I released A Fleeting Feeling, I was still working for USA Today as an investigative journalist. Wow. I never really thought of music as something that I would do. It was just something that I wanted to do and it gave me a lot of pleasure and joy to do, but I was never thinking like, oh, rollout video, press, whatever. And this is the first time that I'm doing that. It's fun. It's cool. It's definitely very different. There is power in not really trying to play the game. And not to say that I'm playing the game now, but I’m definitely being very intentional in what I’m doing.
I was speaking to someone the other day who — not in music, in fashion — that has been fairly influential but still considers themself "uninvolved” in the industry. They said that there's a danger in feeling too involved. Is this what you mean by 'the game'?
That is interesting, well my biggest goal as an artist is to reach as many people as will resonate with my music as possible. That is the intention beyond the artistic intention of trying to generate an entirely new feeling in terms of how I'm presenting my music to the world. Playing the game is figuring out how to hack the algorithms or whatever. The single drops are never something that I thought I would do. And in the past I was very against that. I was like, I want to present an entire body of work that's super cohesive at one point, and who cares if no one listens to it? That's still kind of a principle that guides me. I do the work for the sake of the work, but this time... I want to be a musician. And I mean, I am a musician, but I want to really pursue that now at this point in my life.
Do you feel like you’ve gotten to a point where you can be selective?
I'm starting to get there. I'm really excited. I just got a booking agent which was a huge goal of mine. I’m working with these girls, Natasha and Andrea. Natasha's also Persian, which is really cool, and I'm just excited to have representation because it's just been me and my band who are all amazing. We’ve been doing all the bookings ourselves up until this point and I don't say yes to just anything. I say things to the things that really excite me, which is a huge privilege.
Does that feel like the next step, being able to say no?
Yeah it does feel like the next step for sure. Although, that's always been a principle of mine. A tenant is never supposed to say yes to anything that doesn't resonate with them. I've always said, If it's not hell, yes, it's no. It definitely has to resonate deep within me for me to say yes to it. But it is so exciting to just get booked for bigger shows and see more people streaming my music this time. Last year, I had a thousand listeners on Spotify.
I noticed that, your streams have gone up so much since last year.
Yeah, it’s really exciting. Not that streams are getting me money or anything at this point, but it is just really cool to see people in like small towns across America listening to my music.
Does it show you how old your listeners are?
Yeah, my listeners are mostly 16 to 30, which is so cool. I very much write music for my younger self, so when I see teenagers streaming my shit, it's so exciting. That's honestly my target audience. It's the kids.
That must be such a nice feeling, to know that somewhere you might be inspiring younger people exactly like you at that age. And it’s cool that this is your first time putting out singles before a full project, because those tend to become the most popular tracks on a record.
Yeah definitely, it means the world. And it's so funny because even on my last record, there are so many songs that I wrote that I love, and it's easy to forget them in the mass of a body of work. I feel like I'm very much someone who will consume an entire album. I'll listen to it from the first song to the last song, but that's not how a lot of people consume content. There's playlists. So this time around, and this goes beyond playing into the algorithm, it's fun to be able to show people which my favorites are, the ones I really want them to listen to.
I was surprised to not see Thoom or Comet as features on the record because I know you’re friends and have worked together before.
Thoom and Comet are two of my favorite artists. Comet and I actually did a song together, "Bunny" on her last EP which is really special. I feel like one of the treats of making music is definitely being able to collaborate with artists that you respect and that's something I want to continue doing so I’d love to see them on the next project.
You mentioned consulting an astrologist to align specific dates with your roll out. What was that like?
Yeah, so my friend Tamaryn, who is this iconic shoegaze legend as well, did all of the astrological elections for the record, which is something I'd never done before. That was super special. I would tell her which week I wanted to release something and I’d tell her my intention with each single then she’d pick a date and time for when I should drop everything. I would absolutely love to continue doing that. I do believe in astrology.
A lot of early Persian spirituality is based around astrology as well, so it's something that definitely resonates with me on a cultural level. Obviously, the work needs to speak for itself, but being able to go in and fine tune these specific things has been a real treat. And it makes sense, right? Putting out a record called New Age Prayer and then having all of this astrological work behind the rollout. If there are any musicians who believe in astrology and want to work with an astrologer, hit up Tamaryn for sure.
What do you hope the impact of this album will be?
I hope it reaches all the people who need to hear it at the perfect time. This is my prayer to the world at this moment and in this era of my life and the intention here is about channeling power — personal power more than anything as I face the world. I hope everyone who sings along is able to access that power within themselves as well.
