Congratulations on your recent Grammy win! How does it feel to have won for your first nomination?
It means the world to me. Just to be nominated was amazing, and then to win — I honestly still can’t believe it. It’s one of those dreams you have as a kid that seems as impossible as going to the moon or becoming a princess. It’s really, really special, especially since I started putting out music quite recently and I’m still young. Even just to be at the ceremony was incredible — I mean, I got to meet Taylor Swift! Seconds after I won, Boygenius won their first Grammy too, and we were all bused into the same room. When they walked in, we all screamed together and hugged. It was a moment I’ll never forget!
What was the creative process like behind Bewitched?
With my first album and EP, I was just starting out playing around with jazz sounds and classical sounds and didn't want to go too far. After that first album, I found that the songs that seemed to stick out were the songs that resembled classic jazz standards or the songs that were recorded with orchestra. I figured for Bewitched, I would just lean in; if a song was leaning jazz, I'd just let it live in that world, and if a song was more classical, I did it with an orchestra and really leaned into that sound. Some of the songs are a little more fun; there's a song called "Lovesick" on it, which is kind of the dark horse of the record. I think it's almost like a rock song, even though it still has sweeping strings. I was just unafraid to let the songs be what they're meant to be and not think too much about what made them make sense together as an album. At the end of the day, it is cohesive because it's all my writing and it's all my voice and my cello playing and string arranging.
You've achieved a lot of success online, specifically on TikTok and Instagram. How do you respond to critics who say that spending time online and having such a large social media presence detracts from your art?
With every new wave of music, we're going to have different ways of promoting. When I started, I had this genre of music that was borrowing from old genres of music that hadn't been in the pop scene for a very, very long time. To be able to prove myself as an artist, I had to go to the people before I went to the industry. I think the fact that as an artist that you're diminished in some way for going directly to the audience is unfortunate. I built a social media audience before I signed to management, before I released music, before I recorded these albums or signed to a label, and the reason I was able to do all those things and do them in a way where I was in complete control is because of my following. I still own my masters; I own my publishing. I've been able to do that because of my fan base online. I think one of the reasons that my songs resonate a lot with my audience is because they know who I am. It's not filtered through some establishment or anything; it's directly from my mouth to their ears through social media. Especially with the genres of music that I use, my first thought was, “Okay, I love jazz music, I love classical music. I want to feed it to new ears. Where is Gen Z?” There was no question that Gen Z is on the internet, so I went straight to the internet. In the past few years I've been able to harness social media to bring new ears to classical and jazz music in a way that would only be possible using social media. I also think social media gives artists a level of control and, especially as a woman in music, a level of control that we never, ever had before.
Speaking of social media, I’ve noticed this trend of you being identified as “delulu,” as in delusional, online. This seems to be something of a positive — in the comments of your posts a lot of your followers have started to self-identify as “delulu” too. I was interested if you had any thoughts on this, particularly because being labeled delusional is something that happens to young women a lot, though usually in an adverse sense.
I think it started with a wave on TikTok where people were talking about how they were “delulu” and kind of happy with it. People then started pinning my music to that trend because my music, especially the first album, is very hopelessly romantic and about dreaming up scenarios and living in a little bit of a dream world — who am I kidding, the second album is also like that. But with owning this “delulu thing” — that was one of the biggest weapons that men could use against women to write off any comment: “Oh, she's delusional. She's crazy.” Now there are hordes of people and my audience just owning the fact that they're delusional. It's like, yeah, I'm delusional, I'm kind of crazy. Of course, that’s what it feels like to be falling in love or having a crush on someone who doesn't feel the same, that's it’s delusional. But we're all delusional; now we're just owning the narrative. I think being delusional is just being hopeful.
You've spoken before about your relationship with your twin sister, Junia, who's also your creative director and has played violin on several of your tracks. While you sing primarily about romantic longing, do you feel that the theme of sisterhood has influenced your work at all? A lot of your songs feel like they are being sung for a close confidant or equal, even if the lyrics revolve around a love interest.
Absolutely. I think with having a sister, you grow a certain sensibility towards women or other girls your age, right? Because you're not only looking out for yourself, you're looking out for another woman in your life, another girl in your life. I think I almost use that sense of sisterhood that I have towards my female fans as well. When I write songs like "Letter To My 13 Year Old Self," which is a song that I addressed to my younger self, it's also addressed to your 13-year-old self; it's addressed to little girls all over the world. I also wrote a song called "Magnolia" which is about what I say is the most beautiful girl in the world. These are all songs that I think have come from sisterhood. It's like a love for another girl's beauty. Also, with my EP, I'd never been in love before, and I literally just had to make stuff up that was appropriate. The song "Best Friend," I wrote about Junia because I still felt like I had to resonate with a song before putting it out. I was like, okay, how can I resonate with a love song? I'll write a love song for my best friend, who also happens to be my sister.
There’s a new wave of young singers of Asian descent like Mitski, beabadoobee and mxmtoon coming up in the industry who you often get compared to. It’s exciting, because you are all diverse artists who are both highly visible and very popular, but does it ever get frustrating to be grouped together?
It doesn't bother me at all. I think if anything, I had such a lack of Asian artists and pop musicians to look up to that the fact that you can even create a category with more than one person is just a win. I'm very happy being able to connect with those artists as well and just being able to talk about our similar experiences is such a wealth for me as a musician. I can also see the connections between us all; none of them are out of left field. We're all songwriters; Mitski and I both write these very literal lyrics, although mine are definitely a little more delusional and hers are probably a little more straight hitting. In a way, we've also both had a similar internet background. I see the connections, and it's been really fun to talk to my friends who are also Asian and artists. Being categorized with them is honestly just a blessing. A win for another Asian artist is a win for me.
You have a very distinct fashion sense; a lot of your fans even style themselves similarly to you when they attend your shows. Do you feel like clothes are a big part of your performance? In your case, it’s interesting because they seem to constitute this permeable thing between you and your fans.
Definitely. I mean, you've seen how I dress since before I released music and it's still very much the same. I just continue embodying my own self and my personal style, and the fact that now I see my fans coming to my shows and dressing like that is really, really cool. It gives a sense of community. Music has become a visual world as well, so I think the clothes are just as important. They can show people who you are before you start singing — you can kind of look at what I'm wearing and be like, oh yeah, I can see a little bit of who she is. Clothes really illustrate the story.
You also run your own book club where you invite your fans and followers to read and discuss your favorite literary pieces with you. Do you find literature influences your songwriting at all? If so, what books or writers have particularly stood out?
I use books as songwriting inspiration. If I sit down and I don't really know what I'm going to write for the day, I will just open up a book and read a chapter and actively look for words or ideas or themes that stick out that I can then in turn use in a song. It’s kind of just like this wealth of words and thoughts that you can use and interpret your own way. When people ask me songwriting advice, I always say, go to the bookshelf. I really like Tove Jansson's writing. I read The Summer Book and A Winter Book; especially with The Summer Book, I liked the way that it was almost like a children's book, but for adults. The way that she described the nature on this Finnish island was very beautiful to me; I think it touched me, coming from Iceland. I also read a lot of Joan Didion's essays and took those essays and particularly her autobiographical writing as inspiration to then write "Letter To My 13 Year Old Self." I liked the way she was writing about herself while still writing to other people; you know, writing in a way that doesn't feel so personal that other people won't relate.
Looking towards the future, what’s next for you?
I think my work isn't quite done with introducing jazz and classical sounds to the pop audience. I'm also going to be touring a lot this year and I'm excited to see the fans in person, that's just my favorite thing to do. Hopefully I'll be working; I'm always working on something. I see my music and albums as my journals that follow me throughout life — as long as I'm still living, I'm going to write about it.
How'd you get into making music?
I moved here to be an actor. I was in acting school and then I went to Basement and I gave up everything. I just wanted to make Techno. I was DJing a lot during the pandemic with my brother. I was pretty good at soccer when I was younger so that was all I did. I thought nothing of it but I always knew I wanted to do music. I would paint a lot. And then when I was in college, I was like, ‘I know this is what I really want to do, I'm just too scared and I want to make money.’
And then it was just inevitable that I couldn't do that anymore. I wanted to be more immersed in art. And so acting I really liked because it allowed me to get away from that toxic masculinity shit. And then it led to music. And it's always been that. I just didn't want to believe it and I didn't think I was good enough. I think that just came from… I don’t know… shame, guilt.
Is acting something you'd want to explore again down the line?
I don't know. I don't think so. I did really enjoy doing theater. Doing theater in front of a hundred, two hundred people, it's kind of like DJing. You're just fully free. You're in a flow state. Everything is in your control. People only know you make a mistake if you show them. Even if you fuck up lines…
You can just roll with it.
Yeah, nobody knows. I just feel like it's changed so much, you have to really play the game. I feel like in acting, you have to be able to model. You have to be good on social media, you have to have a TikTok and do cool videos or you have to come from nepotism. The hurdles are so much stronger because big studios are not doing independent movies anymore. They can't take those risks so that fucks a lot of people. I didn't love it enough to keep doing that. With music it's like, ‘I'll just do this forever and whatever happens, happens.’
How did doing the music for the Willy Chavarria show come about?
I was making a lot of music. I wasn't putting a lot of it out. Same as when I would act on stage, I wouldn't look at it, I wouldn't ever watch myself. When I make music, I just don't want to hear it because I don't think it's good enough. But I made some stuff, I sent it to some people, I put it out. And then my friend, Lennon hit me up and was like, “Hey, I'm going to throw your name in the hat.”
For the Willy show?
Yeah, and Willy liked it and then I met him and it kind of just came from that. He's from Fresno, which is about an hour and a half from where I'm from. Both outcasts from a small ass town in Central California trying to do cool shit, trying to find an escape, trying to figure out what your purpose is. And we just really got along. And so there was a lot of pressure, like good pressure to make good music, fast. And I was making a lot of good music really fast, which was a really great feeling. So I think he saw that.
And he's such a warm, welcoming guy which I'm sure helped. You said he's been like a father figure to you.
I would say he's been like a mentor. That's probably a better way to put it because he's someone who just shows love through his art and I feel like right now a lot of people are super opportunistic to get to where they need to be. Which is understandable I guess because it's New York and there's a hustle and stuff. Part of the reason I love Techno is because it's undefined and I really believe if you just put everything into it, like he's done with his fashion, good things will happen eventually. If you have a smile on your face, you're good to people, you build a community. He's built a community and that's why people love him.
What was it like working with him and the team?
It was super nice. I worked with another guy, Jess.
Jess Cuevas?
Yeah, who is his Art Director. Amazing. We would share House music playlists all the time with each other. Normally I play Techno and I don't usually make House, even though they're not really too far from the same. So we would get along just sharing ideas, cool things we liked. They would ask for my ideas of what I think about the film; some cuts, the score.
Did you do the score for the video?
Yeah, I did the score for the film and the soundtrack for the runway. What was cool too was on the last day they were like, “can we change something?” And they lowkey wanted me to change half the song and it really tested me. So I changed it all to this drum sequence that I made in 30 minutes and I was really happy with myself. That's what ended up being used in the show. They asked me to do it three hours before and it kind of worked out perfectly.
Was there an element of having to do something outside of your normal style and taste to accommodate what they wanted?
It was kind of harmonious because the House music they like is real House music in my opinion. Willy lived in San Francisco and there was a huge House scene there in the 90s, early 2000s. So they would listen to the stuff I like, I’d listen to stuff they like. We were trying to find a nice fusion while also catering to the scene they wanted to build but also still embodying Willy and myself. So it was pretty seamless, which I appreciated because I've never done anything in fashion like that.
What was the initial discussion like?
I remember Willy was like, “I want this music to hit someone in their lower chakra.” Like right in someone’s stomach so they could feel it and have an emotional response to it. And that's what I love is giving people that emotional response, giving people that feeling in a natural way rather than in a forced way. So it was like an evolution throughout everything, which is how I like to DJ. I like to build a story. I don't like to plan my sets. I like to be spontaneous. So I feel like it was really spontaneous, which I do well with and it's kind of how they live their life. So that was cool.
Tell me about the project you're working on, the EP.
I think I have 50 tracks, so I'm going to probably put six together.
You said ‘six’?
Yeah, six tracks out of the fifty.
Damn.
I make everything live. So normally nowadays when you make music, you put it into arrangement, you kind of make a formula and then you can fix all of the levels. Like I said, I love Techno because it's very spontaneous, it's undefined. So I plug in everything the way I want, how it used to be made where you just had machines, and then I just make it live. So sometimes I make a lot of mistakes. Sometimes they're good mistakes.
Is this the first extended project you're releasing?
So it's kind of in between an extended project and a long project. A year or two ago I just threw like ten songs into the ether but there was no real direction. But now there's an intention. Now there's a mind state, almost like a strategy. I would make art just to make it because I thought an artist should just be free.
But as I've met and listened to more people that I respect I feel that the way to respect the art is to have somewhat of a plan in the way you want to execute your vision. You know, you write it down, you build a story. With me, I want to make things that sound futuristic because that's what I think Techno has always been. Even now, it's kind of been a bit bastardized with EDM Techno and stuff. So I really want to bring those elements in a way that feels rebellious, kind of militaristic.
You talked about wanting to build a community around good music. Why is that something that's so important to you and how do you go about building it?
I think it's just by being a good person, doing good things. I feel like music, I feel like art in general has become very singular of ‘me, me, me'. And when it comes to music, it's about building a community, it's about sharing it with others, it's about doing it together with other people. How lonely that must be to just be so egotistical, to want it all for yourself.
So sometimes I'm thinking of how to help my friends before myself. I have some amazingly talented friends so I always feel like I want to showcase them as much as I want to showcase myself. We all want to be validated in some way, right? But I also think nowadays we want to be validated too soon. There's a process. I moved here not knowing one person in New York, almost three years ago, and now we have one of the biggest events this weekend.
But I think it’s also easy to see why people want validation so quickly because living in New York, you really can do incredible things in your first few months here. I guess maybe an entitlement settles in.
Even three years is pretty quick.
Yeah, it's nothing.
Even how I got Willy was pretty quick. I guess I like to think Willy has a high standard and if I was shit, he would've told me. I think as we all try to be better in life and try to make better things, we have to hold each other accountable. I feel like a lot of us want to do stuff so that we can tell other people we did it, but how many of us are actually doing things because we want to do it for ourselves. I think it's kind of trendy to be an artist right now, and I don't think you can just choose to be that. It's like a lifestyle you have to embody and you have to have a huge appetite for suffering for that. So if you can do that, you'll find the others. A lot of people playing this event are people I believe in, people that do make good music, that care, and eventually that just grows organically.
Has your mindset toward music changed from when you first moved to New York, in terms of it being purely an art form versus feeling like you need to make money out of it?
That is a crazy thought. I think about it a lot because my parents are immigrants. They moved here with no money. I want to change that generational gap for my kids. My parents had jobs, and we had a home in central California. They're a huge success. I want to use what they've given me and take it to another level. So of course I want to make money with my art, but I also believe that you have to not care to make money and just do good work over and over again. The universe will give you what you want as long as you don't pursue it for the wrong reasons. It might happen tomorrow, it might happen twenty years from now. You almost got to relinquish yourself from that control.
But it's hard. I'm married, I want to take care of my family. I could have pursued the money after college and made a lot of money working in finance and stuff, but that's just not the life I wanted. This is the life I've chosen and I feel like it's always been what's meant for me. I think it's normal some days to be like, ‘yo, what the fuck am I doing?’ You should always be checking yourself no matter what you're doing.
Do you still feel like the energy of New York is driving you to do this or it's something else driving you to do it at this point?
I feel like there's a bit of this manic feeling of trying to be something in New York. I mean, I'm still here. I still love New York for what it is. Obviously I want to be playing more, obviously I want to be doing more things in New York, but I just got to make stuff for myself. What drives me is myself. What drives me is this desire to be perfect, knowing it won't happen but also letting that be what pushes me to keep going, to try new things, to be adventurous, fearless. I think you just got to be fearless. You have one life to live. There's no rules, just be a good person. Try things. I would not be in this position if I didn't just try things and just say ‘yes’ and learn.
"My good friend and incredibly talented actor, Jakholbi Murry, (pictured above with the wings) was the first person I had in mind for the video. I immediately had a strong visual of him from the moment the song came to life. Harrison and I really built the whole world around his character first. He was the starting piece to the whole visual aspect."
"Here’s Jakholbi again with a live dove. In the film, his character is struck in the chest by this dove and eventually grows wings of his own. He is supposed to represent getting infiltrated with pain, redefining it, holding it close to you, and growing from it."
"Me in the void. We wanted to create a kind of liminal space where the characters all meet for the first time and represent the commonality of everyone being desperate for an escape, understanding, and relief in what they are experiencing."
"Audrey Venable (pictured above kneeled in front of the statue) was another strong character we had in mind for this shoot. There is a lyric in the song “Born In Early May” that says “the heroes they will say, now you’re done for good” - in the short film her character is seen constructing her own idol and it eventually burns before her eyes. She is supposed to represent how humans will always let each other down, and how putting people on pedestals can often be harmful."
"Josh Jardim (pictured above) was the second visual I had when I first made the song “Born In Early May.” Each character is seen levitating in their own spaces. I wanted to use this imagery to convey how tiring hardships can be but how much relief can come with complete surrender to life and what’s unknown."
"Audrey and I holding each other’s heads during “Special”. During the lyric “the words that you said, they stuck with me” we put our foreheads together and sink down onto our knees. Kind of meant as an “I see you and I hear you” moment."
"The graves. Also the opening and closing shots. Meant to represent the life and death that comes from suffering. Everyone in the world experiences intense pain at one point or another, we are all born and we all die, together we are one. It’s up to us to have understanding for each other and to work through the ugly parts together. Without love and grace for one another, we are nothing."
