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.
