BiB: Nikitaa – From Mumbai to LA: How She Defied Tradition & Broke Into the Music Industry

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What is going on? It is Adam. Welcome back to Bringin It Backwards, a podcast

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where both legendary and rising artists tell their own personal

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stories of how they achieve stardom. On this episode,

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we had a chance to hang out with Nikita over Zoom Video.

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Nikita was born and raised in Mumbai in India

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and talks about how she got into music. Comes from a musical

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family, but no one pursued music professionally in her family.

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She she's the first to really take a stab at

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being an artist and doing music full time. Nikita started

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playing piano and took vocal lessons from a very early age.

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She also always wrote poetry and started to put the two

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together, songs and melodies like around 13

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years old. At 17, she took a music

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songwriting workshop and met somebody that had attended the

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Art Institute in Los Angeles. So she moved from Mumbai

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to to Los Angeles, went to college there.

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And that's where Nikita started to release her own

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songs and met a lot of people, producers, started working with other

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artists. She talked about releasing her first song, Honest, and the

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success that that song had as well as the next one that she released,

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Exodus. Both of them got on editorial playlists on DSPs

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and they've got hundreds of thousands of streams. So she talks

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about that being a big validating moment for her in her career. She talks

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about putting out her first album, producing and recording the entire

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thing herself during the Pandemic. And we hear all about the

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new album Nikita is putting out with the most recent single

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being a song called Soldier. You can watch the interview

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with Nikita on our Facebook page and YouTube channel at Bringin It Backwards.

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It'd be amazing if you subscribe to our channel like us on Facebook,

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follow us on Instagram, Twitter and tick tock at Bringin Back Pod.

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Podcasts, please rate and review the podcast. It helps us out

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subscribe to our podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we're

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bringing. It Backwards with Nikita.

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Bringin it Back.

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Hey, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for

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doing this. Yeah, thank you. My

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pleasure. I'm Adam Lisicky. It's very nice to meet you. And this

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is about you and your journey in music. And

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we'll talk about The Eiffels, the new record that you just put out.

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Awesome. Sounds good. Cool. I always kind of start off with

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your origin story. Tell me about where you were

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born and raised. Oh, I grew up in Mumbai, India.

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Wow. Okay. Are you still in India now or. No,

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no, no. I'm in LA right now. I moved when I was

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just about to turn 21, like three months shy. Okay.

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Came out here to go to a music school. I went to musicians institute, and

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then I started working here and I just st right

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on. So you grew up in Mumbai. What was that like? So different.

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Yeah, I bet. Very, very different.

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I feel like the closest that I can get to describing what

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Bombay is like is like more like New York it's like

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jungle. Very busy, a lot of hustle and bustle, crazy traffic.

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Yeah, I just, I loved it there. I love my people,

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but I also just like, never felt like I fit in. I kind of

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like always knew that I wanted to, like, leave at least for a little bit

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and see what it's like somewhere else. Interesting. Did

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you always want to move to Los Angeles or to move to? No, actually.

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LA was not on my radar until I worked with someone.

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Her name is Natania Lalvani. She's also an Indian singer

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songwriter. And she had done this songwriting

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workshop with my vocal coach at the time. And I took the

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workshop and she really believed in me. And she was like, I think you should

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do this and like, apply to music schools. And she had

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gone to Musicians Institute and so she recommended it. And

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then up until then, I really didn't.

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I didn't know too much about LA, really. I have cousins up

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in the Bay, so I was familiar with like, Northern California, but

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I. Yeah, I just came in blind into

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Los Angeles. Oh my gosh, that. Yeah, it must have been quite

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a shock. Yeah, in some ways,

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I think so. I feel like on like a general level,

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coming to America wasn't so much of a shock because I, like I said I

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visited cousins and stuff before, but coming to LA

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and then like being in the music scene, it was definitely very different.

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Than what I thought it would be. And I think I was just very like,

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bright eyed, bushy tailed when I came in. And just like,

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I. I had not. I was not exposed to the jadedness

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of LA. Okay. Let's just put it that way.

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Very cool. Well, what about, as far as music goes, do you come from

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a musical family at all or musical household? Not really.

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So my mom's side of the family has a history

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of being musically inclined, but also has a

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history of like, not having the opportunity to have pursued it.

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So. Yeah, so my mom had several uncles and

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stuff that like, never told their kids that they ever played

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any instruments. Some of them were like, they played the flute and

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other things, like, never told their kids, never talked about it

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and just kind of like buried that side of themselves, even though it was something

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that they were really passionate about. My own grandmother was really passionate about

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it, but it never amounted to anything until me.

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So I'm kind of the first in my family to even attempt to do this.

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Wow. Yeah. Really cool. Were they supportive of that?

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I think now, yes. But I think, you

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know, being brown parents living in India, it

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was very. They were very

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averse to it. In the beginning because it's such a. It's such

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a risky life path. Like, you don't know what's gonna

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happen. You're kind of like, shooting for the impossible, as my

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manager at least likes to say, like, you're trying to just make a career

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out of hypotheticals, basically. And. Right. That's not

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appealing to. To people who are used to, like, hey, steady job,

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you go to college, get a. Get a ticket. Right. Yeah. Your parents,

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like, you're moving to LA to pursue something that they're no

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guarantee behind. Right. But I think underneath that, for

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my mom especially, like, the main fear was, you know, she watched

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her own mother kind of. Just.

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You know, break her own heart over the fact that she couldn't pursue music,

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and she didn't want to see me in that same place. So I think, like,

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that was like, her number one fear. But once she,

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like, got past that. She'S

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been my number one supporter. I could not. For more supportive

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parents when it comes to, like, music. As far as

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you learning how to play anything, did you pick up an instrument in an early

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age or. Yeah, vocal lessons or anything like that? Okay. Yeah, so

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I. I had both vocal lessons and

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piano lessons at a very early age. I started

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vocal lessons when I was four. I

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started piano when I was five. Wow.

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I

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badgered my mom until

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she got me a Indian classical dance teacher. Because one time

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I saw my cousin on stage doing this particular

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Indian classical dance form, and I was like, I want to do that. I want

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to be on that stage. And then I was three at the time, and I

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badgered her until she found me a teacher. And I did the same thing with

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music. And my grandma, my

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mom's mom, she really encouraged my mother with that because she heard me sing

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one time, and she was like, oh, my God, you have a great voice. And

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she was a singer too, so she was like, you should get lessons. She needs

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to get lessons. So. Yeah. That's awesome. That's really cool

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that your grandma saw that too and was willing to, you know,

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hey, hey, mom, you need to, you know.

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Yeah. And it was hard too, because back then in,

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like, suburban Mumbai, which is where I grew up, you didn't really have

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that. Any piano teachers, keyboard teachers, anything like that.

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So my mom actually really had to hunt to find someone to

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teach me. But we did eventually, and I. I kept up

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lessons from, like, the age of five up until, I think, like 10 or 11,

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which is when she kind of left Town. And then I just didn't

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continue. But I still play. I was gonna say, did you

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keep playing or did you kind of put it down at that? I mean, I'm

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not like a maestro. Like, I can't, like, play a classical piece for you, but

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I still play. Like, I produce my own stuff. And knowing how to play the

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keys. Helpful. Yeah. What about songwriting? Was

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that something you started doing young as well? I started actually

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writing poetry when I was really young, so I

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always loved writing poetry. I think the first

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one that I wrote was just like, a four

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liner. I was three. I couldn't even write. It

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was in Hindi. I had to get my aunt to, like, write

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it down for me. Wow. Yeah. And that was my

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first poem. And I actually had several books. I didn't find this

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out until later, but I used to keep these, like, black diaries

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filled with poetry. And then when I got old enough,

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my mom told me that my grandma used to do the same thing. She also

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had a black diary. No way. Yeah.

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Wow. At what point then do you start taking these poems and realizing,

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oh, this could be song lyrics? Yeah. I think I was maybe

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13 when I kind of started to try to do

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that. Try being the keyword. It was rough.

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For several years. Like, it was nothing of note. Nothing.

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I just. I feel like it takes so long kind of to find your voice

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and how you want to approach songwriting, and so.

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And also, I just, you know, it was very daunting because I had

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no one in my family or like, in close proximity to sort

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of help me with it. So it was kind of this thing of like, I'm

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just trying to figure out how to put melody to words. I don't really

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understand how this works. I don't really have anyone to teach me.

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I was just winging it for a little bit. And it was all in just,

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like, my little diary that I would put down. And

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this was in the 2000s, so, like, I couldn't even, like, voice memo anything if

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I came up with, like, a melody or anything like that. Right. So, yeah, like,

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trying to remember everything in my head. And then it was finally at.

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I think I was 17 or 18, that I took that

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songwriting workshop where I was like, oh, I actually do have a knack for this.

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I actually do like this. And. And then I couldn't stop.

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It was. It was addictive. I didn't want to stop.

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It was everything. It was like therapy. I just couldn't.

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Everything that I felt good, bad, ugly into a

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song. So with that, though, like, you know, you take the

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songwriting workshop. Is that. You said you had a manager. Is that where you met

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the manager? Was through that, or did that come after years later? After that?

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Oh, no. So I met my manager

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very recently. Okay. Two years ago.

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And I'm kind of in, like, an artist development situation with

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them. But, no, I didn't know them then. I didn't. I didn't have any.

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Anybody, really. No team, no nothing back then. I was just. Yeah, you just

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took this class and then what? Finished taking this workshop?

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Like, you get a couple songs and you're like, let's put them up on the

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DSPs. Like, how do you start? No, I. Even then, like, I didn't put.

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Put them up on the Internet. I wrote a couple songs. I. I still

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knew that I wasn't entirely happy with it. I was like, okay. Like, this is.

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This is a good start. Now I know I can do this. But I. I

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still wasn't happy with what I was writing, so I didn't put

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anything up. I'm. I. I very much am a

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perfectionist, and I've had to learn to let that go as I've gotten older.

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But back then, I was like, no, no, no. No one can see this. This

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is for my eyes only.

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I rarely ever even showed any of it to my parents or to

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my family. Like, yeah, maybe once that I

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brought them into my room and was like, here's a song I wrote.

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Yeah. But I did have a phase where I was. I would just, like, do

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covers, and that's all I did on, like, Facebook. I would just upload

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covers. And I had fun with that. And I think

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that that was my kind of way of trying to figure out what I wanted

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to sound like before I knew that you can just

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go into a studio and record a song and all that. I didn't have any

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of those resources in my hand. I didn't know any people. So I was just

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kind of just trying to figure it out on my own. Like, one time. Do

249
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you know the song Rock it by Beyonce? Yeah. So

250
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I. One of the covers that I was attempting to do, I

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recorded the entire thing acapella, like, everything.

252
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All the instruments were just. I just used my voice to, like, recreate everything,

253
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and I just had fun with it. Wow. Yeah.

254
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That's amazing. That's really cool. Yeah, you put that up, and

255
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I did. I did put it up for a while, but that page is

256
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gone. So no. One find it.

257
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Yeah, it is somewhere on my hard drive sitting around, but

258
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that's about it. When do you get the Courage to

259
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put a song out or show people what you were up to as far. As

260
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your songwriting went, I feel like. So I went through music school.

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I did music school even then, was like, kind of figuring

262
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out what to do. I feel like when this is in la, then. So you

263
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went to LA at that point. Okay. So you meet and you. You get

264
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this idea through this songwriting camp you're talking about. Yeah,

265
00:16:59,070 --> 00:17:02,870
yeah. So I did. I did the workshop, and then I

266
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applied to music school eventually, after I did my bachelor's degree in

267
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India. So she's a double

268
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graduate. But I did my bachelor's degree and then.

269
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Applied to music school, came out here, and I think

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I just dedicated the entire time that I was here to

271
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figuring stuff out. And then towards the end of music school,

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I met someone that I worked with for a really long time.

273
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His name is Mukund. We worked on a lot of music together,

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and he kind of introduced me to one of his mentors, and the three of

275
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us worked on a lot of songs together. And that's kind of where I started

276
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to, like, flesh out my sound. I

277
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think a lot of my influences changed at the time, too. Like, I. I spent

278
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a lot of my early years listening to, you know, very,

279
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very, very, very mainstream R and B, hip hop, hop.

280
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Stuff that crossed over to India. You know, so, like,

281
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the Britney Spears and the Beyonces of the world. And then when I moved here,

282
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I, you know, my musical palette expanded and I was listening to, like, John

283
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Bellion and all kinds of other artists. And so I feel

284
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like that kind of opened up my eyes to, like, okay, like, there's a lot

285
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of different things that I can do musically. And then my

286
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songwriting sort of started to solidify

287
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into. The style that I have now

288
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with writing. And then I started to take that into the studio and, like, try

289
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to get it produced. And. And I think I

290
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was just going into sessions for,

291
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I want to say, a solid year before I put something out.

292
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And then we put out Honest. That was the first single that I ever put

293
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out. That was the first song that I ever put out, and that did really,

294
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really, really well. That was actually a song that

295
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we were working on for a different artist for their camp.

296
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And. We just ended up keeping it.

297
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And back then, like, you didn't have any Spotify for artists.

298
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You couldn't pitch to editorials yourself. You didn't have any of that. You just.

299
00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:13,240
Right. You just put it up. Yeah. Kind of

300
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:16,960
like nobody was promoting their music, really, on Instagram. At

301
00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:20,240
best, you'd just, like, Put up the artwork and be like, hey, my music's out

302
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:23,980
now. You had no way to, like, you know how you. Now you can like,

303
00:19:23,980 --> 00:19:27,380
drop the song into your post. Like, not. None of this

304
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existed. Right. So I'm just like, I put a song out.

305
00:19:30,900 --> 00:19:34,740
Yay, cool. And then it got picked up

306
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by a few editorial playlists.

307
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Again, we didn't try for any of this. We didn't know how.

308
00:19:41,860 --> 00:19:45,420
I just put a song out. Happened. Yeah. Yeah. And it just happened. And it

309
00:19:45,420 --> 00:19:49,230
did really well. And I think that was the best thing to.

310
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For to happen to someone like me. You know, you move from a whole different

311
00:19:53,030 --> 00:19:56,870
country, you don't even know if there's a chance of you succeeding

312
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in this business. And then something like this happens and it gives you a lot

313
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of hope. You're like, okay, well, I'm doing something right.

314
00:20:03,389 --> 00:20:06,233
Right. I was gonna say it's definitely a lot of validation, I would imagine. Kind

315
00:20:06,234 --> 00:20:06,282
of like, I was kind of resigned. I was kind of resigned to the idea

316
00:20:06,283 --> 00:20:06,337
that that might happen because it was like, okay, it's my first song. I can't

317
00:20:06,338 --> 00:20:06,387
expect a lot from it. I'm independent. I don't have a label or like a

318
00:20:06,388 --> 00:20:06,450
huge marketing budget behind me. I don't have any of these things. It's probably just

319
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going to be like a itty bitty thing. And then I remember I put it

320
00:20:06,498 --> 00:20:06,510
out, it came out, usually comes out, like with DSPs, they put it out like

321
00:20:06,510 --> 00:20:09,710
the night before. Like, yeah. You're like, okay. It wasn't like you put the song

322
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out and no one played it. And then, yeah, okay, yeah, that would have

323
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probably been harder to continue to be like, do I keep doing this? Do I

324
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keep moving forward with it? I put all this time and energy. Kind of like,

325
00:20:20,450 --> 00:20:23,730
I was kind of resigned. I was kind of resigned to the idea that that

326
00:20:23,730 --> 00:20:27,050
might happen because it was like, okay, it's my first song. I can't expect a

327
00:20:27,050 --> 00:20:30,690
lot from it. I'm independent. I don't have a label or like a huge marketing

328
00:20:30,690 --> 00:20:34,330
budget behind me. I don't have any of these things. It's probably just going to

329
00:20:34,330 --> 00:20:37,370
be like a itty bitty thing. And then I remember

330
00:20:38,090 --> 00:20:41,060
I put it out, it came out,

331
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usually comes out, like with DSPs, they put it

332
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out like the night before. Even though it's set to like a Friday or whatever,

333
00:20:49,180 --> 00:20:52,980
it'll come out like Thursday at midnight, usually Eastern time.

334
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And then I put it out, uploaded

335
00:20:57,220 --> 00:21:00,900
on, you know, Instagram and stuff on my stories told. My

336
00:21:00,900 --> 00:21:03,780
friends went to sleep, woke up to like,

337
00:21:04,500 --> 00:21:07,740
at least five different people texting me and being like, you have

338
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18,000 streams you got on, like, editorial

339
00:21:11,510 --> 00:21:15,350
playlist. Are you seeing this? And like, I, I just. It was so

340
00:21:15,350 --> 00:21:19,110
cool. It was just so cool to see that. Wow. And so

341
00:21:19,110 --> 00:21:21,990
when you go to release your next song, I mean, which also did well. Were

342
00:21:21,990 --> 00:21:25,790
you hoping for that same success? Or are you like, hopefully this isn't

343
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a fluke, like, hopefully this next one will hit as well, or. I,

344
00:21:29,470 --> 00:21:33,110
I feel like it's always such a toss up. I. I kind of

345
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Felt like I didn't know which way it was gonna go. Of course, I was

346
00:21:36,350 --> 00:21:39,110
hoping and praying that it would do as well. I was like, I got on

347
00:21:39,110 --> 00:21:42,810
a few editorial DSPs on them again, but I.

348
00:21:43,770 --> 00:21:47,410
You can't predict these things. Even more so now with how

349
00:21:47,410 --> 00:21:51,090
saturated the market is, like, you really can't predict these things. So I

350
00:21:51,090 --> 00:21:54,250
was just kind of like, okay, I'm gonna throw my hands up and

351
00:21:55,050 --> 00:21:58,850
whatever happens, happens. But that one did really well, too. That one

352
00:21:58,850 --> 00:22:02,650
also got a few editorial playlists. Did really good numbers

353
00:22:03,050 --> 00:22:06,410
when it came out. That one's called Exodus.

354
00:22:06,730 --> 00:22:10,560
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And you put in a

355
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:14,120
full album out as well, right, a couple years ago? Yeah.

356
00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,800
Put a full LP out during the pandemic. Produced.

357
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,720
Nearly the entire thing myself. No way.

358
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:27,680
Yeah. Wow. And did you. So you put. You put the

359
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:31,520
album out during the pandemic or it had, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So

360
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:35,000
were you working on it before the pandemic had started and then that happened?

361
00:22:36,120 --> 00:22:38,440
Yeah, there were a couple songs that.

362
00:22:40,020 --> 00:22:43,500
That had been in the works before the pandemic that

363
00:22:43,500 --> 00:22:46,100
me and Mun had been working on

364
00:22:47,220 --> 00:22:50,940
when I was still in LA. And then when the pandemic hit, I

365
00:22:50,940 --> 00:22:54,740
was here March 2020, and India started

366
00:22:54,740 --> 00:22:58,540
to sort of shut down the borders. So

367
00:22:58,540 --> 00:23:02,180
top seven countries that were affected by Covid. Nobody could enter

368
00:23:02,180 --> 00:23:05,820
back into India. And then the United States was

369
00:23:05,820 --> 00:23:08,980
number eight. So my dad called me in a panic and was like, you need

370
00:23:08,980 --> 00:23:12,370
to just get on a plane. Like, forget everything. Get on a plane right now,

371
00:23:12,370 --> 00:23:15,730
because otherwise you're going to be stuck on a

372
00:23:15,730 --> 00:23:19,170
visa. You don't know if you can work. Don't know what's going to happen. So

373
00:23:19,170 --> 00:23:22,330
went back home, and then I was stuck in India for the entirety of the

374
00:23:22,330 --> 00:23:25,250
pandemic. I didn't come back to the United States until

375
00:23:25,650 --> 00:23:29,330
2022, March. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

376
00:23:29,570 --> 00:23:32,210
Was the goal always to come back to LA then?

377
00:23:32,370 --> 00:23:34,330
I

378
00:23:34,330 --> 00:23:39,680
had

379
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,920
always kind of wanted to teach myself how to

380
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,840
engineer my own sessions and get back into production.

381
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,040
I had a flair for production while I was in music school.

382
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:55,120
And then I had someone that I looked up to, who I will not

383
00:23:55,120 --> 00:23:58,840
name, but who I looked up to, who I kind of asked for advice, and

384
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:02,400
I was like, hey, like, do you think, like, this is something that

385
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,120
I can do? Like, what do you feel? How do you feel about, like, you

386
00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:09,860
know, a female singer, songwriter and producer. Producer, like, you know,

387
00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:13,460
what are your thoughts? And she literally was like, I think you should just stick

388
00:24:13,460 --> 00:24:17,220
to the songwriting and singing. Like, leave the production up to others. And that

389
00:24:17,220 --> 00:24:20,940
kind of just. It broke my spirit a little. I'm not gonna lie.

390
00:24:21,020 --> 00:24:24,460
Like, I. Yeah, I bet production for a while, and

391
00:24:24,620 --> 00:24:27,700
I picked it back up because I had gotten to the point where a lot

392
00:24:27,700 --> 00:24:31,380
of my musician friends were turning to me and

393
00:24:31,380 --> 00:24:35,020
sending me their songs and being like, oh, like, this mix doesn't sound right.

394
00:24:35,020 --> 00:24:38,340
Or, like, I don't like this synth. Like, what do you think? And now I'm

395
00:24:38,340 --> 00:24:41,520
the one giving everyone advice. I'm like, okay, I. I have a good ear for

396
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:43,720
this. I don't know why I put it down in the first place. Now I

397
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,520
have all this time on my hands and nothing to do. I'm stuck inside. The

398
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,920
India lockdown was very intense. I

399
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,640
practically did not leave the house for two. Two years. It

400
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,160
was very, very intense. And

401
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:24,450
luckily,

402
00:25:24,450 --> 00:25:27,890
I had sort of a back catalog of songs that were already

403
00:25:28,050 --> 00:25:31,570
recorded, already produced that I could just send off to mix and master

404
00:25:32,370 --> 00:25:35,570
and put those out. That's how Clutch and Goddess and

405
00:25:35,810 --> 00:25:39,410
Universe, those songs came out during the Pandemic. And then while

406
00:25:39,410 --> 00:25:42,930
those were coming out, I was working on this entire project by

407
00:25:42,930 --> 00:25:46,570
myself. And I remember. Wow. Yeah. I remember when I

408
00:25:46,570 --> 00:25:50,410
started, it would take me, like, a week to just work on

409
00:25:50,410 --> 00:25:52,930
one song because I'm just trying to figure everything out

410
00:25:54,290 --> 00:25:58,130
and then getting to the point by the end of the

411
00:25:58,130 --> 00:26:01,850
project where I'm like, oh, yeah, four hours. I can crack a song out in

412
00:26:01,850 --> 00:26:05,230
four hours. It's fine. Wow. Thing in four hours.

413
00:26:07,790 --> 00:26:11,630
So, yeah, so you're basically put yourself through almost like a boot camp of. Of.

414
00:26:11,870 --> 00:26:15,630
Of its own learning how to produce. Like, okay, this might say

415
00:26:15,630 --> 00:26:18,390
it started with a week, and now I can crank these out when I have

416
00:26:18,390 --> 00:26:22,150
an idea. Four hours. Yeah. And I would.

417
00:26:22,150 --> 00:26:24,830
I would, you know, I would ask Mukun, like, what do you think of this?

418
00:26:24,830 --> 00:26:28,230
What do you think of this? Like, I kind of had now, like, a sounding

419
00:26:28,230 --> 00:26:31,510
board, a listening ear, and I felt more

420
00:26:32,230 --> 00:26:36,070
open and able to even share it with, like, my family. So

421
00:26:36,070 --> 00:26:39,910
my family was also A sounding board. We would, like all. They would all sit

422
00:26:39,910 --> 00:26:43,430
in the room after I was done, and I'd be like, play them stuff. And

423
00:26:43,750 --> 00:26:47,110
they would give me feedback. Like, I like this. I don't like this. Obviously their

424
00:26:47,110 --> 00:26:50,910
feedback wasn't as technical as it would get, you know, from

425
00:26:50,910 --> 00:26:54,670
coming from another musician, but. Right. It's good. I mean, those

426
00:26:54,670 --> 00:26:57,950
are most of the people that are listening to your song. Exactly. Yeah. People that

427
00:26:57,950 --> 00:27:00,310
are listening to music are not going to sit there and be like that. The

428
00:27:00,310 --> 00:27:03,010
frequency of that bass is off. Like, nobody's gonna be. Yeah,

429
00:27:03,970 --> 00:27:07,730
right. So it was not. It was great to

430
00:27:07,730 --> 00:27:11,090
have that feedback. And then Mukund also kind of helped me navigate Pro

431
00:27:11,090 --> 00:27:14,450
Tools. So I produce on Logic, but I record my vocals

432
00:27:14,850 --> 00:27:18,250
on Pro Tools. And so he kind of helped me navigate that and, like, figure

433
00:27:18,250 --> 00:27:21,810
out how to sort of engineer my own recording sessions and

434
00:27:21,810 --> 00:27:25,490
everything. So I was doing all of it. I was engineering my own sessions,

435
00:27:25,490 --> 00:27:29,120
recording myself, writing everything, myself, producing myself, like, like,

436
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:33,000
all of it at the same time. Geez. And are you

437
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,240
doing that now with these new songs that are coming out? I still do a

438
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,760
lot of that. Even now. I don't exclusively do that anymore.

439
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,200
Yeah, that's a lot of work. Yeah, it is a lot of work. And I

440
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,720
feel like after a while, you know, you just. You become

441
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,520
saturated and you sort of start to

442
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,320
regurgitate the same ideas musically and in terms of

443
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:58,160
songwriting and things like that. And I don't. I didn't want to get stuck there,

444
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,500
so of course I, I, I collaborate with a lot more people now, but,

445
00:28:02,380 --> 00:28:05,740
yeah, I still do that a lot. I still record a lot of my vocals

446
00:28:06,300 --> 00:28:10,060
from my own apartment. Like, in my home studio. I have a

447
00:28:10,060 --> 00:28:13,820
whole setup, which is what I'm sitting in front of right now, talking. Oh, nice.

448
00:28:15,980 --> 00:28:19,220
So, well, then tell me about these new songs. Like, when do you start working

449
00:28:19,220 --> 00:28:23,020
on this? And is it going to be another album or project?

450
00:28:23,820 --> 00:28:27,460
Yeah, it is going to be another album. It's not going to be as long

451
00:28:27,460 --> 00:28:30,780
as the last one, but it is an album. I started working

452
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,360
it actually around this time last year.

453
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,440
Okay. And this one is.

454
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,320
A lot more personal. I think that's the most personal I've ever gotten.

455
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:47,319
Musically speaking, emotionally speaking, I

456
00:28:47,319 --> 00:28:50,320
kind of got to a place in my life where. So while all of this

457
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,960
is happening, I'm moving to LA. I'm, like, working on music, the pandemic,

458
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,480
all these things. I was also going through the

459
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,320
worst relationship of my entire life. This person

460
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:05,040
was, like, extremely emotionally abusive. It

461
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,800
was just not good for me. And so when the pandemic

462
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:11,920
happened, we were already broken up. It gave me a lot of space to sort

463
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,640
of process what had happened and fully admit to myself, like, hey, this was abusive.

464
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,400
This was not good. But I didn't really process all of that

465
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,160
until I moved back, got back into therapy, started talking

466
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,720
about it, and then. You know,

467
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,400
as. As I started talking about it, I felt like the best place to

468
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,240
put a lot of my feelings was into the music. So I started writing a

469
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:38,040
lot of material about it. And, you know,

470
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,879
there was a whole period of time where all I was able to write was

471
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,320
everything that I felt in retrospect, that I never got to feel in the

472
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,160
moment, things I never got to say in the moment. And that's

473
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,560
where, you know, that's the kind of space that Soldier came from.

474
00:29:54,910 --> 00:29:58,470
Oh, okay. Yeah. I was gonna ask you. So that

475
00:29:58,470 --> 00:30:02,030
song directly is related to what you're talking about right now? Yeah.

476
00:30:02,190 --> 00:30:05,630
Yeah. So this entire body of work is kind of like.

477
00:30:07,710 --> 00:30:11,510
And very sort of. It took a lot of

478
00:30:11,510 --> 00:30:15,030
introspection to kind of make this body of work. And there's a lot of different

479
00:30:15,030 --> 00:30:18,710
aspects of that relationship that I felt like I could finally address in

480
00:30:18,710 --> 00:30:22,470
this body of work and really just go there and talk about it. I

481
00:30:22,470 --> 00:30:26,200
think that. As a person, but also

482
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,760
as an artist, I've always kind of been like, no, I'm strong, I'm independent. I'm

483
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,880
this. I'm that, which I am. But I think that

484
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,120
it can be hard to put that level of vulnerability into your

485
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,240
art sometimes. And I just feel

486
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,520
much more free now that I've been able to go there.

487
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,800
And the more I went there musically, the more it felt like I was just,

488
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:51,370
like, taking the junk out, you know?

489
00:30:52,810 --> 00:30:55,850
So, yeah, that's what I did. That was like my

490
00:30:56,250 --> 00:30:59,690
extended therapy was. Was creating project.

491
00:31:00,250 --> 00:31:03,130
Was it difficult to, like. I mean,

492
00:31:03,770 --> 00:31:07,410
put. Put those songs out or, like, write those songs and knowing

493
00:31:07,410 --> 00:31:10,890
that this person might hear them or other people are gonna hear it and.

494
00:31:10,970 --> 00:31:14,170
Yeah, take it. Like, what was that like? Yeah,

495
00:31:14,890 --> 00:31:18,610
that was really hard. I mean, even when Soldier came out, the day I

496
00:31:18,610 --> 00:31:21,800
put it out and I made. Made a post about it, and I kind of,

497
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,160
like, in the caption, went into, like, a little bit of detail.

498
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,520
About why I wrote the song. I. You know,

499
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,120
I posted it, and then I remember just, like, panic checking

500
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:37,040
my. Instagram and be like, the other person gonna see this.

501
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,360
This person still blocked. Okay. You can't see anything. All right, cool.

502
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,120
Like, it's just. It's hard. I think

503
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,240
it's really hard. I think we live in a world where,

504
00:31:51,660 --> 00:31:55,420
you know, people like me, we don't really get to speak

505
00:31:55,420 --> 00:31:59,180
our truth without other people being like, well, why didn't you talk about

506
00:31:59,180 --> 00:32:02,620
this sooner? Oh, this person doesn't seem like the kind of person that would do

507
00:32:02,620 --> 00:32:06,339
something like this. Right. Everyone's making up excuses. Yeah. Like

508
00:32:06,339 --> 00:32:10,060
a lot of victim blaming and. And, you know, you've already dealt

509
00:32:10,060 --> 00:32:13,620
with so much of that in that relationship where you've been gaslit so much and

510
00:32:13,620 --> 00:32:17,100
you've been invalidated so much that, like, there's just

511
00:32:17,420 --> 00:32:21,220
this level of fear that comes in. But I think the longer that soldier's

512
00:32:21,220 --> 00:32:24,380
been out, the less that fear has kind of consumed me. I just kind of,

513
00:32:24,380 --> 00:32:27,460
like, set it to the side. And I think I put in a lot of

514
00:32:27,460 --> 00:32:31,140
work even before this. I. I've had a lot of conversations with

515
00:32:31,140 --> 00:32:34,940
friends that knew me at the time that knew this person, you know, sort

516
00:32:34,940 --> 00:32:38,300
of explaining my side of things and. And things like that. And

517
00:32:39,020 --> 00:32:42,780
I think that the reason I'm even able to put this project out is because

518
00:32:42,780 --> 00:32:46,300
I put a lot of those fears to bed. They don't

519
00:32:46,540 --> 00:32:50,140
bother me as much anymore. You know, you said it's an album,

520
00:32:50,140 --> 00:32:53,980
so it's all finished. It is in the process

521
00:32:53,980 --> 00:32:56,540
of mix and master. A lot of it is in the process of mix and

522
00:32:56,540 --> 00:33:00,340
master right now. But the songs are done. Yeah, the songs

523
00:33:00,340 --> 00:33:04,020
are done. Very cool. Well, I appreciate your time.

524
00:33:04,020 --> 00:33:07,580
Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. You've been

525
00:33:07,580 --> 00:33:10,820
awesome. I have one more question. I want to know if you have any advice

526
00:33:10,820 --> 00:33:13,520
for aspiring artists is, oh.

527
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,440
That'S a toughie. I have a few things.

528
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:24,360
Don't fear them. Yeah. Don't beat yourself up for mistakes you make

529
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,440
in your career. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to look back and be

530
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,320
like, ah, I could have done that better or could have done that differently. Don't

531
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,320
beat yourself up for it. It's part of the learning process. You wouldn't know you

532
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:37,160
would have done that differently if you didn't go through it. Right. That's number

533
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,920
one. Number two, if there are people critiquing you or

534
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,690
saying no to you, I need you to sit back and evaluate. Why? Because

535
00:33:44,690 --> 00:33:48,530
some people just want to shit on you in this industry and other

536
00:33:48,530 --> 00:33:51,890
people actually want to see you do better. So

537
00:33:52,530 --> 00:33:56,050
just be patient. Take your time. Don't rush into things.

538
00:33:56,850 --> 00:34:00,610
Take your time and evaluate who actually cares, who's speaking

539
00:34:00,610 --> 00:34:03,970
to you from a place of. Love and

540
00:34:03,970 --> 00:34:07,330
inspiration and who's speaking to you from a place of jealousy and ego.

541
00:34:08,220 --> 00:34:11,940
I think that's the most important thing. And that will tell you who you

542
00:34:11,940 --> 00:34:13,740
should keep around you in the first place.

543
00:34:19,420 --> 00:34:20,940
Bringin it Backwards.

544
00:34:24,780 --> 00:34:28,300
Bringin it backward, Bringin it backward,

545
00:34:28,460 --> 00:34:31,980
Bringin it backward, Bringin it backward,

546
00:34:32,140 --> 00:34:33,820
Bringin it backward.