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Ezzah Rafique | September 11, 2021
E: Hi! Thanks for taking the time out to do this interview! The music video for your new single 'DON'T THINK ABOUT IT' was recently released a few days ago, how was the process like putting the video together? M: I met the cake god thejonnycakes on the internet and he does the craziest cake reveals. I’m really obsessed with questioning the binaries we grow up learning about and at first, I thought it would be funny to be a groomsman at a wedding but then see a cake and just steal it and run off into the sunset and ruin the wedding party. but I didn’t think it packed enough commentary into it. then I met with potential directors for the song and Neta was a new mother of a beautiful baby, and she had also been thinking about these same binaries and her idea was to do the gender reveal cake. I felt like there was something synchronistic about the cake journey and then it just became about finding a cast that would act distraught but then let loose and let us throw paint cannons in the air all day long. I’m so proud of what we made. E: What is the backstory to 'DON'T THINK ABOUT IT'? M: The song came just as my relationship with my former label was ending. They wanted me to do and say things that just didn’t feel authentic to me and at the end of the day, I felt like they just needed me to be a puppet for their own enjoyment. I thought this song was going to start the whole journey but it ended up being what started volume 2 - and I love that it has entered me into this next chapter of my life. fully independent. getting to say and do what is really coming from me. it feels nice not to have to hide parts that I was told I needed to hide before. E: For DON'T THINK ABOUT IT,' what was the process like for you when it came to writing and creating the song itself? M: I met and wrote the song with Jen Decilveo on the same day. it was a thunderstorm of a session. kind of in and I think we maybe talked for 10 minutes before she started playing the bass line at the top of the song and it just poured out. I have a voice memo where she asks “do you usually write this fast". I kind of just let the song write itself. E: What would you want fans to take away from the 'DON'T THINK ABOUT IT' music video? M: Explore the binaries in your life. ask questions of the systems in place - ask if they are designed for everyone. question if the structures in place are helping or hindering growth. I almost don’t need to say how I feel about the gender binary - proof is in the cake :) E: What's your favorite line from 'DON'T THINK ABOUT IT'? M: "You make things wrong so you can still be right” — I think this is the best example of how people establish and maintain control of people. they make it seem like who they are is wrong and then proceed to demonstrate how they can find the right way. it’s a control tactic I’ve been trapped in before. and a society/relationship built on control is not where I want to be. E: Your upcoming EP, 'MERIDIAN: vol 2' releases on October 22. How was the process like for you when it came to creating it? M: Inherit in the name is change. I have been so afraid no one would hear this (listen to WONDER for the lyric reference) and volume 1 and 2 of MERIDIAN have kept me going creating something I am very proud of. especially in this pandemic but also independently building and growing this project. these songs were singing to me and I hope they reverberate for a long time. E: Do you have a favorite song off of 'MERIDIAN: vol 2'? A song that possibly means the most to you or one that you're most excited to perform live? M: I think that I have a favorite but it’s not the one I’m most excited to perform live. BURDEN was the last song I wrote in the last days of 2019. I was exhausted. I knew my life was about to shift but I didn’t realize how much it would change for the whole world. in the last hours of 2019, I wrote this song. I had a hunch that my friends in Now Now would know where to take it and I’m just so proud of that song and collaboration. E: I know you're not currently with a label right now, how has that impacted you? M: nothing has changed except I don’t have the same budgets to make things. hopefully, my fans see my heart and hear the love that went into it - and that’s what matters to me.
E: Lastly, for those who were huge fans of 'MERIDIAN: vol 1,' what can we expect from 'MERIDIAN: vol 2'? M: a resolution to some of the aching questions from volume 1 I think are within volume 2.