Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Laufey

Transcript

Laufey · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Layvey's fast rise to fame is a pandemic success story.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: During Lockdown, the twenty four year old multi instrumentalist built
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a substantial following on social media, where she was known
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: as Jazz Girl. Since then, the Icelandic Chinese singer songwriter
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: has released two studio albums that blend classical pop and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: jazz perfectly, and while working in the style of artists
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: like Elia Fitzgerald and Chet Baker may seem unlikely for
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a Gen Z artist, her music has proved to resonate
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: deeply with young audiences. The first single from her most
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: recent release, Bewitched, has been streamed over twenty million times
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: globally since it's released a couple months back, and the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: album itself was the largest jazz debut on Spotify ever.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Layvay's online performances first went viral in twenty twenty while
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: she's attending Boston's prestigious Berkeley College of Music. Raised in Iceland,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Layve started playing cello and classical piano when she was
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: just four years old. By fifteen, she was performing with
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra as a cello soloist. The Chinese
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: side of her family has been studying classical music for generations.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: LaVey's mom as a professional violinist and a maternal grandfather
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: taught violin at China's Central Conservatory of Music, and while
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Lave's classical training runs deep, perhaps the most surprising thing
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: about her sent to stardom is the fact that she's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: now known as a singer songwriter as much as a musician.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: On today's episode, I talked to Leave about how she
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: started singing jazz standards online and what inspired her to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: write her own songs as well. She also talks about
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the great sacrifices her Chinese family made during the Cultural
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Revolution when there was a strict band on playing classical
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Western music, and she sings two original songs for us,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: including her single from the Start. This is broken record.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know it's for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchell.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Before we jump into my interview with Levey, let's hear
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: her sing an acoustic condition of her song from the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Start live.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Don't you knows how I get quiet when there's no
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: one else surround me and you and awkward silence.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Don't shut look at me that way?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I don't need to.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Remind herself how you don't feel the same. Oh the
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: burdening pain listening to your heart bumbous news song made,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: She's so perfect, blah blah blah. How I wish you
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: wake up one day?
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Fun to me confess your little bell yst Just let
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: me say that when I talk to you, Oh cute
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: b walks right through and shoots on the or through.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: My herd and I sound like aloon.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: But don't you feel to confess I've learned from the start.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I love that I sound like a loon line such
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a great play on word. Yeah, in such a little time,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: you've gotten so successful, I feel I can confidently say
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that I should mention you. I mean, your album was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: like the highest debuting jazz album, dare I say on Spotify?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: You know, if you admit it to jazz, it is.
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: So so so wild. It was very I you know,
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: I I would have never expected that that could be
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: the outcome for the kind of music that I make.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: You know, I really set out to just make the
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: music that I loved and hope that people would listen.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: And the fact that they have is is very very special.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: I kind of can't believe it.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I might go all over the places because you're a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: relatively new artist. I don't know a ton about you
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in your route to where is this place now? It's
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a cuitous. It's like you it's confusing, like where you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: came from before LA and where you you know, there's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of many stops stops. So how long have
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: you been in LA now?
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: A little over two years.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And you came to LA from.
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: It's kind of confusing. But d C kind of because
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: my parents lived in DC while I went to Berkeley,
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: and then because.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Great parents, so they moved to the States.
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it just was coincidental actually, but because
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: my dad worked in DC, like between Iceland and d C,
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: so when.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: My kids go to college, I'll also accidentally have some
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: work to do.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: But it was so nice. It was so nice because
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: then what happened is COVID struck, right, instead of going
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: back to Iceland, where I would have, you know, otherwise gone,
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: I went to d C. So I stayed in the
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: States and you know, had employment authorization and stuff like that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: So it was like actually quite integral to me being
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: able to start this career during that time.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I think, So how much Berkeley did you do remote?
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: Like from d I mean after I did one and
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: a half year in person and then and then the
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: rest online. Wow, but I did graduate.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Congratulations.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: That's it's no, it's just it's a rare one. It's
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: not considered very cool to graduate.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: But wow, No, I know some cool people though that
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: have graduated from.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, some of us make it all.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Look at you, you're setting a new tone for Yeah.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: The standard is that if you dropped out, you made it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: If you if you if you graduated, you won't make it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I'm always curious about Berkeley experience because it's such a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: unique school with such unique, very driven students. For one,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I feel like students who
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: very much want to they want it, they want it,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and they want it like not. You know. I feel
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like if you go to a traditional four year institution
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: where it's it's much more, where it's focused on academics,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: there's a sense of like, you know, it might take
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: a while to get into your profession, you might take
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a detour through graduate school or whatever. And you know,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I know, like with Berkeley kids, it's like, to your point,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: they want to make it before they even graduate. So
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that's a drive amount of pressure.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: It is and I think strangely I didn't put that
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: pressure on myself because I came from such an academic
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: background and my twin sister went to like a four
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: year university in Scotland that was very much not like
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: a music school, so I was almost on that path.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: I think I was different from a lot of kids
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: at Berkeley in that I came there quite open minded
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: and curious about what it was that I was able
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: to do within the walls of Berkeley. Because I came
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: in as a cellist, right like, I was on a
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: scholarship to play cello. I didn't go as a singer
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: or a writer or anything like that, and I kind
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: of was like, Okay, I want to do a little
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: bit of everything and see what I can do. And
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: part of me just felt like it was so unrealistic
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: to become a singer that I just didn't even you know,
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: dip too much into it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So sit your track with cello, but you also want
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: to pursue sing and a writing or you're curious about that?
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: Absolutely?
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: I mean I you know, I wanted to be a
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: singer the most, but it just felt very unrealistic, which is.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Funny because it wasn't well, yeah, I mean growing.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: Up in Iceland, it's not something you see that often,
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: you know, you're not immersed in that, and like, yeah,
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I think I also like to play
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: it safe as a kid, right, And I didn't want to.
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: I was a little bit scared of dreaming outside of
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: the box, if you will. And I was like, who
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: am I to think that I can do that? You know?
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: I was also taught to like I've come from my
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: mother's Chinese and you know, the Chinese kind of my
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: Chinese culture, sure, and background has definitely taught me like
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: you have to manage expectations, stay humble, work very hard.
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: Like those are the three kind of pillars.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Manage expectations, they work.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: Really hard, Yeah, exactly, Like obviously like dream strive for
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: big things, but like in a very realistic way, in
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: a way that you work your way up to it,
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: you know, whereas like I think the American dream is
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: like a little bit more delusional, but in a really
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: good way, do you know what I mean? And now
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: I've t but I've tapped into that delusion now, But
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: I think you know that's that's you know, I mean,
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: in many in many ways, whether it be a good
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: thing or a bad thing. I think that's why a
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: lot of Americans succeed in really fantastic ways again, whether
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: it be good or bad, because.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Also why we like fail spectacularly even after having succeeded.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know, big, big wins and big
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: losses come from big risks, and Americans and American kids
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: are taught to take big risks. I think a lot
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: of my not even my parents. I think I was
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: just a very safe and calculated child, so I didn't
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: dare to take big risks. But now I take really
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: big risks.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: That's great, even doubt. What was your first encounter with
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: American culture as a delusional As.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: A delusional I mean I went to elementary school in
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: the States from age of six to nine. That was
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: like the first time I remember encountering American culture.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Do you remember how you felt before you got here,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: like being told you're going to come here and just sort.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: Of your feel Yeah, I mean I think, you know,
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: I was five years old, so I wasn't thinking too
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: much about it. I think I was excited to get
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: to move to a new country. I mean I didn't
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: speak English very well or at all, so I remember
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: Icelandic and Chinese Chinese. I remember just how encouraged we
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: were to speak up, like public speaking. There was an
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: emphasis on that, even from you know, age six. In
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: my you know, public school in DC, it was a
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: lot of like show and tell, sharing, you know, reading
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: out loud, stuff like that. From a very early age
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: that I didn't feel like there was as much of
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: an emphasis on. And I think what resulted was like
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: kids were quite open and they were which was great
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: for me coming from a different country especially. I mean
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: I lived in Washington, d C. And though it was
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: like a public school, it was very international just because
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: the nature of the neighborhood I lived in. There were
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: a lot of like children who had parents who worked
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: in you know, international service. So because these kids were
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: very international and because they were very outspoken, I think
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: they accepted kids quite easily. So that was actually really good.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: But I remember just always thinking, you know, Americans and
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: American culture was quite extroverted compared to a more introverted
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: Icelandic culture, and I knew that from a very young age.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: It seems like was it uncomfortable to start.
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: No, not at all. And I think, you know, six
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: to nine, which is the time that I lived in
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: America as a kid, there's such formative years and they
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: taught me to become very expressive. And I think when
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: I took that expression, like that expressive nature back to
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: Iceland when I was like nine, eight or nine, in
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: the middle of the recession in two thousand and eight,
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: I felt quite loud. I quite felt really larger than life,
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: like really big, and that was kind of something that
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: I dealt with for a while in Iceland.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: What about at home? Was it encouraged at home to
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: be sort of living out loud? Yeah?
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: Absolutely. My parents were super, super encouraging of me being
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: an artist as well, like they from a very young age.
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: But it was I had a very disciplined childhood, not
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: in a bad way, but in that you know, I
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: knew I came home from school and I practiced. I was,
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: you know, treading a pre professional classical music path.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And that's because your mom, my mom is.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: A classical violinist. Yeah, So from age four I started
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: playing classical piano and cello and it just kind of
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: became a part of life, just as going to elementary
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: school becomes a part of your life. You know, you
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: go to math, you go to English, you go to science,
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: it come home you have an hour piano, hour of cello, an.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Hour of piano, hour of cello before even an hour
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of homework.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: Yes, before homework. Yeah, but in Iceland there isn't much homework.
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: That's nice, very nice. Yeah, yeah, you know, I I
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: would say that the nature of schooling in Iceland is
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: a lot more relaxed. And you know, there's no private school.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: Everyone goes to the public schools. There's no you know,
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: the kind of hierarchy of schools that has been set
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: up in the States that you know follows you all
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: the way down to college. You know, like people thinking
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: about how they can set themselves up to get to
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: a good university from the age of like six or seven.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: That mentality just doesn't really exist in Iceland.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: There a big class dichotomy.
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: They're like no, no, no, I would say, I mean,
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: of course, like like everywhere, you know, there's but the
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: wealth gap in Iceland is generally compared to other countries
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: quite small.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: And it's a social democratic country, and it's you know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: follows kind of Scandinavian principles and you know, you have
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: free free health care and education or very very low
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: low cost, which is you know nice, It's.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Great that you got to bounce between.
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I definitely experienced both. And you know, I spent
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: every summer in China as while growing up, so so
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: I have extreme Yeah, I was Actually I was in
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: China just a couple of days ago. I was there
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: for ten days, playing a bit. But it was my
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: first time back since COVID, and it was nice to
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: revisit that as the adult that I've become since.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: How was it? What was that? And do you saw
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: family there?
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: Yes, my grandmother lives there. She she's a professor, was
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: a professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing,
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: and my grandfather was as well, who's who's now passed.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: So the classical music routs run run quite deep. But yeah,
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: she was there, and I played with a China Philharmonic
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: in Beijing, and I think it was very special for
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: her to see that. Actually, my grandfather was a violin
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: professor and a lot of his students were in the workstrane.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: It was, it was it was a fun full circle moment.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: When did your grandfather pass?
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: Two thousand and nine?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So you were young quite a while ago. They were
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: quite young. He should get to talk to his former
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: students about him at all.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, and I remember him very vividly. He was
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: like a larger than life person. I've actually been told
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: that that I resemble him in many ways, which is,
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: you know, such an honor. And you know, he really
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: loved music so much, and he loved jazz music as well,
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: and loved like musical theaters, so I kind of, you know,
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: his idea of music was it was just such a
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: musical thing, right, you know, I feel like you can
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: split music into two kind of things. In my head
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: at least, it's like you have the technique and you
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: have the musicality. If you have both your stellar I
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: definitely lean musical like I I mean I've I've definitely
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: you know, worked up a foundation of technic, but I
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: was never that good at practicing. And I definitely leaned
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: in onto the fact that I onto.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: The musicality that you had like an ear.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: And yeah that and feel for things exactly kind of
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: the stuff that you don't need to practice as much
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: to a metron to a literal metronome.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: But I was always my failing. I could never I
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: never practice. I hated practicing to a metronome as I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was always told my time.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: Oh my god. To this day, the sound of a
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: metronome like triggers me, Like I get like a physical
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: reaction to a metronome, which is great now because you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I sing to click sometimes, which I didn't even know
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: was a thing until two years ago. Maybe when I
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: started working in music. It like bewildered me so much
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: that like on stage there would be like a constant
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: metronome in my ear. It's funny.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Do you do it in studio two when you're recording?
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: Rarely? Sometimes, but I try. I always try without click
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: before I do it with click.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine if it triggers you that much.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I think you know, I've earned it that
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: I can. I can kind of just let the music live.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: But yeah, of course sometimes I need to be, you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: pushed into place by a click.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure enough. We have to take a quick break
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and then we'll come back with more of my interview
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: with Lave. We're back with more from lay. May you know,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: certainly mid century Russia for instance, would have and you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Cuba rock and roll would have been outlawed. I don't
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: know if jazz was the same, but it certainly would
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: have been hard to get a hold of jazz records
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and things. I'd imagine, right.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: Like h yeah, I mean, well in the sixties and
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: seventies and in China, you know, there was a cultural revolution,
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: so Mao and the and the Communist Party, they basically,
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: you know, outlawed any type of foreign influence and Western influence,
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: and there was just kind of like a grand scale
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: focus on all things just Chinese like looking within. So
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: my grandparents, who who were professors at the Central Conservatory
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: of Western Classical Music that was considered you know, the bourgeoisies.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: So they actually went to re education camp and lived
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: in the countryside for a while and were like rice
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: farmers and whatnot. And my mom grew up in a
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: boarding school because of that, and they couldn't play any
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: Western classical music, no Western music at all, and it
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: like it goes so far. I've heard the craziest stories
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: from that time. But yeah, my mother kind of grew
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: up in that world, and my grandparents also went through that.
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, my mother even like down to the clothes
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: that you wore, you like couldn't wear any you couldn't
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: wear bell bottom jeans or anything, which was you know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: in style at that time in the Western world. My
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: grandmother naturally has curly hair, which is very very rare
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: in China, and the Communists thought that she had permed
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: her hair, which was you know, Western influence, so she
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: had to put her hair up in a silk scarf
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: every day for years. Really well, and none of them
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: played music for the longest time, or at least the
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: you know, the classical music that they were trained in.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: How does your mom end up back playing.
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean she always she played violin. She just
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: couldn't play you know, it had to be Chinese music,
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: got it. I think, you know, my mother was just
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: so in that world that she, you know, that that
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: was the only path she could tread. And I think
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: that's why my mother so emphasized kind of me and
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: my sister's freedom to do whatever we wanted and become
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: whatever kind of artists we wanted.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: And because it was sort of so because it was.
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: So strict as she was growing up and she didn't
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: really have that freedom of choice, and so she she
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: just kind of let us do whatever we want.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And like that an hour of practice immediately after school
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: is it's much more lenient than.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: Whatever Oh, my god, definitely. I mean the way that
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: my I'm so thankful for that because I'm still running
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: off of that technique.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Do you still try to day?
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: No, not nearly as much as I did as a kid,
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: But you know, the hard work that I put in
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: as a kid is still paying off today because when
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: I'm like on strenuous touring schedules or recording for hours
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: on end, you know, the stamina that I've gotten from
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: all of those years of practicing and kind of the
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: focus that I've gotten, those skills still are lasting me
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: at this age, which is which is really really great.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: But you know, I think that's another reason I really
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: love the fact that I live in a time where
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: I can mix so many genres together. You know, like
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: they couldn't do anything of the sort, and I'm just like, oh,
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: I'm going to mix jazz and pop and classical together
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: and present it however I want. And the fact that
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: we have that freedom now is wild. I mean, it
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: wasn't so long ago that my grandparents and my mother
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: couldn't play even classical music.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I am so glad that you're doing it too. You know.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It feels like we go back to an American culture.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: In Western culture, we do go back a lot, but
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like an era we haven't revisited in a
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: long time is sort of that mid century jazz, right,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that musical world that existed then, and it's so ripe
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: for reimagining because it's so expressive, so emotional, and so
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: musically sound, and even the opening of your record that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: sounds both like modern production and like old production simultaneously.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of like the brilliance of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: certain people your age, some of your cohorts. I guess
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: we would say, who are sort of doing that, you know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: mixing these things up?
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much. I mean, that's kind of
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: that's definitely the goal to kind of hark back to
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: that time. And I think that's the music I've just
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: always loved so much. And when I started singing, I
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: immediately started singing jazz standards and like Ella Fitzgerald and
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: Billie Holiday and Chat Baker where And then also on
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: top of that, like the songs from Golden Age films
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: were the only music I really listened to, Like there's
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: no other music I could make, Like that's the music
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: I wanted to make so much that you know, whether
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: it worked out or not, I was going to continue
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: doing it, you know. But I also did find there
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: was especially when I started out and I was just
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: posting like little videos of me singing jazz standards online,
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: I found that there was such a gap for this generation.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: No one was really doing it, but nobody seemed to
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: really dislike the music that much. Like it's the bones
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: of the music is so good, right, these jazz standards.
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: There's just good songs that have lasted for so long
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: and have been honestly like have been sampled so many times.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: And jazz is kind of like the root of all
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: modern music, right. It's something that is so prevalent in
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: pop music and hip hop and R and B. So
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: actually like.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Down to and to your point of it being the backbone,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: because I think most of them, like the blues is
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: being the back but really coming out of the big
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: band era, like bebop groups taking it down to like
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the bare essentials of it. Might be a trio or
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: might be a quartete. I mean that's rock and roll.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It's like three or.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: Four hund's all. It's all connected. And so I think,
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: you know, I tend to think the gen z ear
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: is actually really trained well for jazz music and we've
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: been like subconsciously fed it for many, many years. So
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: I also think that the timing of music now is
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: like this new audience of music listeners. They don't really
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: care what the music, you know, what era resembles, if anything,
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: if it resembles another era, Like you're hearing these huge
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: resurgences in like nineties rock sound, punk rock. Honestly like
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: every seventies music like Fleetwood Mac had a big moment
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: and talk recently during the exactly it's like all music
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: is coming back. I think what gen Z cares about
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: is connecting to the artists, connecting to the lyrics, connecting
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: to the story. And jazz is really good storytelling, I think,
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: really so Yeah, it's fun that we live in a
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: time where we can mix so many genres together and
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: kind of make it our own.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: How did it come to be that standards ended up
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: being the first thing that you were singing, like, did
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: you and counted them through film or through radio?
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: No, Well, my father loved jazz music, so we played
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: a lot of jazz music in the house. And you know,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: as a kid, I listened to pretty much only classical music,
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: and then I really liked, you know, obviously, like the
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: other kids of that time when I was like seven
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: or eight, I loved like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: and whatever, but I couldn't hear any of myself in
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: those singers. I've always had quite a deep voice, and
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: when I started singing, I just immediately started. I think
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: the first song I remember like learning and like performing
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: at a like a singing show was Singing in the Rain,
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: So and then I just naturally, you know, I just
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: listened to so much Ella Fitzgerald that I just kind
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: of like, you know, started singing all the songs that
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: she had in our repertoire, which kind of ended up
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: being just the Great American songbook.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Ella talk about the sort of the spectrum of technique
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and feel, Yeah, I mean she has it all.
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: When you both stellar and she is the epitome of that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like a few people like her. Stevie Wonder's
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: another who exactly you hear it less, but with Ell
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: it's more obviously she has the technique exactly.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's true musicianship, and I think coming from a
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: classical music background, I recognize that within her performing and
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: and also just growing up a cellist. Like she sounds
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: like a cello. She sings like a cello in her voice,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: like the tombre of it and the vibrato, the approach,
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: the legato. It's very cellistic.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Interesting. I have to listen for that.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like so obvious once you think about it.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I've been on an Ella kick recently and you're just trying. Yeah,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: just because just because she's so good. I haven't listened
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: in a while. And honestly, we named my youngest daughter,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: we named her after Ella Fitzgerald, Peter Ella, and she's
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: just starting to get into music, so I think good.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I say it just randomly, but it's probably because I'm
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: trying to like subconsciously get her and stuff, you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: because she around the piano and sing and stuff. So
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm hoping she goes that direction. But yeah,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: just you know, I'm not a great pians by any measure,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: but I love just messing around.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: And it's like you can learn a lot just mess
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: around so much. You can learn so much by messing around.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: I mean nothing I do within the jazz world aside
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: from the singing portion. But I came from a classical
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: piano background, right, so I was very I was conditioned
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: to do what the page told me to do, what
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: the music told me to do. And then when I
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: started singing jazz and I wanted to accompany myself, I
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: started just like slowly learning the chords. And I'm by
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: no means a jazz pianist, so like what I do
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: is not maybe based in the most of technique, it's
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: more based on feel, which took me a really long
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: time to kind of allow myself to do. Like in
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: my I think in my first recordings, I was like
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: a little bit embarrassed to play because I was like,
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: I'm not a jazz pianist. Like, but when the first
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: jazz pianists came about, they weren't jazz pianists either. They
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: were just messing around as well they were.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And so many, so many of the greats who even
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: became like great in terms of technique and a revered
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: for technique, they came from playing other styles, you know exactly,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and just by circumstances they had to record in jazz
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: or play with the jazz group or something, and then
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: they picked it up and learned it over.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: Well that's how yeah, I was reading a Bill Evans
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: biography the other day actually, and like he started out
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: as a classical pianist and then just like kind of
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: started newdling his way in and learning about it. And
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: I was very inspired. I was like, I should do that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: But I'm a huge Bill Evans found and it made
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: a lot of sense because I can hear a lot
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: of like classical technique and ideas. You know, it's very
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: based and technique. But yeah, it's so cool. I mean,
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: my life as a musician and my musicianship got a
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: whole lot better when I allowed myself to mess around
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: and make mistakes.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: It's pretty obvious how like the Bill Evans and the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Al FitzGeralds of the world like influence your your sound
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and your music and your feel for things. Less obvious is,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I guess, like the Taylor Swift side of things, which
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I guess you grew up listening to as well. Absolute,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: But I'm wonder if that's more in the approach to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: yourself as an artist. I think so, yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: I think you know the way that her artist's trajectory,
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: just the way that she's kind of been able to
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: stay true to herself whilst climbing over different genres and
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: every time she moves and changes a bit, you know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: she retains her fans and gains new ones, and people
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: respect her as an artist as a person, so they
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: follow the music that she puts out. And I also
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: think for Taylor, for me, it's the storytelling aspect as well,
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: Like she had me believing in these stories when I
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: was like nine years old and I had never even
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: talked to a boy before. And there's such there's such
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: power in that being able to convince someone of a
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: story because they've just told it so well and so beautifully.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: So so yeah, I think's been someone of the dynamics
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: of something. You know, it's like exactly of how it
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: will be when you finally Yeah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: Well, there's so many songwriters that, like my music doesn't
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: really you know, come close to resemble, but I'm just
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: so inspired by like their lyricism and their approach. You know.
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: It's like I love Carol King as well, and like
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: the Carpenters and down to like Sarah Brellas. Like, my
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: inspirations are kind of all over the place, but they're
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: all like very potent songwriters.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you gotten into Jonny Mitchell yet?
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: I was gonna mention Joni Mitchell as well. Yeah, but yeah,
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: I mean, and some of her stuff, She's done some
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: really cool string stuff as well, like orchestral sounding stuff,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: which I obviously really admire.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I imagine you probably want to start doing something like that, Yeah, yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: or dabbling with that. I loved, speaking of the orchestral
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: side of things. I loved your song California and me, oh,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: thank you my favorite song on the I mean show,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: ittle change, But over the last week and a half
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: or so, that's been like dialed in is my favorite.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you so beautiful.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: I love that one.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: I obviously having a classical music background, I always wanted
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: to find ways of bringing that into a new audience
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: of listeners who maybe have never gotten to experience and
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: listening to a symphony orchestra or the sound world that
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: a symphony orchestra lives in. And I'm so aware of
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: how that world is, you know, kind of unapproachable and
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: unaccessible for a pop music audience, for a young audience,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: for people that didn't grow up within the world like me,
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: and I just kind of want to find a way
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: always to bring it down, to bring it down to
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: earth a little bit, and bring it to bring it
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: to the people again, like this classical music, jazz music
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: was meant for people. The fact that it's seems like
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: something that's only for the educated now exactly, it's really
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: how highbrow exactly is so disappointing to me because because
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: I understand those worlds so well, Like I went to
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: classical conservatory and then I went to jazz conservatory. I
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: know how those worlds are, and I've made an angled
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: approach to not kind of end up in those worlds,
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: like taking those worlds and bring it to people who
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: like don't typically listen to jazz or typically listen to
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: classical music. Like My hope, of course is that you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: the people within those educated worlds are okay with what
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: I'm doing, but at the end of the day, at
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: the end of the day, I'm making it for the
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: people who don't have access to that music.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So well, Okay, to that point, overall, what was your
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Berkeley College of Music experience?
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: My Berkeley College and Music experience, it was It was good.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, the school invested a lot in me, and
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: they gave me one of their presidential scholarships, so it
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: covered everything, and so I you know, I didn't have
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: to worry about that component of it while I was
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: at Berkeley, which I know is you know, it's it's
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: not an inexpensive school by any means, and I think
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: having that looming over you can definitely change the experience.
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: So I was very lucky to have kind of like
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: a stress pre experience in that sense. So I got
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: to kind of go in with a very clear mind.
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: I was very privileged to get to go in with
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: a clear mind and think, just Okay, what can I
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: do here? How can I make music? And make music
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: twenty four to seven.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Are there as many people there as open to what
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: music can be as you because my sense of things
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: is that people can be very narrow about what jazz
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: is defined as and narrow about what they do instrumentalist,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And this.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: Is absolutely I mean I remember even at Berkeley, like
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: I would make a point out of telling people I
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: was a cello player and not a singer and not
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: a jazz singer, because you know, the people who took
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: jazz very seriously didn't think that jazz singing was a
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: real thing, you know, or like that didn't wasn't considered
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: real jazz, And so yeah, I definitely got in touch
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: with that world and saw how that can be, and
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: I had experienced a lot of that within classical music
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: as well, and the classical educated world, I know, even
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: better than the kind of jazz educated world.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Much more time spent there.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, I would say ninety eight percent of Berkeley,
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: like ninety five to ninety eight percent of Berkeley was
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: super open, and you know, all kinds of genres and
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: people from all over the world, and everyone kind of
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: with a shared passion of wanting to do something within music.
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: Of course, you know, wherever you go, there's going to
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: be that group of people that are very focused on,
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: you know, the purity of jazz music and the purity
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: of the art, just as you have that in the
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: classical world or you know, any other discipline. I respect
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: those musicians so much because, honestly, those were the most
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: talented musicians in school. I would say, But I've you know,
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: I never wanted to become a musician like that. I
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: wanted to create my own world of music that was
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: a mix of a couple of different disciplines. So I've
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: been thinking a lot about it recently because you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: I always want to really respect and honor the roots
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: that I'm coming from. You know, I'm highly aware that
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: jazz music, for example, is black music. You know, I
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: know that comes from and I know, like I studied
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: the history of it at Berkeley, I know where classical
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: music comes from as well. I always want to honor
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: my roots. Same with Bosonova music. I have a lot
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: of Bosonova references. That's Brazilian music. You know, I'm not Brazilian.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: I'm also not black, so you know, I think it's
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: really important that I learn a lot about where these
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: influences are coming from, what the history behind it is,
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: and make sure I honor it in my music. So
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: that's definitely something I've been thinking a lot about recently.
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: I think mixing up styles of music, mixing and matching
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: is is totally fine. I think that's how music evolves.
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: I think it's just important to know where it's coming from.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And just like you can't ignore that jazz music
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: is black music from the America's or whatever, that, you
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: can't ignore your own innate sort of history, right, which
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: is that you're not that and exactly whatever new you
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: can bring to that I think is probably really cool.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, and that is how things might hope.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: My hope is that I just my hope is that
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: people in those educated communities know that I'm not, like,
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: you know, painting over or slandering the history. And I've
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: I've done my duty learning about it, but I still
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: think those worlds are a little bit gay kept now.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you could come in and follow it to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: a tea, and there's people that do that, like there's
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: actually I got turned on recently. I was reading a
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: biography of I want to say Erl Garner, but that's
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: just because I've been listening to Misty I love your record.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: It's not Errol Garner. It's Hampton Hawes, who is like
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: a pianist from here in La. In his book, he's
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: writing about this Japanese woman whose name escapes me now.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: And she played like bebop like a mother.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: Was it, Hiromi?
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, that's it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: You went to Berkeley, did she?
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: Oh my god. Those Japanese musicians rip, and they're so talented.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And they do it like they do bebop, like bebo
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: be done and not. I don't want to take away
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: from that, but if that's not what you want to
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: do when you're doing it, there's an element of you
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: also just not being like, if that's what she wants
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: to do her, that's great, she's being true to herself.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: But if you also, in the process of wanting to
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: participate in this music, want to bring your own history
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: to it, and that's what feels the most comfortable, Like
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you'd be a fraud if you didn't.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I'm having so much fun that you
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: know that we live in a day and age where
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: you can mix all these styles of music together and
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: you can kind of be whoever you want to be
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: and kind of create your own genre as well.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you would have penalized, I think in the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: day for that, because it wouldn't have been easily marketable.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Oh definitely.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: I mean even two three years ago, I think I
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: was just you know, people artists and people make fun
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: of the Internet and TikTok and Instagram or whatever, but
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: I have a hard time doing that because I think
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: the reason I get to make the music I make
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: today is because I had the freedom to do that
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: and you got the Internet.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Miss, Yeah, you could bypass the traditional.
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: I passed the traditional by proving myself and with my
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: fan base that I could do whatever music I want.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: And now I kind of gotten to the point where
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: I think people in the industry trust me to make
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: my own decisions about the music. But yeah, I mean
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: back in the day you were either a pop singer
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: or a jazz singer or a classical singer. It was
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: very boxed up.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: And the people who got past it by the grace
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: of God, like a Stevie Wonder exactly whatever. But there
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: are very few and even Joan Mitchell is celebrated as
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: she is. Yes, I would argue she's I don't want
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: to say underrated, but in terms of the general public
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: consumption and understanding of her music right, probably because it
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't It was because it was too it was too confusing.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: What it was confusing?
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it should be as heralded as you know, the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Beatles and all that stuff. It's not. It's just crazy.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: I think now being unique is actually quite quite celebrated.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: And you know, when I was younger, all these things
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: that made me so confused, like being a like a
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: cellist or or you know, being you know, mixed race
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: and being loud. These things I used to that I
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: used to feel like were my limits are actually the
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: things that have made me who I am and given
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: me a career so cool, very very Obviously, we.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Have to pause for another quick break and then we'll
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: come back with the rest of my interview with Lave.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of my conversation with Lave.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: What was the social media trajectory in terms of putting
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: your music on? I mean, were you ever using YouTube
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: early on, like to put music out even as a kid,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: like where you docu my? Oh?
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Of course I posted some covers on YouTube when I
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: was twelve, just like everyone else know. They aren't up,
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: but them, I have them. They're privated, they're quite cute.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: But yeah, the story starts twenty twenty. The pandemic had
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: just started and I came back home and I was like, okay,
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: I have this empty space of time now. I'd recorded
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: one song, which ended up being the first song I
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: ever put out. It just so happened that that was
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: like the first semester that I was working on writing
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: and recording, and that was a song called Street by Street.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: But anyways, I got back home, the song wasn't out yet,
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: and I thought it was a two week break. I
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: was like, you know, I'm gonna write as much as
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: I possibly can, and I'm going to post videos of
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: myself playing jazz standards on the internet just as a
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: form of practice, and we'll just see what happens. Never
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: in a million years would I've thought that what happened
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: would happen, which was, you know, the videos got some
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: attention on the internet. I guess there were a lot
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: of people board at home on their phones right right,
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: and they just started getting shared and my following started
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: to grow really fast, and we're doing more.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And even in those early videos, it was kind of,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to be honest, with more just straight up straight jazz,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: like straight jazz, yeah, like covers of Louis and Ella
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: or whatever. It wasn't even like your own material, at
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: least that I've seen, right.
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there were a couple like maybe once a week
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: or once every two weeks, I'd post a song that
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: you know, resembled a jazz standard, which is kind of
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: how I started writing also in that style. I didn't
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: really realize that you could do that, that you could
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: write like a jazz standard sounding song in twenty twenty.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: So it sounds intimidating, I'm going to write a standard, right.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, it's basically proclaiming that you want to
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: write a song that lasts forever exactly, that's exactly, that's
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: the idea. But yeah, I wrote one song called like
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: the Movies, just like on my guitar, and it was
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: it was very cute. See like now I look back
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: and I'm like, that was a very innocent song, but
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: it was in kind of like an old style, and
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: I posted it on TikTok. It was my first TikTok,
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: and it kind of like went viral, and there were
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: all these comments were coming in being like, oh, this
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: sounds like something I've heard in a movie or something
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: like my Grandma loves and and I slowly started to
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: realize that, you know, there's kind of like a space
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: missing for gen Z to indulge in this kind of music.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: So I kind of just continued doing that, writing songs
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: in that style, posting them online, and also posting videos
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: of myself singing and playing cello and guitar and piano
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: to singing these jazz standards that had you know, to me,
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: they're old songs, but to gen Z. So when seeing
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: it on their TikTok, you know, for the first time,
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: that's a new song, that's a new sound, And I
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: thought that was really, really cool, and so it kind
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: of just snowballed from there. Yeah, it became jazz girl
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: on Instagram and TikTok.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I did it feel overwhelming? Did you necessarily know where
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to go from there?
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: I had one song that's Street by Street that I
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: put out like three weeks into the pandemic, just like
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: on Destroy Kage, I just like threw it out there
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: and no clue what I was doing, and it just luckily, somehow,
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: I think I grew. I was growing an audience at
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: the same time, and it just got thrown into you know,
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: the algorithm, if you will. I don't even know if
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: that's the right word, but it was just really good,
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: good timing.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: And on Spotify got tip like it hit.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: Some Discover week lease or something like that, so people
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: started listening and the music was like almost like a
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: derivative of jazz and that it had a lot of
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: jazz principles, but was you know, a modern story and
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: something new and didn't seem too different from what I was,
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: you know, posting online. So it kind of, yeah, it
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: just grew and it became almost like I kind of
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: harnessed social media, like I knew I'd built a community
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: on there, that was so great for me and my
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: creative process. Like that first year of COVID, I really
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: spent figuring out who I was as an artist. And
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: you know, I could turn on a live stream at
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: the flip of a switch and sing a song that
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: I'd written that day and get immediate feedback. And then
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: I got to know my fans and they got to
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: know me, and they were from all over the world,
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: and we'd talk about the state of COVID and we'd
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: be like, Oh, what's happening, and like, you know Peru, Yeah, exactly,
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: and it was it was so special. And I'd have
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: these like Sunday lullaby live streams, So every Sunday I
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: turn on a lullaby live stream and I'd just sing
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: and we'd talk.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: It's great. I wish I had found that somehow.
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: It definitely saved me from a very bleak time in history,
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: I would say, yea. And I think that's another part
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: of why the timing of the project worked, because I
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: think nobody wanted to be reminded of the bleak times,
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: and the music I was offering up sounded like it
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: was of a different time. Everything was so online and
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: getting something that felt less online, like jazz music or z.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I also went back to like some of those like
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: old musicals, Oklahoma or whatever. I just love Oklahoma very cool,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: It's very cool.
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: I'm a huge Rogers in Hammerstein fan. So the songs
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: from those films are like my favorite.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Sorry with the fringe on top, like are you kidding me?
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Chicks and ducks and geese, they will scurry. That's wrapping
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: right there.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: It is, and with that beautiful melody. Dude, I don't
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: know how they came up with that. Stuff's incredible.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: No, I know it's it's it's wild.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Would you mind there's a guitar right there? Would you
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: mind sort of playing that the first song? Sure? Yeah?
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Street by Street just a bit of it.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So I was almost in like more of a
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: R and B kind of swing of jazz back then,
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: like lo fi cool. So yeah, it's interesting how it's evolved.
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: But anyways, it's Street by Street. This food a small
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: to my face lally, it's some nothing bad. Remind me.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: The way the jeused to.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: Give me.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Butterfly took me twenty one days.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: To carf.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Paradise Paradise.
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: By stop by stop, break by break. I'm reclaim me
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: wor smart.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: The cities ware you too small to give way to just.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: One god, Street by street, breath by breath, from the
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: back bit.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: To the sky. I'm taking back my shity.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I'm taking back my Your voice is so incredible, it's
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: like live. Hearing it in this room is insane.
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: Oh thank you.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I got a great voice. But that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: was it was, honestly in the rooms incredible.
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: That's a cool song.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a cute one. It was like the one
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: of the first songs I ever wrote, and it really
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: it really healed me. It really. I remember I had
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: my light bulb moment after writing that song. I was like,
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: oh my god. I was like, in the middle of
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: writing it, my heart was racing. I was like, I
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: think I have it. I think I got something.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Was there was there any music that particularly inspired you
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: while writing that, anything you were referencing in your mind
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: or I don't know.
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: There's like, you know, there's a lot of Sam Cook
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: that I was listening to, so it was like a
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: Sam Cook lick kind of that I threw in there.
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: You know, there was jazz music. I was also listening to,
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: like a lot of Bruno major at the time, Who's
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: I went to a concert with him and it was
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: the first time I really saw jazz and and like
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: kind of songwriting being presented alongside each other, and it
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: really inspired me.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, as you were playing that, it occurred to
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: me that, I mean, in a way, you're a jazz
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: singer or just a singer with some jazz influence and
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: a player, but also like a singer songwriter. I mean,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: it's not many people did that in jazz. I guess
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: you know a couple of times.
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: Right right, No, it's a very rare thing to be
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: a songwriter of a singer and a songwriter of jazz
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: and jazz. Historically, jazz singers sing.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Songs by sing songs by people.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: Who don't sing, and then you know, aside from obviously
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: like Ella and a couple of examples like didn't didn't
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: improvise either, so they weren't of course they had their
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: own takes on songs, but it wasn't creating in that sense.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: So yeah, wear many hats. Well.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I presume much of your songwriting is about your own experiences.
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: Is it? Yeah, most of them are personal personal stories.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Is it weird? Then to follow like the people like
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Taylor Swift down to Carol King that you mentioned and
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: kind of putting your life out for your fans and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: that sort of.
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't think too much about it. People
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: ask me a lot like, oh, aren't you embarrassed to
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: put it out? Or isn't it exposing? And I think
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: in a way like when I bottle up an experience
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: or an emotion in a song and let it free,
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: it's no longer completely mine, and then it doesn't feel
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: as daunting. That being said, the thought of someone listening
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: to a song I wrote about them is terrifying. But
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: I just don't think about that. I think, in my
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: delusional mind, I'm like, yeah, they're not listening.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: That's the American in the delusion. Yeah exactly.
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, if they listen, I just hope they
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: don't tell me. Unless it's like a really really nice thing,
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: then maybe they can tell you. But it's also worth
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: it when someone's like, oh, I've experienced that before, I
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: can relate.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: So the album cover too, I should say it's very cool,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Oh thank you.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: It was me and my twin sister, who's my creative director.
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: She kind of, you know, the whole visual world behind
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: leve is her kind of thought creation.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Is that what she studied in college?
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: No? No, she studied international relations and music. She's a
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: smart cookie. But the idea kind of came from the
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: music itself on this album is more mature and my
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: last record, Yeah, and and I kind of wanted to
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: shock my audience a little bit. I think my first
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: album was so innocent that I wanted this second one
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: to be a little bit more like otherworldly. So yeah,
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: it's very kind of like glossy silvery. I almost wanted
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: to appear more other worldly somehow it is.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And it's such a striking cover strike, Thank You, Thank You.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Is there anything you want to try in the future
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: in terms of, like you've had some strings on this,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: you know, orchestra. I definitely want to do.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: More orchestra stuff. I want to write film music. I
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: really want to write something.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear you do a soundtracks. A couple
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of songs on here that I feel I could be, yeah,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: theme for a movie.
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: I definitely. Every song to me is like a little movie,
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: like every story from start to finish, and then the
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: way that it's painted musically is very I I like
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: to think everyone is like a little movie. But yeah,
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: I'd love to do more orchestra stuff as well. On
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: the other side of things, I'd love to like just
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: like show up with like a random folk album or
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: like country album, like lean really into the storytelling. And
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: and then of course, like I want to do like
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: some like a standards album at some point and something
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: more you know, straight forward jazz in that sense. But
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: I think for now, I'm my work isn't completely done
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: in doing it the way that I am right now.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Would you ever get a group, like a band together,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: like oh, absolutely, yeah, that you kind of just do
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: all like tour with and make records with.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: And sure, yeah I have. I have a band that
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: I tour with right now who are really great, and
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: the records so far have just been made. Besides an
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: orchestra and a couple of musicians here and there, it's
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: been mostly just me and my producer Spencer, playing all
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: the instruments and I having quite a lot of fun
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: doing that.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: That's cool. How did you meet Spencer?
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: I was just doing my session rounds and you know,
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: going to different producers and kind of hoping and praying
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: that i'd find somebody who understood my vision and understood
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: the jazz part and the classical part and the part
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: and like the songwriting part. And I happened upon Spencer
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: and he just immediately understood it. I remember I was
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: so worried that it would be hard to find, and
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: it was quite hard to find. But when I found Spencer,
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, like, this is it.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: Like I found my musical soulmate.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: That's great. Well, hey, thank you so much for oh,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: thank you making the drive up of course, yeah, my pleasure.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Leave for singing some of her gorgeous songs
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: for us. Speakin Hear a collection of all of our
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: favorite Leave songs on the playlist at broken record podcast
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot
• 51:37
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  Speaker 1: at broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from
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  Speaker 1: Lea Rose and Eric Sandler. Our show is engineered by
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  Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats, I'm Justin Richmith.