Q&A: Ava Trepeck's ‘Two Ships’ EP and Companion Short Film Blends Nautical Whimsy With Romantic Depth
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NATALIE D.C. ☆
AVA TREPECK IS DONE WAITING—After releasing her fairytale-inspired debut album Riddle Me This in June, New York City-based singer/songwriter Ava Trepeck is preparing for the release of her year-in-the-making EP and companion short film Two Ships on November 14.
Musically gentle and lyrically romantic, Trepeck’s first two singles off the 7-track project, “Go so you can come back” and “Waiting Room,” evoke images of a lonely beachside winter spent in limbo, yearning for a lost lover. These dreamy visuals are expertly encapsulated in the nautically-themed Two Ships short film written and starring Trepeck and directed by her longtime friend and collaborator, New York City/Los Angeles-based director Palmer Wells.
As Trepeck and Wells ready for the project’s fast-approaching release date, Luna spoke with the pair of young creatives about Two Ships—its colorful inspirations, whimsical style, and production fueled by love, passion, and an affinity for the playful.
Read Luna’s conversation with Trepeck and Wells below.
LUNA: Congratulations on the upcoming release of your EP and companion short film Two Ships! For readers who are unfamiliar, can you each describe the sound and style of this project from your own perspectives as musician/writer and director?
TREPECK: The sound and the energy of the music has this tone of waiting, wishing, yearning and longing. There's so much confusion. Each song has a liminal quality to it. It was written in a time when the safest option in my life was to shrink. I came to Palmer, who is a creative genius and supporter, with the imagery, and asked, “How do we make this into a cohesive story of longing and loss and finding yourself and finding someone else, even if it's not the best option?”
WELLS: When Ava first called me, she had this full story in her head. She was like, “I just keep seeing ships and nautical elements throughout this entire EP.” There's only one song that fully feels nautical: our opening song. If you listen really closely to the music, she uses those stems and sounds throughout them—it's really unique because each song has its own story, and they're very different, but the storyline was so apparent throughout it. It's a very clear arc where she's lost, but then she's found herself, but she's confused on what decision to make at the end. The final song is called “Start Over,” so that's pretty apparent that it's still unsure whether the two lovers are going to start over. Because that song, even in itself, breaks down at the end, so it's really interesting to be taken on this journey all the way through. At the end, you don't even know what happened. You're still grabbing at straws, trying to figure it out. It mimics what life is like: you never truly know which way is the right way to go, but regardless, you're going to learn something.
When Ava originally came to me with this vision [which] basically came to her through a series of her own dreams and daydreams, that was our anchoring point that we wanted to create the world through. That was always my intention: to create exactly what Ava had in her brain and expanding upon it, creating a story. Liminal is a huge word for this project, obviously daydreamy, almost romantic at parts. It's like a dark fantasy that's filled with metaphors like a typical fever dream.
LUNA: This EP features a lovely blend of dreamy melodies and romantic lyrics. What is the origin of this 7-song project and its nautically-themed short story visualizer?
TREPECK: It was written during a time when love meant shrinking. I wanted it to work so badly. There were two doors. I kept walking through the shrinkage one and being like, “No, look, see, it works. It makes sense.” Then, I'd be like, “Oh, no, maybe not.” This story feels like the mix and cycle between bending and breaking, learning and figuring out, “Maybe I shouldn't be shrinking.” It's this back and forth of getting comfortable being small and then realizing that's not healthy.
LUNA: Ava, how did it feel to star and have your lyrics come to life in the Two Ships short film? Palmer, what was it like directing this story to life?
TREPECK: We shot it in two parts. The first part [is] a little bit more playful than the contrast of it being darker and more mysterious in part two. The first part felt super lively and fun and silly. It was surreal being in the position that I had imagined and being there on the beach like, “Oh my gosh, this is what it felt like metaphorically and now I'm doing it physically. My body is on the beach, it's freezing, I have sand on my fingers, and I can hear the ocean crashing.” That was beautiful, and [I] just really let it soak in. It was also playful because there was fun costuming; part one is very colorful and [has] lots of props. Everyone on the team was so dedicated to making it wonderful. We had a great production designer, Lola [Verhulst], who really made the world come to life physically, too, and set the scene for us as well.
Part two surprised me a little bit because part one was so playful; part two was a bit deeper and darker, and it felt more vulnerable. I was sharing the most revealing part of the story with a completely new crew, some people from before. I felt very seen in both a connective way and [an] “Ah, don't look at me!” kind of way. I was happy that it came back, that feeling, even though it was scary. I was like, “This is perfect,” because I got to own what I felt while making these songs and working on the project. It was quite magical, actually, and I had the best support around me, including Palmer and our producer, Casey [Hussey]. Everybody there was so dedicated and present.
WELLS: It's so special to get the opportunity to even speak about this project, because it means so much to all of us. Even our DPs [directors of photography], Steven Zambon and Lexi Clark, Casey Hussey, Lola—we all had our own interpretations of this and we all came together to make it into something that is ambiguous enough to trigger emotions in the viewer. There is depth. There's so many layers beneath the visuals and I've never made something like that before. This is Ava's brain, so I was so excited to make that come alive. Because there's so many elements that we specifically placed in the frames to trigger different things, you're gonna have a different relationship with it, person to person, and every watch you're gonna think of different things or maybe find little tiny storylines that might be connected. We discovered it on our own too. It wasn't laid out perfectly from the get. As we developed, as we prepped things, we added more and took away. Even during our [post-production] process, we've been restructuring.
It's been cool talking about Ava stepping into the role of our blue-haired girl. I want to mention that Ava understood this character and this world so deeply because that is the world that she was living in while she was making the music. She didn't want to play the character at first, which I think is really interesting. As we prepped, I was like, “You have to.” She's a storyteller. She's always going to be approaching her music and her world in this way. Every single album, every single EP, every song has a fully fleshed-out world. So, having her as the character was the only way that this could really get done.
Another note: [on] our day one, she was still in the process of making the music and finalizing it, so we had demos to work with. We were creating the story as the songs were coming to life and both affected each other because, as we created more depth to the story, she would add little things to the music. So, it really is a companion collaboration. We created a soundtrack for the film completely separate from the EP. Every piece of the music is so intertwined and they influence each other. This is a very different project than anything I've been a part of, so that was really special.
TREPECK: I loved everything [Palmer] just said about the different interpretations that people have. It's been so beautiful showing it to friends and new connections and hearing what it means to them upon watching. When someone asks me why I feel the need to share with the world, this is the main reason: giving people the ability to dive into something and let it move through them in whatever way. That is what life is about.
LUNA: There is a whimsical contrast between the soft tunes of the EP and the playful personality of the short. Can you expand on how the visualizer’s wittier aspects came to fruition? Were they planned, spur-of-the-moment, or a little bit of both?
TREPECK: “Sea Sick” and “Dilly Dally,” have a playful aspect of dealing with big emotions in almost a childlike manner. “Sea Sick” has a theme of jealousy, and we explore jealousy as a seasick little monster—he just wants love and attention. Jenny [Adler] and Elsa [Stern] absolutely killed that monster costume. It was perfect. “Dilly Dally” explores the feeling of loneliness, abandonment. It demonstrates dealing with that emotion in an optimistic yet avoidant way. Sort of like, “Well, I guess I'll just make my own fun and wait until you come back if you ever do. Let's play around, skip around, eat all this food, indulge in what it means to be alone, and make lemonade out of lemons.”
Later on, we start to weave in more romantic, more adult concepts, so we mature a bit throughout. We get to “Go so you can come back” and “Waiting Room” and the playfulness becomes more surreal and creepy. “Now, it's serious.” That's how all the songs would be friends throughout: it started more innocent, childlike, until it weaved into [a] more serious adult relationship to emotions and longing and the push/pull dynamic.
WELLS: With “Dilly Dally,” another interpretation that we played with was how it feels to take the scraps or the crumbs from a situation and make the best out of it. That childlike energy is super, super present in that song. I think it has so many meanings and interpretations. Our inner children and the things that we have trouble letting go of are very alive in that song. In the visuals, you're sticking around and seeing if this summer home that she's broken into is going to get any better. If she's going to find something in this space that's going to remind her of who she is, because she doesn't remember anything. That was the story that we all had in our hearts: that she's washed ashore, she doesn't know where she is, who she is, or what she's supposed to be doing. So, sticking around in that house, waiting there, is interesting and reflective of the song’s message.
LUNA: You’ve previously collaborated in 2024 on the “Fool” music video. How did working together on this longer, more narrative-driven project feel compared to this prior experience?
TREPECK: Palmer and I went to high school together and we weren't very close. We were friendly and sweet, but we found this wonderful, beautiful circle back to each other right around when I was moving to New York last year. I had checked out some of Palmer's work, and I was like, “This girl is so cool.” I had all these visions for music videos, but I had no idea where to start. So, I jumped on the phone with Palmer.
“Fool” is from an album called Riddle Me This that I released in June. That story was very fairytale-esque—princess running away from her castle, encountering things on her path, kind of journey and I had so many things I wanted to do and “Fool” was the strongest one. It was imagery of a jester, being cuckoo crazy, and being a fool for love. Palmer listened to my vision and saw my Pinterest, and I'd never been so welcomed and celebrated for something of this nature: “Oh my god, we gotta do this, and here’s how.” That was so magical for me to hear from someone, and it completely changed the course of my creative journey and what I believed was possible. I'm always so grateful to Palmer for that.
“Fool” was lighthearted and we described it as having a sleepover because it was an all-girl crew. We played around like it was an open-ended dress-up game. It was beautiful and whimsical. What I thought was so special about working with Palmer on “Fool” was that Palmer created a storyline of how we could fuse the imagery of the court jester and the fairytale with the grunge of New York City into a cohesive story.
We've been working on [Two Ships] for a year, almost.
WELLS: We had an initial conversation about Two Ships last October. We were finishing “Fool,” you were like, “Hey, I don't have any of the songs done, but do you want to make something cool?” And I was like, “Yeah, well, obviously.”
TREPECK: Yeah, nothing was done. I just had demos and strange dreams. And Palmer was on board. I'd say this one has taken a lot of time, dedication, and exploration. “Fool” was a shorter spurt of energy and collaboration. I still loved it so much and it got us here. Looking beside me in my life and seeing that Two Ships has been with me for the last 12 months, like a friend holding my hand as I exit this chapter and leave it behind, is so comforting. I'm excited to let it go and be on its own, be in the world and meet new people.
WELLS: Typical music video turnarounds can be two weeks [or] less than that. “Fool” was probably two or three weeks, from us having our initial conversation to when it came out. It was so short, obviously, because that's just how it works. This project [is] narrative, we're doing visualizers for every single thing, we created our own soundtrack, we have a sound designer, we're creating title cards, and all of these amazing things.
Ava has been there for every single second. We have spent so many hours editing together and creating a director's cut, and she's also worked so deeply and closely with the sound design as well. It's Ava's baby and it's a collaboration. It's not just her being like, “Oh, this is what I want.” You can't even figure out whose idea was what; it feels like the most fulfilling brain meld I've ever been a part of. She's the best collaborator ever.
LUNA: Finally, what are some pieces of media you’ve been drawing inspiration from recently?
TREPECK: The Russian Little Mermaid is the inspiration for the look of this character. Rusalochka (1978) is the name of the movie. Music-wise, I was really inspired by Caroline Polachek, Ethel Cain, FKA Twigs, Dora Jar, and Sarah Kinsley.
