Q&A: CINEMATIC CHAOS: THE WORLD OF FELICITY
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY DANY MIRELES ☆
There’s a dreamlike haze running through Felicity’s latest EP 4PM In The Morning – a project born from late night bar shifts, long drives home and the disorienting rhythm of early adulthood. Originally from Perth but now based in Nashville, she describes this record as “emotional jet lag” perfectly capturing that strange in-between days blur where heartbreak lingers and humor becomes a lifeline. With lyrics that move between surrealism and cutting honesty, Felicity introduces herself as an artist unafraid to turn chaos into something cinematic.
In a chat with The Luna Collective, she opens up about the disorienting headspace that shaped this EP. She reflects on heartbreak, humor and the realities of carving a career far from home.
LUNA: 4 PM is such a specific and unusual time — when you hear that phrase, what’s the first image, feeling, or memory that comes to mind for you?
FELICITY: It always brings me back to when I’d be driving home from a late night bar shift. It would be 3/ 4 o’clock in the morning and whatever I’d made in the studio that day before going into work would be the soundtrack to my commute - these would end up being the songs that made the EP. I’d be so exhausted, knowing I needed to call my poor mother back (who lives in Australia, my 4am is her 4pm) and feeling guilty about it, all the while all my brain wanted was to go to sleep until 4 the next afternoon. I was discombobulated, in a transitional time in my life and reality sat on its head. This remained the theme for a large part of the creation of the record and as a result became the theme for the record itself.
LUNA: You’ve called this project a reflection of “emotional jet lag.” Can you walk me through what that feels like in your day-to-day life and how it found its way into these songs?
FELICITY: It’s what passing through life in a haze feels like instead of feeling present and that you’re actually living it. The days pass by like weeks and you start to lose sight of yourself.Where am I and why am I here? Who am I? And oh my god what time is it? I’m definitely running late.
LUNA: Your lyrics swing between hazy, surreal imagery and moments that feel almost painfully true. How do you decide when to lean into metaphor and when to be completely direct?
FELICITY: I love the flirtation between surrealism and reality when writing, using themes of irony and metaphor while doing so. You can expand and contract words and their meanings to fit the mold of your song and its concept. It's one of my favorite things about songwriting, you can make the words say whatever you want with enough cheeky tinkering.
LUNA: “Denver Airport” has this mix of ghostly strangeness and heartbreak, did that song come from a real moment, or did it start as a story you built in your head?
FELICITY: It very much came from a real moment, ha. It’s about the first heartbreak I ever went through. It was during my senior year of high school, which happened to be in Colorado, that I got the idea on a flight from Denver to Nashville years after the heartbreak itself. I was in my head, paralleling the eerie emptiness of DIA with the emotions after the breakup, and the son came to be the next day in a studio in Nashville. It’s written to be hyper-dramatic on purpose, too. I wanted it to feel like it was through the lens of 18-year-old me going through it at the time (and she was a bit much).
LUNA: “I’ll Have What He’s Having” is sharp, funny, and self-aware. Do you find humor helps you process the heavier parts of your own experiences?
FELICITY: If you can’t crack a joke when life is at its darkest, then you might lose the light altogether. I unfortunately also leave far too much room in my head and heart for stupid, morbid humor.
LUNA: “Bad Waste of Good Oxygen” feels like the kind of song you write when you’ve reached a breaking point. What was happening in your life when that track took shape?
FELICITY: Oh yes, so you noticed that... Well, I wrote that one during what felt like one of the hardest times in my life. My team had just unexpectedly parted ways with me, I wasn’t signed yet, and I’d just finished (and paid to finish) all of my music. I racked up my credit cards doing so and poured everything I had into the songs. I was two years into living in Nashville and working two restaurant jobs as well as a random office gig to self-fund independently. I was flat broke, alone, and oceans from my home and family. Safe to say I was a little pissed off, as a result, the song wrote itself - naturally.
LUNA: The EP has a cinematic scope, almost like each track could be a scene in a film. Did you have a visual world or mood board in mind while creating it?
FELICITY: The whole time the songs were coming into fruition, it felt like we were writing the soundtrack to an indie film. “Half Sad” in particular gave me scenes of coasting in a car with the sun half up while the protagonist contemplates some massive life event. I’m quite visual while I write. When I’m really vibing with a song I’ve written, I’ll subconsciously come up with the music video in my head.
LUNA: Moving from Perth to Nashville is a huge leap. What’s something about Nashville that’s changed your music, and something about Perth that will always be part of your sound?
FELICITY: I also spent some time in Cape Town, Denver, and NYC before landing in Nashville, and I think each of the places is incomparable to the next in the best way. They’ve each had their own individual influences on me as a result. Perth was where I became the first iteration of myself, cutting my teeth on life - my introduction to it all. By the time I got to Nashville, I think it was more time to hone me as an artist rather than a person - if you find you can separate the two.
LUNA: When you’re writing, do you feel like you’re trying to capture what happened, or are you more interested in creating the world as you wish it had been?
FELICITY: Definitely the first - I write to viscerally process major events in my life, it helps me gain perspective, and I get to say what I want to say exactly the way I want to say it.
LUNA: Early adulthood can feel messy and beautiful all at once. What’s the biggest truth about growing up that you think this EP captures?
FELICITY: That we all feel alone, but we’re all going through the same shit. Early adulthood has felt very heavy and isolating for me, and when I take a step back to gain scope, I really see that I’m not special, and neither are my problems - and that’s a good thing. We aren’t alone, even if we feel like it. I wanted this project to touch on emotions, themes, and events we all go through. I want the songs to be mouthpieces for us all on that front.
LUNA: Your voice can go from soft confession to soaring emotion in the same song. How do you tap into that emotional range without burning out in the process?
FELICITY: I really do just love to sing. My vocal cords will burn out before I do. Being in the vocal booth is truly one of my favorite things ever. Finding the voice of the song, narrating the lyrics properly to tell the story with the right emotions - I just gotta do it.
