Q&A: googly eyes Opens Up Her Technicolor World at All Things Go DC
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SHEVON GREENE ☆
GOOGLY EYES MIGHT HAVE A SONG CALLED “I DON’T GO OUT”—but lately, the electric pop rising artist has had plenty of reasons to leave the house. Throughout years of building a bright technicolor world on her own, the singer, songwriter and producer has found herself increasingly stepping out of it by touring with Ashnikko, collaborating with artists she once looked up to from afar and, most recently, playing her first ever festival at All Things Go DC.
The momentum is plenty of fuel for an artist who has always been hyperfocused on ambition. But on her latest single “Pandora’s Box,” she’s more interested in what happens after you get what you’ve been chasing. Although success can open doors, it can also bring fear, pressure and realizing that every decision sends you somewhere you can’t completely undo. Ironically, the faster things have started moving, the softer her relationship with ambition has become.
As she loosens her grip on control, it’s clear that it’s made a way into the music itself. After establishing googly eyes as a distinctly DIY project by writing, recording and producing her work herself, this year’s paint me like one of your fav american girls brought Tove Lo and Flume into the room as her first outside writers. The more collaborators she invites into her world, the more it’s expanded into what she believes it can become.
At All Things Go DC, that version of googly eyes reached another milestone with her first-ever festival performance, which also happens to be the first festival she’s ever attended.
Luna caught up with googly eyes after her set about embracing a softer kind of ambition, opening up her creative process and discovering what her music becomes once there’s an audience standing in front of it. Read below for more.
LUNA: Thank you so much for meeting with Luna, and congrats on your first-ever festival performance! Such a huge milestone. What were you most excited about going into today and was there anything about playing a festival set that surprised you or was good to know for next time?
GOOGLY EYES: I’ve literally never been to a festival before, so this is also my first as an attendee. I was really just excited to see what it’s like. Per my song, I don’t go out (laughs). But it’s always nice when I get to be around a bunch of music lovers. I feel like the people that go to festivals love music down bad, and so their energy is so infectious. I was just excited to get my first festival under my belt. What a cool thing to be able to do!
LUNA: And at All Things Go. Such a good festival and lineup.
GOOGLY EYES: It was really, really fun. I loved it.
LUNA: Congrats on the release of “Pandora’s Box” as well! In a recent quote you talked about that feeling of getting what you want and then having to deal with everything that comes with it. Has your relationship with ambition or success changed as your career has started moving faster?
GOOGLY EYES: Totally. When I first started out, ambition was my main drive, and it’s still my main drive, but it’s softer. I find that I make better work and I live a better life when I’m motivated and fueled by fun and joy and all of those. You’d think they’re very obvious, but when you’re fueled by ambition and fear, it’s easy to be disappointed. And it gets into your self-worth, which is always a little dangerous. So my relationship with ambition has always been very close. I’ve been very close to my ambition, and thankfully, it’s softened as I’ve gotten more into it, which I think has actually led to more success.
LUNA: I know you’ve always been super hands-on with your music when it comes to production, songwriting and recording. I’m curious to hear what it was like to bring Tove Lo and Flume into the process with paint me like one of your fav american girls. Was there anything that you picked up or learned from them that you’ve added to your creation process?
GOOGLY EYES: What an insane collaboration to have under my songs. It’s the first outside writers that I have had on any googly eyes songs. Every melody out of Tove’s mouth is gold, and the way that they both talked about their artistry when we were in the room together—it was so enlightening to hear people who were so far ahead of me in their careers, but so grounded. It also felt very similar to where I was at.
The things they would say about their career were similar things that I would say about mine. It doesn’t change that much. Just the amount of eyes on it changes, but you’re still like, “What should the album artwork be? What’s the tracklist? What’s the setlist?” You’re still going through all these same things. But it was really encouraging because it made me feel like, “This is what I can do. This is manageable. I’m on the right track.”
And I learned so much from them in the room in terms of how they approach songwriting that I still use to this day. Tove’s melodies and the way that she approaches things has really impacted me.
LUNA: When you’re starting a song, do you start with the lyrics, or are you more focused on production first? Or does it depend?
GOOGLY EYES: It goes back and forth. Probably 75% of my songs start with production. They start with a sonic palette because I have a big feeling, and then I’ll turn to my DAW [digital audio workstation] and I will try and put that feeling into some sort of sonic palette. I’ll either want something sad or something in the basic emotion wheel, and then I get closer to something more specific as I write lyrics and add more production.
Very rarely do I start with a title or concept, but that does happen at times where I know what I want to write about. But typically it’s the production, and then the lyrics fall out on top of the sonic palette, and it works out.
LUNA: Is that how “Pandora’s Box” came about?
GOOGLY EYES: It was totally production first. I started with that bassy note that sometimes I hear in my head as a starting pattern, and that’s how “Pandora’s Box” started. The lyrics tend to find me after.
LUNA: You were touring with Ashnikko earlier this year, you performed your first festival today and now you’re going on tour later this year with EMEI. Has performing your music live changed anything about how you think about googly eyes as a project? Any takeaways from live performances for how you want to apply that to any aspect of your career?
GOOGLY EYES: Being in front of an audience gives you an entirely different perspective on how songs are received. From an audience perspective, it’s really made me think about it when I’m writing. Before I went on tour with Ashnikko, before I really started gigging out, I was really not thinking about how my music would apply to live [performances], what it would feel like live. And after that tour, you become aware of what you think will be good to sing to. I’m thinking about moments that I want to create for people.
I use this term a lot in my work called “anchor points,” where it’s, “What’s the thing someone walks away from the set and remembers?” “E V E R Y W H E R E,” for example, has a huge belt note. And when I did that on tour, I quickly realized that a lot of people connect with that because it’s this huge anchor point moment. Trying to find places to put those in my songs has been really fun.
