Q&A: Téodora Unveils Dreamy Single “It’s you” as The Beginning of Three-Part Story
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY IVONA HOMICIANU ☆
TÉODORA IS THE BEST KEPT SECRET, BUT NOT FOR LONG—With her new single “It’s you,” the rising artist proves she has a bright future. Téodora not only wrote and interpreted, but also produced the track. The independent artist has complete control over her artistry, creating a work that is wholeheartedly derived from her mind. “It’s you” gathers elements of nature, beginning with birds chirping and soft vocal riffs, while Téodora’s enchanting voice takes on a grandiose dimension as the narrator falls deeper into love.
Téodora was born and raised in Piatra Neamt, a city in the north of Romania. Having participated in national contests, she had already begun a career in Romania. However, since she harboured higher ambitions, she moved to London at 19, where she discovered who she was as an artist outside of expectations. Part of that process was integrating her Balkan heritage in her music. This newfound appreciation for her roots made Téodora the unique artist she is today.
“It’s you” marks a new chapter in her journey, the first of three songs detailing the emotional process of being in a relationship with the person of your dreams. Starting with the obsession of falling in love, the single sets the tone for the project. Her powerful vocals emit a haunting response to whoever is listening. The spiritual intensity of the lyrics makes “It’s you” more than a love song; it is a declaration of devotion. Each of Téodora’s works is infused with intimacy that draws human beings to one another.
Luna caught up with the artist regarding her single release, read our conversation below.
LUNA: Did you always know that you wanted to be a singer/songwriter?
TÉODORA: My journey started quite early. I was in kindergarten, and I feel like that's where my talent got discovered by the teachers there. Initially, my parents kind of laughed about it like, yeah, sure, she can sing, no biggie. In primary school, I started to go into competitions a lot. I feel like that's when officially my singing life started because I've been through all kinds of competitions. They kind of created me this way. I'm quite a competitive person now because of those.
I feel like the highlight of those was Next Star, which was sort of a Kids Got Talent but in Romania… then X Factor Romania when I was 16, where I was a finalist. From the age of eight, I knew that this is my thing. All these experiences and all these years kind of made my parents understand that this is what I want to do. For my parents, this was always probably a bit weird. My mom is an accountant, my dad is a lawyer, both very stable, good choices. I decided to be an artist, which is not seen as a normal career, especially in my country. I feel like people are a bit more close minded when it's about having a creative career.
LUNA: Could you talk about the inspiration behind “It's you”?
TÉODORA: I wasn't planning to release anything that I produced. I think I was a bit shy. I was a bit skeptical. I just felt like I wasn't ready. I was still calling myself a baby producer, even if I was producing for a while now. It’s like putting your whole project out there. It was a bit scary at the beginning, but the timing was great.
I broke my leg in February—It's not good, but that gave me so much time to create. I was stuck for three months. I managed to get back to my country, which is absolutely amazing. Don't get me wrong, London is great if you want to be an artist, but going home—I told you I'm from a small town somewhere in the mountains— I have nature… I was alone for three days straight, just staring and being like, wow, I really needed this. I recharged my batteries and my creative self so much. I brought my laptop with me, opened Logic, and recorded the birds. I don't know if you can hear the beginning of the track…
LUNA: Yes, I love it. It's so nature-y.
TÉODORA: They were actually recorded with my phone (laughs). I feel like the space really inspired me and the fact that I had time to create, because usually I was not really making time for that. I was always trying to make myself busy. I feel like breaking my leg was lowkey a blessing as well. I know it sounds so funny because I actually suffered a lot, but it gave me this creative time, because I also wrote two other songs. They're gonna come out this year hopefully… I literally created the whole EP just in a few days.
LUNA: I feel like being in such a natural environment helps a lot with creativity, whereas I find it difficult to be more creative in the city. Besides people watching, maybe then you get inspired, but being in nature is like a whole other thing.
TÉODORA: Also, I feel that in London you get really influenced by the rhythm of the city. I don't even have the time to think, “Hey, maybe I can just sit and watch,” because the rhythm pushes me. “Oh, you need to do that, you need to get there.” You just get into this very fast pace. I grew up in nature, so I really need that sometimes. Even in London, I'm trying to find it, but really everywhere. Sometimes I need to escape London for a little bit.
LUNA: You spoke about the other two songs. How would you describe them?
TÉODORA: The whole EP tells a story. They all have quite different dynamics to it. I'd say “It's you” is all about the honeymoon stage of a relationship. It's about an obsessive feeling, where you feel like you love this person, but it's like the feeling is above love, it's to a spiritual sense at this point. And you're giving yourself fully to this person, and you feel safe, and you feel like this is the right thing to do, like you're absolutely obsessed in a good way.
Then the next song, which is called “Do I,” shows a questioning stage of a relationship, where the main phrase that I say there is, “Do I love you, or do I need you?” Am I still in love, or I just know you're a good person and I just need to stick to you because I'm not gonna find somebody else like you? It’s a lot of confrontation with myself, with my mind and with my heart in that song.
The third song is going to be called “LDR” which comes from “long distance relationship,” which is the trigger that kind of makes the relationship break. It’s the stage of letting it go, the stage of accepting that… “I don't think this is right. I'm just gonna step out.”
LUNA: I love that. It's very concise, like the steps of a relationship. Being infatuated with someone, and then being like, “Oh, I'm not sure, I really like this person, but I don’t know,” and then going like, “It's not gonna work out.” I feel like that's a really nice narrative line that you have.
TÉODORA: And again, I don't like to be really specific. When I write music, I like to be a little bit vague—I get inspired from my personal life, but from my friends. I actually never went through a breakup, but I'm such an empath that I felt like I have been by listening to the people I love that have been through that experience. I just had all kinds of inspirations coming to me. That's why I hope people would actually relate to this whole storyline, because it comes from different stories, different people, different experiences, all in one kind of thing.
LUNA: Does writing help you make things clearer about your emotions when you're undecided about something? Or does it make you have more of a philosophical view on it?
TÉODORA: It's weird, because I feel like my writing process is in stages. When I first write a song, I first start to write the music, so production and then melody lines on the voice. Everybody has a different way of doing it, but I feel like that's how I do it. But in my day to day life, I can get random thoughts, random ideas. I write down maybe just a concept or a few lines, and then when I have a session and I have the melody lines, I'm just scrolling and see what's the vibe of the song. From there, I just start to write the actual structure of the song, lyrics and everything.
I just decide on the way, like let's see what's matching, because I don't always have ideas when I'm in the middle of a session. I have great ideas, usually before going to bed, or right when I'm about to fall asleep, so I use those concepts and those ideas in my session. To me, talking is therapy. If I’m going through something, I need to let it out. I need to speak about it because otherwise I'm going to explode. I think this is why music comes to help. That's why I'm using the concepts or the ideas I'm going through at a random time, because I need to let that out. I need to speak about it so I feel better afterwards.
LUNA: You produced “It's you.” How did you get into producing?
TÉODORA: I moved to London all alone when I was 19 and I didn't know anyone, not a single soul. I was also in the process of discovering my own sound. I had a little career back home, but I released stuff thinking, “Oh, that's commercial.” I didn't really know what I wanted because I was young, which is understandable. The change in me moving to London was a big highlight of this journey, because I started from scratch from every point of view— new Spotify, new artist name, new target audience, new brand, new everything. I'm just a new project.
Being confused about my sound, and also not knowing anybody, you can imagine I had some not-that-great experiences with producers; even weird instances where they were like insisting to go to their house and stuff like this… as a woman that can get a bit unsafe, I would say. I just had this moment of “I’m going to do it myself.” So I started alone, I had no idea how to do anything. I'm not really a tech girl by any means, but then I just started to learn it by myself, watching some tutorials here and there, watching people, because I was in a music university. I'm still learning, but I can finally get all my ideas and make them happen. I'm so happy that I did it. It came as a need at first, but now it's something I really love, and I love to continue doing it with other artists as well.
LUNA: I feel like you already have so much understanding of music production. If that's just the beginning, I'm like, “Whoa, what is coming up?” It's exciting.
TÉODORA: Good things only hopefully (laughs). Thank you. I really appreciate it.
LUNA: Of course. You talked about your main inspiration for your music being your Balkan heritage. How do you think that influences your creative process?
TÉODORA: You haven't heard that influence that much yet, but I have demos collecting dust in my laptop. I struggled to define my music somehow. I always said that it's a sort of dark pop, R&B, if that tells you anything. I blend pop and R&B in production. I blend stuff from trap music, like the drums, some electronic stuff, synths, all these elements, and I just blend them together. And then there's the Balkan side.
When I was at home, I really didn't care about my culture or traditions. All I knew is that Western Europeans don't see Romanians as great people. When I moved here in London, which is such a diverse city, so many cultures in only one city, I felt like, ”You know what? I have a culture too.” I have my story as well, I come from such a beautiful place, and people don't know about it. We're talking about Balkan culture, which people don't know much about. It's a shame because it's really, really beautiful.
Naturally, I became really interested in our culture. I already wrote music where I use influences in my singing, for example, my song “No Distance.” The whole song is built in a Phrygian mode. I'm talking about music theory now, but it's a specific mode that's used in doine, really traditional stuff. The whole song has riffs, which is also used in manele, but strictly Balkan stuff.
I always bring my culture on stage. I always sing a reinterpretation of certain songs. I have options, but my favorite one is “Până când nu te iubeam” by Maria Tanase. I also play flute, my bandmates are Romanian as well, so we just do our interpretation in my own style of that song. And I'm always surprised by how people react and how much people love it.
My promise to myself is to always bring a little bit of my roots and of my home on stage. I'm excited, I have a gig next week, and I'll do the same thing. I'm really feeling how people take it, how people digest it. Everything is in the works. I want to do it even more. I want to be even more visible with Balkan music. I'm hopefully going to collaborate with artists who play caval, tambal, things like this. So fingers crossed, I'm excited. That's going to be my dream project, for sure.
LUNA: I have trust you'll do it justice, because already, you're doing so well.
TÉODORA: Thank you!
LUNA: You told me that you live in London, and that you moved there at 19. How did you decide to do that?
TÉODORA: Well, I would say I'm a bit delusional as a person, which I think is a good thing, because it gives me big dreams. I think I was pretty young, and I knew that I'm not going to stay in Romania. I wanted to try to do a bit more. I wanted to target a bigger audience, not only my country, so I moved to London, and it was tough, and it is still very tough. Living here when I was a student, it was fun, it was easy. All my friends, we were on the same page, we were all struggling, broke students - but after I graduated, I felt like I really had to be an adult. I had to have a full time job because the rent, or just the cost of living in London, is insane.
I wish I would have music as my full time job, but I'm doing everything I can to make it so. Every time I'm free, I'm not resting. I'm just doing music content for social media, preparing a release, because I'm independent so I have to do everything by myself, and I get a bit tired sometimes but it's good. I feel productive. I feel like if I'm not doing something related to music in one day, I feel a bit weird, because the only reason I'm staying in London is music. That is the main reason.
LUNA: I saw that you're performing at the Amplify Her showcase in London.
TÉODORA: I'm actually kind of headlining. I'm very excited because I have a girl band. I’m all about supporting women in the industry. That's really one of my goals as an artist as well. That's why I'm trying to showcase my production side, because again, there's not many women stepping into that phase, and when they do, they get underestimated, or we know stories. We can be a bit more loud about this. I'm very excited.
LUNA: I want to talk a bit about the visuals for “It's you.” I feel like they're very dreamy, with the lake at sunset, it's so pretty. Could you tell us about the experience of shooting those visuals?
TÉODORA: Making the artwork for the whole EP, not only for “It’s You,” took some time. Not making it, but thinking how to make it. I already had the whole mood board ready, so I feel like I have a very clear vision for myself, but just making it possible was a bit tricky for me. I wanted to collaborate with photographers here. However, I didn't really have the budget. I feel like the photographers that really spoke to me and really matched with my aesthetic were a bit too expensive for me at this time, so I'm still going to keep them aside, hopefully in the future, we can work together. But then I said, let's make it a bit DIY. So my partner, he has a great camera. We're starting from there (laughs).
I love fashion, so I love styling myself. And then I thought, let's combine my styling skills with his photography skills. We went back home because I knew I knew a spot, and we took pictures… Every song will have a different kind of photography, because obviously they say something different, even if they're part of the same EP, but I feel like it came out really well. There's kind of a deeper meaning behind it. In the artwork for it, I look like a bride as well, dressed in white. Whereas for the next ones, I'm dressed in black, because it’s leading to a more dramatic stage of the story. It has a purpose behind it.
LUNA: My last question is, what are you most excited for when it comes to your career in the next few months?
TÉODORA: I'm really focused on growing, growing and growing. I'm not a person who cares about numbers. I do not have crazy numbers. I really don't. And I'm really more focused on having a community; having those people that will always come to my shows that really feel and understand what I'm saying through my music and through my art in general. I feel like even with my live sets, I'm really trying to create an overall experience.
I'm really excited for the next releases—to have the EP completed and for it to be out for everybody. That's my main excitement right now, because it's all in the works, every day is like, what to do next? Hopefully after the EP I can have my first headline show that I will have a release party. It's going to be a really conceptual kind of event. I just want to create an experience for whoever is going to come to the concert. That's the plan that I have right now. Hopefully it's going to work. In the meantime, I'm making more music for next year. I really want to be more consistent. I feel like I had some breaks in my music, I released a song I was really excited about, then the next song came out in like ten months. I'm really trying to be a bit more consistent and not leave my demos collecting dust in my laptop.
LUNA: That's very exciting. It really sounds like you have your vision as an artist figured out.
TÉODORA: I finally got it. I need to get people to discover what I do, because I feel like I'm still working to find my audience. I have my little community, I have these people coming to my shows, but that's going to be in the works a bit more, to get out there
