Hi! You recently released ‘White Widow’ and it’s brilliant. For anyone who’s yet to hear it, how would you describe the track?
Thank you! When I first presented “White Widow” to my producer, Josh “igloo” Monroy, I told him that I imagined it to sound like a mid-90s skate punk song by Black Sabbath, and he helped me achieve exactly that!
Where did you record it?
I started recording “White Widow” with Josh in Los Angeles right before the pandemic hit, and we had to stop about halfway through; I think we only had the instruments and one vocal track recorded at that point. A few months into quarantine, he moved to Atlanta and we had to record the rest of my vocals remotely. It took some time to be able to do so, of course, because I had to save up for a studio mic to pull off the same sound, but I had to do what I had to do to get it done! It ended up being so worth it because almost everything else we have worked on since was recorded remotely, like my first single, “Brain Dead!”
Are you planning to make it part of a larger release, such as an EP or album?
Yes! Although I haven’t officially announced it yet per standard Instagram etiquette, “White Widow” is part of my upcoming debut album, Midnight Burnout, out this summer!
I’m very interested in how you started your adventure with music, and did you know from the beginning that this is what you wanted to do?
Like most kids, I grew up loving all kinds of music, singing, the whole bit. I even started writing songs when I was 10 years old, but as much as I loved it, I thought that singing and songwriting couldn’t be anything more than a hobby. I’m Persian, so growing up, there was a lot of cultural pressure to be a doctor, lawyer or business executive; being a musician wasn’t an option. I thought it wasn’t even possible for a “normal” person like me––I didn’t have any famous family members and I wasn’t a child star, so I didn’t even have a chance, right?
It wasn’t until my senior year at UCLA when I chose to make a “rockumentary” about Kurt Cobain for my final project in my Punk & Medicine class that I realized I was totally wrong in having that mentality. I had been a fan of Nirvana for almost 10 years at that point, but I never took as deep of a dive into Kurt Cobain’s life as I had for this project. It was through examining his life and career that I realized you don’t have to be born into the industry, or “meant to be” a musician, or uber-famous to have a career in music (though he was). Anyone, literally anyone, can be an artist if they really wanted to, and knowing that changed everything for me.
Your music interweaves so many different styles and sounds. If you could collaborate with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
Iggy Pop, because he’s Iggy Pop.
What’s been your favorite musical experience to date?
Honestly, just releasing my first two songs has been such a liberating experience. I was always so afraid of what would happen if I released my music. I honestly didn’t know what I was afraid of because I knew that, for most artists, literally nothing happens when you release your first however many songs—which is exactly what my experience ended up being—but I still overthought everything to the point where I just decided to hold my songs hostage for the longest time, so just having my music out there is a huge deal for me.
Where are you based? Can you tell us how the music scene there has inspired your sound at all?
Growing up in Irvine, CA as an artist was miserable; there wasn’t any music scene, unless you consider the school talent show a music scene. I knew only two other kids in high school that wrote songs, and that was basically it. In a sense, being an artist in a city like that was very isolating. I never really felt like I fit in, and as much as I wanted to feel like I belonged to something, I definitely didn’t want to be a part of anything in Irvine. Although I couldn’t see it at the time, I think my angst, boredom and frustration with my hometown contributed heavily to my sound and approach to songwriting today.
If you could perform at any venue in the world, where would it be and why?
I would go back in time to CBGB in its heyday.
And what was the first album you remember owning?
It’s so embarrassing, I’d rather not admit that… Everyone was a kid with lame music taste at some point, right?
Finally, have you got anything to share regarding upcoming gigs, and what have you got planned for 2023?
New music, new music and more new music. 🙂
