Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Emmrose to talk about her music, her new single, politics, the pandemic, and beyond. This interview was a blast, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed conducting it.
SBN: Let’s start very broad for people who don’t know you. Who are you as an artist?
E: I’d say that I am a lonely teenager that likes to write about her loneliness quite often, and just everything going on in my life, and that I’m trying to make sense of it by putting my feelings in perspective through song . That’s how I would describe myself as an artist.
SBN: How long have you been writing and recording your own music?
E: Since I was 13, I think?
SBN: And what does a 13 year old write music about?
E: I was going through a really hard time in my life when I was 13. I was losing all of my friends, I was losing touch with myself, and I was hopelessly in love with someone who was so brutally mean to me. He would just say nothing but awful things to me all day. That’s how I wrote my first song. I wrote it in math class actually. Where this kid was just ostracizing me from the room, and I was just sitting alone. My song Dangerous Eyes, that’s kind of what it’s about. I asked him to get coffee with me after class, and he responded “by the way I hate you.” He made fun of my weight on a Ferris wheel, and now he’s in like three of my classes. So it’s fun to have him pop up in my life again. That’s what a 13 year old writes about. Honestly, the messed up stuff going on in my life with people just being the worst. It kind of continued from there.
SBN: So, by my math you’ve been writing songs for the past four years. How has that process evolved from when you initially began to write songs in math class?
E: Honestly, not much. My most recent song I wrote in a music class. Sometimes people say things that get my attention. I just need to write a mini-diss track about them. Not like an actual diss track. Insulting, but like clever insults in song lyrics. And then the melody just kind of goes along with it. Another would be messing around on the piano and thinking about it; “what could this song be, what could going along with this?” That’s kind of I wrote The Grass is Greener. I just had a melody, I had the chords, but I just needed lyrics and a theme. So I built off of that. Writing music has definitely evolved, and then kind of went backwards to where I was. So, I guess it really hasn’t changed that much. Which is fine! I definitely have tried to write a lot more in different mediums. I wrote this song Hannah on the guitar which is kind of fun, because I really don’t play the guitar very well. It was kind of cool to mess around on an instrument I know nothing about. And wrote a few on the ukulele which I’m honestly so embarrassed about. (Because) a random white girl playing the ukulele is such a meme sometimes.
SBN: One of my favorite questions to ask artists, mostly because I get such different responses, is how do you know when a song is done? How do you know that you’ve done all that you can with it before it can go into the studio? Art is always evolving and changing but how do you know when it is done enough to be studio/performance ready?
E: Usually when I show it to my mom, honestly. You know Song Exploder? I kind of do a mini Song Exploder. I explain to her what the lyrics mean, what the chords change. That’s when I am satisfied with a song. When I am opening it up to the universe – instead of just me in my room playing a piano and writing a song. I like sharing my personal…I like sharing what’s going on with my music to people around me. At first I was really terrified of it. Like, my friends? They didn’t even know I wrote music until the end of last year or the end of Summer 2020. I really didn’t tell anybody. I think a song is done when I finish writing it, and then I wait a week, and then I’m really satisfied with it.
SBN: You have a new song coming out on Friday Oct 16 2020, tell me about that song?
E: The song is called Ballad for the Boy Next Door. This is actually a cool story: I’m working with a sick licensing company that puts songs in movies and TV shows and they needed a song for a show called Love in the Time of Corona, and I said “I’m down for that.” They gave me a topic to write the song about. It’s very much about romance. So I thought of love where you’re afraid—either to tell them that you like them or love them. You want to take that step to get it over with because you know you’re going to regret it if you don’t. I’ve been there a ton, and I think it’s good to follow my own advice of just going for it. It’s hard though! So that song is like “yeah I can go for it but maybe don’t have these feelings, maybe love isn’t even worth it? Or. yeah no maybe I should go for it.” Well, my song got rejected.
SBN: That is such a perfectly neat transition because I’m going to ask you a whole bunch of Covid related questions. Let’s start with; how has it been affecting you personally?
E: I’m 17, so I’m in school. And I remember I was in my physics class with a kid next to me and was like “yeah they’re not going to shut school down” and he said “yeah, they will, we’re probably going to have to do school in the summer.” And I was just thinking “no—they can’t shut school down, they can’t!” and of course they did shut school down. But that week before school shut down I was so sick! It turns out I didn’t have Covid though. My mom thought I had Covid, so I was home for that week before school shut down and then boom! School shut down. My whole life flipped. Before, I had to wake up at six every morning and now it’s like, I can sleep in till whenever I want because there’s no classes. I basically had a summer that lasted five months. And if you ask any kid before Covid, they’d likely say that sounds great, but summer locked in your bedroom doing absolutely nothing because everyone is just sad and lonely was not fun! I definitely was happy that I could have pretty good grades for my junior year. Covid didn’t just change school for me it changed my social life as well. I mean I couldn’t see anybody. I had to be around my parents 24/7…which is fine! But, I live in an apartment and it’s kind of hard to be away from each other. My room is basically my fortress, and my dad has a little tiny closet room that he works in, and my mom works in the kitchen. We make it work. We’re kind of on different continents.
SBN: What, for you, has the effect of not being able to perform in front of an audience that is physically present?
E: This is the blessing of Covid. Before? I was all school. I had no time last year to focus on anything other than studying. Which is the worst because I don’t like studying. I really didn’t have the creative capacity to think about writing music. Which is awful! So, when Covid started I could play the piano every day! I could do these livestreams! Now with school being online I can actually get two extra days off. So I can go to the studio and record! I can record more than I ever have been able to before. First few months I couldn’t really because it was a total lockdown. But since then I’ve been in the studio all the time. It’s been great really. Really have had some great experiences writing and recording music. I’m working on a new album right now. The creative juices are flowing. I’m writing a song right now. Even with school I’m kind of taking easy classes.
SBN: Had you started performing yet with your current project before the pandemic began and everything shut down? Have you begun your performance career in the age of live stream?
E: I mean, I released my album in March. Not a great time to release an album in hindsight. I had so many shows! I was going to pay at Rockwood, and it would be my first time playing their biggest stage. I was going to play the Knitting Factory. I was going to play a charity function at the Bitter End. All that can’t happen. It really sucked. I had paid my band already to play with me. Yeah, it just was crazy. All of a sudden my only way to perform was on a little tiny camera. Which wasn’t even mine because my phone camera was awful. So I had to use my mom’s phone. I just started doing live streams. At first it was weird, because instead of hearing applause I was getting all of these lovely comments. It’s crazy! The people are so nice.
SBN: I was talking to someone else about this exact thing and they said performing in the age of Covid is more of bringing the audience into your practice space instead of into your performance space, which is a really fascinating framing of it. Before Covid, how frequently were you performing?
E: Not at all.
SBN: So, is it weird to sort of launch yourself into the performance to an audience that isn’t there?
E: It was so weird at first. My first few live streams were just a disaster. I hadn’t figured out anything. I didn’t have a ring light. A ring light has saved me on multiple occasions. Lighting needs help sometimes. I upgraded as the streams got more popular. I mean, I had fifty people watching at one time, which is crazy! People I’ve never met before, you know? Usually when I perform live, my dad’s coworkers would come. I wasn’t performing to perform in front of strangers. Or, I guess wanted to. Ballad for the Boy Next Door was basically written on a live stream. In my really early live streams, I came up with the melody. But then I forgot it and was just kind of humming along. I kind of rewrote the melody in that livestream and it stuck. It was interesting for sure. I hope to keep building off of what I’ve been working on.
SBN: Hopefully this project will eventually have a physical audience. Covid adjacent: you’re 17. I don’t get the opportunity to speak to many people who are politically aware but unable to vote. As someone who fits that description; how is 2020 going for you?
E: There are times when I can’t look at the news. But then others, I need to. I use it.
SBN: I know that your music isn’t explicitly political, but do you find that you’re drawing any artistic influence from this current political climate?
E: I actually was just revisiting the first political song I ever wrote, which is basically a commentary about conspiracy theories. I was just playing it. But I wrote that like two years ago and I haven’t really written a political song since. Which is odd, because I’m a political person. I think a lot about the world. I love to know about everything that is going on in the world. Which I think isn’t uncommon for people of my generation. I saw Greta Thunberg right outside of my house. Not being able to vote sucks. My friend is one month away from being 18 before the election. Yeah I’m in New York State and my vote doesn’t have that much influence, but it’s just so unfair. Ten year olds can make up their mind about what’s good and what’s wrong. At least I can vote for who’ll be mayor next year.
SBN: Moving from the negative of this year and into the positive of this year, what are your big plans for 2020 and beyond?
E: Definitely going to Disneyland. We had this whole pact about if I ever became successful I would pack it up and go to Disneyland. I hit my personal milestone for success over the summer and of course, can’t go to Disneyland. There’s something about a magical world where I can be anything I want to be.
SBN: I find it to be incredibly wonderful and sincere that that is your answer. Normally when I ask that question I expect the answer to be “I hope this song gets heard” or “I hope this record does well”. I think it says a lot about you that your personal goal for this year is just to go to Disney.
E: I mean, I do want my songs to do well! Also, getting into college. That will be hard, too. Mostly Disneyworld, though.
SBN: What is your end goal with your music? That’s a big broad question. What I mean by it is some people make music for themselves, some people make music or others, some people make music as ends to a means.
E: Mine is a combination of all of those things. I make music for me. I would never force myself to make music. I don’t think anyone should be forced to be creative. I think creativity is really what your soul wants. It’s definitely important to make money, though. I can’t be a hermit living with my parents my whole life. I mean, I could. Another reason is for other people. My fans write such nice messages about my lyrics. And I have written songs about other people before. I write songs not just for myself, not just or money, but for people that mean something to me.
You can stream Ballad for the Boy Next Door on all platforms now.
