Kieran Webber
Director and Founder of CLUNK Magazine, CLUNK Events, and other CLUNK affiliate businesses. You’ll probably find me tucked away somewhere sending emails, listening to music, and creating content.
L.A based indie-pop artist Myah chats to us about authenticity in the social media age, her forthcoming debut album, and much more!
We first caught wind of the L.A based artist Myah with her single ‘Everything’, a soft pop / indie love ballad that explores themes of love, confusion, and heartbreak. It was a beautiful introduction to the artist that showcased her soft, yet commanding vocals. Fast forward a few months and she’s just released her latest single ‘I’ll Be Your Light’, a track that continues her heartfelt, if not heartbreaking lyrical honestly.
After being swept away by her music we wanted to know more about the artist and person, who is Myah, how does she create, what’s her thoughts and opinions?! Find out in our exclusive interview with the LA artist.
Kieran: Hey Myah, thank you for chatting with us! How have you been?
Myah: Thanks for having me. I’ve been mostly good! Some days not so good. A lot of highs and lows but it’s given me a lot of inspiration for writing so I try not to complain too much.
Kieran: 2024 is shaping up to be an incredibly exciting year for you. We’ve already got a few single releases, and your debut album is out in August. How are you feeling about it all?
Myah: This year has been crazy lol. I’ve had some curveballs come my way that I’m putting into my music which is exciting, but its definitely been an interesting start. I don’t have management or a label so it’s been a lot of trial and error navigating the independent artist space, but I think I’ve got a grasp on it now. I’ve learned that I can’t release music as quickly as I’d like to, so I feel a little impatient and maybe a little anxious too. I have five more singles scheduled to be released before August, so how they perform will determine if I release my album at the end of August or not. It’s hard to say – the album is 16 tracks and I don’t want to release it into the void. If the demand isn’t big enough yet then I’m going to hold off a little longer, maybe September. I love this album so much, I think it’s incredible. I believe in it so hard. It’s a massive story, so my biggest fear would be releasing it and only ten people listen to it because I was impatient to get it out there. Timing is everything.
Watch/Listen to ‘Everything’ here:
Kieran: As an artist, you have to put so much of yourself out there in today’s world and there is a lot of conversation around social media. What’s your opinion, and how do you feel it helps (or not) an artist?
Myah: Social media is unavoidable. My perspective is if you don’t have social media as an independent artist it’s going to be very hard for people to find you, and that’s just the nature of the music industry now. You can’t be making demos on CDs and giving them out – I don’t think people have CD players anymore lol. So you have to embrace it a little. I don’t think it’s everything. I went viral on TikTok for sounding like Taylor Swift and only a small amount of people from those million-plus views checked out my music.
I think of social media more as a vessel to share who I am and I don’t stress about the metrics or care about trends or challenges. That’s way too much to keep up with. I do believe you have to make content, but it should be what you want and is authentic to you – nothing else really matters. The most important thing you can use social media for is building your own image and brand as an artist – people who like your music are going to resonate more with that than anything else.
Kieran: You have a strong aesthetic and style that goes across your channels and releases. What was the inspiration behind this?
Myah: I was always the kid who knew who they were and that didn’t change much as I got older (just got a little wiser). Everything I put out is very intentional, I want to be accessible. There’s not really a wall between myself and the people that listen to my music – whatever you want to know, I’m an open book, so my goal is to always be as authentic as I can be. My aesthetic is basically who I am as a person – all my interests and the things I enjoy on display – and I hope that resonates with people.
Kieran: Do you believe in re-brands or is this an aesthetic that will stay true to you as an artist?
Myah: I don’t think I’ll ever re-brand, but I think my aesthetic will evolve. I’ll continue to get older and gain new life experiences that will influence me creatively and that will naturally become a part of my brand and reflect the art I put out. But it’s pretty unlikely I’ll wake up one morning and decide I want to be a pop diva or do a complete 180. There’s nothing wrong with rebranding in that way, I just don’t see it happening for me.
“My aesthetic is basically who I am as a person – all my interests and the things I enjoy on display – and I hope that resonates with people.“
Myah – 2024
Kieran: Could you talk us through your writing and recording process?
Myah: There’s two methods of writing I follow – one’s more conventional and the other is unconventional. The conventional method is I sit at my guitar or piano and I start playing with chords until I find a melody I like within those perimeters. From there, I’ll start to sing nonsense along to the melody until an idea or a word sticks that feels right, and the writing follows from there. Even if it’s not my intention to write about a certain experience or theme when I sit down to write, that’s where lyrically it always ends up. The unconventional method for writing is skateboarding. If I don’t feel inspired starting with an instrument, I’ll grab my skateboard and see where my mind goes. When I’m riding I typically start to hum different sounds until a melody sticks. Once I have that down I’ll park my board and sit on a curb and just start to write. Once I’ve got enough down I’ll head home and try to come up with some chords that match it before bringing it into the studio. In both scenarios, I always voice memo record everything the entire time I’m writing – that’s huge and so important. Sometimes you come up with something randomly and you can’t remember what it was because it happened so fast, so always make sure you record. I have a few different producers I work with, so once I have a solid voice memo demo down I think about which producer that song might be a fit for and I bring it to them. Once I’m in the studio everything is very loose. I love letting the producers I collaborate with be creative too. Sometimes the song I bring in becomes completely different than what I imagined and that’s so exciting, it’s one of my favorite parts of it all. You just never know how a song is going to evolve once you’re in that headspace, so I like to keep an open mind.
Kieran: If you could collab with any artist, producer, or creative, who would it be and why?
Myah: The National has always been a band I would love to work with. “Mr. November” and “Geese of Beverly Road” were huge tracks I grew up listening to, I thought they were so beautiful and they still are – Bryce and Aaron Dessner are unreal, they come up with such beautiful sounds.
Ah, man, also, now that I think about it, I’d love to know what it would be like to have Greg Wells, Dennis Herring, or Jacquire King produce a record for me too. It would be cool to hear my voice in that landscape. I’d probably cry. Lol.
Kieran: Lastly, after your album release what’s the plan?
Myah: Keeping with being somewhat unconventional, I have an EP I’ve been working on in conjunction with the album. I actually don’t know which one I’m going to release first which is why I haven’t spoken about it too much. Once all this music is out though, I hope I can tour with it. I hope it catches fire and I can share it with more people. That’s probably me being very wishful and certainly a dreamer, but I’d like to believe it’s possible and can happen soon.