Diandra Interviews TALIA: We Have Feelings, People!

When I see people, like Trump, exist, I don’t feel like I am the worst person in the world. Often, I have been called kind, and I love that, but, when you are an over-thinker, even such a compliment could be diced into questions like, “How kind am I? Can I be kinder? Is kindness weakness?” Speaking to TALIA, I felt like I had found my sweet, anxious buddy; two gals discussing how our big hearts lead us to love so much but not always receive it back. In our interview, she discusses how her newest EP, headrush, was her way of analyzing how she takes in her feelings and keeps them.

Diandra: What is your favorite childhood memory with music?

TALIA: Well, my dad is a Reggae artist, and he would travel to Anguila, which is where he is from, and go all over Georgia. Every year we would go to Carnival, and I would watch him on stage, and thousands of people were there. It was like the whole island was there, and it was cool, for me growing up, seeing him perform and seeing people say how much they admired him. Seeing Carnival, this one week celebration across the island, is so cool.
TALIA – colder (Official Video)

Diandra: Now, that totally explains why you are an artist. So how are you creating in these times? I heard you write a song a day.

TALIA: Well, that has definitely slowed down. In the beginning, I had so much I was working on and creating, and then school stopped, but I still had so much creative energy. So I carried that momentum into quarantine, but, honestly, since September, I have felt like I have been slowing down and there is this creative drain. Still, I am trying to remind myself that this is my moment to play around. It is hard because you have to follow it when the creativity comes, but you never know when it will come.

Diandra: It is such a time of adaptation.

TALIA: It is hard for creatives because it already hard enough to be an artist. So with concerts cancelled, it feels really scary.

Diandra: If you could build a world with your music, what would it look like?

TALIA: Right now, I am trying to do music videos for these songs, and I think of a lot of moons and water when I think of them. I try to think of them very visually and capture a cinematic energy. So when I create the videos, I try to think of the colors I thought or the images I saw. I want people to see what I saw when I made these songs.

The world is a blank canvas, and I almost paint the colors of this world with my guitar chords. I really association each song with colors. When I create, I try to think of what flavors and colors and scents you have in this world. So, in headrush, I think you would see very punchy, bright colors like, neon blue and green. Those are the main colors with a few pastels. So, it really is a rush of thoughts and colors because, when I wrote it, I was really confronting a lot of things that happened to me.

Diandra: So what are the things that give you an emotional headrush?

TALIA: I think headrush is a matter of the impact of things. I think love gives me a headrush; just how many people you love and all these different relationships. If someone tells me their love for me, these endorphins are released. So, it is like what is the give and take of love because often love and pain come together. The people you love they hurt you and you hurt them. I’m such an emotional person, in general, and I am always thinking. So I wanted to write about that.
TALIA – colder (Official Audio)

Diandra: Was there a thought headrush alleviated or made clearer to you?

TALIA: I feel so literally, and I know that, as a Pisces, we are known for being emotional people. I have a very strong connection to how I feel, and I feel like headrush is the physical manifestation of my feelings. Growing up, my mom would say, “Just stop thinking!” I was always so curious and asking so many questions, and I had to learn to not ask so much and not always keep going in my head.

Diandra: Do you think that curiosity and emotionality is what makes you a good artist?

TALIA: Sometimes, I think it has drained me, but I think, most of the time, it has freed me. I feel so much that I don’t know how to NOT be honest with what I am feeling. I have so many thoughts in my head that I need to regurgitate them out, and it comes real naturally to me. It feels like something I need to do. Even when I try to return to the lyrics, I try to edit, but I barely do because they were so true to me in the moment.

Diandra: In your music, you often confront regret. Was there a regret you were able to let go?

TALIA: I talk about different people and friends in the EP. I think when you think about them, and past loves, you can’t help but think, “What if I had said what I felt? What if I had done this?” I think in a song, I am able to let that go and it is not in me anymore. It is in the song.

Diandra: It reminds me of this comedian, Aparna Nancherla, who was making fun of how she doesn’t know how bad people exist because she’s so anxious about how she treats people. She even overthinks how she says hi to Starbucks baristas and whether she is entertaining to a baby.

TALIA: Yeah! I even over-think my smile. I feel like my music is me letting myself feel good. For a long time, I didn’t share my music with anyone, and over the last 5 years I have started to. So when I play it with my friends, and they say they feel it or its feels real to them, that feels good to me. Seeing them and how we are connected in how I feel and how they feel is really cool.
The Half Hour – Aparna Nancherla – So Much Anxiety

Diandra: Singing to relationships, what is the nicest thing anyone has done for you in a relationship?

TALIA: I think the most warm and beautiful thing was having this person take me in their arms and saying they loved me completely: just as I was. I have had so many relationships where someone tried to change me, and just having someone hold me and say they loved me for who I and and accepted me was amazing.

Diandra: Is there a movie you would turn into a concept album?

TALIA: The first one that popped in my head is this A24 film: Waves. The director wrote it with music in mind, and like each scene has a song attached to it.

For More Information On TALIA Click Here,