Diandra Interviews Greta Isaac: Meeting The Many Gretas

Can you be sad and fun? Can you be euphorically, self-deprecating? For Greta Isaac, music is a safe space to say human being are paradoxes. We are walking hypocrisies that seek absolute truths, we have cause conundrums while practicing self-care, and, for the most part, agree that the most confident thing you can do is laugh at yourself.  Isaac’s music is like a balance beam where wonder, love, regret, and fear try to do a matching, gymnastics routine. Her music is infectiously relatable, and, in our interview, how her songs became “character pieces,” of which she discovered the many sides of Greta.

Diandra: What would you say is the core message to your music and yourself as an artist? 

Greta: I try to take the twisted parts of my personality and exaggerate them with playful and ironic lyrics. My music sounds sad and self deprecating but still fun and euphoric. 

2 Diandra: You have said you simply try to focus on the work. What do you find is the most healing and fun aspect of your creative process? 

Greta: Getting to work with my best friends always makes it fun and dynamic. Being really painfully honest is like therapy for me. I try not to indulge in much sadness in my day to day, so writing a song is a really cathartic process for me. It helps me get some distance and perspective on a situation and by compartmentalizing those feelings and dealing with them in a really constructive way I can move forward and see those songs as bookmarks in my life. 

3 Diandra: For you a song can be like taking up a character. What is one song of yours that you really enjoyed their character? What would be their name, storyline, ending, and 4 personality traits?

Greta: Sick question. I’ve got a song called “Like Me” that’s coming out this year. I got to indulge in that needy and pathetic part of myself that I try and hide from the world (lol). They’d still be called Greta but she’d be 19 and desperate for validation and love from literally anyone. I think she’d be so overwhelmed with life; that her way of coping would be to lock herself away and make friends with household items. Her top 4 personality traits would be insecure, clingy, people pleasing, and performative. 

4 Diandra: If you could turn one movie into a concept album, which would it be and why? What angle or perspective would you take? 

Greta: Hmmm… I’ve been re-watching The Handmaids Tale series. The book by Margaret Attwood had a huge impact on me; so seeing it in a visual format helped bring this not-so-distant-from-reality universe to life. I think an album with songs from each character’s perspective of Gilead would be interesting. Sonically, I’d play with hymnal harmonies and keep everything contained in quite a haunting and cold space. 

Diandra:  If you could turn your favorite album into a movie what would be the concept, premise, and message? 

Greta: One of my favourite albums is “Spilt Milk” by a band called Jellyfish. It’s a genre-bending, “slap in the face of a record” that I never get bored of. I can imagine it accompanying a short film of psychedelic visuals with a dream like quality to it. 

6 Diandra: How do you see femininity as power, and how have you transferred your own womanhood into power?

Greta: I think women have power built inside of them – with a lot of pain to challenge that power. Femininity to me means having strength to express vulnerability when we need to most, to befriend our weaknesses, and to challenge the obstacles that are given to us throughout the stages of our lives. 

7 Diandra: If you could describe your soundscape like you would the landscape of rural Wales, how would you do so?

Greta: Charming but haunting 🙂 

1 Diandra: What is your favorite childhood memory with music? 

Greta: Making a dance routine to “Sebrina Paste and Plato” by Jellyfish around the dinner table with my siblings. 

6 Diandra: Seeing music as a guide/friend, what would you say is the best advice music has given your or helped you discover in life?

Greta: Music gave me friends that I now call family. Music taught me to trust my intuition and helped me talk about parts of myself that I often try to ignore. 

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