Diandra Interviews Emily Weisband: Not Afraid To Say Goodbye

I love funny, smart women, and Emily Weisband’s music is proof that there is some clear wit within her. Like many other successful artists such as, Bruno Mars and Julia Michaels, her rise has come from what hit songs she has given others. Yet, a snag in her management and then COVID blocked her from riding the momentum to HER rise as an artist. In our interview, we discuss her new EP, Not Afraid To Say Goodbye, what it means to regroup for a restart, and how songwriting has helped her become honest with the people she will and won’t be taking in her new beginning.

Diandra: We are heading to 2021, and I am SHOOK! What are your hopes for next year?

Emily: I really hope that touring starts back up. I was a a songwriter for other artists for many years. I came out with my own solo work, played one show, and had problems with management. So I had a lot of soul searching after that because I put a lot of pressure on myself to carry that momentum. So it was a lot of ego death, and then I, finally, was ready to come out with new work and the world shut down. So I have never been able to connect with the people that already love my music, and I really believe in building your career and connection to fans through live music.
Emily Weisband “Out Of This Car” [Official Music Video]

Diandra: Geez! I miss my train and think the universe is against me. I can’t imagine what it is having two major setbacks and feeling pretty confident after them.

Emily: Yeah! (she laughs) I’m from Virginia, and I moved to Nashville to make my dreams come true. You move to these cities to legitimize yourself and everyday is like, “How do I build my rep?” You can really start thinking, “Who am I beyond my reputation? Am I really only as good as the song I write today?” Quarantine really made me think of who I am beyond my music, and shifted me to put more of myself in my songs and grow. When you have so much rejection, you are less fearless. You become worried and jaded, and forget that you moved away from your hometown because this was your dream and it was fun. Remembering that I love music because it is fun for me made me feel younger. I am the best version of myself right now.

Diandra: Nothing like wisdom to make you anti-age. Wisdom is the new anti-aging cream.

Emily: We are all alone with our thoughts, and 2020 was people facing their demons and deciding to grow and become a better version of themselves or plunge into all the chaos happening. I feel like we are all babies coming out of the 2020’s vagina. We are going to come out of this like, “What happened?”

Diandra: You know I absolutely adored the EP, Not Afraid To Say Goodbye, and it really was powerful how you made “goodbyes” sound like “hellos.” Like nothing is ever lost without something entering.

Emily: I LOVE THAT! That gave me CHILLS! That is confirmed!

Diandra: What is one thing you feel through the album you said “goobye/hello” to?

Emily: I have always held onto things for too long because I had a fear of letting go, losing more, and not gaining. This fear that something better is not going to come along or that, if something better comes along, you won’t be worthy of it. I have learned a great lesson, in these past few years, about boundaries. I am one of 6 kids in the backwoods of Virginia. I don’t know privacy. So I learned it was okay to say goodbye to people or not let in just anyone. I am a garden, and I should only let in people that breathe life into me and water my roses. My dad would always call us his flowers, and when a boyfriend treated us bad he would say, “I hate that guy! He stepped on my flowers.”
This album is like saying hello to freedom and being myself and saying goodbye to things that suck up my energy. As creatives, we are empaths, and we could go too far in giving ourselves to people that don’t add to our lives. So the EP really is a surrender and a building of trust with my life that it has a better plan for me and wants to take me to a better place.
Emily Weisband “Dumber” [Official Music Video]

Diandra: Do you think music is a way to ward of negativity?

Emily: I think people can be very black and white. I think we think it helps us to understand things, but human beings are so complex. I use my songs to explore those grey areas like, letting go of people, even if they are not bad, and saying, “I have to do me now, and that is okay! I don’t have to give you my heart!” No bad feelings just fly little bird! You are not a victim, it just didn’t work out. There is so much empowerment in the word goodbye, and I love breathing strength into hard moments.

Diandra: You definitely felt like you were growing up via this album.

Emily: Yeah! I mean I never meant it to be about “evolution,” but in writing about my experiences it became about that. I became so clear, and, to be honest, I am not an old person, yet. So, you hit the nail on the head, where you are like wisdom makes you feel younger. I am at that age where I can’t say, “Oh, that hookup won’t effect me!” and actually believe that! I know it will.

Diandra: I think life is balance, and maturing is allowing yourself, like you said, to have boundaries but also push yourself to explore.

Emily: We live in a world of such extremism, and I feel like you have to give and take everywhere. You are right! It is about balance, and finding who you are and being unapologetic about that. Yet, people are a spectrum. So I am always going to be chasing love, wisdom, and protection and feeling like that is youthfulness. I want to explore that. I grew up with 5 girls so I especially feel that with female empowerment, except, sometimes, that could turn into man-hating and I am not for that. They taught me to be strong, take responsibility, and I do that through my music.
Emily Weisband “The Way I Say Goodbye” [Official Lyric Video]

Diandra: Well, I think when you have so many members of one group so consistently hurting the members of another group, it is very easy to generalize. It is hard to distinguish between “good guys” and “bad guys” when they all come from the same community. So, with that in mind, which of your songs do you feel heals the bridge between men and women?

Emily: Totally! Absolutely! And great question! Wow! Umm…….Honestly, “The Way I Say Goodbye” I was raised in the church, with Southern values, and I think there is such a stigma attached to men in the South, raised in church, that you cannot be weak. We see men as powerful, dominating, and aggressive. The more I put my “thinking goggles,” I see so much weakness and insecurity. I see so much shame in them, and a lot of men don’t allow themselves to experience and go through it because of the stigma that that is “weak.”

The guy I am talking to in “The Way I Say Goodbye,” we are together now, but when we broke up, he had just found out he was suffering from mental health issues. When we broke up, I didn’t vilify him, which made him re-analyze his aggressive behavior and say, “Why am I so angry when this person wants my happiness?” I honestly think that in anything that is divisive, there is no empathy. A guy blames a girl for being psycho and a girl blames him for being distant. It is finger-pointing, and I think that song puts empathy to replace that. This song is who I want to be as a human, and someone who loves, unapologetically, and doesn’t expect anything in return. She loves to love.

Diandra: You are giving me wisdom because I think, often, we think the best songs are about healing, but you seem to be saying they are about aspiring. It is not about healing wounds but reaching to be a better person.

Emily: Yeah! I love that! Yeah! I have always seen music with its power to transport you. It takes you into your heart and unlocks it like a key. You can be different after you hear a song and not see the world from a different way. You can go into places, within your heart, you didn’t know was there. So there is this “manifesting” part of music, where it is this ebb and flow of putting things out there and receiving them. So I want to be true and make that truth a better person through what I give and take in music.

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