Hiya Kazu, thanks for joining us in the virtual RGM lounge today. Grab a brew and take a seat.
Thanks for joining us today… Tell us bit about where you are from and how you got into music?
I was born and raised in southern California by Vietnamese refugees. I’ve been around music essentially all my life. My uncles did Vietnamese wedding bands for fun, so my grandma’s garage was always filled with instruments that I’d spend hours just playing with. What I do now just feels like an extension of the same play I did as a child.
Anyone we should be looking out for (bar you, of course)?
Surrija, hands down! I’ve had the opportunity to watch her perform a few times this year. She’s a generational talent that I’m just waiting on to blow up under the right conditions. Even more, she’s pretty down to earth and it’s a fun thing to watch someone tear a hole in the fabric of reality during a performance only to have her turn around and remind you she’s selling her cookies at the merch table.
The contrast is a reminder that inside every person is a greatness that is either not known, in progress, or very well developed—but the main idea is that it’s all there within all of us.
What’s the biggest thing you hate having to do to showcase your music?
I’d say social media. I’ve always just lived my life and don’t usually think about capturing it for viewing later. I actually love talking to people in real life or even chatting online is fun too.
What are your ambitions for your musical project?
I’d say to just have people get to know me more on a personal level and vice versa. Also, to expand the sound palate that I currently have. Joy is the main reason I do this. It’s fun to continuously expand, create, explore, and connect.
What’s your view on the Music industry today?
I think there are pros and cons to where the music industry is today. On one hand, I love how technology has made music production accessible in ways I could have only dreamed of in my youth. To be able to create in the way I can now would have been completely out of budget.
On the other hand, because so many can produce, the end product is excess in supply. With so many choices today, it cheapens the product. Music is really just free now since there are so many streaming options. I remember having to save money to buy an album or single, and those albums were precious to me! I’m not sure people feel the same way because it’s so easily obtained now.
Whats the biggest thing you have learned recently as you progress with your music?
I learn the most when I’m working with my mixing engineer. He’s also a producer, so he always has insightful comments about production and how to do it in a way that results in a cleaner mix. Sometimes you just need someone to put words to what is happening in a mix and it changes the way you produce.
What’s currently in your ears and on rotation at the moment?
The top 3 I listen to is Billie Eilish, Mk.gee, and Surrija currently. They are all a bit edgy and dark.
I hear you have new music. What can you tell us about it?
My newest release is called Chariots. I always meditate before I write, and the biggest weight on my heart at the time was what was going on in the US. Chariots was born out of a growing sense of disbelief and frustration with what’s happening in our country.
As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, I grew up believing in the ideals America was supposed to represent — freedom, opportunity, and the promise that everyone deserves dignity and a voice. Watching the rhetoric toward immigrants become increasingly hostile, and seeing fear used as a tool against vulnerable communities, has been heartbreaking.
I think what troubles me most is the feeling that we’re drifting away from the idea of a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. I wrote Chariots because I couldn’t just sit with those feelings anymore. Music has always been how I process things that are difficult to put into words.
But despite its anger and urgency, I don’t see Chariots as a song of despair. It’s a song about refusing to give up on each other or on the ideals that brought so many of our families here in the first place. At its heart, it’s about holding on to hope, even when that hope feels increasingly difficult to find.
What was the recording process like?
I wrote it on voice and guitar alone as usual and recorded my parts in my home studio. Guitar processing was done on my Headrush Core. I used someone else’s preset sound for the electric guitars that was an attempt to model the guitar sound you hear in “Creep” by Radiohead.
The chord progression in the verses is just a chromatic walk down that was meant to simulate the slow decay of our democracy, as well as the very end with the tape slowing down and stopping. It’s a bit of a death happening. I had fun with the arpeggiators too by putting an automated filter on it throughout the song just to give it some movement.
Mixing it was challenging because the breakdown and outro are so different than the rest of the song. You have a dryer atmosphere at the beginning, but it just explodes into something larger at the end with lots of strings, timpani, a percussion ensemble, and more vocal harmonies.
Would you change anything now it’s finished?
I’d probably thin out some production elements. Sometimes as you produce you fill out parts, but as it grows you might not need that part anymore because that role is being fulfilled by other elements you add at a later time.
Is there anything else you would like to share with the world?
I just wanted to encourage civic engagement by our people. It’s such a critical time in our history with midterm elections coming up. Of course I want it to be a peaceful, free, and fair election. We can only wait and see what the outcome is.
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