Enfnts Terribles

You’re releasing your new EP Heartbreak County, Vol. 2. What have you planned prior to the release?

It’s never-ending. There’s no time to sleep and only work, work, work! I’m preparing for a special performance video that I’m teaming up for with Tidal. It’s going to be a four parts video in one video. It’s a whole performance visual for the EP but only by using four songs. If we did all the songs, that would be way too long. I’m definitely playing a couple of shows to celebrate the end of the project, doing some in LA and New York, the two cities where I’ve been kind of building and playing shows. We also try to get all the visuals shot for the rest of the songs. It’s so crazy. It’s one song; we shoot everything. Then the second song comes in three weeks, so I need to shoot everything two weeks prior to that to get everything edited. Oh my lord, it’s never-ending.

Do you already visualize a lot when creating the songs, or is that a process that mainly happens afterward?

It really depends. Sometimes, it’s the visual that comes to me, and I know exactly what I want to do with it. Other times, I make the music, and after having enough time to live with it, I start imagining things that make me feel even more excited and look at the song with a whole new meaning. You make a song, then go away from it, and later feel that it means something different to you. It’s the same message, but it’s like a journal entry where you write something and later see that you were a bit too dramatic. (laughs) You also look back and see that it’s what you were trying to say now that you had enough time to live with it. I do love my artworks and visuals to be very symbolic, and I’m really big at wanting it to feel like a painting. You can basically frame all my artworks and put it on your wall. That’s how I imagine my artworks; I don’t ever see it basic unless it actually serves the song.

How different is Heartbreak County Vol. 2 compared to your previous projects?

I think the difference is a mixture of lyrically and sonically because the two new songs that will be dropping when the EP comes out show a different side to me. Especially the ballad. I never released a ballad before, so that’s a very vulnerable thing for me to be doing. I’ve written ballads and sad songs, but I never released them because part of me wants me to make music that makes me feel really good and escape from my reality. It’s escapism and still has a lot of meaning, but the production still makes you want to dance. This time, I’m ending the project with two songs that are a little bit more on the darker side.

The ballad is the most vulnerable I’ve ever been about being heartbroken. I always had an issue with being too vulnerable, but what’s the point of doing any of this when I’m not going to be dropping music that’s also sad, real, and raw? That will be very cool for my listeners to kind of get to know me on that level of things and get to understand that I may be running away from all my problems, but at the end of the day, I’m still sad. The cool thing about all of this is that we’re really coming to the end. We think we know what the project is about, but we’re really seeing what’s under the mask in the last songs.

How is it for you to know that you’re that role model for other people by releasing your own music and being so unapologetic? Does that put pressure on you, or are you comfortable with that?

I’m definitely comfortable and hopefully, people don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t want people to think that I’m doing certain things just to get attention. That’s not my intention with anything I do. I do everything for myself at the end of the day: to make myself feel hot and good. If anyone can relate to it, great! If it helps anyone get out of their comfort zone, amazing! My goal is to send my message of how my life started, and I completely shifted the way people and myself viewed me within a matter of years of just hard dedication to putting myself out there. I stopped telling myself that I couldn’t do specific things, so I hope I can convey that to my fans or just anyone that listens to my music. I hope I can change people’s perspectives because we’re all a bit too judgmental.

To conclude, which song are you most proud of from your new EP Heartbreak County, Vol. 2?

I would say “Cruel Intentions” because it’s such a storytelling song, and I was talking about it the other day with my mix and master engineer. He was like, “This is the most storytelling song I’ve ever listened to of yours.” It’s not even about the production of the song, the cool sounds, or the transitions. It’s not about that. It’s just about the writing. You could not have all the music behind you and read the lyrics to see that the song is pretty sad and the situation is heartbreaking. In the song, I’m finally opening up about what led me to the heartbreak and the storytelling of it all.

Heartbreak County, Vol.2 is out on all platforms.