What's Your Deal?: India Thieriot
I recently sat down with rising star and future pop sensation, India Thieriot. India, a music concentrator from San Francisco, has just released her debut EP, Direction. India also happens to be my roommate, which I disclose in the spirit of journalistic integrity. Over falafel in the V-Dub, we talked about her vision for her recent project, how she wants to pursue music on campus, her music influences, and her goals for the future.
Clare Lonergan: Tell me about your new project! What was the process behind creating it?
India Thieriot: My new project is an EP called Direction. It’s three songs that I wrote over the course of the last two years. And then, over the summer, I recorded all three of them in my living room, actually. I have a family friend named Michael Chaves who came down from LA and set up all his equipment at my house. We just did it in three hours and then, from there, it was kind of a back and forth between us, with him sending me little bits of the production and me giving him feedback on the direction that I wanted it to go in. That took about three months, and then he sent me the mastered tracks in November, and I decided to release them right at the beginning of winter break.
CL: How did you maintain control of the direction of your work while collaborating closely with someone else?
IT: I had actually recorded with Michael before in 2015, so I had a little bit of an established trust with him already— although, the first time I recorded with him, I was pretty young and kind of intimidated by being in a studio environment. This time around, I think I had a much more developed sense of what I want my sound to be like. Before he came in, I had a couple things ready to show him in terms of inspiration for the production, so that gave him a much better sense of where I wanted the tracks to go. He’s also such a great guy and wanted me to be as happy with the tracks as possible and to have the final say on anything. If there was even one thing he wanted me to tweak, I felt comfortable saying, “can we try this?” And he would adjust and send the product back to me.
CL: That actually leads well to something else I'd wanted to ask you: Who do you think of as some of your most impactful music influences?
IT: That is a very tough question. I feel like I have different answers depending on the realm of my music of the particular moment. Probably Emily King is one of my biggest songwriting inspirations, not as long as Sara Bareilles, just because I feel like both of them have a very earnest way of songwriting. I use songwriting as an outlet, but also want my music to be something that other people can connect with, so it’s not so personal that the audience can’t relate. I feel like both Emily King and Sara have that quality in their music, where it feels very authentic to their experiences, but I feel like there are aspects of both of their songs that have made me think, “Oh, I’ve thought that before,” so that’s something I try to recreate with my music. In terms of production, Emmit Fenn is a big inspiration for me. He’s a friend of mine and I just love his production style of just being very simple and mostly in-the-box production, while still focusing on very clear vocals.
CL: Do you have any musical goals for the semester ahead?
IT: Yes, I definitely think that performing more is my biggest goal for the semester. I have terrible stage fright, but obviously the only way to get over that is just by getting out there and doing it. I think it’d be cool to perform at venues like Dream Haus, for example, that are very student oriented, as well as doing performances in Providence. I feel like doing local performances could be a good way to dip my foot into the water before I do more on-campus performances just because I get a lot less scared performing in front of strangers, so using that as practice and then getting more comfortable performing in on-campus spaces is my goal for the semester. Another goal is to collaborate more with people, just because there are so many incredibly talented people on this campus and I only have a year and a half left here, so I just want to make music with different types of artists, different producers on campus.
CL: I was going to ask you that exact question, because one thing I think that is really unique to Brown is how vibrant the art scene created by students is. There are obviously so many really talented student artists on campus that it could be so cool to collaborate with. Are you inspired by any other student artists or musicians? Is there anyone in particular that you’d like to collaborate with?
IT: Last semester I took a class called "Rap As Storytelling", which was very outside of my comfort zone, producing music that is just not the genre I’m used to. Through that class (which was a production seminar where we all shared our works every week), I discovered a lot of talented artists that I’d like to collaborate with. I think Danny Schiller is someone it’d be fun to collaborate with because I love Reggaeton as a genre. It’s actually a genre I’ve written in a little bit, but have never shared anything publicly before, so I think collaborating with him would be very cool. He’s very talented.
Listen to India’s debut EP on Spotify or Apple Music and keep an eye for her performance schedule this semester!
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