No Mixed Signals: An Interview With Girl in Red
19-year-old singer-songwriter Girl in Red does not want to be always a queer symbol, she just really wants to be honest.
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Woman in Red is wanting seem sensible of every thing: heartbreak, blended signals, finding any type of meaning into the mundane. a pay attention to her EP that is first chapter (2018) states it all. With singles like “i wanna be your gf” and “summer depression,” her project checks out just like the journal of every queer teenager hoping for reprieve. It’s what makes the 19-year-old Norwegian singer-songwriter’s music therefore poignant—it’s for all those who couldn’t sing our personal songs growing up, who hid behind hetero ballads we put on mixes to the same-sex close friends, hoping that they’d get the hint. But hardly ever did they ever, since they weren’t the right terms.
But as woman in Red, born Marie Ulven, will say to you: she didn’t attempted to be a queer icon—she simply wished to be truthful. Plus it’s that makes her very exciting brand brand new performers to view.
Here, the celebrity regarding the rise gets candid about the pain she changed into DIY pop, being her very own hero, and learning just how to protect individual boundaries along the way.
therefore i desire to get started not only by asking just what got you into music, but exactly what made you therefore open right off the bat. I’ve for ages been performing and improvising, exactly what actually got me personally into this music is simply good ol’ heartbreak. [Laughs] we began making my means through GarageBand in 2017 and simply recording each one of these emotions I became having and placing them on SoundCloud. That’s exactly exactly how I started—feeling really bad after which wanting to do something positive about that.
Were you dabbling in music in advance, or had been channeling that heartbreak the impetus for every thing? I’ve been playing guitar since I became around 14, to make certain that’s i assume when I began making music. It absolutely was simply in 2017 once I [told myself] i have to try this because I’m not gonna watch for some random ass guy to greatly help me personally. We tried that couple of years previous. I attempted to record some chinese online dating scams music that is norwegian I happened to be making that has been actually bad.
What type of music had been it? I did son’t obviously have a sound. I happened to be working together with other manufacturers and I also had been extremely young and We didn’t—it had been actually bad words. It is all shit for me, at least. It’s component for the procedure. Without that music, I probably wouldn’t be right here. But that summer time it clicked. We began composing English tracks. Simply three days before that, we actually circulated A norwegian ep, but that has been trash.
Did you are feeling any doubt being that vulnerable? No, not necessarily because I experienced 200 followers on SoundCloud. “I wanna be your girlfriend” ended up being among the songs that are first actually sparked this project. From the I revealed it to my mom and she had been like, “Yo this really is pretty good.” I became like, “Yeah thanks.” But We wasn’t hesitant. I didn’t really provide a shit. In the past I did son’t actually wanna post it because I was thinking it didn’t have value to it. Then again it got like 5,000 streams, in order that was the peak before someone posted it on YouTube. Then things simply really started snowballing.
We don’t want fake sh*t. Folks are looking for authenticity because there’s so much filtered stuff every-where. It’s bland.
Had been your household constantly supportive of you? Had been you always down? we wasn’t actually until actually actually belated 2015, beginning of 2016. I wasn’t suppressing my emotions and doubting every thing for a long ass time—how I arrived on the scene was just really me saying, “Yo, could I go to this woman?” And my mom ended up being like, “Curfew’s in one single hour, why could you you need to be away for an full hour?” I happened to be like, “I really such as this girl. I’m in deep love with her.” She had been like, “I’m sure but you have to get house.” It wasn’t any such thing unique. So then I’d been away, i guess.
Your catalyst with this project—was it a breakup or a pal that has been an unrequited love? Unrequited love. That’s also just what “i wanna be your gf” song is mostly about. It is I just really wanted to see her that summer, but she had a boyfriend, and I didn’t meet her once and I was so fucking sad about me falling in love with my straight best friend and how.
Personally I think like every queer kid style of has that tale of dropping in deep love with their companion. Yeah. It is like, you’re obligated nearly. [Laughs] It sucks guy. Directly girls, man. They truly are hard.
Oh my god. Tale of my life. [Laughs] we don’t understand why. That woman, she held my hand. There’s two methods someone’s hand can be held by you. As soon as your hands are between one another. Then often it’s the friend means, which can be like whenever you went along to school that is elementary you’d your pals very nearly pulled. I slept over at her house, and she held around me so it’s like. Would you that? No buddy does that.