By Katie Asha, First Year, English
Eve Christina is a London-based singer-songwriter whose sound is perfect for fans of Gracie Abrams, Audrey Hobert, and Faye Webster. She has just released a new single, ‘So New, so Sure, so Fast’, and has a rapidly growing community of Spotify listeners. At the time this article goes live, she will be playing through the first few dates of her Europe tour, set to come to London in mid-May. And one Tuesday afternoon she is also on my laptop screen, smiling and pixelated over a zoom call – here are some of the things she says about how she makes music.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Eve, who was very open about her songwriting process and what led to her passion for making music in the first place. She spoke to me about how she grew up in a house brimming with musical theatre: ‘I think the storytelling of musical theatre has definitely seeped into my songwriting,’ she says, smiling – ‘It’s very instinctual for me to write about the things that are happening to me, and so a natural storyline emerges from that.’
When asked for the blurb of the story that runs through her music, she laughs and says ‘Songs about me thinking about things too much’. It does indeed seem true that her music is in part magnetic due to her unselfconscious introspection: she is unapologetically honest in thoughts and lyrics, and as a result manages to express experiences that many people can relate to. ‘I don’t really write based off [fictional narratives] because I want the music to feel real and authentic, and I want people to believe me when I’m singing it,’ says Eve. In a landscape in which artists are frequently pressured to adopt a trending aesthetic or more palatable image in order to reach a larger audience, genuine authenticity has (for understandable reasons) become fewer and further between. Yet honesty still remains one of the most magnetic qualities of any piece of art – and Eve’s music has it in spades.
But how hard is it to maintain a clear sense of artistic identity within the pressure cooker of social media? When asked about her relationship to promoting her music on the internet, she muses that ‘You have to see the positives in it, otherwise you will go insane. I think without social media, I wouldn't have built the community that I have now. To have [a marketing tool] that’s free, and that I’m completely in control of, is something that I don’t want to take for granted.’
‘That being said, I try and spend time away from it sometimes – for my birthday I stayed alone in a cabin in the woods, completely just in nature and stripped back, and that’s where I wrote ‘So New, so Sure, so Fast’, and a few other songs that I really love.’
Eve’s frequently melancholy lyrics led me to ask whether songwriting generally invoked more positive or negative emotions for her – can writing about difficult experiences be liberating, or does it more often than not result in ruminating on previous events? ‘I think those two things can exist at the same time. I think [songwriting] definitely requires a level of rumination... but at the same time, to have that outlet, and to be able to process things in that way and come out the other end of it all with a piece of art is so special. It’s such an instinct for me now.’
Eve went on to talk about how the emotions associated with different songs can be changed through live performance: ‘If I’m going through something difficult, I pick up my guitar and write, and it’s like, oh, at least I’ve got this. It’s such a silver lining. And then to sing those same songs at gigs is really cathartic: I get the chance to perform the song in a new environment and see it in a different way, and that’s a really beautiful thing.’
Aaron Franks
The singer continued to speak about her relationship to performing live, talking excitedly about her upcoming tour supporting Bo Staloch. ‘I’m really looking forward to it. Bo’s amazing, Abby’s amazing. I’m such a big fan of both of them. So when he texted me and asked if I wanted to do this, I was so excited. I was like “oh thank God, another tour” – I love playing live so much.’ Her love for live shows, she says, comes from the fact that ‘it is just really touching to be with a whole group of people who have chosen to spend their evening with me. It’s pretty surreal’. So what does she want people to feel when they leave one of her shows? ‘Understood, and safe, and emotional – not necessarily emotional in a bad way, but I want people to feel touched by my music and like it made them feel something, and I guess fulfilled in some way or another.’
My follow-up was what does she want to feel when she leaves one of her shows. ‘I would say I want to feel grateful and recharged. I get such a rush from playing live and I love meeting everyone after the shows – it’s really really special. I don’t want to take it for granted that I have audiences that really do want to give their time and energy and their love to me and to each other. I don’t want that to ever disappear: no matter how big the shows get, I always want it to feel like that.’
Get tickets to see Eve Christina on her upcoming tour here.
Featured image: 5000 MGMTHave you listened to ‘So New, so Sure, so Fast’?
