New Music Friday: FIA

FIA is the DIY popstar (and an aries), who writes produces and mixes all of her own music in her bedroom.

I created this artist project out of a passion for music, sound design and visual art, however, it’s been a journey in finding who I am as a person. The more I wrote and created, the more confidence I gained and who I was in the music and outside of it began to align!

When I’m writing songs I’m really inspired by modern pop melodies and trap/rap music, but when I’m producing the sounds I love to see where I can push those classic genres to. I would describe FIA as genre-fluid, I never ever wanna be put in a box, it would be so boring!!

So the next single is called “Rich” featuring rapper James Indigo who is the definition of queer excellence. It’s about being a rich bitch, of course, but also about how money doesn’t define wealth! Initially I wrote the track as a flex track, just a bad bitch banger which would empower the girls, but as the track developed so did I. As a Millenial/Gen Z hybrid going through an identity crisis during the pandemic, I of course started to develop a more spiritual side in 2020. I got super into the power of manifestation/affirmations and really started to see tangible results from investing my time into these things. After getting more into this stuff I went back to the track and realised that this was more about how even if I’m not super rich (yet), can’t drive and not 100% exactly at the level I want to be my soul is still rich because being rich is a state of mind, wealth can be measured in many different ways and even if I don’t have the most money, I’m still one of the wealthiest bitches around.

After making the demo I immediately heard James on it. We actually met at Bree Runways release party for her first EP Be Runway and I became a fan instantly, I knew I wanted to work with him on something and this seemed like the perfect song. I sent it to James and instantly he sent me back a voice memo with what he had written, THE BARS WERE HARD.

During the past year the queer community has been something that has really saved and inspired me. I’ve discovered some of my favourite artists ever, who also happen to be my friends and peers! Before I fully immersed myself in the queer/underground scene the way I made music was very insular and something I saw as having to do on my own, I think this stemmed from my insecurities which came from people questioning how much of my work I had actually done/produced. The community is primarily made up of people who have been marginalised in some form, whether that be their race/sexuality/gender, because of this, the community is so non-judgemental, they never questioned how much of my output was mine and have always been super supportive. This really helped me gain confidence and learn to not give a fuck what other people think because once I did start collabing it was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had, it’s just really joyful to share, get excited and celebrate something with people whose passions align with yours.

PC music and Charli are big inspirations to me because I feel like they really spawned the community/scene I belong to. However, I’m also really inspired by rap and trap, Yung Baby Tate is so so talented, she can sing/ rap/produce and do it well!! She definitely deserves more credit, I think she’s a true artist and a major inspiration to me at the moment. I also love Tommy, Genesis, Bree Runway, Cobrah and Doja Cat cause they’re all so talented and hot, which is definitely aspirational for me lmao.

Visually and mentally I’m really inspired by the universe, space, planets, the moon and shit like that (ye I’m an astrology girl), animals (especially ocean life and sheep), ghosts and hot girls. These are the main things other than music that I think about tbh.

So recently I’ve started to step into a more behind the scenes roll as a producer, alongside my artist project, which has been really rewarding; it’s given me a chance to connect with loads of different artists around the world and tbh that’s kinda down to covid and the invention of the “Zoom session” (at least one good thing happened from it). I’ve started working with people I really love and have looked up to for a long time so it’s really cool to be around their energy and learn from them, so so hyped about the shit we’ve been working on.

Honestly, I’ve always had it in my head that I was gonna be a singer, even when I was a kid and I was basically tone deaf, my brother would shush me whenever I hit him with my whiny pitchy vocals lmao. However, if I’m anything it’s persistent, once I get an idea in my head I probably won’t stop until it comes true. So I practised and I practised until I eventually started to sound half decent and that kinda spawned into the journey I’m on today. When I was like 13/14, I was listening to a lot of The XX, SBTRKT & of course Bombay Bicycle Club, I was always thinking about how they made those sounds... Fast forward 3/4 years later, I went to study vocals, ultimately found it boring af because they were more training you to be a session vocalist (which I definitely am not good enough a singer to be), where as what I really wanted to do was write and make weird sounds and stuff. After a few weeks I switched to songwriting, which was better but you only had the option of using a guitar or keyboard and of course my brain was like where the drums at, so I started messing around on garage band, moved to Logic, moved to Ableton, made some songs and decided to do my degree in production and the rest is history. I just love how limitless production is, with songwriting there is only a finite amount of notes and chord progressions to work with, especially in pop music but when I’m producing there’s infinite opportunities for different sound design and originality, being unique is really special and important to me, production allows me to explore that fully.