Tessa Violet Interview

Who is Tessa Violet, one may ask? Well, look no further than this interview, where I was able to get to know this Oregon basedartist. From YouTube to live stage, she has made a career off music and her latest EP, Bad Ideas (Act One) is now available for all readers to check out.

Hey! I hope you’re well. First off, did you manage to do some touring of [Washington] D.C beforehand?

We did not! As with all the cities, we basically roll into the city when we need to load in and then we are working from 2:30pm until load out at 12:30am. So people ask, “What’s your favorite city?” and I’m always like, “I can tell you what my favorite venue is!” because the whole experience of the city is the venue. If we’re on the bus, we have a little bit more time to explore because we’d wake up in the city and have a few hours to do some exploring — but if we’re in a van, loading in and out is pretty much what our life is.

Wow, so you’ve been travelling in a van the whole time? How’s that experience for you? Is it tough or easy?

It’s definitely gruelling but I enjoy it. I’ve done more van tours now than I’ve kept track of. It’s definitely a life I’m much more familiar with. I don’t do too much of the driving so that’s easy, you know, and I really enjoy the experience of getting to look out the window and watch the different types of scenery. To look outside and be able to see the Southwest which is such a beautiful part of the country — we’re not really in the Northeast anymore, but 2 days ago we were, which is also such a beautiful part of the country. It’s just spectacular, I like it.

That’s the dream honestly, just having to see different regions of the country. Just to transition over, I know you’re just off tour with Dodie last year and COIN this year. Now you’re on your own tour, which is amazing too, so what’s different?

It’s a whole different experience. Like when you are support [for a band], your job is to get the crowd hyped up and to introduce yourself to a new audience. When you’re headlining, it’s as if you are there to celebrate the artist that you are, which is a new skill that I feel like I’m learning and stepping into. Like at show one, I was like, “Oh man, this is completely different!” It’s not just a longer support set, it’s a whole different skill set, so yeah, everything about it is quite different.

Especially the fact that everyone at your show is there to support you.

It’s wild, it’s been really fun.

Talking about that, we have to mention that you first started out as a YouTuber. You were behind the camera and then you’re finally moving from that to a stage, from a stage to another stage, to different shows every night. Do you ever get nervous or doubt yourself at some points as a performer?

I always love to be on stage way more than I love to be on camera. I never really liked being on camera. I just like the creativity of creating something, so the stage is so much more fun. Every show is different and it’s so interactive and live and the crowd is half of the experience. Every now and then I’ll get nervous as random things will throw me off. For the most part, I just like performing. I just feel like when I’m having a hard day, I realize that I get to play for people and it’s a beautiful thing.

Let’s talk about your discography. Obviously, a lot of your fans have noticed that you’ve taken some stuff off Spotify. What inspired that and what inspired that fresh start for you?

I took my first record Mainly Trapped Mostly Troubled off Spotify just because at the time, the way Spotify would show you things on an artist page was different. It’d show you the first top 5 songs being streamed that month and then it would show you the album. I just feel like Mainly Trapped Mostly Troubled is not a reflection of the artist that I am at this moment, and I just didn’t want it to be the first thing people saw. I want them to see new things, so I took that down for that reason. Every now and then you have some artists scrubbing stuff from the internet. But I do respect Mainly Trapped Mostly Troubled, I don’t have anything against it. It was a beautiful snapshot of the person that I was at that time when I wrote it and I think it’s great.

What is one thing you appreciate or hope to accomplish when writing music?

I think writing is healing — to take an experience that you may or may not understand and organize it into couplings and a song is just wonderful. It sometimes feel like exorcizing. With regards to what I want to accomplish when writing music, I hope to play bigger and bigger shows. I love live music, so I hope that my songs resonate with more and more people, and then more people come out. At the same time, I am unwilling to make myself less genuine to resonate with more people. It is what it is, if lots of people like what I write, then I’d love that. But if a few people like it passionately, then that’s great too.

About “Crush,” your biggest song. Your music started to gain attention with the release of “Crush.” What was it like to see everyone’s reaction to the song itself?

I think it was wild. I realized that it was a thing when it hit 20 million. I was like, “Whoaaaaa.” Just 20 million on YouTube meant what we would also be hitting around 20 million on Spotify, so it would’ve been 40 million combined streams. It’s just a whole different level than where I was before. Before, I was doing absolutely everything on my own — you know, I was managing my own tours, putting it together — and now, because of the success of “Crush,” I’ve been able to assemble a team around me, which is just the best ever because it frees up more time to be creative and to do many other things. It does take an army to make the whole thing work.

I don’t know if the explosion of the song itself surprised me. I remember one day we were musing about some breakout singles that some artists have, and my producer Seth [Earnest] asked me, “Do you think they knew in the studio that [“Crush”] was going to be a smash hit?” and I was like, “I don’t know Seth, every song we’ve done together, I’m certain that it’s going to be a smash hit and then it never is!” And then “Crush” very much was a viral hit and it went far beyond how I could’ve expected it. It’s cool!

I was following “Crush” for a while and just watching it go from 2 million streams and then all of a sudden my friend has heard of it, and my friends of friends have heard of it and we talk about it. That’s when you know that there’s a visceral response to your song and it’s amazing.

Yeah!

Are there any songs that you personally felt were hard to write?

The songs are never too hard to write. Sometimes people are like, “Woah, that’s really personal, was that hard to write?” and I’m usually like, “Not really, it just feels good to write.” Sometimes, I can get a little bit of cold feet around releasing the songs because that’s a different experience, like, damn, everyone gets to hear them now. From these three singles, I guess I did get a little nervous around “Bad Ideas” because that one was so personal. I mean, every song is personal but “Bad Ideas” is a little more selfreflective and a little, yikes!

Let’s dig a little deeper into that writing aspect of music. Where do you go to write your music and what’s your overall process of getting into writing?

I write in my bedroom almost entirely. I write alone almost entirely, “Crush” is my only co-write. I wrote the verse and the bridge for that and I just had an idea of the “I could be your crush” part, and I was like, “I don’t know where to go from there,” and I brought that song to two of my friends who are co-writers to figure out that chorus. But everything else is pretty much playtime of just being alone and being creative and being like, you know, what works and doesn’t work. It’s also that thing about passionate and rewarding work because sometimes it is really hard and sometimes you have to fight for the song for a long time. Then when you figure it out, you’re like “YES! I’m a champion, I did it!”

I write music and lyrics together — I think a well written song should sing like it’s spoken. It’s hard for me to write things separately, they kind of need to come together too.

Do you draw any influence from any artists or a place, or anything else in particular?

I mean, I listen to a lot of things. I don’t think any one thing fits into my influence. Nothing comes from nothing, I think that’s for sure a thing — I think a lot of young artists get stuck a lot because they buy into this idea that they need to pull something out of themselves that does not require any pouring into. And it’s like, no, you’re not a vessel. Think of creativity like a river, you know, it never runs dry and it just moves past you and things move through you and come out.

How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard you before?

That’s a great question! I think someone described that the other day and I was like “Wow, that’s such a good one!”

I mean, I call [my music] alternative, but it definitely has some pop melodies but not always with pop production. What do you think?

From my side I feel like you can’t label it as pop — it’s like there’s an infusion of different things that doesn’t just make it pop. Indie? Alternative? Maybe?

Yeah. I think alternative is such a great catchphrase. It feels more alternative than indie to me, again those labels are all so subjective like, what do they even mean? To me, indie is a little more organic. I’d be more likely to name someone indie if they didn’t have too much synth in it, which I have like lots of. There’s a lot of mellotron and 8O8’s on my songs.

What is gonna follow after Act One of Bad Ideas? Do you have any new plans that you can announce to readers?

I’m going to put out a single this summer, and then the album is coming out this fall!

Interesting! To end it all on a nice note, if you can say one thing to your listeners, what would it be?

Oooh! Someone asked me during the meet and greet earlier about what would be the one piece of advice I would give myself when I was younger, and I was like, I don’t know. The thing is that the one piece of advice that I would give myself would just not at all be helpful. I am the person I am now because I lived it, you know. The advice I would give myself I guess is to “be who you are” and to celebrate yourself and who you are. If I received that advice when I was younger, I’d be like, “That is NOT helpful!” because I don’t know who I was back then! And I get it, you don’t, unless you just live it then you get to know who you are and then you get more comfortable with being who you are. So yeah, just celebrate who you are.

Check out Tessa Violet’s Bad Idea (Act One) now available on all streaming platforms.

Hosted and photographed by: Kariann Tan

Original questions by: Piper Rosas