Asentha Rose-EP2

Get all Sena's music at here! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Sound of Podcast. I am your host, Stephen, aka Scott of the Andes. This is the podcast. We're talking to the local Maryland musicians. I'm talking the local Maryland music scene. That's right. It's a thing. On the show we have Cena Rose. I met Cena through the open mic scene. She's got a sound all her own. We talked about how she got started and the state of the world. That and so much more on Sound of Podcast. Hi, Sina.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hi, Scott.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

We're uh or should I say Asina?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

A Senith. Does it not matter?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

That's your given name, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Where did that name come from?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Um, my dad's mom was named Asenith, but she passed away before I was born, and it's also a family name. Okay. So I'm like the seventh.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

What you're the seventh? Yeah. The seventh Cena?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Uh it's that's a band name right there.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Cena and the seven, but you gotta have seven band members.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

It's technically Egyptian, but it ended up in a Cajun family.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Is that your uh biologically speaking?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Uh yeah, my dad's mom side of the family is Cajun.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So you have roots in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Louisiana, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Wow. Have you been there?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

No, not yet. But I know. I'm trying to. I was supposed to go on a road trip this summer with my roommate, but that didn't happen. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Um, speaking on on your family and your parents, I know that you said uh your your family's musical, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

My dad plays banjo, writes songs on occasion. My mom likes music. My brother used to play drums and then cried about it. With love. He got a little frustrated.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Did he realize he didn't want to play drums or he just realized he wasn't good at it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Because music frustrated him.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Oh, sure. I think it does. I think it frustrates it frustrates everybody when you're trying to learn it and get the hang of it. Um, but I think that's also so much of it is based on I I know I've talked about this before, but like having good teachers makes an incredible difference. Um and I I know we're jumping ahead a little more, so I'll so I'll go back to the the basics of, but do you remember what your kind of your first realization of music was growing up? Was it through your like did your parents play music and songs too?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I mean I listened I would listen to music as a kid, like I would go to music festivals with my parents sometimes when I was like little little but and I took violin when I was like six, but I never really liked it, slash I wouldn't practice at all ever to the point like music was not my thing until I got to like middle school and then and this is embarrassing, I got really into musical theater, and somehow that translated to getting really into like pop punk girls groups, and then Wait, explain that.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Do you remember how that musical theater I get, but were was there somebody in your family that was exposing you to that?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Or how do you I was just listening to a lot of music and I think there was like a Hamilton's cover album. Okay. And one of the songs was by the or covers was by the regrets, which were like a pop punk girl group from California, and then I sort of just got obsessed with that type of music for a while. Yeah. And then I realized, oh, musical theater and pop punk aren't the two coolest things in the world. And then my need to people please led me to listening to like cooler music, which I ended up actually liking.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

I mean, that's subjective. Do you do you think it was an energy thing? Because with musical theater, I mean, yeah, you're moving around, you're singing, you're dancing, you're acting, and all of that. So I feel like there is a connection. And pop punk is also very high energy.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah. I guess that does make sense, but I think I craved stuff that was not lower energy, but was less energetic.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Like mid? Yeah. Middle of the somewhere between super fast and like, but not too like drudgy.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yeah. Oh, I like drudgy stuff.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah. Who does it? You gotta have both ends of the spectrum of things. Do you remember? Um, so I guess was your family exposing you to different pieces of music, or were you kind of pick and choosing like I like this style and I like this genre?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Uh my family listens to a lot of folk music. My granddad went to Woodstock but left after two days because it was too rainy.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

The original. Yeah. Woodstock. The original. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Um, I think it was two days. He made it two days because then it was too rainy.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

But I like I like that though. He knew when to pack it in.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Um yeah, my granddad definitely his music influenced his love music definitely influenced my mom. Like his favorite Braggie story to tell is he would go to this like smaller coffee shop that James Taylor would play at. James Taylor taught him how to play one of his songs at some point. Wow. Um, so that's all really cool. And I feel like Bob Dylan, who I'm still obsessed with, is almost a family religion at this point. Yeah. Because my granddad loves him, my mom loves him, I love him. Now my little sister, who's nine, is obsessed with him because of the movie. Yeah. Um, so I feel like that type of music and that way of presenting music has become really important to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Well, because you already sounds like you have that built-in community of that your family has all bonded over it. And I know some people whose families, I mean, generationally, will go to whomever's concert. More in in my neck of the woods, it's like rock bands and stuff, but you have multi-generations going to, you know, Metallica shows or Iron Maiden shows, and and I go to those shows and I see that too. And it's always it's always great. A for them, for the bands themselves, because it means more money, it means more people, but um it's also like you also remember why music is important because it's this connectivity thing, and if you're around people that you care about, or whether it's uh your family family or a chosen family or whatever, I I think it always breeds just a sense of love and belonging, no matter what type of music it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah, and I think that's why I love making people playlists, or at least trying to force my music taste off on other people. Where I've made so many playlists, some of them have probably never been listened to, just in an effort of being like, here's where I am, here are things I think you'd like. Um, it's one of my favorite gifts to give people, even if I'm aware it's a pretty selfish present.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

No, not not at all, actually. At least to me, of when I was in high school, the way that I got exposed to music, some of my favorite memories of getting exposed to music were from friends. Of my friends would be like, hey, check this out, or they would be playing whatever was on their CD player at the time, and um and I would ask, like, what is this?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

and I really like it because I'm a very I listen to lyrics first to an extent that almost annoys me. And I really like thinking about like having a chance to listen to lyrics and be in my fields about whatever's going on in my life. And a couple of my friends will send me songs and be like, oh my god, this is so this situation that happened to you. And it's very like giggly teenage girlish, but at the same time, I think it's a really valid way of interacting with music.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah. Um I think music does that for I I'm maybe borrowing from somebody, but I think it's music can have a uh you're giving it a voice of a feeling maybe that you can a hundred percent name or or um latch on to, and I think it it works in that way. Obviously, all of the cliches are true of that it's cathartic and things like that, but I think also it helps people express themselves and also understand maybe feelings that they're that they're having. So and and having said that, when when did you start writing music?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Um, I think it was around 2019. I had started, I had seen a shovels and rope concert in like mid-October of 2019, and I had been having this crisis of like, what do I want to do with my life? What actually seems like something I'd be genuinely excited about and also good about because it good at? Because at that point I had really wanted to be an actor, and I'm not a good actor at all. And I kind of liked visual arts, but it was just nothing felt like it clicked perfectly, even if it's all stuff I still love and do in my free time. And I had gone to see a shovels and rope show with my parents and my little brother, and just seeing them perform on stage, and we had like kind of barrier at 9 30 watching them, I was like, okay, figured it out, that's what I want to do. And I had at that point just played ukulele, but then the next day I was like, Well, gotta figure out how to play guitar, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Oh, so you hadn't learned up to that point either, despite being in a family of Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Because no one, my granddad plays guitar, but he doesn't like teaching people things usually. I mean, he's a good teacher, but he doesn't do it that often. He was a high school teacher, so it's a little silly.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Did you have an interest in it before of playing an instrument?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, I like I had already played the ukulele at that point. I had a really old $20 guitar in my room, and that's what I learned on for the first six months. Uh that the action on that, holding the strings down, was insane. Um, so yeah, the next day after that concert, I was like, well, gotta figure out how to write songs, gotta figure out how to play guitar. And I'm an overachiever to my core, so I kinda I think I waited six months before I actually, or four months before I showed anyone anything I wrote. And I was writing like two songs today constantly. Oh wow. And it was on a family trip to Florida for Christmas, and the song I had written was um inspired by something my uncle had said about my aunt. She's not a country singer, she's a karaoke queen. And I sat down and I scribbled out the lyrics, and then a month or so later, my dad had been talking about how he had written a song using that line. And I was like, Oh, I I wrote one too. But I think my ma mom apparently was sitting there and was like, oh no, Cena's about to show us something that isn't good. So I ran upstairs and grabbed my guitar, and my dad's already played his pretty solid song using the same line. Yeah. And I played mine.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

And my parents were like that was your mom's assumption?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

And I played it in a nice way.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

She just she lets me know my limits. Okay. Um, I'm really close with my parents, but I play my little song I had written, and my parents were like, Oh, okay, she actually can do this, maybe. Which it's also funny, I think, particular to being a woman, maybe, whenever I tell people, especially a certain type of man around my age, that I write songs, they have a very like specific assumption. To the point when I pull out a guitar and I play a song, the amount of times I've heard, oh, so you actually write songs, like, oh, thanks. It's always guitar bros.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I I mean that that speaks to uh probably their circumstance and everything like that. Um I think like any good songwriting, in my opinion, it's always having like a connective, a connective tissue or a connective line that resonates with people. And I can tell you precisely when that was for me personally. To you, was uh it's the song I forget the name, uh, but it's about the people living on uh in the different section of the area, right? The small island.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, it's called the best tourist.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

The best tourist?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Um, what's what's the ending line of that song?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

I think the one that you pulled me aside to talk about afterwards was life gets no better and it gets no worse.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yes. That was the line where I was like, oh, this person understands the experiences and and said it so concisely in that way because also, sorry, I'll let you explain the song too. No, and yeah, so I mean, because I know about it, but but other people might not.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, so that song I wrote, I lived on the outer bank s two summers ago, I guess almost three now. And it was interesting because I love my friends I made down there, and I love the people I met, but there's this assumption of like being from the island makes you inherently of the island and kind of better than anyone who visits there, which obviously that relationship changes based off of like what location you're speaking about, what type of people you're speaking about, but in that specific context of the Outer Rings, it felt strange. Um, and I wrote that song about how one of my friends had told me when I had been living there for two months of the time, like, man, you're the best tourist I've ever met. I was like, Okay, that makes well I don't know. Uh so I wrote that song. It's funny because that line you really like, life gets no better and it gets no worse. I wrote that song for my senior project for college about home and place. Oh, okay. And because I was exploring like other people's relationships to their homes, and I was just kind of ad-libbing when I came up with that line, and I wasn't sure if I was gonna keep it in. But my professor slash advisor, uh Crystal Oliver, was like, no, no, that line stays. I like that line, and I like that you're ad-libbing. And I was like, okay, I guess it stays.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

But I I think some ad-libs are what we might deem as songwriters as like placeholders. It turns out they're they're they probably were put in there for a reason, as much as we might want to be like, this isn't going to be the the final lyric in that way.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

And that was what was interesting about like doing my senior project as an album, getting that like one-on-one feedback every single week.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Oh, so your whole senior project was your album. Yep. So this was for which class again?

SPEAKER_00 14:23

It was for like at St. Mary's College of Maryland, your like final year, you get the choice to do a St. Mary's project. And that relates to like something in your major usually, though you can kind of bend that role. So I wanted to do like a conceptual album. So that whole project I wrote over the course of two semesters. It's called Come Over, There's Nobody Home, and it's all like songs about home and place. And then I also had like a research element to it and all that type of stuff that makes it an official project, and not just me writing songs.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

What what made you want to pursue that in terms of okay, this is gonna be my project? You felt obviously you felt confident enough in your songwriting abilities of like this is gonna this will work?

SPEAKER_00 15:10

I felt confident enough that it would work because I had gotten good feedback about when I had kind of roped songwriting into classes it didn't need to get roped into because I'm enough of a teacher's pet I could usually get away with. You know, for this for this creative project, I want to write a song and then get to perform it in class sometimes. Yeah. Because novelty at a liberal arts school. Whoa. Um, and then so I knew I wanted to do an album. Professor Oliver, I knew was like the perfect choice for an advisor. Um, and additionally, I figured that if it went horribly wrong, oh well, a lot of people's senior projects go terribly wrong. Uh the idea of doing it on home and place, originally I had a couple more like out there ideas, but I realized I was kind of running away from what I actually wanted to write about. Because I love writing about home and people's relationships to it, and I love writing about my home of Calvert County, and I liked writing about St. Mary's and how my relationship to it was gonna change once I left and what that like hypothetical third future place was gonna look like once I moved on, which I did not know was gonna be Annapolis.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

But Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

But that takes a lot of introspection, though, I'd imagine too.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

It did, and it was a really cool project, but it was a lot of thinking and a lot of wrestling with ideas and a lot of rough drafts.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, you said you were you were running away from the original idea, it felt like.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah, because I just my mom had done her senior project on Home, and one of my favorite albums, like she also went to St. Mary's. Oh, okay. It was in a different format, but some you know, similar-ish concept. And one of my favorite albums of all time, Home Video by Lucy Dacis, also felt like too too close a cut, so I didn't want to feel like I was imitating anyone. And also, it is just a subject that requires so much introspection that I wasn't sure if that was the one I wanted to choose, but my advisor was like, see, I think this is what you actually want to do. You just won't admit it to yourself. I was like, eh, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

It it's so important, I think, to follow those instincts, even if you might feel like it's derivative of something else that ex has existed. Because truly, I mean, I'm not the first person to say this, but I all art has been is derivative of something else, and it's more a matter of like how you put your own personal spin on it.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah. I mean, my theory that whenever I say this at open mics, 12 different people tell me to add a thing to the list, but I think all songs are about home, love, or time, and there's not really much else there. Which, you know, you can add in like money, you could add in I'm sure there's other things that are slipping in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, no, on that, I there's I I've heard multiple versions of this of that from a storytelling perspective, and I want to say it's uh loosely based in Joseph Campbell, but um Joseph Campbell, my man. Yeah, there's only shout out to Joe Campbell if you're out there, Joe. Um but there's only like seven stories you can actually tell or something like that. And then more recently, I was listening to another podcast, I forget the name of it, my friend sent it to me, but um, there's this Buddhist monk that they were interviewing, and he says, controversially, he was pushing his book, but um he says that there are actually only three emotions, something like that. It's uh fear, I think, uh fear, anger, and desire or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, people are silly because I think within a certain ex to a certain extent, you're just trying to put less labels on things, and there's a reason language has a lot of fruit to it. But I mean, this is a horrible example that you might have to take out later. But it it's the same energy as Trump saying there's only two genders.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Which is a horrible example, and no shame to the Buddhist monk, but Yeah, when we and that's the thing, is at the end of the day, human beings, we need to have those classifications because um because when you go into the record store, you're like, where's your rock and where's your country and where's your this and that? We we like to have those compartmentalizations and differentiations, even though I always think about uh and we do those things because they are quote easier. I always think about there was a quote from Lemmy Kielmeister, uh, who said, There's only two kinds of music. There's music you like and there's music you don't like.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Yeah, my dad says a similar thing where it's like if a song's good or not, it either is or it isn't.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Um, it is interesting though, in relation to genre. I guess I'd call myself a f a folk musician, and my Instagram bio is like folk music enthusiast, but at the same time, there's a reason it says enthusiast, not musician. Right. Because once you're giving yourself that really like hard-cut label, I feel like it's harder to work within. And it's like, yeah, it's I I make folk music, but also if you put drums behind it, it becomes indie rock. So what am I saying?

SPEAKER_01 20:34

It it's always interesting to me when I I mean more from especially from an original songwriter perspective of if you play a song somewhere and somebody will come up to you and say, That sounds like this, and you're in your brain, you're like, No, it sounds like me doing that. And was that maybe an inspiration or a basis of sure, but at the end of the day, it's still flowing out of you.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Have you ever experienced that of somebody wildly often? No, I I don't know why that is, because I know it happens a lot. One time when I first moved, I kind of forget who. Someone had sent me a link to some kind of obscure musician and been like, you sound like this. But I sort of just like upon listening, I was like, Okay, I appreciate it. It's a nice compliment, but it just sounds like a girl with a guitar.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Like, yeah. Um I'm always careful when people say that stuff to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And if I haven't heard of the artist, then I try not to check them out because then I'm worried that they'll influence my My Curiosity always gets the better of me about pretty much everything, including wanting to know who the comparison is.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Do you absorb that a lot then too, once you start hearing the comparison?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

No, I uh am pretty stubborn, so I feel like I'm just gonna write what I want to write, and it doesn't really get to me, which sounds very stuck up, but no, but it's an important, I think, boundary to to.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Set up for yourself. Wait, so did we get back to what was the first song that you wrote about? Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Uh the first song generally I wrote. That you're willing to uh admit to or share because I remember the karaoke one I had been talking about on the family trip, but I'm sure the first song I wrote was just something silly, probably. I can imagine the genre and the type of overly poetic mus or like lyrics I would have been writing and the ukulele, but I can't actually imagine what it would have been about. Um I remember when I was in elementary school, I wrote a song with my dad called Wildflower Girl that we still have the lyrics for somewhere, but it only has a verse up chorus, I think.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

You gotta finish it.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Um but yeah, the first the first song I vividly have remember writing and still have around is kind of about my aunt, but not really, and it's just a folk music or folk song about um the idea of someone who never like tried to make it, but who is really good at karaoke and going to bars.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

I mean I think that's And a lot of the songs I love writing and love listening to are about the idea of like not that song specifically as much, but story songs about like discontent housewives or people who stay in one place and are kind of dreaming of the other and the other place they could have been.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

The the grass is greener ideology. It's a very American sense of bit well, maybe not just a American very it's a very human idea of that, hey, where wherever you are in the world, is that where you're supposed to be? Question mark.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah, and I think a lot of it also comes from I read um A Room of One's Own by Virginia Wolf when I was in like early high school, and I think I got obsessed with idea that idea of like, well, if it hadn't been for like time and place and sexism, what could have these women from the past become? And not to the same extent with contemporary stuff, but still that idea I think has followed me around as a concept.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah. And and what do you think you're trying to say with that?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

I I don't know, not to sound like Bob Dylan, but I feel like I just write to write a lot of the time and I'm not sure if I have anything to say. Which doesn't mean like I'm writing nonsense and it means nothing to me, but I when I feel like a song sounds good and I feel good playing it, that's when it's done, not when I'm sure I know what it means. And usually later at some point down the line, I'll figure out what that song means, like with the best tourist. I feel like I've come to more of a conclusion. But usually like songs I wrote two months ago had haven't really formed a concrete meaning to me yet.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

I I think that comes with like trial, trial and error and troubleshooting, and whether it's playing for other people and getting feedback or playing it out live, I think that um that really always kind of gives you an idea of where you can where you can be at as an artist, or maybe just kind of in terms of how you you're setting up the song. So do you uh there's the age-old thing that I've quoted time and time again. It's it's talking about movies, but I believe it about art in general, and I guess you could say that art isn't ever finished, it's uh it escapes. Do you kind of uh agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 25:40

I'm as I said earlier, I'm an overachiever, but I'm not a perfectionist. A single song I write, I'm probably gonna give up on it pretty quickly. I'm gonna write it, and if I don't think it has anything, I'm gonna let it go. I'm gonna write it.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

How long does that take? Is that like an instantaneous, like yeah?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I mean, I'll read a song for 20 minutes and be like, uh, this one's not it. And then I'll come back to that idea maybe if I think it has any merit, or it'll just rot in a journal or a word document.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

It it's always hard for me because there's I mean, the the room that we're recording in right now is is the space where I record music, and there's you know, there's a bunch of books with lyrics in them, and I wrote those maybe five, six years ago, and that's tricky because if I go back to it, I'm gonna be like, I was a different person when I wrote this, and how can I, you know, template or or Frankenstein something together and be in that same space?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

My thing is a couple months ago I got to take the like recorded version of the Adrian Lanker School of Song class. I don't know if you've heard of a School of Song, they're like a cool organization. I think they're based in LA, but they do a lot of Zoom classes with musicians ranging in levels of fame that are just about songwriting in really cool ways. And I love Adrienne Lanker, so I jumped on that opportunity. But she's was kind of talking about sometimes you start writing a song, and it's just the version of you that's working on it isn't the version of you that's meant to write it yet, which sounds so spiritual and so I but sometimes you read a song and you're like, I'll come back to this, and maybe I'll be the person who's able to write the song when I come back to it.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

That's a lot of discipline. But yeah, I don't know it, and I would have to keep track and tabs on that.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Well, I feel like if it finds you, it's gonna find you.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Like sometimes I'll be scrolling through my notes app just because I love reflecting on the past to maybe too great of an extent. I'll be like, oh, I forgot about that. And then that becomes the song. But it'll be a year or two down the line.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah. Well, the past was better, we've seen. As we slowly move, crawl into the future, it feels more and more like the past was better. But again, how much of that is yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I feel like, I mean, don't get me wrong, politics right now is not good, but I also think everyone always thinks it's the end of the world.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, I mean, uh on that, like uh I talked to my dad about that, and he grew up in the 60s and 70s, and for them back then it was nuclear annihilation with with uh certain country over in in the European area. Don't get me wrong, we're not doing good right now, but no, but to a degree, and I've said this too, have we ever been doing good? I think the only difference is now is that we have more sources where people tell us, guys, everything sucks.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Update, this is bad. Yeah, yeah. Put that together, actually.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Update, we're screwed. Uh is there anything we No. Really? There's not no. Um I think that's played a role tremendously in people's intake of of art and also um people not being as present, which is which is harder to do now, I think, because you're being bombarded with anything and and everything. I mean, I was talking to you in uh earlier about um just that uh the way you the way music was kind of gotten was either from the radio or you went to a local show or it was whatever um MTV or VH1 was playing. And now that's it's a good time for that in terms of there's so much different music and different artists that you can expose yourselves to, but it's also like how do you dig through the the mire for something that is something that you feel like is yours, something that you can relate to, something where you maybe even want to go to a show.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, that's what I love about feeling more like I'm quote unquote in a scene and in an atlas. Where I have now I have a lot of friends who play music and I get to experience those smaller moments and kind of like I was saying earlier, also I love for the the opportunity to like see shitty music I still care about. Where I love when people who maybe will not make it or do not have that like instant click on stage play, because I love that people get to make music and I love that that exists outside of TikTok and outside of Instagram and gets to just like be real and be physical. I still love finding music online. I still sort through the Spotify Discover and the random pages and try to find stuff that is more obscure and is not stuff that is in my area and is actually and is like good. But at the same time, I love just seeing like things that you have an instant connection to, if not by genre or or even by quality, but just by seeing it.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yeah. And it's interesting because the the outlets that there are for na for that now are just so massive. What can I ask what kind of um I guess music kind of catches your your ear without getting too into the weeds of like who your specific fave artists are and everything like that?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I love things where the voice is a little gritty. I listen to a lot of female singers. Um I have like a substack newsletter thing called Bitch Fork, knock off of bitchfork. That's me going into deep dives on a lot of albums and songs I love, and kind of from a bloggy perspective. Yeah. Um, and that kind of gives me a great frame of reference to be like, okay, what type of stuff can I tell I'm attracted to with music? So gritty voices, specific, like utterly sharp lyrics where you know exactly what they are talking about, and it is not beating around the bush. Yeah. But I don't mean like sharp as in direct, I mean as in like the concrete moment kind of poetry, like in that it is a photograph of a thing that is happening. I love acoustic guitar, but I also love like good synth work that has that like polish to it. I also just love experimental weird stuff. Like when I'm listening to something and I'm like, I don't know what this is going for, but I'm into it. I'm gonna keep listening to it. And I'm one of those people that when I find a song I really like, I listen to it on repeat. And I've tried to get better about letting myself like popular stuff.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Like I was How do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

How do you let myself what happened to me is in 2021, in like December of that year, I heard Chapel Roan for the first time. And I was so like the last couple years I had been preaching that woman. I love her, and then she blew up, and I was like, god damn it, like I have loved this lesbian drag queen for three years, and now she's super famous, and you can't go around being like, Well, I liked her before she was cool, because then you just sound ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Sure, you can, but you did though.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

I know that's no, I'm being a hypocrite right now, but I've had to just accept, like, okay, it's fine. I like chaperone, just like every woman in my demographic. I have to learn to accept this. Oh well.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yeah, they're in a bigger pool now, and then you'll get the people that you get from there, and they'll say that they know that artist and they understand it where it's from, but it's different. No, I get it. It's it's almost like a high school thing, maybe in some way, depending on how personalized you feel like your your artist uh list is. I mean, like I get I love Pearl Gym, and um I get offended. Offended when people are like, are they still around? I'm like, yeah. And they're great, and I love them.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

And also, I feel like not letting popularity be the ultimate turnoff for me is difficult. Like when Bratt by Charlie XX came out, it's like, okay, that's not really my style. It's blowing up, it's everywhere, but I'm still gonna listen to it. And then I honestly really love it, and I think it's a very fun, smart album. But just trying to let myself go out of the range of like what I have decided I'll like.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

And which leads to playlists that are utter chaos. And apparently everyone I listen to has the same vibe, but that vibe does not mean genre. My playlists are just bouncing around.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah, and I could see that of like I think uh vibes can also uh can also just inform about whoever the the playlist maker is.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

And it's also just all really sad. I love sad music.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Well, it's it's like I had said before, but um and I'm quoting somebody else, but uh it was Towns Van Zant was getting interviewed by somebody, and the reporter said, A lot of your songs are are sad. And Towns Van Zant said, Well, don't you think life is sad?

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Well, my favorite, one of my favorite Towns Van Zant stories, one of my little brothers is named after Towns, so that's another family thing. Um, but he would play Waiting Around to Die, you know, his super depressing song about a man who is strung out on an addiction and has never had any love in his life, and nothing has ever gone well for him. And he would follow that immediately with a cover of the shrimp song by Ellis Presley in an effort to balance it out. And I I'll say that a gig sometimes kind of just tell that the story because I think it is so funny.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

But you do, it's true, you do have to balance it out in that way. There's there's sweet and sour stuff, and there's peaks and valleys, and you know, not I I'm sure people would say that the cure kind of stick to their guns in their way of melancholy, you know, lovelorn based things. But they have a style and they have a format, but that isn't to say that every single song that they do sounds the same. And it always kind of bugs me when people say that all their songs sound the same, and I'm like, well, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Do you mean like that's also losing nuance because if you listen to Friday I'm in love, like the original Cure version, and then you listen to Phoebe Bridgers version, it is you suddenly realize that the Care are pretty upbeat in comparison, because her cover of that song is depressing as hell.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Which is probably I feel like artists just do that well, and and I think that's also a sign of a good cover, or when somebody kind of reinterprets it and they make it their own, and you're like, wow, he really either you like pepped it up too much or you suck the fun out of it. But they put their own thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

I really like that cover, but generally that type of indie band does a cover of popular song. Like I think the head and the heart, no, not the head and the heart. Iron and wine does a version of Time After Time that drives me nuts. Because they slow it down, they make it so depressing, it loses all meaning, it loses all they just turn it into another indie song. But I love Iron and Wine, and I think Tum Time After Time is a super fun song, but that combination is horrific.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

What did you think of well, since I know you're a Dylan fan and and I am a I am a Robert Zimmerman fan as well. Um what did you think of that? It was like a four-disc album that came out, I want to say it was in 2011, 2012. Um, it had so many artists on it that were reinterpreting a lot of his songs.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Did you I've never listened to that in great detail because I feel like I've like flipped through it, but I think there are so many good Dylan cover albums. Joan Baez being obvious, Odeta is also has great Dylan covers. Where I wasn't quite as interested in as hearing in hearing a variety of artists tap into it. Like there are some albums along those lines I love. Like I own uh Women Sing Waits re record like on vinyl that I really love that I'm pretty sure Matador put out a couple years ago. Okay. That's that's really fun. One of my first memories of like vinyl records is my parents had Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows, like the John Prime tribute album back when he was still alive on vinyl. And that has like a broken heart cover, and as a kid I loved that album and I loved that cover art. And it's fun to return to now because I had no idea who John Pryne was at that point.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

But I think there's always when you're getting into those I I think that's where I get into like re reassessing who the original artist was when I hear like a cover um that that kind of spins you on your head or makes you look at it from a different angle, which is always a great thing. And I think it's also an accreditation to the the original songwriter of that somebody is able to do that. And I think that's why Dylan stuff, whether you there's plenty of people that don't like Mr. Mr. Robert because of his voice, and I understand that too. Um but it's so funny to me.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

They should grow up. That's my official name.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of uh I don't like some people's regular speaking voices, you know. I still have to listen to whomever they they ever they're talking to. Um but no, it's so funny to me because like the Beatles, whether or not you like the Beatles, you can't deny their influence in the same way we've got to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Or I used to have a huge anti-Beatles kick. Now I've grown up like just been like, oh well, it is what it is. I have to listen to the Beatles. There are songs I really like. They did a lot from music, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

I I think approaching it from like a historical perspective, too.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

But it's also interesting to me, kind of the ways in which we do value like men and white men versus I think Jody Mitchell made just as much of an impact as Bob Dylan, but no one's preaching Jody Mitchell.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

She's getting her due now, which is really actually great to see.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

But she also did a bunch of really problematic stuff. I'm sure she'll get canceled for like six years.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Oh, yeah. And well, and that's I think that's already come around too. I think with any artists, that is bound to happen because all of our cultural awareness shifts over time. And I think now because we live in the age that we do, 2025, when this is being recorded, everything moves so quickly and so fast, and I think it's very easy for people to be like trying to hold both things in hand, like Jody Mitchell did some really messed up stuff that she needs to be held accountable for, but also accepting that like there are even if it wasn't a product of that time, it had relation to that time.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

But also like she was a really influential musician who did really interesting things, and she doesn't quite get the credit she deserves because she's a woman, even if at the same time you can see ways in which she negatively impacted other minorities, and it's all really hard, complicated lines to walk.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

I think it always is, especially when you're um when you're writing those songs and when you're sharing that art in that way, you're sharing it from your perspective and how you're ingesting um information and and how it's how it's coming through.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

And kind of on the concept of covers, I think it's really interesting now that I am a giggartist and I'm playing live. I've expected to play a bunch of covers, especially at bars.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

And I'm still Brown Eyed Girl, right? And what what would be another one? Um I'm just trying to think of like quick bag song song things. Brown eyed girl, uh what's another Freebird. Free bird, well, that one.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

I love yelling play free bird at people.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

I used to do that on purpose. Like I learned that song on purpose, or I had like cheat sheets for it, but I wouldn't do like the whole solo thing, but I would play the song acoustically.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

But I think it's interesting because I think of myself as someone who writes originals first and then trying to be like, okay, how do I do covers that people like, but they're still authentic to me?

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Um how do you?

SPEAKER_00 42:06

I'm still figuring that one.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Yeah, because I was I was seeing you play um a uh The Towns of Van Sant uh Waiting Around to Die song, and I That's not a crab pleaser. No, well, no, it's not a crab pleaser. Obviously, you can't dance to that. Well, maybe you could if you like sped it up a bit. That's really the secret ingredient. Just just speed up your picking or whatever and get it so that people are tapping their toes, and it doesn't matter what you're singing about. But in watching you play that, I was like, no, this this is like this is Cena doing it. I know Cena. I mean it helps that I've heard you before. I mean, it's more in it would probably be more interesting to me of if somebody latched onto you playing that song and then they heard the original version and were like, oh, that's completely different than the way you did it.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

And there's kind of I have a Google Doc on my phone, and half the covers are stuff I'm confident I could play at a dive bar and people would be into it. And then the other half is stuff I could play at like more listening room settings or more like indie vibes. And I'm still kind of working on adding to that list of dive bar covers and figuring out ways of like how can I make this fun, but I can also still keep up with the fact that I'm the one playing it and I'm the one performing it.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Well, and you want to make it interesting for you, right? You don't want to be going through the motions.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

I don't want I don't want to be singing brown-eyed girl, unless I can make it like edgy or weird or gay or something. I don't want to be the one playing it.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Yeah, I I think that's always the thing that you'd need to, you know, approach it as from an artist's perspective of how can I make this song sound like me? I've heard so many people say, whether non-musicians or otherwise, uh, they're like, Oh yeah, it sounded, you know, when I saw this band live, they sounded just like the album. I'm like, that's that can be good, but it's also like, don't you want dynamics? Don't you want Not that they're not doing that stuff, but don't you want kind of the variation of that that live experience?

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Yeah, and when I'm playing, I want to be present, which I know is a very cliche thing to say. But I feel like to be present you have to like what you're doing. And I feel like that is the answer, the solution to capitalism slash ending capitalism. If we all just started liking what we were doing, I think it would be a the world would be significantly better. Like you know the meme with the dolphins?

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Yeah. Wait, no, I don't.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

It's like the dolphins in the it's like a Lisa Frank like rainbowish sky. Okay. And Symphony is playing where it's like the really annoying 2008 Pop song, and it's like Life If fill in the blank.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

If we all started liking what we were doing, rather than me liking that we were paid to do what we're doing, I feel like it would be the dolphins and the rainbow sunset.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

It would help, yeah. And what is it? They have, I mean, the I think it's the uh the phraseology of like uh work to live and not live to work, or it's the other way around. Live to work and not work to live. We we have the priority screwed up in that way. And yeah, I guess it's important now to as my therapist says, it's important to like know when to zoom in and zoom out.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Yeah, and I like writing sad girl music, but I also like having a good time, and I feel like those are that is a balance I've had to learn about myself.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Would you say that most of your songs are quote unquote sad girl music?

SPEAKER_00 45:37

I mean, I say that mostly as a joke about how that whole genre gets written off in that derogatory way. Um but at the same time, yeah, they kind of are, but I'm okay with that, and I'm also okay with it like I'm okay with writing sad music but not being a sad person. And I think that can still fit the brand.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Um, it's interesting to me though, in regards to that genre or that idea of that genre. I saw Mitsuki at Merriweather over the summer, and it was interesting because I feel like she always gets put under that umbrella. Do you are you familiar with Mitsuki?

SPEAKER_01 46:16

I'm not, no.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

She's like electro folk singer-songwriter. Okay. She's a performance artist.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

I'm in when you said electro folk.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

She's pretty popular on she's had a couple songs trend on TikTok. Okay. But those songs, like, they get cut down in such ways where they act like the whole song is simple when it's not. Her work is incredibly complicated. And it's not about being a young woman. She is a middle-aged woman at this point. She is Japanese American. She is embodying like all these different things that people are just like, oh, she's sad.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Meanwhile, when you listen to her work again, that goes back to the label thing. Yeah, but what is it? But what genre are you? So she's sad.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

And it's just so interesting where her work is about as philosophical as anyone's is, and you never hear people saying that.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Well, no, because I think, again, we need the we need the the short answer. We need the easily label thing. Is this a bag of chips or is this not? Or is it all of the ingredients that are listed on the back? And again, I think that's where it's important to know where to like zoom in and out. But I think it also is like in the way that, you know, people uh approach and uh listen to music. I mean, like my dad, he's my dad's not a musician, um, but you know, I understand where he's coming from when I ask him what type of music he likes, and he's like, you know, something with like a driving beat and like a heart. And I'm like, so like something with rhythm and tempo to it.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Um over the summer, I was in the car with my dad and my brother. One of my brothers, I have three, but beside the point, and my little brother just kept describing the genre of ska. Like, oh, I really like what it's like, fast-paced electric guitar with trumpets and the vocal sound like this. And we were like, oh, so screw You mean ska? And he was like, No, no, no, it's not. What are you talking about? I don't know what ska is. And we were like, what you have on right now? It's ska. He was like, no, I don't, I don't know. Finally, we convinced him he liked ska, but it took way too long considering he just kept putting on ska music.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

All of the stuff you've been playing is ska.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

I'm sorry to break it to you. Your diagnosis has been good to do. You like ska.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

That's kind of come up as a resurgence too, and not even a resurgence, but just kind of as a joke. I was watching a movie, and that was like what they landed on was one of the I don't know, somehow they they were tearing down ska, and I have nothing against it, but it's just so funny in terms of trends. I guess they did that with disco too. I didn't grow up in the in the screen.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

I love disco. I'm fine with ska, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Um what was I? I I think to the point of like ska or or the labeling uh well, I I mean I would imagine again that goes back to the artist though, too, of being frustrated with like, how dare you put us in this this thing. I mean, it was the same with grunge, and I think I don't think any of the bands that that I'm a fan of ever once said that they were grunge or is classified because I think that was made up for them in the first place. Nobody I mean, because it needs to be, because records have to be sold and everything like that. And now we're certainly in an interesting time where there's enough genres that exist where there's like there's so many different um genre. I guess you would call them mashups, but not as much mashups as in blending of I I forget uh um I'm gonna show my age or just complete uh uh unintelligence with, but there's somebody who they do like pop songs, but then their choruses are only like new metal-ish and down tuned and everything like that. I don't know if I'm uh I don't know who specifically it is, but just that in and of itself of like that their music is a cross between 90s pop and then also 90s new metal, which is like I think it's all really interesting how that works.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Like I saw a Rainbow King's surprise a couple months ago, and that's a fun band because Again, no idea who that is.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

They have these kind of folk lyrics based off of the name.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

They have these kind of folky lyrics, but they have they're also rock, but they're playing with pop a lot, and some of their songs use autotune. But it was one of the most fun concerts I've ever been to, because even though it's all very depressing for the most part. Um at some point, this one guy chu like one of their their guitarists chugged the beer and then used the beer to as a slide.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Oh yeah, I've seen that.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

And I was like, hell yeah, man, like this is what we're doing. And at the same time, the audience was like, I don't know how to just this isn't a helpful thing to say on a podcast, but they were all dressed exactly how I dress. Okay. Where it was like the bright and colorful, but like a little grungy, but also like kind of feminine, and it was just such a VUD show because people were dancing around, but it was also still like interesting, kind of dark music, but just the overlap of everything made it fantastic. But I could not put a genre on that.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Is there stuff that you're working with now as an artist in terms of your songwriting where you're like, I don't know if I want to go there genre-wise yet? Or have you put like a like a no-no list of like I will not do these types of songs or I will not have this type of instrument uh instrument?

SPEAKER_00 51:53

My thing is if I play it and I like it, I'm gonna keep it. And if I play it and I don't like it, then I'm not gonna keep it. Where I don't think anything's off limits. It just depends on if it feels like it works.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yeah. And well, and how when does it feel like it works?

SPEAKER_00 52:10

For the most part, I haven't had that much room to experiment because I don't have a band and I'm still like making my way up the musical ladder of access to resources. Right. But for instance, I have an omnicord, like one of those synthesizer instrument things, and I love that thing to death. But I don't play it with it live that often because I've or ever, because I don't think it adds to most of the music I play. But at the same time, at home, I'm messing around with it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

I don't know. I'm intrigued based up, but you know what that is though, too? I think that's just from well, me personally, I I mean, and I think anybody, you go to enough open mics uh for musicians, and if everybody has an acoustic guitar, you're like, okay, I get it. Like I can't get it. But then cool, when somebody comes on with literally anything else, even a ukulele, people are like, ooh.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Like something new?

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

Are you gonna say new things? Is it gonna make new sounds?

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Yeah, it it really can be as as simple as that.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Yeah. And there are a lot of ways I want to switch things up. Like, I was in an a cappella group for a whopping one semester. Um, and I'd really love to like incorporate some of that sound into my music, but not in like a cheesy pitch perfect way. But that's something that's down the road. Or I love playing with drums when I get the chance to, but that's down the road. And kind of all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

So when you're writing these though, are you thinking about these things and kind of sidebarring of well, this could be here?

SPEAKER_00 53:46

I think I heard an interview with Carrie and her strum shovels in Rome, and she said this at some point or something along these lines. But like, if the song doesn't work without the produ without production, it doesn't work. So usually when I'm writing music, I'm not thinking about, oh, one day when I get to record it, this is what I want it to sound like. I'm usually just like, does it work with the guitar? Can I sing this and feel good about this? At the next step and mic and go to okay, I'm dead.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

I always feel like when I see people play acoustic versions of their songs, because very often, you know, it's very hectic at an open mic for people to bring a whole band up or whatever. Um, but they're like, Yeah, check out the studio version or my, you know, the the whatever streaming version, it's got a whole band on it and everything. And I'm like, I feel like sometimes they're being apologetic for that, and it's like, that's okay. Like if if people are responding to the case, it's working by itself, then don't play it. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I want to say. But again, I can't be in those people's head spaces. But sometimes to me, I'm like, are they apologizing or what are they uh I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

Yeah, I think I hate to admit this, but I was in an improv group almost all of college. Uh, I was vice president. Anyway. Ugh. But at the same time, learning to be on stage, and you can make such a fool of yourself, and none of the jokes ever land. But if you apologize or you make a joke about how bad it is, it's gonna be so much worse. Agreed. You're just gonna keep going. Yeah. I think it should be required for all performing musicians to be in one improv show. Yeah. Cause n you don't get stage fright after that, because nothing can go worse than that.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah, that's probably it. Well, and I I even remember that from when I used to do theater, and um our our teachers would say, like, look, if you guys biff a line, like, don't let the audience know that you fucking biffed a line. Don't be like, whoopsie, or whatever, don't look at the deer in the head, just kind of rolling.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Everyone's like, I could be doing anything else but watching this. Yeah. Which is me, because everyone makes mistakes, but at the end of the day, that's where your head goes.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Yeah. And and I guess that's kind of the Did you have an issue with that of Stage Fright or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 56:00

I've been on stage since I was like eight. So stage fright has never been super major for me, but definitely after doing improv, I was like, well, I'm less worried about things going wrong now because it can't go worse.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Yeah. I think well, and wrapping it up, Asina, what would you say to somebody who was just getting into listening to music in terms of how would they where does one start?

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Wow. Okay, so there's an alien who's flown down and they're like, hey, what do I how do I get into music?

SPEAKER_01 56:39

This is for them.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Okay, cool. Um I feel like so much of music is just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. Or I feel like if you're an alien who just got down here, A, good luck. B, you just gotta start listening to stuff. Find like just click down the YouTube music video rabbit hole until you're like, okay. Like I remember when I decided I wanted to start liking music, I would just watch Beyonce music videos all the time. That's not something I would do now. But kind of watching those music videos led me to other music videos and like going to record stores and seeing if you've live I happen to live by a record store and they always have like free records outside. And I'll just be like, okay, I would never listen to this, but I'm going to. I just feel like being experimental and seeing what sticks and not limiting yourself to like, well, I'm an alien, this is what I should listen to.

SPEAKER_01 57:44

So almost being like experimentally intentional?

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Yeah. Putting yourself in places to grow rather than just being like, well, everyone listens to Taylor Swift on this planet, so that's what I'm gonna listen to. And if it doesn't click, then you don't have to force yourself to like it.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Love that. Thank you, Cena. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for listening. If you feel so inclined, leave a nice review, give a thumbs up, share it with your friends, your mom, your dad, your dog, your ex boyfriend, your ex girlfriend, your future wife, your future dog. Really appreciate it. Keep supporting local music. I'll see you later.