tunesday – first times, last times with felivand
We sat down with FELIVAND ahead of the release of her new album – 'my body's my true north' – to discuss her first times and last times.
Tell us about the first time you wrote a song. My journey with songwriting began really young, but it showed up in the form of play first. I used to play with Polly Pockets and these other toys I can’t remember the name of, and I would create performances with them where I would use song to narrate and "soundtrack" their experiences. Kind of like a musical, I would write lyrics where there would be dialogue and sing their lines. I did this by using the little beats and recording layer options on my Yamaha PSR-290 keyboard at the time. I can’t remember how old I was – maybe eight or nine.
The first “proper,” structured, full-length song I wrote at the piano was when I was 11 – I wrote it about my sister. So, songwriting has always felt intrinsic and natural to me and was always a way I expressed myself without really knowing it or consciously deciding to do so.
What was the first time you went to a live music show? The first live show I ever went to was in 2013, at Trinity Church Hall seeing La Dispute. It was kind of a mix between spoken word poetry and metal – yep, I had a big metal phase in my early teens. It was the first time I had gone to something without my parents, so it felt like a big deal – I was super nervous. It was in a beautiful but kind of harrowing church with a really high domed glass ceiling over the stage area. I had also never seen a group of young people mixed in with older people like that before (it was an all-ages show), let alone everyone looking a bit punky.
I remember how it felt to have music hit my body like that from such big speakers – it was a feeling I’d never felt before. I remember it feeling so shocking to my body, like I was vibrating. At the end of the show, I thought it couldn’t really get much better, but then I found the guitarist’s pick on the floor – it somehow got left behind – and I still have it to this day, safe in my memory box.
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What was the moment you first realised you wanted to pursue music as a career? Honestly, it feels like it unfolded quite naturally and gradually for me and there wasn’t a specific moment. It felt like I was pulled into it rather than me pushing myself onto it, if that makes sense. When I graduated high school, I wanted to study visual art and become a painter. During those last years of high school, I was teaching myself how to produce and make beats on GarageBand during my lunch breaks, and I would upload these songs to SoundCloud – completely unmixed, unmastered (I didn’t know what that even was at the time). They randomly gained a lot of traction on SoundCloud, and YouTube bloggers started using them in their videos. I was getting asked a lot if my music was purchasable or available on other streaming platforms, and it was around that period where I was like, “Oh, maybe I could put it in other places for people,” and just keep doing that indefinitely.
I never had those thoughts of "I want to be famous" or "I want to be a star" – honestly, fame is kind of the least favourable part about a career in music to me, as I don’t think fame is something humans are really designed to know how to deal with. After uploading to SoundCloud, I started uploading to other platforms too, and I just never stopped. I got progressively more serious, driven and passionate about it, to the point where I decided not to go to university and just get all of my experience firsthand in the industry and in performance spheres.
What was the first album you ever fell in love with? I first started venturing into my own music – and not just what my parents listened to – when I got my first CD player. I would go shopping at Sanity CD store (bring it back) and at thrift stores. I found Frogstomp by Silverchair in a thrift store, and that was the first album I listened to on repeat – it was right up my alley at the time. When I was a bit older, I got an MP3 player and discovered James Blake’s Overgrown, which completely revolutionised my world. I fell absolutely wholeheartedly in love with it and that style of dark, melancholic electronic production. I remember so vividly the feeling of admiration at how someone had created this world I could step into when I listened to it. That was irreplaceable inspiration to me and definitely shaped me as an artist.
What was the first creative hobby you pursued (successfully or otherwise)? Outside of music, I was actually a really devoted sketcher and painter. I loved visual art, and I used to think that would be my career when I was older. I used to sell artworks, and I was sketching every day and always working on something in my parents’ garage. Now, it’s something I get to enjoy and do for myself and for my friends. I don’t do it as much as I’d like, but I know it’s always a part of me. So, I find the visual side of music (music videos, graphic design, photoshoots) super exciting and fun and a way for me to incorporate my passion for visual arts into my career.
Tell us about the first time you played a live gig. I did my first FELIVAND show at a small upstairs bar in the Valley when I was 17, which felt a bit naughty and exciting because I wasn’t technically allowed to be in there. I had zero expectations, and the entire experience felt foreign. Even though I had been performing on stages, at open mics, and busking for years before that, being in a dimly lit room with people there to see you and the night that you’ve curated is a whole other ballgame of performance, creative expression and nerves. It was the first time I performed a setlist of my original music with the live band I’d put together at the time, and seeing people swaying, connecting and being present with me in that moment changed me forever. I had a ball of light in my chest that felt like it was lit that night, and it has been emanating ever since.
When was the last time you wrote an album? The last time I wrote an album was the one I finished at the start of this year – it’s called, my body’s my true north and it comes out next month on July 18th. Conceptually, the album comes back to trusting feeling over thought, and the journey I went through over the past two years in therapy of learning to trust my body, intuition and feelings and what they are pointing towards, rather than trying to outsmart them. When I listen to what my body’s telling me, it feels like an unwavering light at the end of the tunnel, an orienting point – something fixed like a "true north" – while everything else around it spins. When I follow thought, I’m in with everything else that’s spinning. Creatively, I leant into this process by not setting any rules or boundaries for myself in terms of the sound or desired outcome, prioritising doing what felt right in each recording session and wherever that led me – even if it felt "off track". It feels expansive and freeing as my second body of work, and I’d say it's one to listen to when you’re in solitude, in transit, or feeling unsettled. I'm very excited for it to be out in the world.
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When was the last time you felt inspired? I feel like I’ve been sitting in a lot of inspiration recently. I’ve been feeling that feeling that comes around every blue moon, where you feel exactly where you’re meant to be. A particular moment recently where I felt inspired was when I saw Mk.Gee live at Max Watts and Nils Frahm at Hamer Hall in Melbourne/Naarm. Interestingly enough, for the same reasons – their use of light in their shows.
Mk.Gee’s utilised it in a way to enhance the anonymity and mysteriousness of the performance, and Nils Frahm’s was synced in a way I hadn’t seen before. That’s the whole point of stage lighting – to sync with and emphasise the sounds you’re hearing visually – but it hit me differently because they weren’t typical stage lights, they were hanging lights. They were kind of like those ones you get installed in your ceiling on the black wires. I’d never seen lights used so accurately, precisely and effectively without any use of colour – just warms and whites. They were the fastest, most accurate strobing and flickering I’d ever seen, and as a solo performer relying entirely on looping and analogue synths and piano, it felt like there was almost another entity working alongside him – the space.
When was the last time someone cooked a meal for you? I went over to my friends’ house – who I’m grateful to also call my neighbours – and they made a beautiful brunch. It was a collaborative effort from two of my friends. One made homemade focaccia, garlic soy greens, and homemade labneh – she wasn’t happy with how the focaccia turned out, but it was incredible, fluffy and perfectly salted. The other made breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs, hash browns and mushrooms. Both suited their personalities perfectly. We ended up putting all the ingredients on one burrito and it was delicious and fresh. We sat in the backyard, under the banana tree and autumn sun, and ate it in silence.
This interview comes straight from the pages of issue 126. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.