Review Fix chats with Yes You Are’s Kianna Alarid and Jared White who discuss their careers in music and their goals for their current EP.
Review Fix: How’d you get involved in music?
Jared: Nothing else was working. I was directionless and didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. So one night while working at a print shop alone and feeling lost and bewildered, in desperation I googled the word “direction”. The first item I saw was an article about a documentary called “No Direction Home†about Bob Dylan. There it was! In my darkest hour I had petitioned the internet for guidance and it had obliged me by giving me a clear answer: I was apparently supposed to become a songwriter and a follower of Bob Dylan. That same month, I heard Bob Dylan’s song ‘Forever Young’ on Pepsi’s Superbowl commercial.Seven years later I got to hear our song ‘HGX’ on Pepsi’s Superbowl commercial. It’s been a long, strange ride.
Kianna: My career in music fell into my lap in a way, naturally and innocently. Just hanging out playing music with friends basically led to a record deal and an amazing team that took my former band, Tilly and the Wall, around the world, playing incredible shows and doing awesome things. Right place, right time and the best friends you could ever ask for. Years later, that band went on hiatus and I had a violent, apocalyptic type of life changing revelation that I was meant to do a lot more than I’d originally bargained for. That’s what happened when I met Jared.
Review Fix: Who influences your sound the most?
Kianna: We never chase or even preconceive of any particular sound. We just write the songs and try to make them as strong as possible. The song will eventually find its own sound and we usually just know it when it happens. Without a doubt, there are artists and writers who inspire us to be creative and make songs. Bob Dylan is definitely the most influential of that bunch.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Jared: It’s definitely a strange thing. It seems like when songs need to be written they find a way to get written. You can’t force it. I wish you could… but we’re at the mercy of the muse.
Kianna: Hahha, totally! ..But to elaborate for anyone interested: Typically our songs will originate with one of us and then be passed to the other, to run through their filter. This can be done in many different ways. For example, Jared is always compiling pages of words, ideas, lines and lyrics. If I have a song going, a melody and a track, I might pull up this treasure trove and start to sprinkle it in as I see fit. I may have my own feeling as to what the song is about already, or his words may conjure up a feeling of what it’s about, so I’ll add my own words to his and we’re off! Possibly, Jared has a song going with melody, parts, and lyrics, but once I start to demo it I take it in a totally new direction. It might come in as a folky rock song but I’ll scrap the instrumental track completely and create a totally different track underneath, turning it into something much more like an experimental dance song. It can also, just as easily, happen an infinite number of other ways. The important thing is that, no matter which way it happens, the whole thing, once combined, takes on a life of its own. We pull ideas and words from meaningful places and experiences, and then allow ourselves to be guided as to which way they go together.
Review Fix: What makes your new Single special?
Kianna: We think HGX is special, because you can find yourself in it. A lot songs out there will tell you about who the singer or the writer is, but this song also tells you about who you are too.
Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
Kianna: We sound like an alternative dimension pop/rock band.
Review Fix: Bottom line, why should someone buy it?
Kianna: You should buy this song, ‘HGX’ because it’s bound to be the song of your summer! … and winter!
Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of the year?
Kianna: Our main focus is on finishing our debut album and building a great team to take the next steps upward. We believe we have some big songs and we can’t wait for the world to hear them.
Review Fix: What do you feel you have to do to make your dreams in music come true?
Kianna: If I had one piece of advice to give about that it would be to commit to your dream fully and get on the beam. Try to never fall off of it, with all of your focus, stay on that beam. If you fall off, get up and get right back on it, do not go get on a different beam.
Leave a Reply