Sean & Soph Catchup Podcast - CAL: GETTING TO KNOW IRIS

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

Stoked to get the opportunity to chat with Iris who is a singer/songwriter born in New Zealand and is pursuing her dreams over in Los Angeles.  You can stream her new song Hypnotized - OUT NOW And Follow the socials - @edgenights@itscalpayne@irisofficialmusic

This is a podcast from Rover. I am joined right now on Zoom, a few technical issues, but we made it with Iris. Hello, Iris. Hey, what's up? I'm very excited for this. Now, I feel like there's a lot to unpack here. So tell us a little bit about yourself, because you're a Kiwi, right? Yes, Born and Raise, New Zealand.

So, oh, that's flashback. I mean, yeah, born in Auckland. I was born in 1999. and I always kind of had the ambition to be a musician, a singer, ever since I said of watching Hannah Montana. So, yeah, I had my sights set. And I always wanted to move to L.A., honestly. And I think just, you know, I over years of being into music and writing songs and learning

a bunch of instruments, I'm here now in L.A. And obviously, long story short, but yeah, I've been making music and releasing music for the last three years and it's been going really well so far. So it's exciting. Yeah, man, that's cool. So how long have you been in L.A. for? Like, how long ago did you move? So, well, I first came out here in 2020 with a friend.

And I moved officially last year. I got my 01 visa, which means that I can be here for three years. And then I just renew it or go for my green card. So that was a whole process in itself, literally. Using the Esta visa, which is just the three-month visa, that was what I was on for, like, the first few years of while I was working out here. so yeah I had to kind of accumulate like some things to make me look like I was legit as an artist for the government to like approve me to get the O-1 visa so yeah I grew my

social media and I had some people that I met kind of signed for me that I was going to be doing music out here and yeah so that was like a long process but totally worth it around 2020 right that would have because you're on TikTok right I feel like that's where a lot has kind of fucked up. How did that kind of like start? Did you just see TikTok and you were like, this is a great opportunity for me to like market myself? Is that how you kind of use it or you just use it for fun and then it just happened to work out kind of thing? I never went to both, honestly. Like when the app first came around, I obviously thought like, oh, this is for young people. Like this isn't really my thing. But then I realized that it was definitely a great source for

marketing and for promoting myself. I'm getting my face out there is one of the apps at the time that was actually giving exposure to new faces and stuff. So, So I kind of jumped on it as soon as I learned about it. And I felt like really cringe every time I post the video. But it really did help me, especially with my first song, away with you. It did pretty well. I had like 10,000 videos made for that one song.

So I ended up getting like a few million streams. And the music video did well too. So it helped a lot with that and kind of getting me off the ground. And that was a big thing that helped with my visa too with the numbers on there. So. And also live streaming. I live stream like pretty much every night on TikTok. and Instagram.

So that's really helped me build my audience as well. Live streaming's funny. I used to do it because I, I, I, okay, this is, see, this is cringe. See, I make, like, TikTok videos as well. Like, I fucking love TikTok. I think it's so much fun. I had, like, the stupidest video ever. And the thing about TikTok is, like, sometimes you can upload something.

Nothing happens. Sometimes you can upload another thing that you wouldn't think goes big. My biggest one has 40 million views. And it's, I'm sorry. What is it? What is it? I'm not out of trying to flex. And the funny thing is it's just basically like, pick a number between one and ten.

Now pick your favorite color. Got it? And then I was like, fuck you. And that blew up. Like, it's so crazy. Like, it's such a... It's the most random things you would never... When you don't try.

You have to not try. That's the thing. 100%. You can have a brilliant idea because it's probably not going to work on TikTok. It has to just be completely spur of the moment, show your personality. Yeah. And I'm kind of annoyed as well because that was one... Like, that one, I like just woke up from a nap, like, look like absolute shit.

And that's the... the one that gets the most views, I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah. My face is out. My face is out. Honestly. Yeah. Back to, like, moving to L.A. and stuff, did you have friends over there before you move? Because moving from, like, New Zealand over to L.A. to pursue something.

It's, like, a big thing. It's not just like, you know, a lot of people around New Zealand these days are all, like, jumping over to Australia. So you hear about people moving. But moving to L.A. to pursue something like music is so crazy. So did you have people over there to start with to kind of get you into it? Or was it just you went there alone and you were like, let's see what happens? Honestly, knew nobody, absolutely nobody. Had no connections, no people I knew at all.

I just had my mindset, like I said, since I was a really little kid. And I just thought, you know what, I'll just go out there for three months and see what happens. And my friend was willing to come with me, so that was cool. So I wasn't completely alone. She came with me and we did the journey us together, which I'm super glad about because obviously it's kind of, you know, it's a big city. It's, you've got to be careful. So I'm grateful that she came.

And yeah, throughout that trip, I kind of just connected with different producers. And I just tried to do the most that I could by getting myself out there and making some connections while I was here. And then in the last two weeks, I met the producer that I'm currently working with now and also making films with. So he supported me throughout this whole journey. And, yeah, just being such a help and motivated throughout this whole journey. It's amazing. That's awesome. Did you say you're making films with him?

Yes. Yeah. So he's a director as well as a producer. And I've learned so much. so much throughout this process because since I've been independent since I've come out here I've had to learn a lot like I either my own music videos and stuff and he's taught me a lot with editing coloring like making score sound for movies as well because I helped with his he had a movie coming out that he just made and I helped score it wow and then so we decided for my upcoming

project which I've released a couple of singles from it's my latest album that's going to drop later this year. So we have a whole film for it. And yeah, so it's basically about the whole story of the album. That's cool. It's not a documentary. It's like it's a full narrative film, but the soundtrack is the album. So it's very much just kind of like a euphoria or something like that where the music

leads the story, but it's not a music video. It's very much still like a narrative film. So, yeah, you're excited about that. My most like kind of street, you know how you have Spotify wrapped at the end of the Yeah, they tell you like what kind of stuff. My number one, like, music genre I always listen to is like movie soundtracks. Like, movie scores? I fucking love movie score.

Movies, movie, soundtracks. What's your favorite movie score? I have to say the favorite score. Oh, it's so, I actually love the Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, a star was born. Wow. That hit. Great movie. Great movie.

That's so good. Okay, so let's talk about this album then that you're working on. How long have you been working on this album that's coming out at the end of the year? total probably I mean it's being finished now for over a year actually but because we made a whole film for it I didn't want to release it before the film was out so it took me about probably a year to make it was all of like last year I'm sorry the end of the previous year so 2021 going into 2022 right that was kind of it was made um and so basically my process is just either me or my producer will just make like a beat or some chords on the piano or something and then I'll just go on the mic and kind of vocalize some melodies and And then I'll go in and kind of figure out what the melodies feel like or what it inspires lyric-wise. And then I write the song. And then I was going through quite a lot at that time mentally. So the album was very much focused on a certain mental health struggle that I was dealing with.

And so the narrative film was kind of circled around that loosely. Right. It's not fully. It's like it's more of just like a psychological drama, you know. So it's not fully about the topic. but it's, you know, it's like a metaphor. Right. Yeah. I don't want to give it too much way.

So I'm kind of keeping it like. Do you find it hard because you say that like, you know, you've been sitting on the music now for about like a year, like it's all finished? Do you find it so hard to like have that there and you're like, I'm not ready to share it yet, but I want everyone to hear like, do you like show it to your mates and all that kind of stuff? Like, because I're 100% literally like because I have SoundCloud like playlists on playlist of songs that I just make all the time and upload.

And like each one has like 200, listen. and it's all just me. Like, do you like this? Like, I always get opinions from other people because I'm so in it that I just can't, I almost isn't dead to it. You know what I mean? Like, I can't hear if it's actually what other people think of it. So I always want to get other people's opinions.

So I'm constantly sharing it with like my friends and my sister is actually here right now from New Zealand sang with me. So it's been really good. I've been showing her a bunch of the new music and she seems to really like it. So that's cool. And so obviously like living in LA, I feel like as a New Zealand who hasn't really like been and like stayed in LA. My idea of LA is like celebrities walking fucking everywhere.

Everywhere you look. There's oh my God, it's Ryan Gosling across the street and stuff. Have you bumped into any like big celebrities while you're over there? Well, funny, when I first came out here actually, one of the first producers I worked with invited me to a party and it ended up being in the hills and it was a it was actually, I don't know if you know great music. They did that song, why don't you just sleep me in the middle? Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so was at their house and they had

Tenimoe Monjo was there. I don't know to pronounce name. I fucking love her. I have like a video saved on my phone of her. The On God video. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, God, I'm going to find this. Hang on.

It's what she's talking about like Bryce. And, oh, hang on, I've got it right here. You know, we team Bryce out here. That's right. Even the paparazzi team Bryce. He's so funny. Yeah, she's hilarious. Yeah, so, and then I saw,

I saw Halsey at a coffee shop and Emma Chamberlain as well. Emma Chamberlain. I love Emma Chamberlain. Yeah, yeah. I've actually seen her a couple times. Do you say hi to her? You're just like, oh, this she was.

I didn't. I didn't. I at the time wasn't like, I didn't really know her that well. My sister was more of a fan, but I wish I did because she's super cool. Like, I would have loved to with me here. Okay, well, tell us about hypnotized. It's a beautiful song, but what's it about? Thank you.

Well, I kind of wrote it about the feeling that you get when you really are just really enchanted by somebody to the point where you fall into like this cloud nine type feeling you know super like Nirvana in a cloud with somebody but kind of like the downside of that

where you're so high that you don't realize that you're living in their world and it's almost like controlled by them instead of you you're kind of just like amuse instead of like your own being because you're so in love so that's what it means really it's kind of like the darkness the darkness of Nirvana.

Yeah. Wow, no, I love that. That's real deep feeling because I feel like every time I listen to a song, right? I never want to really like absorb it properly. Like I love listening to a song, but I kind of just like blazee listen to it rather than getting like deeper to the meaning. I have to be honest. So hearing like the meaning behind it like from the artist's perspective. Next time I listen to it, I'm going to be like, oh my God, I fucking get it.

I get it now. Thank you. So I can't like for that. That's actually why we wanted to do the film rather than a music video because we figured that, with these songs they all do have a very complex meaning and it all intertwines into one overall concept so I wanted to put that into more of a narrative-based thing so that it could be more understood by the audience because I agree like I connect with music so much more when I know the meaning or I feel what the artist is going through you know so yeah yeah hopefully it helps with

that yeah fingers cross that and um so you've got the album coming out at the end of the year um with the film which I like I didn't even know that was going to be a thing. I'm fucking excited for that now. That sounds great. Oh, thank you. I think that's such a cool concept. But are you going to be dropping any singles like before that or it's just you're leading up to that one point? Yes, I am actually. I'm shooting a music video very soon in the next two weeks I think for my next single, which is called Say My Name. So that's going to come out soon. And that's probably like the lead single from the album, I would say. It's pretty upbeat and fun. And yeah, it's going to have a pretty trippy concept music video to it.

Oh, okay, cool. No, I can't wait. I can't wait to play that one at the edge as well. All right, maybe. Thank you. I love that. Yeah, no worries. Well, thank you so much for your time, Iris.

I really appreciate it. I cannot wait to see this movie that you've been talking about and all the new music as well. And you're listening. Go stream hypnotize. It's out right now. And go follow Iris on all the socials. And yeah, thank you so much. This has been great.

We'll catch you for the next one.