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Here at Impact 89FM, our staff has the opportunity to interview a lot of bands, artists and other musicians. We're excited to be highlighting those conversations and exclusive live performances.
Hello, everyone. My name is Ash here with Impact eight nine FM. I'm the entertainment editorial assistant, and I was recently joined by an architect, both sonically and literally, Whitney Thai. We chatted ahead of the release of her third album, American Wasteland, and I am so excited to get to introduce her to you all. Going from architecture to music is it's a bit of a range.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can kind of understand. I went from also from actually doing music to writing for pretty much everything that I do. So there's definitely so many great things that studying something completely unrelated to your passions can do for you. And I was just wondering what it like, is there anything specific that you learned from your time studying architecture that you bring to your music?
Speaker 2:I would say that music is entirely architectural. I don't think there's any difference between them. It's if try to imagine a song, a song is an environment in itself, and there are things organized within that environment that make things harmonious, know, the way the notes are played, the way the frequencies are balanced, way the intensity of certain instruments, like everything is arranged in a way that is about harmony and architecture is the same thing, it is using Fibonacci and divine mathematics to achieve something that is so calming and soothing but yet expansive and palatable so I think if anything there was really no transition for me other than that I was doing things out in visual space that now I am now doing in a sonic space and it's the same treatment that you would go into designing a building versus designing a song. There are steps you need to take, the concept needs to be there, organization of ideas and then the rough drafts and then moving into the production of things which in design would be like schematics and developing the design, design development, so there's a lot of symmetry in architecture and music and the more I make songs the more I discover how similar both of them are and how I think very three dimensionally when I'm making music.
Speaker 2:I don't see notes as flat things on a paper, I see them as three-dimensional dancing elements inside of a world that is endless, with endless possibilities. And there's a lot of restraint as a designer and as a songwriter that you have to take. You have to be very subtractive if you want to write great music. You can't dump all your ideas in one space and expect that to be harmonious. You have to know when to cherry pick and put things in or out so that the final product is something that everyone can enjoy and not just the cacophony of your crazy head sometimes and all the things you want to jam inside of it.
Speaker 2:There is a bit of irony in how similar architecture and music is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's definitely sounds like you're taking the same approach just with almost a different medium. And, honestly, that's actually, like, a really great way to think about music. It's not just here's a bunch of things that exist on one plane, but there's so much more to it. It's definitely a really almost unique approach to it.
Speaker 1:But as you explained everything, it just makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, feels like it makes sense. I mean, in conversation, they do just isolate it as two elements. They do sound very polar. But when you when you when you start to see the world through the lens of everything being a quantum experience, things are no longer just at face value.
Speaker 2:There's a depth that goes beyond and I think if you go to any artistic medium, painting or drawing or sculpting even, you're literally creating something from nothing and that is what everything has in common. There was nothing there and you manifested something from the ether And I think that is a really cool power to wield and be proud of as any artist makes anything in this world.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I've also been experiencing the same thing with writing. You've gotten blank sheet of paper and then give it a little bit of massaging and suddenly you have characters dancing off of the page. And it's just really fascinating to see how this approach is so applicable to so many different fields.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never once regretted studying the arts, it's really helped me to expand my palette and being able to just go into things with such an open mind and challenge myself to think differently and I think as you grow in any field, to stay static or face a corner at some point is obviously something you want to avoid, but I just keep looking for new reasons and ways to keep inspiring me because it's just like a bottomless pit of inspiration when you start opening the channels in which you're receiving growth, whether that be from your past careers or the people you're working with or being given a box like we are now in this very limiting industry where artists are being deprived of their value. How can artists create value in a system that is trying to erase them and use them as a ploy so that other corporations can make money and profit off of our art. So I think artists need to be creative now more than ever. Like how can I build an empire within my own force field that doesn't subscribe to a very limiting sort of cheap cheapening of artistic endeavor?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's that's always, like, the biggest struggle is, like, finding that balance between what you want and what so many other people in the industry really want. And then backtracking a little bit, you mentioned that, we are almost like an amalgamation of all the people that we surround ourselves with. And you also mentioned, like, wanting to create music that inspires you. So I was just wondering, are there any artists that you find yourself particularly drawn to, whether it's from, like, a sonic standpoint, an aesthetic standpoint, or anything of that nature?
Speaker 2:I honestly I have so
Speaker 1:many
Speaker 2:inspirations sonically. I think for me, I could go on and on about artists and who I like sonically, but I think I always seem to draw most of my inspiration from nature itself. I try to imagine what lower or very unheard frequencies of outer space might sound like, or just even the falling of water droplets off of a leaf. There's so much detail in nature's sounds alone and I think nature is constant. Well, I know this for a fact, like nature is operating at such like substructural levels and emitting frequencies that we don't even know we're absorbing half the time, which is why I think music is so inherent and built into all of us because we're literally walking around absorbing the Earth's frequencies and vibrations.
Speaker 2:I'd like to think that I draw most of my sonic information and inspiration from nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, like, we also get to experience that even in a more classical space. John Cage, four minutes twenty two seconds. Literally no notes written. The music is the environment of what it inspires.
Speaker 1:So it's definitely really, really inspiring to actually see someone with a similar sort of approach to one of the greats of avant garde compositions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't I don't I think we forget how attached to nature we are. I think being in these big metropolis environments we're continually disconnected from our origin and what we come from and I think the more we go out and you know, hug the trees and just run around in nature and just be the little weird elves that we need to be, I think we'd find that most of the answers we're seeking are right in front of our face, whether they're philosophical or musical or just, you know, personal. Know that when I need to reset and just clear my palette, just I go in the forest or I take a hike or I try to just be around the flowers and the trees and I just I'm reminded of how much inspiration I can draw from as a writer and I don't like being derivative, I like music coming directly from the source and so I have many things that inspire me that have given me the strength to be a musician but I make sure that the conversation I'm always having with the people I'm sharing my music with is something that is coming directly from my heart space and not, trying to copy or mimic or any form of mimicry because I just want so desperately to be myself in a world that likes to silence the individuality of each person's.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of I guess that's the the long answer.
Speaker 1:It's it's honestly like something I find myself doing in my own creative processes. Thankfully, being from Michigan, we have so many really incredible beaches and waterfront locations. And you being from New York, now living in the LA area, is there any places nearby where you find yourself going to to get that sort of, like, rejuvenation, whether it's creatively, physically, spiritually, or anything of that sort?
Speaker 2:Yes. There are a few places I really love to go. Some I don't get to go as often because they're a little bit of a trek, but a local one that I like to go to is Malibu Creek State Park. It's like a really beautiful nature hike and it's got everything, it's got the lush trees, it's got the desert feel, it's got the running water and lots of interesting local flora and a lot of natural wild animals running around, so it has a little bit of everything, it feels almost like you're transported to a movie set and they did film a lot of movies in this hike, so I love going there and every time I go there I feel like it does hit a reset button for me where I'm like I don't know if I'm in Los Angeles right now and that's kind of cool because it's just so removed from it doesn't feel like you're there and I think that's what's cool about California period or LA period is that at any given time you never know where you are because the nature is so lush here that it's and I've traveled now through eight countries and even after doing that and being in California I'm still amazed by the nature here and just how diverse it is.
Speaker 2:My other favorite place to go is Point Reyes which is just above San Francisco, and it's a really gorgeous private park on the water, it literally looks like something out of a science fiction movie, but the landscapes are pristine and that to me is just a wow factor of like, am, I don't like, this is not photoshopped, this is a real thing I'm looking at right now and it's like absolutely perfect and I'm so grateful to be alive just because this exists and I get to experience it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's nature is just one of those things that, honestly, we we almost take it too too much for granted. And you also mentioned that both of those net those parks have almost like a movie set feeling. And looking through some of your your discography, you were actually featured in a soundtrack for a film, on the It's Overland, which was composed by Tim Jansen. So what is like, is there really that much of a difference between, like, your approach to songwriting, whether it's for, like, single or an album or for a soundtrack?
Speaker 2:I mean, the only different differential in approach is just the the application or the brief, because with movies there's more of a specific brief in what they're looking for, you kind of have to bend into that somewhat. But as far as what inspires you or what drives you to write something, I do try to channel the same energy whenever I'm writing anything. Personally think visuals and music are just so interesting to combine mainly because music for me is just very visual, so whenever I get to write for TV or write anything for a visual piece, it feels very intuitive because I'm already doing that even in my regular songwriting process. I'm already imagining the scenes or the visuals or the spaces or the environments. I don't for me personally, there is no difference.
Speaker 1:And and it is also just so just so interesting to see how strongly your songwriting comes off in your own music. Your love of nature was something I I was able to feel so strongly on your upcoming album, American Wasteland. For it's like since this interview is likely going to be published before the album's release, is there, like, a little introduction to the song that you would like to personally give?
Speaker 2:For American Wasteland, yes. I would say that this album is an album of resilience of the human spirit. It is about overcoming the stronghold that trauma and manipulation can have on whether it be an individual or a group or even a construct. And I think the point of American Wasteland is to remind people that they are a heartbeat that still continues to function even when the elements around them drape across as if it is a new skin and our job as human beings is to be so open and so willing to grow that no matter what is dumped on us in our environment that we are still able to come back to that central heartbeat and remember who we are despite the challenges placed in front of us and also to regain a sense of strength that you maybe thought you never had to keep you hoping and to keep you going. So I hope American Wasteland can be, just a lighthouse for those who are unsure if they're ever gonna be able to recover from something that has knocked them down really, really hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's definitely something that I was personally hearing when I first listened to the album. One of the songs that really spoke to me was the final track on the album, Sequoias. You have no idea how excited I am for the album to release just so I can actually listen to to it, like, in a in a normal rotation for me. And,
Speaker 2:like Oh, thank so much.
Speaker 1:Listening to that song, I like, I've been listening to it while I've been doing my my, like, day to day work, and it's just I can gush about it for so long. It's Oh my god. Like, it's just incredible. I've I I've truly become such a fan of it. And I've shared with a couple of friends that they also really, really enjoyed that track.
Speaker 1:So I just wanted to at least say that because it's so apparent that everything you were trying to get across was coming through.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you. Like, yeah, that song all these songs for me personally, especially Sequoias, they saved my life and my music is my constant hero. I think it comes to rescue me when I, maybe even myself, don't know if I can survive something. And what's nice about Sequoia is that it's a bookend to Perfect Storm, which opens the album and the whole point of that is to show the gamut of who I am as a writer, as a person, that I am someone who can be very strong and maybe sometimes that could be to my own detriment because it creates a lot of self abandonment, but Sequoias is like that reminder of the softness of the human soul and that it's okay, that softness is strong and that it's alright to not abandon, and also be aware of the fact that what you're looking at, this is obviously the age old adage of what you're looking at is not always what you see, or are you looking at what is really there or are you distracted by the glitz and the glam and you're not really seeing beyond the glamour and you're just it's kind of like social media right now, we're seeing is what's scrolling but we're not reading beyond what's actually happening to us on a cellular level.
Speaker 2:And that was really what Sequoias was, it's the wake up track of the album, it's like you've arrived, you're no longer under the manipulation and control, you have stepped and seated into your body and you've fully accepted and healed through something that is so toxic that you just never thought you could heal. I think a lot of people feel this right now, that there's so much toxicity, it's like how do we ever overcome and heal once we've gone through the worst? And I'm here to tell you if they're the sequoias that you can heal again and you can feel soft again, even if you had to become the worst version of yourself to survive something, you're never lost, you're just reinforced over again and that is the point of sequoias.
Speaker 1:And, like, it's such a perfect message to end off such a, like, such a gorgeous album on. And, yeah, you you clearly hit the nail on the head with everything that you were trying to get across, not just on that one track, but the entire album as well. I mean, slumber party, like, another incredibly gorgeous track. Like, even if this album ends up being, like, an introduction to you for so many potential fans, like, what an introduction? Like, I I could truly gush about the album for so long, but it's it's incredible.
Speaker 1:And, really, I am just so excited to see how so many others will inevitably react to your album.
Speaker 2:Thank you. That means more to me than I can say considering how long it's taken me to get this album, where it is, the amount of pain that I had to go through to make this record, the amount of struggle that all my all the people involved in this album have gone through to make this album, like this was made with great passion and love and just a lot of belief in the in the vision of what the album had to say and it's interesting because we we arrived at a point where we were almost done and we weren't sure what was going to happen, like how we were going to name this album or what the concept was. The concept was there but I think we were just waiting for the universe to just kind of say this is it and then we proceeded to write American Wasteland and then I was like this is it, this is what this album is about, it's it's the fire, it's the rage, it's the softness, it's the strength, how we can be wastelands at large and wastelands within ourselves or reduced to a wasteland, whether it's by our own design and doing or whether it's by some puppet corporate arm that's making us deduced to nothing, but it's just such a universal message of how we are either wastelands or lush utopias depending on the perspective in which we take on how we view ourselves in the outside world, writing American Wasteland helped glue the entire record together.
Speaker 2:It was the bitching track that we needed to be like, yes, we got through this, we've weathered the storm, the perfect storm, and we're not going anywhere. We're going to be loud and we're going to be fucking angry and we're just gonna keep surviving, you know, despite the elements.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And, honestly, it makes so much sense that American Loisland was one of the final songs created. It's like, I found within my writings, I don't always come, like, come into the whole story knowing every beat, and sometimes it just takes massaging everything out to find what it is that I'm truly trying to say. And, yeah, it's, like, genuinely, it's so incredible to see how so many different forms of art are able to combine in just one really incredible way. And, yeah, you it's so it's very much so an album that wears its own heart on its sleeve.
Speaker 1:And it's definitely just something that I am very excited to be able to listen to over and over and over again and and show it to so many of my home friends and maybe make them get a little bit sick of it, but it's sometimes That's a good problem to have. You get it. It's it's a good problem to have. Another another track that I've really been drawn to again and again is Reya. That was the that was the first song that was released as a single.
Speaker 1:And, like, there's so many parts of it where I'm just so incredibly drawn into it. Like, you've got some elements of, like, alternative country with, like, pedal steel and just the sort of the storytelling that you were able to do with the song. So was was that, like, something that you intended on it being the sort of, like, alternative country storytelling song that it is, or is it just how the wind ended up blowing you into the final production of that song?
Speaker 2:I think it's a combination of things. I it's probably a combination of the type of music I've been influenced in. Also, living in LA and being in more of a country scene out here and being in the West, it does have some sort of subconscious influence on my writing. I've always loved folk music and so I think because I tend to write very eclectically and I have a lot of influences, I think it just sort manifested that way. I didn't go into it like with this plan of like the song needs to be a merge of like this genre and this genre, but I think that's just naturally what I end up doing because I'm not subscribing to any sort of rule book when I'm writing, I'm just letting it flow through me and so if I'm feeling more folky that day or if I'm feeling more bluesy or whatever, think you're just going to get a little bit of a little bit of each thing for me just because of the range of consumption I'm doing of many different genres and I love genre merging in general, so if I can challenge the status quo of like oh these two genres may never be together but they're happening somehow in this song' and that's kind of ironic, but I haven't really questioned how Reya came to be, was just interesting that when Reya was finished being written, it did sort of take on this really great it almost felt like, did I just write a lost Fleetwood Mac track or something?
Speaker 2:But considering that I love Fleetwood Mac and in the very early onset of my childhood I would play their albums over and over again. And so it's in there, and so I think that was my moment to write a more influenced song without it being their song. It's my song, it's a mix of my styles and my approach and my songwriting and I've been constantly challenging myself every year to read different books and write differently and say things differently because the whole point of art is not to reinvent the wheel, it's just how do you take the age old classic things that we all experience them and make them feel like new again and the only way to do that is, you know, there's no information that we all can't grasp onto, it's all out there and so I just want to point to be like this is what's out there and you can experience it the way I'm seeing it too. It's accessible and it feels natural to just focus more on the song itself and not focus on the genre or like what it's going to end up sounding like because more times often than not it never ends up sounding like what you want it to.
Speaker 2:So I trust that my style of writing is always going to lead me to a song that sounds like me and whatever that means.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And it's also just really nice to be able to go into something and just see how things end up. And on that similar sort of front, like, was there a particular reason why Reya and Slumber Party were the first two singles that you chose to release this project, or was it just what really ended up speaking to you and being almost like an introduction to the album itself?
Speaker 2:I think it was important that Reya had to be the first one to start us off because not only of the way I wanted people to be reintroduced to me in the context of this album, but also in the messaging. Raya, especially the first lyric, 'I had to grow up way too young, a desert flower raised by sun', that was my way of saying 'hi', this is me now, this is me telling you my story of someone who had to weather a lot of storms early on in life and that is what has led them here to this moment and I think I needed to give the world a reintroduction to the struggles that I've had to go through to get to this moment and just be very transparent about that, but also to show my influences, to show sort of a centre point or a baseline of what the album is going to have, it's going to have the alternative, it's going to have the elements of folk, it's going to have the dreaminess, it's going to have the tight sort of memorable choruses. I think Reya was the perfect child to say this is a gamut of what American Wasteland can offer without giving away too much of what American Wasteland has to offer.
Speaker 2:I personally love Rhea, every time we play that song live people just really connect with it and respond and get involved and it's brought up a number of times after I've played it at different shows, so I was like, there's a reason why people are responding to this song, they need it right now and the messaging is very universal and it's not just about, you know, sometimes I think Rhea could be, you know, is it about my mother, is it about a partner that I wasn't supposed to be with, is it about, you know, you could really apply it to many different facets of your own, like is it a decision or is it a commitment you've made? And so REA is, it's many things, it's people, it's things, it's ideas and how our relationship to them exists. And I think the messaging of that is very important right now as we're entering an age where information is being devalued and skewed and changed and our relationship to truth right now.
Speaker 1:It's honestly, you could not have said it any better. It's really just it's it's the song for now, and it's also going to be one of those songs that I can definitely see in a few years just looking like, listening back to it and really being transported back to a time where things, honestly, didn't make as much sense as they probably should have. And, yeah, I'm just I'm so excited for the rest of the world to hear American Wasteland. It's just one of those it's gonna be one of those albums that honestly captures a moment in time, even if that moment isn't what we really want it to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think the whole point of concept albums is to capture a moment in time, wherever that moment in time is, so that it's modal enough to not be attached to anything, it can travel with you regardless how much time goes by. So I think maybe that's where I sit in terms of like, do I want to make trendy music? No, not really. I'd like to make timeless music that can go with you no matter how many decades or centuries pass by.
Speaker 2:Think the whole point is to make songs timeless ageless and able to exist in a zero grid where we don't have to attach it to anything other than our real life, world emotions.
Speaker 1:And for any of our listeners who may be interested in hearing the album, is there a date where you are like, here's when it's coming out, or is it still somewhat in that range of late September, early October at the moment?
Speaker 2:We are looking at a late September release. I will be announcing dates this summer, so people can look out on my platforms for when we do an official drop date of the record. But I we can just lean into saying drop another single also early September as well, so people can look out for that too.
Speaker 1:And where might where might they be able to find this information when it does come out?
Speaker 2:It'll be available on my Instagram and my website and my Linktree, which is just linktree/whitneythai. I have all the links to everything in there. They can also sign up to my Mailchimp, which they can get first announcements of things that are going to be happening, so I would suggest going to my Linktree and signing up for my newsletter, because that will be the best way to get the news first. I've been really enjoying having a deeper connection with the listeners by being able to craft some newsletters where we get to talk about the things that are going on and what's coming up and develop a deeper connection with those who I'm writing my music for. Social media has become so isolating lately that I think I'm more interested in being in real spaces with people and having real conversations with people.
Speaker 2:I'm a 90s kid, so we grew up in the chat rooms but I was still out in the dirt playing with my friends also before internet was literally consuming our lives, so there's this penchant need in me now to want to hold people and be near people and feel them in the room and be able to write little notes to them and let them know what's going on musically. So I would say if you want to be close to my project, just sign up for my newsletter and it's just another way for us to get to know each other better and enjoy this weird little ride that we're all on musically.
Speaker 1:And that actually is the last thing that I had for you. So, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today about your music and your projects, and I am so incredibly excited to have the rest of the world be able to hear American Wasteland and the rest of honestly, and everything that's coming up soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. And I really do appreciate your words about Sequoias and the album. It's it's an honor and a pleasure to to speak with you and have your ears and your time and your thoughts and mind all on this album. Like, it's a very important album to me, and to know that you've connected with it just really reinvigorates me as a as an artist to keep going.
Speaker 1:I mean, how could you not connect with something like that? It's just it's honestly one of the one of the albums that I'm just, like, honing down the days until release, and I really haven't done that with many albums before. And, like, there's like, on my on my right, on my wall, I have, like, a little calendar, and I have, like, I have, like, bookmarked. It's like, the album's gonna be coming out around sometime here, so I guess I'm gonna have to narrow that range down a bit. And I just I'm so excited for the rest of the world to hear this.
Speaker 1:It's just I can't I could gush about this album for hours and but genuinely, thank you for taking the time out of your day to speak with me about your music and about your art. And, honestly, it's just really this was also really invigorating for me as a writer because I've had I'm one of those people that will, like, start a million different projects, but never have, like, the motivation to narrow down on one and just continue building it out. Speaking with you really help was really important for me because now I can see a finish line for at least one of my projects and hopefully I'll be able to get it out sometime soon.
Speaker 2:Oh, yay. I and I'm here to cheer you on and encourage you through that as well. So if you need a cheerleader, like, call me anytime for support.