“When did you start playing guitar?”
“I started playing guitar [at] the beginning of 8th grade. I got a $7 guitar at Goodwill and just practiced on that for hours, and, you know, I figured that I really loved it and kept going. It wasn’t really a thing to me at the time. I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll do this,’ ‘cause at the time I didn’t even have a phone. And then [I’d] go on a computer and look up how to play a guitar. That’s how I started.”
“Who had the idea to form the band (PirL) and why?”
“I did. Because I love music, and I desperately want to be famous one day. I want to leave a mark. I thought the best way was to start a band ‘cause, you know, who does that anymore?”
“What feelings do you get when you’re on stage?”
“I just love the feeling of being on stage. It is the most satisfying thing I’ve ever felt to be on the stage. I’ve had a couple of experiences, and I just can’t get enough of it. [Those experiences are] mostly a solo thing, a couple times just performing at a talent show. And, I’ve had one experience where I was at a concert, and the lead singer of the band (Okey Dokey) fell on me and let me up on stage and play guitar. That was a really big moment of my life.”
“What do your parents think about you being in a band? Do they like your music?”
“As a lot of people can relate, I have Asian parents, and so they’re not too happy about arts and anything under that. My dad really wanted me to learn, but he wanted it to be a side hobby thing that I didn’t really care about. But it ended up being a lot bigger than he could ever imagine. So for a really long time, he didn’t take it seriously up until a couple days ago. He started getting a little bit more invested into it ‘cause I showed him some of our songs that we’ve been making and how I showed genuine interest in it. My mom—it’s not that she’s against it, but she’s not super into it. My dad’s always been real about things. He likes it, but he wants it to get a lot better.”
“Is there a message in your songs?”
“As your average teenager nowadays, I wrote about pretty sad stuff. There’s usually a message in most of my music. Half the time, it’s sad. The two songs right now [‘Simulation’ and ‘They Will Say’], they’re pretty downer songs. I was in pretty dark times when I wrote all of them. I wrote ‘They Will Say’ to conquer my depression. I hope it helps other people, not just me.”
“You mentioned that you’re more on the feminine side (in terms of style). Does that influence your music?”
“No, but it [affects] my personal life a lot. I’ve struggled with gender dysphoria. I never thought that I would feel that. It made me question a lot about myself, but I wasn’t too uncomfortable. I just didn’t want to tell anyone for a while. It’s hard to explain what dysphoria is like. I just didn’t feel right. I’d probably end up writing a song about it sometime.”
“What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a band or start making music?”
“Absolutely be yourself and never be anyone you’re not. It’s cliche, but people tend to not apply it. It’s going to take a lot of time, but you need to understand that anyone can do it. There are no excuses. You can’t be afraid whatsoever. Practice genuinely makes you better. People usually say that they can’t write or have no imagination, but even with writing songs, you need practice. It shouldn’t be a pain or a task to make it either. It’s expression. To start a band, you need to network a lot, find good people that you enjoy working with, and have good communication with. As the leader of my band, I need reliable people and people that have the passion to play music. You can’t be scared to make big decisions like replacing someone or talking to people in general. My goal and dream is to become famous, and I need to be able to take action and that’s one of the biggest things with music, taking action.”
