THALIA JANE TALKS WHEN I WAS YOUNG
"Getting back to that place of freedom"
Daniel John
What did you write 'When I Was Young' from?
Essentially a place of nostalgia. Longing for simpler times. I think there’s something so raw and beautiful about being a child, because you don’t really think. You just do. And if you’re lucky enough to have had a peaceful childhood, it can be very easy to yearn for that way of life again. Especially when dealing with anxiety or mental health issues, or if you just feel stuck in your own head sometimes. Getting back to that place of freedom and seeing life as a place of opportunities again. We all deserve that sense of peace.
Being so honest in your music, what state of mind does the personal process of creating put you in. Does it in fact help keep things from getting trapped inside your own thoughts, not feeling as blind?
I definitely think the honesty is a way to cope with the things I’m going through. Whilst it’s scary to share sometimes, writing it down and turning it into sound is my way of transforming whatever I’m feeling into something else. Something outside of myself. Sometimes it allows you to understand the situation a bit better too. So in a sense, I see things a bit more clearly through that creative process, and can reflect on whatever the song is about even years after it’s written. I’ve always wanted my songs to be connected to my own experiences or feelings in some way, and writing them has helped me through a lot of hardships as well as allowed me to get to know myself better. It’s very cool how music can be such a powerful tool, not only for the one creating but for the listeners too.
When your music leaves you and becomes something others can find their own meaning in, what is it you hope they find and connect with?
Probably the emotion behind the music. Lyrically you might never a hundred percent align with what someone else has written, but the feeling behind a song is something I hope that people can hear in my music and connect with. It’s also so interesting to me how one song can mean different things to different people, and I hope that whoever listens finds their own meaning in my songs and lyrics and can apply it to their own lives. Once a song leaves me, it’s not mine anymore. It belongs to the listener. The dream would be that my music helps people in some way and that, if they see themselves in some of the more melancholic ones, they’re not alone in whatever they’re feeling. If I can achieve that, I’ll feel fulfilled as an artist.
To be a little bit nostalgic, how did your journey in music start to unfold across the different strands of singing, writing and producing?
My parents are classical musicians so I grew up with music almost as a second language you could say. I started writing songs very young, about seven years old, and fell in love with it. It’s been my way of expressing myself and understanding the things I’m experiencing, the same way people might keep diaries or journals. The singing started alongside the songwriting, and I was a part of a children's choir at that age too where I learned a lot about building harmonies. Listening to and absorbing lots of music has influenced me a lot as well. I was fortunate enough to get to work with a local music producer from about eleven years old where I learned the basics of recording and how to build an arrangement from my demos. He let me be very involved in the production process since I loved composing and creating melodies, and nowadays I often hear exactly how I want the songs to turn out in my head whilst I’m writing them. It made sense to eventually start producing on my own and since then I’ve learnt as I go.
You aren’t exactly making life less complicated by self-producing, doing it all by yourself. Is the freedom you find in that despite everything it takes just that important to you?
Freedom is a big part of it. But mostly I just love creating. The songwriting to me often goes hand in hand with the producing, and since I tend to hear the finished product in my head whilst writing a song, it’s very gratifying to be able to turn your ideas into sound the way you’re envisioning them. Explaining what you’re hearing in your head to someone else can be very difficult! And whilst it can be challenging at times to create everything on your own, especially being a perfectionist, I’ve always loved the fact that it makes my music feel a hundred percent me. The songs become an authentic representation of who I am as an artist. That said, I’d love to collaborate more in the future too. I have much more to learn and look forward to a more collaborative process, I just want to achieve my goal of releasing my debut album completely independently first. That has been a dream of mine for a very long time.
Your singles now are leading up to this debut album, 'Someone Else, Somewhere Else'. What do these songs so far reveal about the album as a body-of-work?
Hopefully, that the album is made from a very honest, raw place, where the music and passion for creating is its core. I want to write about things that matter, and the goal was always to pull inspiration from a variety of genres and artists whilst keeping my own sound clear throughout. The songs previously released I think reveal that variety of style. But mostly I hope that this album as a whole shows who I am as an artist and that it manages to showcase the complexity of what it means to be human.
How far away are we from this album?
We’re nearly there! I’ve just released the final single from the album, one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written, called 'Tire of Me'. Being a small artist, I decided to release the tracklist mostly one by one in order to give every song a bigger chance of discovery, but I still wanted to leave a few tracks for the full album release. Especially the final song of the album, which holds the album title and the overall message of the record, 'Someone Else, Somewhere Else'. The full album will be released in 2027 and I hope people will love it as much as I do. I can’t wait!
