Yeah, that's awesome to hear the origin story where it all began. Yeah, so can you tell me a little bit more about your process for writing new songs in general? Do you typically go for the melody first or the lyrics?

Yeah…[There] used to be one way I[‘d] do it, but now it happens in so many different ways…[Inspired by] the music that I grew up listening to like Jason Mraz, John Mayer, Ed Sheeran, Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, these true singer-songwriters, for a long time…I[‘d] just start with a guitar. I sit down, and I start playing. Usually, I find a guitar part that inspires me, not just some simple chords, but maybe the strumming pattern's a little funky, or maybe there's some kind of “[scats a guitar tune while playing air guitar] dum ba doo dah doo” there's some melodic thing in the guitar because I find that if I have a bass to work around, it's easier to write. It's the same as if you play a YouTube beat, it's easier to write a rap than if I just started rapping without any beat. I need something special to work on. Then, I just start singing random melodies with random words. And then certain melodies stick and certain consonants or certain assonants stick. If the melody "[scatting] la da dee da duh," and I’m singing "[scatting to the same tune] la da ‘be enough,’" I’m just playing and I'm like… “I don't know what the line is, but I hear the word ‘enough,’ wanting to come out,” I try to usually respect that…inclination. Over the years, it's changed. Sometimes I'll start by recording at my desk, making a beat or something and that inspires me in a totally different way. There're so many ways, but that…is my go-to, tried and true method.

That's awesome. I know you're a guitarist, so is that your favorite instrument or do you prefer others?

That's my favorite instrument to play. Most of my life, it was piano, and then I just started really grinding the guitar because I wanted to be a really, great guitar player. And now that's my favorite. I love the feeling [of playing guitar]…As a vocalist first, the guitar feels more like a vocal [in] the way you play it. It's a lot more expressive than a piano is. A piano has velocity. You can go [plays a single key on the air piano while progressively increasing in volume], "bum, bum, Bum, Bum, BUM." On guitar, you can do that, too, but it also has character. I can palm mute, and it has that plucky sound, or I can do this [gestures playing vibrato on guitar], and make it [sound] wiggly. There're just so many different ways you can mess with it. And especially as I grew up, I found new ways to play the guitar such as percussive ways to drum and play at the same time and harmonics are a whole thing. There's just so much you could do with the guitar. You see it on TikTok nowadays, you see people playing cellos like guitars, and you see people playing guitars in the craziest ways. People are in the comments like, “my guitar doesn't do that.” [Laughs] It's super funny, but it's true. People are constantly finding new ways to use the instrument, which I think is why it's one of the most prolific American instruments in history.

Yeah, definitely. That's awesome to hear, and you're very talented, so it's always fun to watch you play and everything.

Awww—thank you.

Yeah, and it seems like you get some inspiration from artists like Ed Sheeran who do the percussion and everything…with the guitar as well. So that's really cool to see, too.

Yeah, totally.

If you were to describe your music as if it were a person, how would you describe it?

God. I would say, I think it's very similar to who I am as a person. I always have trouble describing my music to people, because I feel like song-to-song, it differs sometimes. But that's pretty much how I am as a human. I just have a lot of energy. And I think people who meet me could confuse me for just some outgoing human being, but I'm also highly, highly dysfunctionally emotional and intelligent, but to a fault…I overthink…I'm way too self-aware and I'm way too in tune with how I'm feeling and how the people around me are feeling. But at the same time, sometimes when I get excited about something, I can just turn that all off and forget about it. My music would be described as a person who, when around people, is extremely extroverted, but when they are not around people, [is] extremely emotional. That accounts for all my music…super fun or half of my discography is…super sad. So that's a horrible answer, but that's what I have right now. [Laughs]

No, that's awesome. That's cool to hear. Thanks for sharing. I know you do a lot of [TikTok] Live Streams and that's actually how I first learned about your music. So can you talk about how you first decided to start going online and Live Streaming and taking all these requests from people?

Yeah…I was at NYU studying music for about a year and a half, and then I decided to drop out and move to LA. Between the time of dropping out in May and then moving to LA in January, I went home because I knew that's where I could make some money and save up for moving to LA. I was teaching preteens guitar, and I was singing music to babies in Mommy and Me classes. I was doing what I had done all throughout high school, which was playing gigs at restaurants for three hours…I’d also take requests at these gigs and whatnot. But a big part of the time that I had before moving to LA was also figuring out social media. It was always this thing that half the musicians have learned to embrace it, and half the musicians have not done that yet, and I was one of those who was like, “I hate social media. I hate marketing…I was never meant to do this,” because again I was a pretty classic [artist]. I was set in the old ways, because I grew up on 2000 singer-songwriters who would just sign a deal [snaps] and make an album and hope it did well. But I started embracing it,...and I quickly realized that it was very similar just playing live…It reminded me of playing at these coffee houses and bars by the water that I grew up playing at in Florida, taking requests, playing covers. Because of that, I'm really good at playing and focusing on something at the same time. I can…sing and play complicated guitar part, but still read your comments at the same time. It felt very in tune with my expertise, and it worked out, and I started realizing that I was getting a certain amount of followers every time I went Live. This was really good. I felt like for the first time, I was in control of my growth online. And it also opened my eyes to the fact that if you want to find fans…you find them online. There's no reason to resent social media because that's where your people are. Whether it's YouTube, YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok, that's where the people are. I don't know where you think you're going to find fans, if you're not going on there. That's where they all are. And that really opened my eyes. Ever since then, when I post on TikTok, which used to feel like a black void—besides the people you know like…your friends and family commenting—now, on Live, I was seeing real people become fans, and make art of me…It was just very, very cool. It brought life into this whole social media thing. And now I'm releasing new music since I started going Live and the whole marketing process feels a lot more natural, and I think it's only going to get better from here.