We interviewed Emily Deahl about her new single ‘My Baby Hates Me’ now out on all streaming platforms!
Strwbry Jean: So, where are you based?
Emily: I live in Nashville. I actually just moved here almost exactly a year ago to the day. I was in South Carolina before this and then I was in China before that and then LA before that.
Strwbry Jean: Do you speak Cantonese or Mandarin?
Emily: I don’t, I was actually a Chinese pop star for a cute little second!
Strwbry Jean: That’s so crazy!
Emily: Yea it was such a crazy thing that happened in my life, but they didn’t want me to speak Chinese. They wanted me to speak English because that’s what people were paying for. To see this American on stage. And that was my downfall, I never really learned it. I had to learn it to get around like survival skills with taxis and when you have to go find something to eat. But other than that no, I don’t really speak it.
Strwbry Jean: That’s so interesting! How did that work?
Emily: So when I moved out to LA when I was about 17 from South Carolina and while I was there my friend of mine who was helping manage me basically found the opportunity and they were like, “Yea we want to bring this girl over.” They set up a residency and a night club. They told me I get to tour around all of mainland China. They put together a show, hired back up dancers and flew me out. I would just be walking down the street and there would just be billboards with my face on them! For three months we were in a different city every single day, and then I went back to LA. When I went back I was working five jobs again to pay my rent. It was crazy to be a pop star in another country.
Strwbry Jean: So, how has social media changed your career?
Emily: I mean massively.I’ve been doing this for so many years now, and I’ve definitely changed sounds and done different things and rebranded myself. But for the first time in the last year or two I got my music to a place where I am proud of it and that’s never happened before. So, social media on top of all the work I’ve put in for the last ten years really paid off. Just mixing together those perfect cocktails feed the exposure I so desperately sought. I would say the craziest part for me now is keeping up with it all. The outreach and you know the messages and comments and everything is so cool and it’s trippy sometimes. I can’t believe it when i wake up in the morning and I’m looking at all my numbers. People have been telling me for so long, “you gotta get your numbers up, you gotta get this up, you’ve got to get steams up”. All these things are now just going up on their own. It’s been incredible and been very validating for me because a lot of people like to tell you what they think you should do. I’ve been very head strong in my own ways, in saying that I can really make this happen on TikTok and I don’t think it needs to be spammy. I think I can do it authentically and really meet people who are going to like my music. One thing that I wasn’t prepared for was the hate comments. The more exposure you get the more hate you draw to yourself which is something no one really prepares you for. Sometimes I laugh and I’m like, “Who is doing this?”. But, other times it's like, “Ow okay, that really cut. That was really rude and I’m definitely insecure in that area so that kinda sucked”. Nobody really prepares you for it but I don’t think anyone could really prepare you for it. I’m my life, I've been the person to say, “oh I don't care, I am who I am, and I’m proud of that”. I didn’t think that type of thing would ever phase my but yea it does. It phases everyone, but internet trolls are just internet trolls.
Strwbryjean: Can you describe how you are marketing your new single ‘My Baby Hates Me’ and which day embarrassed you the most?
Emily: Good question. Basically I came up with this marketing plan to do outrageous things everyday until my song gets into the top 100 on iTunes. It started out where I had at least three day worth of ideas in the beginning. I was thinking hopefully I can make this take off and people will want to be a part of it and bring ideas to it, which has also happened. I”ve been able to meet fans around Nashville who follow me and want me to come into their work and play my songs. So that’s been crazy. The other day we were filming one out on the street and this girl ran up to me and was like My Baby Hates Me omg I know you from TikTok, I love you. I was like WHAT, this is insane. So anyways I’ve just been doing outrageous things. The day that embarrassed me the most would have to be the day I called my ex and asked him why he hated me. That was really something, I can’t believe I did that! Which is funny because he’s not really my ex, we never dated. He didn’t want to date me which was another funny part of this because he was so nice when I called him on the phone. So my TikTok followers all commented this guy seems so sweet and he’s so nice, he totally loves you. Y’all are definitely gonna get back together, and I’m like y’all we were never together to begin with because he didn’t want to date me! He is not nice. I accidentally shined this really nice light on this man but it was a total accident. I’m like great now everyone thinks it's my problem. Um but aside from that just calling him and mustering up the courage to do that was the most nervous and embarrassed. I had to recover from that one.
Strwbry Jean: Omg I can't imagine. I actually wanted to ask you how he reacted when you called him.
Emily: He was um- after I called him I called him back and I said ”Omg I’m so sorry. I hope you're okay with me posting this on TikTok well you don’t really have a choice because you owe me. So you better do this for me.” that was hilarious. We caught up for a second and just said “oh I’m really proud of you for crushing it and killing it of course you can whatever, do whatever you want”. And that was that. He loves the song he listenes to it. Everyone wants part two but.. I don’t think i can call him again. It’s like I can't stomach it y’all.
Strwbry Jean: Yea i would draw the line at ruining my social life.
Emily: MHM, yea. I would agree with that now. That was really something that I just did but I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.
Strwbry Jean: What was going through your head when you first heard your song ‘My Baby Hates Me’ on the radio?
Emily: Another great question, it was like how everyone decides that moment being very surreal and out of body, and it 100% was. I didn’t feel real because it’s something every artist dreams about. I know nobody really listens to the radio anymore but it's still the biggest tool to break a song. Still in this day and age with streaming and all of that. You know we grew up everyone was still listening to the radio, so it’s just something that you dream about. That's how I discovered Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. So it was almost like nothing was going on through my mind. I was so present in that moment and that’s very rare for me. Usually my mind is off and I’m constantly thinking and overthinking, over analyzing. I’m kind of like an airhead. I’m never really focused when around people. In that moment i was just completely present and that’s the only way i know how to describe it. I have never felt so happy. It was like wow, my entire journey flashed before my eyes. It was also even cooler because I made this happen. I trusted my gut to do this marketing plan that a lot of people around me were saying oh I don’t know. It was such a validating and liberating thing. I know what I’m doing and this is working, I’m on the right path. That was all I needed to put my foot on the gas pedal now and just go full force into this.
Strwbry Jean: How would you describe your creative process?
Emily: All of my creative processes are very different. I am definitely my most creative when I am alone with silence around me. My creative process mostly is just intercepting thoughts that come through my brain and then executing that song. It’s hard for home sometimes to just sit down and the piano or just sit down with my guitar and just write. I usually like to have ideas before I do things. The ideas usually only come from places of stillness within myself. So when I do have ideas they usually come in with a clever lyric or a melody I came out with. For ‘My Baby Hates Me’ I was just cooking for the guys who bailed on me. The same one I called, he bailed on me that night. Yea he stood me up, so I was cooking for myself and I started singing in the kitchen out of nowhere. My baby hates me, He thinks I’m crazy and I was like wait, that was really good. So then once I have something I always start with a song on the piano or guitar. Once I have something I’ll go to a producer I’m working with and tell them this is how I see it. I always see things I don’t hear. I feel it and see it. I am definitely a video person. Choreography and the way it's supposed to be performed and supposed to look. I see that immediately then I go record the song.
Strwbry Jean: Yea, I saw one of your TikToks and thought wait is she a dancer?
Did you have classical training?
Emily: Yea I grew up a dancer and didn’t start singing till I was 17 actually. So that’s what it’s ingrained in me that all of what I do is based on performance like it's all the way I see the show looking, and that’s how I write.
Strwbry Jean: That’s so cool! So when you listen to music do you see choreography?
Emily: Totally, I will know what the video will look like before the song is finished. Even before the song is done being written by me. Oh yea that’s exactly what we are going to do so then they will have to be a drum beat here and then something here. In a very weird way it has been what kind of branded my music. My music is definitely pop and some of it minimal or on the darker side. But anyone would describe it as being a little theatrical. Which makes sense because that’s how I write.
Strwbry Jean: What advice would you give to a new artist?
Emily: To work harder than absolutely everyone. Haha, to constantly learn new skills. To believe in yourself no matter what because that’s going to be the only thing that brings you places. If you start believing the voices in your head and if you start letting fear of not getting there stop you from trying to get there you’ve already lost. You have to work hard at everything. That’s not just your skill, talent or music. You have to work hard at your mental health. You have to work hard at fighting off those voices. You have to work hard at believing in yourself. Which means you have to work hard at positive self talk. You have to work hard at communicating with others. The power of people is the reason why any artist is successful because people are what shed light on your craft. So if you're not able to write, create or speak from a place of honesty and truth and vulnerability then nobody is going to be able to connect with you. You have to work harder than everyone else in every single area of your life. I think that is the only I have for sure at this point.
Strwbry Jean: What is your biggest pet peeve about the music industry?
Emily: That it is- there’s a couple, I mean a lot. But I’m thinking the two that are coming into my head because they are the most apparent in my life right now on a day to day basis. The constant conversation had amongst people in the industry that it's gonna take you 20 years. It’s gonna take you 10 years or five years once you get this. That there are all these rules. You gotta just sit back, keep working and in five years you’ll get your agent and if the time is right after that you’ll get your business manager. I hate that stuff. I hate those conversations and whenever someone starts talking to me like that I tune them out. I don’t like any conversation like that. I just ask well why? Why do you think that’s a rule because you never questioned it. I think that in a sense that is what i am doing right now. I’m proving a lot of people wrong because i just moved to Nashville a year ago and everyone says that Nashville is a 10 year town. And the radio played my song, 1075 is the hardest station to get on. It’s Iheart radio and purely top forty , they don’t really play local artists. Everyone told me to manage my expectations and it’ll take five years before you get the right agent who will introduce you to the right people. Then there is a vetting process then your song will be on the radio in seven years, and it’s like mhmmm no. Then i would say my other pet peeve is that it’s more about who you know then who you are. That is something that in a lot of ways you have to accept. With that acknowledgement and the power of the people you have to get out and really put yourself out there. You have to make the connections and meet the people alongside doing all these other things. It's a pet peeve of mine because I have so many incredibly talented who have given up because they haven’t been able to get there shot. It truly is because the person next to them knew someone in a higher position.
Strwbry Jean: You're so right, there are so many underrated artists that just don’t have the opportunity or the resources.
Emily: Yea, It’s really sad. Again with TikTok, okay here is the recourse. Here it is, this is what we have all been waiting for. If you're good and creative then you will be seen. I was just reading an article Rolling Stones just wrote up about artists not too long ago. It said if you're an artist and you're not on TikTok you don’t want it bad enough. It was so accurate.
Strwbry Jean: What is your favorite thing about your line of work?
Emily: Um there’s a couple things. Mainly connecting with people and getting to know people’s stories and how your music affects people and that's new to me too. Especially in the past few months. But other than that the meditative experience I get from creating is something I’m very blessed and lucky to have. It’s something I can use to escape when I need to. The fact that is also becoming my job is another huge great thing.
Strwbry Jean: if you could open up a show for any artists who would it be?
Emily: OHHH we talk about this all the time! 50 artists ran through my head just now. This is so tough but I’m gonna say three. Harry Styles-
Strwbry Jean: OH MY GOD I love him!
Emily: I know! He would just get me, you know? Please just bring me on your tour for 2021.
Strwbry Jean: YES love on tour!
Emily: Miley, I love Miley.
Strwbry Jean: Oh my god, you would fit with Miley perfectly.
Emily: Right! I thought that we would be best friends. Also she lives in Nashville. So I’m gonna have to start a TikTok doing outrageous shit till Miley takes me on tour with her.
Strwbry Jean: Leave a little pink bow at her door.
Emily: You're right, I actually do know where she lives because I have a friend who’s friends with Brandi, her sister.
Strwbry Jean: That's perfect, you have to do it!
Emily: So perfect, she might feel a little violated but… we'll figure it out.
Strwbry Jean: Do it in a way she'll still become your friend after.
Emily: Yea in some type of way where she thinks okay this is cool and I don’t feel super weirded out that you just stalked me and left a box outside my house. I've been wanting to do that so many times with celebrities. I wanted to do a celebrity version where I left boxes outside their houses but then I thought that wouldn’t go over very well. Maybe they would be a little weirder out if I did that.
Strwbry Jean: Yea, Taylor Swift has a house in Rhode Island and one time my mom stole a rock from her front lawn.
Emily: HAhA I LOVE that. I would have done the same thing. Then I would have posted a TikTok about it. Oh my God, I totally forgot who my third artist was but I’m just gonna say Miley and Harry for now.
Strwbry Jean: What’s the best concert you’ve been to and why?
Emily: The best concert umm. Gorillaz was an incredible show. I saw them at Austin State Limits a couple years ago and it blew my mind. I wasn’t really a fan of theirs before either. It’s not like I wasn’t a fan, I just didn’t really listen to their music that much, until that show. Let’s see, there are so many incredible concerts i've been to. I’ll just go with Gorillaz because they made me a super fan after that concert. They did every single genre of music I think. Almost every song they brought someone on stage to sing and it was just a celebration of music. It was so insanely inspiring and they had never before that show performed— I don’t know if you guys know a lot about Gorillaz. They are cartoons of them, they're not really cartoons. It’s almost like— well it's not like anime. Well those things are up on a screen and the band is behind and blacked out in the back of the stage. But for this show they did away with the screens and they came out on stage. And i am definitely one for conceptualizing things because I have a children’s book and I go by the ice cream girl and—
Strwbry Jean: You have a children’s book?
Emily: Yea, i have a children’s book for adults and it's called ‘the series of the ice cream girl’. This one I’m releasing music through right now is called The Ice Cream Girl presents Ghost Stories and It’s Stories of Getting Ghosted.
Strwbry Jean: Ahhh that’s so clever.
Emily: So every song goes with a chapter in the book and my baby hates me is chapter three. But anyways I’m all for conceptualizing so I’ve always been inspired by the day that they do it and what their whole shtick is. Then seeing them take all the gimmicks away and just come out and perform was like WOW, so inspiring.
Strwbry Jean: What is one non-musical or random skill that you have?
Emily: Umm random talent that I have. I used to be a Crossfit coach which is crazy. I’m like so weak now I couldn’t lift a weight if I tried. I Used to be kind of a beast, It was very weird.
Strwbry Jean: Oh my god, I could never
Emily: Yea it was weird. It was actually while I was in China I was competing in CrossFit while being a Chinese Pop Star.
Strwbry Jean: So did you ever get old ladies joining you or anything?
Emily: Well the gym I went to had mostly foreigners because it hadn’t taken off in Asia yet so when I got there I was decent at it because I had been doing it in LA for a year at this point. I got there and was decent and they said Oh you're good enough to compete as a girl here so we would love to have you compete for our gym. So I just got really strong and started competing and then when i got back home in South Carolina I started coaching because I needed a way to make money. Then I did that for a year then I just quit all together because my body was broken and I wasn’t having fun.
Strwbry Jean: What are we supposed she is expecting in the future?
Emily: My Baby Hates Me music video! That I’m working on right now in my immediate day to day. After that’s out I will be releasing a new song and it’s gonna be very different from My Baby Hates Me. It’s gonna be kind of a darker sinister song. I’m very very excited about it. I am already starting to work on that music video too, I do videos for every song. And then I will have been releasing music pretty much constantly till the end of the year. Next year 2021 I will release an album.
Strwbry Jean: YES that’s great, just in time for the Love on Tour. I’m just saying!
Emily:That’s what I’m saying, Harry Styles where you at!
Strwbry Jean: What is the best advice you’ve been given?
Emily: The best advice I was ever given. I used to be really insecure about my singing voice like I said I didn’t start till I was seventeen. It didn’t come as naturally as dancing to me and my guitar teacher told me that every time you sing you have to emote and that emotion can’t be striving for perfection. You have to make someone feel something and when he said that it changed everything. I’m not gonna try to be this perfect thing for anyone. I’m just gonna sing, my voice is my voice and my story is my story. I’m never gonna be a Whitney Huston so why am I trying to be perfect.
Strwbry Jean: What is your favorite song that you’ve written?
Emily: I love this question. Well I love/hate this question. They are all my favorite at one point because that's why they end up getting released is the short answer. I would have to say though I have a special place in my heart for ‘EW’ because during this moment where I was getting ready to move to Nashville and I was working with this producer that I was bullied into working with me for years. I was begging him and he was always like no, no I don’t have the time. I kept asking and he finally agreed and then I had been working with him for a long time. We were just starting to crank out. We just finished My Baby Hates Me and my song Ohs. I was getting ready to move to Nashville and I didn’t have a song for chapter one in my book. So I had all this stuff finished but I didn’t have the first song I wanted to release. We were just like lets just sit down, play some really weird sounds and see what we come up with. It was just a really cool experience because he just sat down and started playing these really weird chords and it started sounding really circus like and I started singing in this French accent and then I ended up writing this very catchy pop hook to it. I pet saying bippity boppity boo and we both looked at each other and said its bippity boppity ew. It just came together in the most serendipitous way. I was a very big risk to take to sing this type of circus like thing in a French/ Russian accent and be a character. It kind of was that moment for me to be like oh that's who I am. I’m not just going to be singing Pop music. There’s always gonna be an intention behind it. That song helped me see myself in my own individual light.
Strwbryjean: I have a question, we probably won't include it. I just wanted to know. So when you're with your producer and you're adding stuff does everything feel like putting together a puzzle or is it all experimental?
Emily: Yea it’s definitely like putting a puzzle together. Well it’s kind of both, it’s definitely both. Also every experience is different from producer to producer, everyone has their different creative process. Like I said I usually like to go in with something because I am very particular and I always have a direction behind whatever I’m doing. So I've discovered the creative process that works best for me is when I go in with a producer I have the song. I play them the demo, The demo for me is just me singing with the guitar or the piano. I talk about what type of sound I want to go for. Usually there is a reference track played like i want my song to kind of sound like this song. This is the vibe we are going for, the energy of the song. So yea it is just like putting together a puzzle most of the time. Most of the time people will start with the tempo, you gotta get the tempo right. Then you start with the drum. Usually for me i have to stand up and actually dance to it because if the drums aren’t right i can’t dance to it the way i wrote it and I’m gonna like it at all. Once you have the rhythm is when you can start adding in the guitar and synthesisers or whatever your gonna do. It is very much like a puzzle. You’ll put the vocals in then you can put guitar in over the top of that so you can put this other element in. Then you take the vocals back out and you let the song breathe on its own. So yea it’s very much like a puzzle.
Strwbry Jean: That's so cool. I didn’t know that you would record it then record it finally.
Emily: A lot of times, well I don’t like to do this because when I go in I already know exactly what I want. But a lot of times especially in Nashville people go into their song writing sections they will sit down with a producer and will build the song with the track together. Then that becomes the demo that they work off of. Then the demo they take to the studio and completely take it down, rebuild it and record it again.
Strwbry Jean: Wow, that’s wicked cool!
Emily: Yeah it’s wild how much goes into making music that people have no idea about.
Strwbry Jean: Does it take a long time to produce a song?
Emily: Sometimes, I mean the song that I’m releasing next. The kind of darker one took three days which is not a lot of time at all. It was kind or crazy how well that all came together. That was just because I came into the studio with an idea and the lyrics written. Then the producers I was working with had this fantastic idea to take it into a different way and we put those two things together and there was mutual trust which is very important when you are working with people. They were like yea that’s dope, and oh thats dope and were like this is dope. It just fit and we finished it in three days. That's a short amount of time, sometimes people can spend ten days one one song, or longer.