11. Neva Upton

New Song

Host Ami Avashi interviews Boulder-based musician Neva Upton about her songwriting journey and the themes within her original music. The epi

Key takeaways

• Neva Upton uses loop pedals and electric guitar to build song structures for tracks like 'Summer'.
• The artist manages a large collection of unnamed voice memos, which she organizes during flights.

Main topics

• Songwriting process
• Overcoming writer's block

Notable quotes

I actually didn't know what I was writing about until I looked at the whole song as a whole.

Conclusion

The episode provides an inspiring look at how young musicians use art

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:07) Hi, welcome to New Song. This is your host, Ami Avashi. New Song is a series featuring local Colorado-based youth musicians who have a passion to tell their stories through music. This project is a part of KGNU Media Gardens, an initiative dedicated to elevating local youth voices. Today we are joined by Boulder-based songwriter Neva Upton here at the KGNU Boulder Studios, where she will perform several original songs as well as talk about her musical journey. Hi, Neva. Hi. I'd love to just jump right into your first song. All right. This one's called Summer. Thank you so much, Neva. Can we have a rundown of what this song is about? So Speaker 2 (4:59) this is one of the songs where I actually didn't know what I was writing about until I looked at the whole song as a whole and then saw all the pieces together and how they fit. And I kind of realized that it was about... disappointment and kind of being disappointed like expectations versus reality and like going into the school year after a really good summer and kind of being let down I guess by like how different it was than I expected. Speaker 1 (5:31) When Speaker 2 (5:32) did you write this song? So I wrote this song in I'd say August, September. I can't actually place a date on it, but yeah, right after the summer. Speaker 1 (5:42) And you're a senior in high school, correct? Yeah. What has the transition been like from, you know, kid in high school to someone who's like thinking about their future? Oh, it's been Speaker 2 (5:55) crazy. I feel like I stay up a lot at night just like envisioning like, oh, like life at this college, life at this college. And like, I kind of like. have a story planned out for like all the ways it could go. And I know none of those will be true, but I like, it kind of like comforts me to like have like something to look, I think I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. So how did you go about writing Summer? It's actually kind of a good story because I actually had an interesting way to write it. I used this loop pedal that my friends got me for my birthday, and I was playing electric guitar, actually, which kind of... was a different vibe than what it is now. But I just like looped like the chords that I thought were like pretty. And then maybe I had a sentence or two in my notes app about the idea. And then just kind of sang over that as it looped. Speaker 1 (6:50) That's Speaker 2 (6:50) super cool. So Speaker 1 (6:52) you also play electric guitar? Yeah, I kind of do mix and match of every instrument, it seems. So Summer is an interesting song because it's pretty long for a normal pop song. It's about five minutes, right? Yeah. And there's a lot of repetitive parts of it, but I don't know if I would classify any specific part as a verse or a chorus. They kind of all... meld into an interesting combination. Do you think about song structure a lot when you're writing? It's kind of funny because I do Speaker 2 (7:27) think about it when I'm like stuck or like, oh, like what part do I need to write next? Like check off the bridge, check off the chorus, like or at least like what I think the chorus is and like based on what song I'm writing. And like it's kind of like a to do list of like different parts to hit. Speaker 2 (7:44) I often, like, I don't, like, stress about it if it's not exactly, like, the traditional style, and my songs do tend to get longer Speaker 1 (7:52) than I planned sometimes because I just have a lot to say. So you talked a little bit about being stuck on songs occasionally. Do you face writer's block ever? Summer is the Speaker 2 (8:02) first song I wrote after being, like, the worst writer's block I've ever had, which stretched, like, over the entire summer, and I, like... barely played music, like, at all, even. Even, like, covers was, like, hard for me to play, and for some reason, just, like, it wasn't clicking, and I find myself, like, I'm an artist in a lot of other ways, like, painting and sewing and drawing and stuff, so I was, like, using those outlets instead of writing, which, like, made it harder for me to focus on that, yeah. How do you get out of ruts like that? Kind of just wait for a stroke of inspiration, or I often write songs when I'm feeling really strongly, or more in the sad direction, I'd say. So if I'm really happy, then it's harder for me to think of good lyrics or even songwriting in general. So I just Speaker 1 (9:02) wait to Speaker 2 (9:03) see if... Speaker 1 (9:04) something Speaker 2 (9:04) changes, Speaker 1 (9:04) go with that. Are you the type of person who needs to wait for inspiration to hit you, or can you force yourself to sit down and write a song? Speaker 2 (9:14) I definitely need the inspiration first. If that's, like, a sentence in my notes app, or, like, stay up all night writing, that's just, like, any little thing to get me going, but I never really sit down to write a song if I don't have... like, something that, like, brings me into it, unless, like, like, sometimes that thing is just me sitting down at the piano and wanting to just, like, feel, like, the Speaker 1 (9:43) music. I don't know. Yeah. So is it easy for you to express your emotions through music? Um, Speaker 2 (9:50) it feels easy from, like, when I look back at, like, oh, like, I, like, talked about all this stuff, but for me, it's sometimes hard to be honest or even, like, sort out what I'm feeling and that's kind of what