Name: GIYA
Nationality: British
Occupations: Singer, songwriter
Current release: GIYA's Odd Fish EP is out now.
Recomendations: I came across an amazing artist called Gina Southgate when I was at We Out Here festival; she live paints jazz musicians and her work is incredible. Piece of music would have to be “Halah” by Mazzy Star.

If you enjoyed this GIYA interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Depends really on the music. There are those songs which almost dictate your eyes to be open, almost shocked into awakeness. But there are also so many other songs which take you to this different place, almost guide you into the back of your mind.

I find music incredibly visual, whether that’s a song that evokes a memory or a random spiral of imagination.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I started learning guitar when I was really young, at the age of 4, but I never wanted or cared to be a maestro at any instrument really.

I learned by ear, just learning my favourite songs and then playing them while I sang; singing for me was just an  accompaniment to playing my favourite songs to start with. It was all very pure to be honest initially, but as you progress you pick up lots of bits and pieces from people along the way, and start to become more of a musician as it were.

I have never learned by really studying music, or trying to master the craft as such, it has always been more of a process of osmosis. You get influenced by things and adapt them into your style, and I think that’s where the most authentic stuff comes from, as you often don’t know why something is good, it’s just good because it’s honest and unique to you.

People always respond to true authenticity in songwriting, so I believe the only way you can train in being an artist is to continue to practice your style and your unique way of making music. Copying will never be a fruitful exercise in my opinion.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

At that age I was really more of a fan than anything else, I was in several indie bands. Each one was pretty dreadful really, but we’d go to all the instores of our favourite bands, go to every gig.

Indie really had its moment in the sun around then, especially in the UK; it was around the time of Jamie T, Peace, Palma Violets, Vaccines, Jaws, The Wombats - and we’d buy all the rare 7 inch vinyls and listen to the ones we’d discovered that the others hadn’t.

I have extremely fond memories of that time in music and my life, as it was just a hobby and a love really. We were just fans with guitars.



A lot has changed since then! Me and my mate Cam who drummed in the bands, we’re still at it pursuing our careers in music, guess it’s all a bit more serious now! But we’re doing what we love, so it’s all good.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

I find it difficult to write from anywhere other than within, or something I have observed, or something that I am going through. Writing from a place of brutal honesty is something that I have always used as a form of cheap therapy, but also I think it's the truest way to connect to people. People really do respond to vulnerability, in a way I have always found very humbling.

I go a bit stir crazy when I don’t write. I'm a massive hypochondriac and I’ve heard that is common in musicians, because when we don’t write stuff down our brains just go on a bloody holiday. So I think there’s a part of me that has to do it for my sanity, but I also just love the process of creating a song, when you can sit back and say, ‘I wrote that’, especially when you create with others - just always a very joyous thing.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

I think completely uniquely created ideas are super rare if not non-existent, so I think there is a bit of both. You will have absorbed some of your ideas subconsciously from somewhere else, and then as your brain wanders, you put your spin on it.

Nothing is truly new, but it’s about how you adapt it into a way that seems completely new.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

The sound of a record is really the most important thing! It’s how it feels when it comes on and what the sonics are doing to you.

But for me the lyrics are something I class as just as important. I like to think of my songs as closer to musical poetry really, the message is really important for me.

But the sonics of the song help to steer the listener to the right avenue, so it’s always a blend. I’d describe my sound as chilled but punchy.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

Thinking about non-human sounds, I think the sounds of the city, like cars and sirens and just general noise, which I suppose is to a degree human, but it paints such a picture for the environment of a track.

So many records in the past have done it, off the cuff Marvin Gaye used it across What’s Going On loads, Nas as well, and it continues to be used in music to this day.



I think I’m more attracted to the grit of those sounds, because they speak of the environment and where that song was created, and who that song was created by, and it brings you that much closer to the story.

Any sound really is music, as music is just a vibration, so if it moves you, then it can be musical!

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

I think an extreme that I’m always drawn to is the juxtaposition of things. I use it across my own writing a lot, where I like to write a gentle sounding song with nice chords, but put a super cutting line in there, like “I’d rather hang myself now” in “Almost Real,” so you’ve almost reeled someone in and then stunned them with something they aren’t expecting.



I learned all of this through hip hop I think, where it can be the most mellow beat and then they will say something that just hugely throws you off guard and snaps you into their reality, into their story and then you're hanging on every word after.

All the best wordsmiths would do that from Nas to Jay Z, and it’s something I always try to incorporate into my songwriting, ensuring the listener never truly knows what might come next.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

For “Almost Real,” carrying on from me referencing it earlier, it was one of those songs that literally arrived on my lap the second I picked up the guitar. It was done in under 20 minutes. Chords, lyrics, melody, structure; everything done in 20 minutes.

So although it might seem there’s no creative process there, I’d just spent the last 6 months writing solidly everyday for about 3 hours a day. I worked in a restaurant in the evening and every day before my shift, I would write. And I wrote lots of other good songs, but it was doing that day in, day out, that when a song like that does fall into your brain, you have the tools to harness it, not overreact and complete it without panic.

But then I have had an instant where a song falls into my lap (“Junk house”) when I’d just been getting drunk for months so who knows. Songwriting is a mystery and I guess that’s the joy.



Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

Truly never, even though I know I should. I analyse enough in my life, that writing for me is an escape and shouldn’t be hard or forced.

When I feel that I’ve got a song 90% there, it’s usually when I see my producer and he tells me people don’t need to hear 4, 16 bar verses, so we give it a bit of haircut and then it’s good to go. I overwrite in order to pick the best bits later, and we compile it together.

I prefer it that way. But some songs are good as they are, just depends.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

I think if music is what you have done for longer than you remember not doing it, then it is no longer a hobby or a pastime, and it’s no different than going for a run or eating a salad - it’s a necessity for your sanity.

Truly, if I don’t make music my anxiety becomes all consuming and I start self-destructing; it’s a very strange thing and it’s only when I go through phases of doing the latter and then I focus back to music, that I realise how much of an earthing it is. It’s like a homing beacon, or a lighthouse, it just reminds you where you are and who you are. It also connects you to people in ways you never truly expect.

Music runs through all of us like energy, I think it’s purely the industry and the business that has now made us think of it like a commodity.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Music should touch something deeper, it’s a feeling and an expression.

You can tell someone’s life story and innermost thoughts through music - harder with a cup of coffee!

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

“Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin.



They harnessed something I don’t think any band or musician has really been able to emulate since; listening to this song is almost quasi-religious, it just takes you to this different place, a dark, mysterious palace with Robert Plant wailing like a satanic devil.

Still the best band to have existed in my opinion.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

Stop judging music on whether it’s viral on Tiktok or not. Go back to the old days of A&R and give time and resources to artists to develop.

Music is really suffering with the model we have now; to be an independent artist these days is becoming almost unviable.