Deb Fan Contradicts Herself in Debut EP ‘Gemini Moon’
DEB FAN WANTS YOU TO BE CONFUSED — because navigating life and love is full of contradictions. Gemini Moon, the debut EP from the Hong Kong–raised, LA–based artist charts the windy and unpredictable path of emotions at a relationship’s end.
“A lot of the EP is a rollercoaster,” Fan said. “I'm sad, and then I'm horny, and then I’m even more sad. Then I’m understanding, and then I'm mad.”
The six-track project includes power singles “Run My Mind” and “Pull My Hair,” already featured on multiple Spotify editorial playlists and earning shout-outs from Billboard and MTV. A self-professed “astrology girly,” Fan says the title of the EP, Gemini Moon, is a nod to her own birth chart. Gemini, the “twin” sign, represents the duality in her life: the submissive narrative historically expected of Asian women, and the soft power she chooses to embody instead. The moon sign denotes her innermost self, while also standing as a symbol of femininity in Chinese culture.
“For an Asian female to really speak her mind — especially if you’re an artist or a creative — it’s not something we were trained or expected to do,” Fan said. “But as for how I deal with the scrutiny, it just makes me mad. [I’ll get a comment from] some man with two followers who thinks I’m supposed to [have] clear skin, no tattoo[s], no nothing. And it just makes me want to keep going against it.”
Speaking passionately from her car in downtown LA, adorned in silver jewelry à la Y2K Baddie, Fan reads as someone who has found herself and is comfortable expressing her emotions. But it wasn’t always this way.
Raised in a traditional Chinese household while attending an international school in Hong Kong, Fan’s formative years looked very different from the typical artist in America. She was classically trained in the piano and was a jazz trumpetist; it wasn’t until the advent of Spotify that she was exposed to popular music and began developing a taste of her own.
“Growing up, [my relationship to music] was very merit-based,” she explained. “I was taking exams and stuff for piano, which is strange because it's a very expressive instrument.”
As a girl, Fan experienced the various inconsistencies of being “third culture” that still shape her perspectives today.
“I went to an international school, but we lived in Asia and a lot of our parents were really traditional and strict,” she said. “It was a predominantly Asian school, but the people who were considered pretty or popular were mostly white. So it was interesting how the Western standard was still prevalent.”
Following the path of many of her peers, Fan applied to school in the US, and was accepted into the University of Rochester with a chemistry major. But receiving 18% on an exam led her to seek an alternate path. Drawing on her growing interest in music while in an a capella group, Fan decided to study audio engineering.
“I was like, ‘Well, damn. I gotta find a major that's respectable to my parents, but at the same time relates to music,’” she said of her decision.
Fan also decided to apply to Berklee College of Music on a whim. She was so shocked when she got in that she decided to defer a semester.
“I didn’t really expect to get it, you know?” she said. Because I applied so last-minute that it didn't feel real. So when I heard back [from Berklee] I was like, ‘Um… can I actually defer this? I actually like my school,’” she said.
While at Berklee, Fan continued to dive deeper into her passions as a music, production, and engineering major, but experienced frustration with the competitive atmosphere. She moved to LA to start her career in the corporate world (her day job is a sound designer) and turned to music to process her experiences.
“My entire EP is about my relationship with my ex and how we came from two very different worlds,” she said. “I actually wrote my first song, ‘Run My Mind,’ while I was still in the relationship. At that point there were a lot of issues between me and my partner at the time. That was when I started to really get into the grind of being an artist and going to sessions.”
As Fan navigated her emotions, the rest of Gemini Moon took shape. Through leveraging her professional training and spending time at a writing camp, she collaborated with friends to write and produce tracks that aligned with her vision.
“I really wanted to get a holistic version of what that relationship looked like,” she explained. “There were a lot of dark parts, but there were a lot of beautiful parts too. I really tried to get that all down but I was like, ‘You know what? Even though I'm writing about this person, it's not for them. It's for myself.’”
The process of writing and producing Gemini Moon led to a lot of healing for the artist, but she acknowledges that she’s still a work in progress. Her emotions toward her ex continue to fluctuate, as well as her perception of her identity. Fan described how, at the end of the day, she grew up in a very traditional household, so the process of coming into herself as an artist and individual is just beginning.
“I started my artist career late because there haven't been many people before me that have done it in a way that I see myself doing,” she said. “But I kid you not, I watched BLACKPINK at Coachella and I cried, and I don’t even really listen to BLACKPINK. It was just that representation — holy shit. And it wasn’t like where Americans are trying to impose what an Asian is supposed to look like, either.”
Through Gemini Moon, Fan offers contradiction and complexity in a world that gravitates toward absolutes. Her immersive production coupled with expressive, layered vocals demonstrates her exceeding capabilities and promise.
Looking ahead, the 24-year-old hopes to get her artist visa to continue making music in the US, and tells us to keep an eye out for some “light dance music” in the near future.
When asked to describe her genre, Fan offered a few descriptors instead.
“I would say dark, but at the same time, ethereal,” she said. “You're in a burning fire, but you're still smiling, you know? I like to describe it as, ‘You're alone, but not afraid.’”
CONNECT WITH deb fan
SPOTIFY
-
weekly tunes playlist has been updated! new tracks from @furtradeband, @pecqband, @garryfool & more! check it out! https://t.co/ToFU0R6YGo
