Q&A: Emeryld on Chaos, Catharsis, and Evolution with New Single “LIGHTS CAMERA BABY!”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NICOLE NGO ☆
AS ANOTHER YEAR BEGINS, EMERYLD STEPS FORWARD WITH AN UNYIELDING SENSE OF PURPOSE, her artistry forged in transformation. Reflecting on 2024, she says: “my year was one mother f*cking return of Saturn, let me tell you,” and likens her personal and creative evolution to a “comic book werewolf shedding its skin.” The imagery fits: chaos and catharsis, messy breakups, fleeting highs, and profound moments of clarity, culminating in her latest single “Lights Camera Baby!”
After touring with the likes of Lola Young, Sofia Isella, and Snow Wife, “Lights Camera Baby!” marks a powerful return since the release of her first EP, Bloodline in 2023. Co-written with Slush Puppy and Heather Sommer, the pop anthem brims, simultaneously, with drama and raw storytelling. “It’s about the kind of relationship where the flames are mistaken for flashing lights,” Emeryld says, reminiscing the very complexities of relationships that drive us all mad, but manage to keep us entwined in its mess. She distills love, lust, and connection, tracking a romance as it grows from just a feeling to something of a spectacle. Emeryld captures the tension between vulnerability and performance, a motif that recurs in her artistry, and one that feels sharper and more deliberate than ever.
Emeryld’s sonic world is a finely calibrated balancing act. Contradictions co-exist; the certainty of love and its intimacy treads a fine line with the ambiguity that always seems to arise halfway through. The track opens with pulsing beats that underline the song as it grows and softens, like the pulse of a heart, or feet against a dancefloor. Her vocals are layered against lush instrumentation, with deep, velvety tones, and a searing falsetto. “Lights Camera Baby!” is a break-through for Emeryld in her musical journey, blurring the lines between the relentless lingering of human impulse and the external worlds in which the listener is able to lose themself in their own memories.
Yet, Emeryld’s vision extends beyond music. Her U-Haul queer party series, now a cornerstone of Los Angeles nightlife, resonates with the ethos of her sound, one that is committed to capturing self expression at its most unapologetic, and one that proves music and community to be a source of life in itself. With “Lights Camera Baby!” setting the stage for what’s to come, Emeryld enters 2025 fearlessly.
Read on as Emeryld talks about 2024, the release of Lights, Camera, Baby! and what’s to come in 2025.
LUNA: Hi Emeryld, thanks so much for chatting with me, and Happy New Year! In the spirit of reflection, I wanted to start off by asking how your 2024 was?
EMERYLD: Hi! Thank you so much for having me!
EMERYLD: My year was one mother f*cking return of saturn, let me tell you. A lot of out with the old, in with the new and improved. I felt like I was forced to physically and energetically break out of my old body and mindset for the better – but it hurt, almost like a comic book werewolf where its spine is like growing out of its skin. From a scarring relationship and breakup, housing crises, being broke and not broke a dozen times, to meeting some of the most unbelievably angelic, inspiring, and healing people that I get the privilege of calling friends and colleagues. All in all it was eventful but incredibly fruitful.
LUNA: You’ve had such a packed time, touring with Lola Young, Sofia Isella, and Snow Wife. Congratulations on everything! It must have been very rewarding, particularly after so many releases in 2023.
EMERYLD: Yes it honestly was such a whirlwind, and ended the year so strong. Performing live is my favorite thing to do on planet earth and I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to do it with such incredible women. All three tours came within about a week before starting so me and my team just said fuck it. It was one of the best and craziest three months of my life.
LUNA: I can imagine! They do say that creativity is born of chaos.
Your new single “Lights Camera Baby!“ just dropped, which is your first release since “Bloodline” in 2023. After so many new experiences and encounters with listeners, other artists, how does it feel? How do you feel?
EMERYLD: I have been so eager to put music out since “Bloodline.” It feels incredible and quite literally like a release. I had a full southern psychedelic rock EP that I had been working on for the last three years that got unfortunately intercepted and disrupted right before I left for tour. I feel like I wouldn’t have released “Lights Camera Baby!” if I released this other project because of the sonic genre stick in my ass and how much it limited my own perception of my work. I was thinking,“I haven’t been this kind of artist and what will people think if I am?” I’m so happy to have “Lights, Camera, Baby!” to share with everyone because it feels like a release of attachment to perception, expectations, and letting myself ENJOY songs for just being f*cking awesome and wanting to perform them.
LUNA: You co-wrote this track with Slush Puppy and Heather Sommer. What was that process like?
EMERYLD: “Lights Camera Baby!” was the first song we ever wrote together with the lovely Heather Sommer. It was instant flow and energy. I came into the studio knowing he was a pop producer and still had that stick up my ass about genre, but I just let that go and was like, “Okay so what if we make a pop banger, who gives a sh*t? I love pop and I can do anything I want.” I had some lyrics that I really wanted to make into a lesbian cry in the club banger about my breakup and they were just so with it. We listened to it like 400 times dancing in the studio after we wrote it and then Slush and I drove through the hills with the top down screaming the lyrics with our friends. We were like, “Oh sh*t we got a winner on our hands.”
LUNA: I think such a big part of art making in general is how magical it can be to work with others. Music is inherently so personal, but when these vulnerabilities, ideas and stories are shared in the process of creation, the end product ends up transforming completely.
I wanted to ask, when working with new producers, or artists, or creatives, what do you treasure about the collaboration process?
EMERYLD: You hit the nail on the head, writing sessions are literally therapy. It feels so cathartic because it can be so lonely, like you’re stuck in a vacuum with your own ideas and feelings, especially being a solo artist without a band. It’s a lot of pressure and filled with so much doubt – it can be crazy-making. I think getting to share your experiences and having that bounce board of ideas, inspiration, and validation is so therapeutic. It can be such a positive mirror and erasure of doubt. I LIVE for the feeling of looking at one another knowing you’re feeling that rare synergy. It’s so beautiful.
LUNA: It’s so beautiful. It’s quite a paradoxical thing. Solitude and connection. I guess then, inversely, what do you love about making music on your own? Do you have parts of the process that you dedicate to doing solely on your own?
EMERYLD: Writing alone is so sacred to me as well. You can f*ck up, get to certain depths and unveil certain darknesses that you might be scared to look at otherwise. Dissecting your instincts and having no outside force influencing anything really informs your natural patterns and taste that make your perspective as an artist unique. Writing alone allows me to get more confident and experiment without feeling embarrassed. It’s also been so rewarding recently working on stuff that I produce on my own and then collaborating with amazing producers to help me bring it to life.
LUNA: Bringing that idea into “Lights Camera Baby!” I love the idea of dissecting your instincts. Sitting with yourself, and truly creating from what your gut and soul and heart can conjure up. What you just said reminded me of a lyric in the single where you say “dancing in the mess we made” and also “everybody knows what our name is,” which I think is a familiarly daunting feeling for many people.
Your lyrics tell a story. I was going to ask you if part of your sonic process was intertwined with a more cinematic, or visual process. How do you construct these scenes?
EMERYLD: A lot of my writing comes from scenes in my head or metaphor ideas of a situation. For “Lights Camera Baby!” I had this music video depiction of my relationship in my head that looked like us strutting down the street being adored and photographed as this power couple, when underneath the surface it’s a delusion and a disaster that everyone is stopping to witness – burning is all around us but we mistake the flames for flashing lights…too narcissistic to think we are anything but a spectacle, mirroring one another in a vacuum.
LUNA: So, if this song were a collection of films or artworks, what would they be?
EMERYLD: A Margiela Fashion Show (tattered, messy, silhouette, structurally bounding), Portrait Of A Lady on Fire, Girl Interrupted, or The Substance.
LUNA: You mentioned that you had an insatiable urge to write a gay “cry in the club” song. Who are some of the people who have inspired your sound?
EMERYLD: I feel like queer club icons and their takes on emotional bangers are what I’m so obsessed with – Robyn, Sky Ferriera, and Cher. Songs that you can scream cry in your car alone but also scream it feeling it with your homies as a collective battle cry. Those are some of the best fucking songs.
LUNA: Incredible artists. I remember reading something really beautiful about Robyn’s artistry. I believe it was that she builds worlds that live long after the music fades and where the lonely can dance. “Lights Camera Baby!” that same specific power.
So, speaking of the artists you are drawn to, how do you feel that you’ve taken these inspirations to craft a sound of your own? And how has this sound grown and developed over the years?
EMERYLD: I’ve definitely grown in the sense that I’m not gatekeeping any flow of creativity to myself from the constructs of what I should be or what a song should be. My sonic journey has been me breaking out of the shackles and getting back to childlike play and freedom. You have to let the song write itself.
LUNA: I love that. So much of growing up ends up being a return to childlike wonder and fearless imagination. It’s so interesting that with age, or I guess, as we face more, those attributes or acts seem to fade away. Are there any people that have inspired you in that particular way - you know, helped you release those bounds when writing?
EMERYLD: My mom honestly has always been so encouraging and vital in building my confidence as a child. She had her broadway days and understood my desire for theatrics. To this day I am so creatively and visually inspired by shows like Chicago, I’m a live performance/theater nerd and am so inspired by songs that make me want to see them performed live. Idol wise, Gaga is my absolute #1 in every respect of the word “artist.” I remember where I was when I first heard “Bad Romance,” and it changed my little f*cking life. Freddy Mercury, Ann Wilson from Heart, Doja Cat, Miley Cyrus...Oh and Mac Miller. First show I ever snuck out to see by myself at House of Blues in Dallas. Wolf Alice, Ethel Cain…this is me cutting it down.
LUNA: How has that influenced your recent and upcoming music?
EMERYLD: I’ve been writing from a place of something feeling cinematic and huge and taking you to exactly where I want you, a location or scene in my head. “Lights Camera Baby!” feels massive in a different way than some of the other stuff I am working on that feels like it’s a pivotal scene or really intense scene in a drama or horror movie.
LUNA: I love that you explain your experiences with sound, as both an engager with it and a crafter of it, with this cinematic grandeur.
EMERYLD: Yes! Like, Wolf Alice’s “How Do I Make You OK?’”or Ethel Cain’s “Thoroughfare” immediately transports me to being the main character of an indie movie doing menial tasks with a purpose, like my husband just died in war and I have to raise our newborn alone in the south…or something.
LUNA: I wanted to circle back to touring. Has being on tour changed your perspective on anything?
EMERYLD: MASSIVELY. I learned so much, especially being the opener because the crowd isn’t there for you necessarily. I was spoiled enough to have these crowds be incredibly open, enthusiastic, and willing to discover. I’ve played a million shows and I’ve had some tough rooms, but the less you try to win them over and the more you let yourself feel the music, the better. I also think I realized how little of it is about perfecting something. It’s more about singing from your gut. Plus those shows are 30 minutes to an hour; you can literally do whatever you want. Each room and stage size varies so it teaches you to let go of expectations because you don’t know what the room is going to feel like until up there.
LUNA: What are some of your greatest memories this year from tour and live performance?
EMERYLD: Favorite moments would be talking to fans after the shows, hearing people sing along with me to “Scandal,” getting to see so many friends from all over the country, and how many inside jokes were created between me and each crowd. It was f*cking awesome.
LUNA: I also wanted to mention U-Haul! How has your artistic philosophy influenced your approach to creating the spaces that you do with these events, and how do the two components, community and music, intertwine for you?
EMERYLD: A constant complaint and topic amongst the female identifying lesbian community is how many gay and straight events there are, but nothing for the girlies. There are usually like three lesbians in those spaces and you’re just like, “Where the f*ck is my place where we’re all here for the same reason?” And I also thought maybe there’s women who are figuring out their sexuality and want to be able to explore that somewhere openly and safely. I realized after 10 years in LA that I just NEEDED to do this. So I created a color coded, themed dating party and U-HAUL was just the perfect name because well…if you know you know. When it comes to my music – being in that celebratory space and seeing how my body and other bodies react to rhythm, transitions, and music in the club has made me want to have that effect on people. Also, queer people have the best taste in music and I want to make art that my community identifies with.
LUNA: You mentioned a range of artists that have shaped pop music so monumentally. What are some of the most valuable aspects of your role in contributing to the pop-scene today?
EMERYLD: I want to put on a good motherf*cking show and be an inspiration for that a girl from Texas with no connections and no money to fucking make the jump and SUCCEED.
LUNA: More broadly, what do you love about making music?
EMERYLD: I love the mess and the journey, the good and the bad, the way no day is the same and anything can happen. I love that I have control over creating something from thin air every day and still have the privilege to do that if all else fails. I have myself, my brain, my soul, and my creativity.
LUNA: Now that “Lights Camera Baby!” has been released, what can we look forward to this year?
EMERYLD: Some surprises around “Lights Camera Baby!” early next year and most DEFINITELY a project, a f*ck ton of music and shows nonstop baby. Hopefully, some festivals that have been on my bucket list too!
