Q&A: From Going Viral on TikTok to Playing a Show with Coldplay, gigi Discusses Her Journey in Music
DEDICATED TO EXPLORING AND ACKNOWLEDGING HER EMOTIONS — gigi uses music to bring honesty to her journey through intense feelings. After finding large success in her 2021 release, “Sometimes (Backwood),” gigi recently returned to streaming platforms this year to give fans a taste of what else she has in store. Her latest single, “The Man,” was released on streaming platforms earlier this month. The Florida-based artist first used TikTok to share her music with the world, quickly noticing engagement with her videos. “Sometimes (Backwood),” her first solo streaming platform release, was especially well-received, acquiring over 50 million streams on Spotify alone since its release in February 2021.
“The Man” acknowledges themes such as gender expectation and questions the standards of being a man. The music video utilizes a combination of time-lapse and animation techniques to create a visually stunning companion to gigi’s bold lyrics and immersive storytelling.
Gigi’s authentic intimacy in her work has proven her a passionate and intelligent lyricist, vocalist, and all-around creative. Her work has led to a variety of incredible opportunities, the most recent being her spot as a opener in Tampa, FL for Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres World Tour.
Read below to learn more about gigi’s experience preparing for Coldplay, what went into the creation of “The Man,” and other future plans for her music.
LUNA: I hear you're getting to play Coldplay's Tampa, FL tour date? Tell me how you're feeling about that.
GIGI: I am feeling so excited. I still can't believe it's happening or that the opportunity was thrown my way. I mean, I'm just so grateful. I'm a good amount of nervous, which is good. But overall, I'm just really, really excited. I think it's so special that it's in my home state of Florida, and it's actually really crazy because I got the offer on my birthday this year. I was out to eat, having my birthday dinner, and then I checked my email. So I know it's meant to be — that helps me ease my nerves.
LUNA: Yeah, that's a really nice birthday present! Is there anywhere specific you've always wanted to go when touring?
GIGI: I mean, everywhere. I know that's such an artist's answer — I want to see everything — but … I do. I think it'd be very cool to go to Europe. There's a lot of places that I want to go there. [Also] South America.
LUNA: Who are some of your biggest musical influences? Are there any you'd wish to collaborate with in the future?
GIGI: Ooh, there are so many. My favorite artist of all time is Jeff Buckley. I love him a lot. And I'm a huge Phoebe [Bridgers] fan. I feel like if I could see myself collaborating with anyone in the future, I would want it to be Phoebe. I feel like we would have some cool things to say. Lady Gaga is also my one of my top. So it's Jeff, Lady Gaga… I'm a huge The Killers fan. There's so much running through my head, but those are a few.
LUNA: Awesome. You also had a new single, “The Man,” that just came out recently. Congratulations, by the way.
GIGI: Thank you.
LUNA: What was your experience like working on that song and the music video that came out with it?
GIGI: That was super fun. That was actually the first time I met Jenn Decilveo; it was my first writing session. I'm still pretty new to all this stuff, so I was definitely nervous going in because I'd never been like, “Okay, I'm gonna write with somebody.” It was never something that crossed my mind, but Jenn and I really bonded over the queer experience and how gender expectations kind of hover over us in different ways. And then we ended up writing “The Man.” The video was super fun — I wasn't able to physically be there because I have to be practicing for Coldplay but I was very involved in the making of this figurine. Actually, I brought it here. [Shows figurine from music video.]
LUNA: Oh, awesome! That’s so cool.
GIGI: As far as the idea of why I went with an animated man, I figured it's such a serious song and topic, and I think making it something cute like this would be a good balance. So I typed in “stick figure” because I was just trying to think what the cover [would] be. I wasn't even thinking about a video and then I saw this little figurine stuff and I thought about it. I was like, “What if I did a little figurine man just going through this journey of nature and life?” So that's kind of how it came together.
LUNA: I love it. Watching through the video, you can tell there's a lot of thought and effort put into that and relating it to the lyrics, and I really, really enjoyed it.
GIGI: Thank you. Yeah, Open The Portal, they're so amazing, so sick, they were just so collaborative and really, really cool people. It was a really great honor to work with them.
LUNA: That's great. Can fans expect any more music coming soon?
GIGI: Yeah, yes, yes, yes. I have a project coming up pretty soon, which I'm very excited to share, and definitely a single soon as well.
LUNA: Your first song that you released on music platforms, “Sometimes (Backwood),” gained a lot of traction on TikTok. What was it like seeing so many people interacting with your music at once?
GIGI: It was very unexpected and overwhelming — in a good way. I feel like, at that point, I was in a very low place in my life — I actually was just starting to come out of a lot of things that I was going through at the time, and I actually started using TikTok to cope with grief that I was going through. It was something to kill my time because I was like, “I gotta put something out there.” So I started doing that for months. I was going in there with the intention of “I want things to move along, I want things to take off,” but it definitely wasn't that night, in that moment, that I thought. It was very interesting because what happened was I posted a song about my sister that passed away, I left my phone for like, what, 20 minutes, and then I go to check and it had 10,000 likes. And I was like, “What the hell? What the hell is going on?”
At first, it was that video about my sister, and I had posted the “Backwood” song a few days prior. If you scroll down on my page a little bit, there’s “Backwood” like three videos down. So I guess people found that and then that took off. That ended up being the one that I posted and shared to Spotify and everything. It was definitely a very weird thing to have two things happening back to back, two songs — that's nuts. I think in a lot of ways it was a weird thing to be validated on such a large scale. It was definitely a crazy moment that I didn't expect, and I'm very grateful. The amazing part about all [of] it was just seeing how alone I thought I was, and seeing how alone I wasn't, you know, and how many people are going through the same exact thing. I feel like, overall, it really connected me to people and to other people's lives. And that's what's kept me here and kept me going.
LUNA: Of course, yeah, especially going through something as big as that. I'm sorry for your loss, by the way. It's great to know that you have a community of people that are there to support you.
GIGI: Thank you.
LUNA: When did you first know this is something that you wanted to pursue?
GIGI: I think I was kind of a late bloomer. I feel like a lot of people are like, “I started playing when I was four.” I wish. I was a little late. I mean, I was always around music, into music, but it wasn't really until I started teaching myself. I was like 15, and I started teaching myself piano and then it turned into guitar. At first, it was just an obsession where it was like, “Oh my god, I can't stop writing songs.” I'm waking up for school, I'm not going to bed. It was one of those things like when you're in a relationship, you know, that puppy love thing where you're very obsessed. In that way, I was very obsessed with music. It was funny because I really wasn't good for a long time. Like, objectively. I definitely didn't expect anything. I think once I put in enough time to actually see that I was improving and be like, “Okay, I love this and I'm actually getting better. I can do this.” So, probably like 16. It was when I went to this Berklee songwriting camp that they had for high school students — that was the first time I was around other peers who were writers. I went to a school that did music but it was very musical theater–based. It was the first time I was around creatives, and that was the moment I knew.
LUNA: A little last question to wrap everything up: What are three words to describe how you're feeling right now?
GIGI: I would say grateful. Excited. Connected.
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