Q&A: Indigo De Souza talks healing, creating, and reminding herself that All of This Will End
WHEN WE SAT DOWN TO CHAT WITH — Indigo De Souza over Zoom, she was taking a day to recharge.
“It’s always hectic leading up to a release,” she said from her home in Asheville, North Carolina. “I just try to make sure I get time to ground myself when I can.”
De Souza is no stranger to the release cycle — her newest studio album, All of This Will End, is her third, following the critical acclaim of 2021’s Any Shape You Take. Lauded for its raw lyricism backed by a patchwork sonic blend of rock, folk, and electro-pop, Any Shape You Take launched over a year on the road for De Souza. After a period of much-needed rest, though, she is ready to share her latest work.
All of This Will End feels like a first breath of clean air (ironic, perhaps, given that one of the album’s singles is entitled “Smog”). The elements of electronica introduced in her previous release are even more present on these tracks, coupled with reverberating, sometimes harsh guitar sounds and grounding drum lines. In true form, De Souza does not mince words — her lyrics hit like jabs, standing stark against the backdrop of her instrumentals. There is a powerful sense of self-actualization across these songs, even as she explores intensely complex aspects of the human experience: home and community, endings and beginnings, hurt, and healing in its many forms.
In conversation, De Souza carries an almost preternaturally relaxed demeanor, with a gentle energy that is only furthered by her soft speaking voice. Like her music, she has an aura of casual authenticity and vulnerability, reflecting on the production process of All of This Will End and the support and healing that fueled its creation.
Read below for her thoughts on the importance of community, what she has learned from touring, and the mantra of her album’s title.
LUNA: What are you looking forward to with this release? What are you hoping that people take from the album?
DE SOUZA: I'm really interested to see what people get from listening to that album. I'm not exactly attached to what happens once it's out there — if I was, then I wouldn't have put it out, I would have just kept it to myself. But I'm really hoping that people find some comfort in the album or feel some kind of special light or power brewing in them when they hear it. I know that for me, one of my favorite things to feel when I'm listening to an album is just a kind of fearlessness towards change and towards taking control of my life. Some albums just make me feel that strength within myself, and I guess that's what I hope people get from listening to mine.
The album doesn't really feel like it's trying to make a statement, either. It feels like more of an emotional landscape — it’s kind of a flood of experiences and brain waves. I think if anything, though, it is definitely trying to portray strength or portray the feeling of overcoming something difficult. So much of where these songs came from is my processing, working through a lot of hardships that happened during the pandemic and a lot of loss that felt really painful but was necessary. If there’s a message to be taken, it’s that sense of strength, overcoming, [and] moving forward.
LUNA: You've mentioned that All of This Will End is driven by a lot of personal shifts over the last couple of years, especially a growing sense of and love for community. Can you tell me a little about who you're considering your community to be right now and where they’re present in these tracks?
DE SOUZA: When I say I'm inspired by community, I guess what I mean is just that I'm inspired by my life. Right now, my life feels very centered around community and deepening my relationships with the people I love… my friends, my family, my pets. I’ve also been really strengthening my relationship with nature, which feels very connected to the people in my life as well, because they really value nature and are very proactive about learning from nature. I feel like I’ve learned a lot from that.
Community is inspiring because of the things that you get from being close to other people and being open to other people's experiences and worlds, but it’s also just really inspiring to be supported and loved by people. It helps me feel safe to express myself, and it makes me feel more supported within my art and gives me the energy and excitement to record.
LUNA: And that’s something you think has grown and changed for the better recently?
DE SOUZA: Absolutely. I definitely don't think I had a very strong sense of community for my entire life before the pandemic. When COVID hit, the isolation separated people, but I think it also connected them in a lot of ways, depending on how they reacted to it. For me, it kind of highlighted all of the things that were the most important to me — everything got stripped away except for the things … and the people that you really fought to keep in your life.
For a while, it was such an ordeal to even just go to someone's house. You had to kind of create a bubble of people that you really wanted to spend time with, and I think that’s part of what started shaping my idea of community. Today, I feel so strongly supported, and I think it really has changed everything for me and has made my life a lot happier and more manageable. I feel a lot more at peace.
LUNA: You’ve spoken a little bit about the phrase “all of this will end” as being kind of a neutral mantra that you’ve been using recently. What's the good and the bad in that, and how is it helping you find comfort right now?
DE SOUZA: I think that it’s comforting if you look at it one way and uncomfortable if you look at it another way. That's what I really like about it, because you could feel like, “Oh, our time on Earth is fleeting, and that's really sad and I'm scared, and I don't want to die or think about death.” But the other option is to see the preciousness in every moment because of that fact. Finding some acceptance for the inevitable can actually be kind of peaceful and can allow you space to infuse your life with intention and purpose. We are fleeting and dying, and we have loss and pain ahead of us, but we get to live right now.
I feel like it's hard to find purpose unless you realize the preciousness and fragility of everything, and then you realize that your purpose is just to follow your truth. Follow your actual passions and your heart, and really, really show up for the people that you love because you only have so much time with them.
Photo courtesy of Angella Choe
LUNA: Walk me through a little bit of the creative and production process for this album. How has it been similar or different from Any Shape You Take and I Love My Mom?
DE SOUZA: If I'm just making demos, I make them on my computer by myself. When it gets to the stage of recording real tracks, I work at Drop Of Sun Studios in Nashville. I also sometimes go to this studio, Betty’s, which is about four hours away in Durham. It's actually owned by the people who are in Sylvan Esso.
Any Shape You Take and I Love my Mom were actually both made with totally different people. So this release has felt very different because I haven’t been working with any of the people I worked with on those two albums, except for my co-producer Alex Farrar, who did work on Any Shape You Take. I found a really special connection with him production-wise; I just love his spirit and love working with him.
My guitarist and best friend Dexter did a lot of production on this album as well, and a lot of his guitar voicings came through really strongly on this album. All of the crazy shreddy stuff is Dexter, and he has a very specific voice and language with guitar that really speaks to me. So the band was me, Dexter, Zach, Avery, and Alex, and then we also brought in some extra people. We had a trumpet player come in for some things, and we had Dave from War on Drugs do some bass on some of the songs. This really amazing steel pedal player also did a couple of the songs — his name is John James Tourville. It was a lot of fun.
LUNA: Over what period of time was All of This Will End written and produced?
DE SOUZA: I think it was probably written over the span of about a year and a half, two years. I started writing all these songs in the middle of the pandemic, right after I finished Any Shape You Take. As soon as they were ready to record, I recorded them, and then it took about a year for the album to even come out. It can take so long from the time you record an album until it actually releases if you do it in a very methodical way, like through a label. I'm definitely very impatient, and now I can't even believe that it's happening.
LUNA: Sonically, All of This Will End feels like something of an expansion on things that you started with Any Shape You Take: shorter tracks, a more electronic and sometimes harsher sound. What's been driving the instrumentals for this release?
DE SOUZA: I don't entirely know what inspired those sonics. I mean, I think that they're mostly just emotional, like harsher sounds are just from a harsher emotion. I’ve been working with more electronic sounds, too — I just love it. I love keyboards and I've always wanted to play with pop more, and still plan to. Both ends of that spectrum of sound feel very true to me and very fun to play with. I never really know what I'm doing — I just go for it.
LUNA: Your writing style, meanwhile, has always favored simple, striking, and blunt lyricism, and the same holds true in this new release. Tell me a little bit about your songwriting process — how do the thoughts get put on the page?
DE SOUZA: I think that if you ask anybody in my life, you’ll probably find that the way that I write is very similar to the way that I am in real life or the way that I speak. I feel like I've never really had a choice in the way that I write. I could write songs a different way, and I have tried in the past but it doesn't come naturally. This is the only way that feels natural. I usually don't even try to write songs — I just put thoughts on paper and then I end up making one by accident.
LUNA: Do you write in other forms like poetry, then? Is it the same process as songwriting for you?
DE SOUZA: Yeah, I do, although not a ton. I go through different seasons — sometimes writing a lot and sometimes not, depending on my mental health. If I'm in a really low period, I don't have a lot of energy, and it's hard for me to make myself actually write something down, even though I might have words popping around in my head.
LUNA: Speaking on mental wellbeing, you were on the road for a long time after the release of Any Shape You Take, and you took some time off of touring for a bit last year to recharge. What have those past couple of years of touring been like? What did you take away from that experience?
DE SOUZA: Yeah, I was on the road way too much. I definitely learned a lot, and a lot of what I learned was just about how to make the experience more sustainable for humans. It sounds like touring should just be built in a way that is sustainable, but it really isn't. There were a lot of things that I felt like I was missing, like a closeness to nature, and that resulted in me deciding that my crew would camp as much as possible moving forward. If we're going through a pretty place and it’s the right season, we'll camp somewhere instead of going to a hotel.
I was also ultimately feeling disconnected to a lot of the places that we played because we were in and out so quickly. So I've kind of built more structure around getting to know the people at the venue and getting to know our spaces more intimately before we play. Now we feel like there's more of a connection. I'm just always thinking about how to keep my whole crew feeling comfortable and seen and heard, and trying not to drain everyone's energy and wear them out. We’re working on not doing too many shows at once, so this year, I'm trying to do more of a month-on, month-off kind of thing.
LUNA: It’s a beautiful thing to try and establish connections with places that you pass through. How have you been going about that?
DE SOUZA: I’ve been intentional about talking to everyone at the venue and introducing myself and really getting to know the people that are working there. We’re also trying to be careful about where we stay, especially if we're gonna be in a place for more than one night. We usually try to be in a neighborhood where we can actually interact with the space and walk to things.
My crew and I like to get meals together and just bond with each other and play games. It can feel really lonely touring because you have this whole life and community at home, and then you go on tour and it's like you're in a completely different universe. The only people that you have access to on a daily basis are your touring crew and your fans, so it's important for all of us to stay mentally sane. I'm very picky about the people in my crew. My biggest thing is that everyone needs to be hardworking and everyone needs to get along and show each other love. Not only get along, in fact, but really enjoy spending time together.
LUNA: There tends to be a very calm, welcoming atmosphere at your shows. Is that something you create consciously, or would you say the audience just reacts to you being a chill person?
DE SOUZA: I definitely am a chill person! But also, I personally actually don't like going to see live music. I think that having the perspective of someone who has anxiety and depression and can easily feel claustrophobic, I consciously try to exude calmness while I'm on stage. I want the audience to feel like it's okay to be in a calm space with me. Audiences react so much to whatever's happening on stage, and it can get so scary when some people rile up the crowd and try to get them to hurt each other. Never in a million years would I want that — I like things to be calm.
LUNA: Have you felt that same kind of gentle energy from your audiences?
DE SOUZA: Definitely. I feel like my music attracts a lot of people who are going through hard things, and who at their core are just really kind people. I love the feeling of being in a room with my audiences — they just have a really sweet energy, and I love seeing and hearing about them making friends with each other too. It's all been so good, and I'm excited for it to grow more and more. It just feels like a great opportunity to create a safe space with strangers.
LUNA: All three singles off the album have been released with accompanying music videos, which you yourself directed. Can you tell me a little more about the visual elements of All of This Will End?
DE SOUZA: Those are really important to me. I think that I'm just really excited about not only the music but also the visual aspects of what I have been doing lately. It feels like the most fulfilling thing, and very cohesive in a way that it’s never felt before. I think it comes from me having more certainty about who I am in the world and what my purpose is. I feel a great importance in making sure that everything I do, visually and sonically and personally, is very intentional.
So yeah, the music videos are important to me, and so is the merch I've been putting out. It’s all very much just coming from a super personal place, sharing my life mantras and also my drawings. I haven't shared any of that very much, but it feels like it’s time.
LUNA: One of the most distinguishable visual pieces of your music is your album covers, which your mother paints. How does that process tend to work? Does she listen to it and paint what she feels, or do you tell her what you're looking for visually?
DE SOUZA: I tell her what I'm looking for, what the scene is that I'm thinking of and how I want the characters to interact with it. And then she makes a little sketch and sends it to me and asks me if it's kind of headed in the right direction. Once I give her the “okay” and she starts to paint, they're giant paintings that she really works on for a while. I’m actually going to have her start working on the next album cover around now, so that doesn't feel stressful for her.
LUNA: So do you have the original paintings?
DE SOUZA: I have them, yeah, they're all up in my house. I love seeing them throughout the day.
LUNA: What are you most excited for, both with the release of All of This Will End and beyond that?
DE SOUZA: At the end of the day, I'm just really excited to connect with people through all these different avenues and to create community through my music. I think that's what I've always wanted, since I was small. I've always seen the way that music can create community by pulling people that feel something from the music together. I've been cursed with a really dark brain and it's hard to be alive. But it is so beautiful, the way that this career has kind of saved my life and given me a space to feel like I can do something good.
All of This Will End is available on all streaming platforms Friday, April 28. You can find Indigo De Souza and her music on Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.
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