Q&A: Tarune Blends Intimacy and Distance in “Paris Syndrome” and Official Video for “Goodnight Baby”
ONCE CLEVERLY DEFINED AS “BEDROOM-FOLK” — Tarune’s sound holds an ethereal depth that feels like it’s traveling to your ears over an open sea. It’s peaceful, deep, and full of the sound self-understanding you can feel when you’re standing on a shore. His production style washes in universal sensations through long, soothing chords. Tarune proved his lyrical merit when he released “Goodnight Baby” back in 2019, and
Like any good artist, his work on this track was ongoing. He’s continued to experiment with different ways to push his talents and has just self-produced a video accompaniment for the song. The video, releasing later this month, features him and a lover from a bird’s-eye view, slowly tangling and untangling above their sheets. making a couple’s restless night look romantic and fluid. In step with his sound, the whole production is absolutely transfixing.
His most recent release — which came out last Friday— dives into a more melancholy subject than his last. “Paris Syndrome” is all about the unexpected and sad revelations that often come with a fleeting love. Once again, Tarune has mastered sounds of intimacy through his guitar and translated an organic presence through the inclusion of ambient sounds in his own production.
Read below as we connect with Tarune to talk more in-depth about what inspires him, how he views his music, and what’s coming next.
LUNA: You say you are a generally private person and it was difficult to start sharing your music at first.
TARUNE: Actually, I’m definitely open with certain aspects of my life. Like my emotions — a lot of my friends know — there are no questions that are off-limits. I’m a huge believer that young men should feel comfortable sharing their feelings in a safe way.
I guess, more specifically though, I was always private in regards to my music, writing, and releasing artistic work. I think perfectionism was a big cause of it — because later I’d find that my music was inextricably linked to this expression of the most vulnerable parts of myself. It was a weird dichotomy; I was pretty accessible through my acting — I had been professionally working as an actor for a lot of my life. I did this Marvel show and starred in this sweet musical children’s show alongside Julie Andrews. But even through that, I always sort of hid my music away — it always felt like it inhabited a more introspective and separate space, and it had just never felt “ready.”
LUNA: Who was the first person you ever showed your music to? Why?
TARUNE: Ever? Probably my dad. He put me in classical guitar classes as a wee boy and was always pushing me to write and practice, which I’m thankful for these days. But more recently, in 2019, my first single “Goodnight Baby” — one of many demos I was recording in my bedroom — I had just recorded this entirely new version from scratch that day. For some reason, it was the first recording of it (I’d done a handful of totally different versions over the years) that felt like it captured the vulnerability and feeling I was looking to capture. I sent it over to my dear friend Ivanna and said, “Dude, I think this one is actually good?” She proceeded to Uber over at 2 a.m. and basically forced me to submit it to distribution that night. Which I’m eternally thankful to her for.
LUNA: Was there a specific person that inspired “Paris Syndrome”? What was the writing process for this song like?
TARUNE: It started as a love song (as they all do) about a relationship I had with an ex, who happened to be French… But it wasn’t, like, a song about us going to Paris, nor did I have an obsession with Paris. On the record, I think Paris is pretty sweet. I loved the vintage shops and Chinatown there has a really cute old-school vibe.
Anyway, after the relationship, this lyric, “I wanna go with you, take me there,” kept popping into my head — It’s so simple, but it was like a line from a script of my own life. A dialogue when you’re longing for someone and thinking they might be able to rescue you from the pain of loneliness. I found that was a pattern of mine, of longing at the beginning of my past relationships too. This raw, passionate yearning, wanting to sweep them up and have them join you on this journey. I often put the object of my love on a pedestal and eventually would find that, in reality, the relationship itself was a whole different rhythm than what I had dreamt up about it.
That’s why I loved the title “Paris Syndrome.” The song runs parallel to this (real!) syndrome that people get when they dream of visiting Paris and are let down by the reality of it, but the metaphor of the song is the same. The feeling of wanting to run into this romance of your dreams, and, of course, being hit by the reality of it when you get there.
In regards to writing, I usually have a sentence or two that comes to me before bed, or when I’m feeling especially vulnerable, that becomes the center of the song. Like “goodnight baby, should you prey on me?” and “I met a girl who was crazy and proud” kind of just showed up that way. Then, I’ll run and grab my guitar and put on the voice memos on my phone and just improvise for a while with that feeling fresh in my body. I can cut out the stuff that doesn’t really align with the feeling I’m trying to express later — I like to just get it all out in the moment.
LUNA: How do you process heartbreak or falling out of love?
TARUNE: Oof. Ouch. Yeah. Um, “process” is a strong word — I think a lot of the time my natural tendency is to avoid it, but I’m definitely trying to work on that. But when I’m not avoiding it, or when it’s so overwhelming that I can’t, I’ll pick up my guitar and just play for a while, or I’ve got some really kind friends and we love talking it all out. I’ve noticed I process feelings best when I’m saying them out loud. Like, I discover things I didn’t realize when I can speak about them. So I do the same with music: if I’m overwhelmed by something, I grab the nearest guitar and play whatever sounds pretty for a while and open up the emotional tap and sing whatever comes to mind. And sometimes those end up as these little songs I release, which is nuts.
LUNA: What’s the hardest part about producing your own music? The best part?
TARUNE: Oh man. For those who don’t know, I currently produce, record, mix, and perform all my own instruments for my songs. This is shifting as we speak and the more I collaborate, the more I realize there is so much joy to be found in the collaborative process instead of just intense nights alone on the computer. But I hope that every artist, whether they know how to or not, produces some of their own music at some point. It leads to this kind of amazing, singular, imperfectness and experimentation that I think is rooted in our individuality.
It’s definitely a more arduous process because all of these blocks — perfectionism, indecision, procrastination, “not knowing enough” — can all slow the process down, sometimes to a total halt. But on the flip side, I’ve been obsessed with producing my first couple of projects essentially alone — I believe there’s this purity and self-discovery that comes with it that feels especially important at the beginning of a career.
I didn’t start as a professional producer or anything — I’m self-taught — but I’m really good at tinkering and teaching myself. The best part is that you get to learn and experiment with what sounds right to your ears — alone, impulsively, in the moment. Without any pressure from other producers, labels, whoever. And some of my all-time favorite albums were created this way — James Blake’s first album, Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, Dijon, Choker’s music, which I’m a huge fan of — they made these sort of “lo-fi,” “not-done-correctly” masterpieces that I think a lot of studio albums actually have trouble capturing the energy of.
LUNA: What boundaries do you hope to push through your sound?
TARUNE: I’m trying to push what it means to be vulnerable and share that vulnerability as unfiltered as possible. I think coming from acting, which is all about intimacy (and sharing it, in a sense), I’m more comfortable with that as an artist. I also am obsessed with technology and how it shifts what we create as artists — and I think as all of our tools get exponentially more automated, pristine vocals and recordings become more common. So this idea of magnifying our imperfections through art, which I think is linked to our individuality and base experience as human beings, is actually becoming more and more rare.
I’m interested in exploring that raw place as much as possible. And I like to include mistakes from the recordings or voice memos: a car driving by, talking outside my bedroom or whatever. Sometimes it gives it this really intimate feeling. But yeah, I think as a society, and especially as a guy, it’s become more important to be vulnerable about the things that are painful and emotional, and I hope to continue to share these feelings through music.
LUNA: How has your identity influenced your music?
TARUNE: I’m mixed Asian; I’m an actor, singer… I used to host a psychology radio show, I love taking photos, I’m a geek with computer stuff, I grew up singing in these meditations with my family, playing all kinds of instruments, I would always make short films with my friends… And what’s awesome about being a musician is that I get to utilize all of these seemingly disparate parts of myself and incorporate them into the business around it. And it’s actually a good thing. It seems to paradoxically make things more specific.
But growing up, that definitely led me to have an identity crisis. A lot of industry people’s job is to — as we know — fit you in some sort of lane so they can sell you as a product. And that has always made me feel uneasy. The musical theater–type stuff I was finding myself doing professionally as an actor I enjoyed some aspects of … and my family and reps were always pushing me to do musicals — “You sing and act!” — apply for reality shows like The Voice and all that. But I always felt hesitant or kind of out of place in those venues.
It’s been really sweet discovering that the music industry can be this really wonderful place that often rewards you when you just inhabit your individuality and express yourself honestly. I’ve uncovered that my music lives in a more meditative and intimate space than I thought. I would always write music when I was alone in bed, maybe channeling a yearning feeling or getting in touch with some sort of covered-up grief. It’s really dawned on me how it comes from a more vulnerable side of myself, linked to my childhood, my loneliness, my addiction to falling in love.
I’ve been diving kinda headfirst this year into my childhood trauma through therapy and also been allowing myself to work in other artistic mediums. And that has just kind of leaked into everything I create, so it’s been really freeing to be able to express myself through these multiple creative brains.
LUNA: Can you describe the process you went through to produce the video for “Goodnight Baby”
TARUNE: Yeah! I actually started producing music videos and films this last year — I dipped my toe in co-producing a music video for my dear friend Samia, and last spring found myself producing a music video for my friend Maya Hawke for this gentle song “Blue Hippo.” I was pleasantly surprised, through the chaos of it all, that I was up for the challenge, and orchestrating the artists involved and the environment to create a film was something I really enjoyed. Fast-forward, I found myself in January wanting to shoot my own video, but I had no money. So I came up with this crazy idea for a video with my friend Bellamy who I’d been spending every cold winter night with, and we literally duct-taped a tripod to one of my dad’s wallpapering ladders, borrowed my friend Ivanna’s loft, bought some black sheets, and called up some friends to be in it. It was definitely arduous these past few weeks editing it myself as well, but I think it all worked out in the end.
LUNA: Why did you choose to have images lag and overlap through the scenes?
TARUNE: A couple years back, I stumbled upon this amazing book in this used bookstore on St. Marks street in NYC and it featured all these experimental photography techniques. There was this one that I always came back to in the book where this photographer named Paul Schneggenburger had taken long-exposure photographs of couples sleeping in bed with a six-hour exposure, lit by a single candle, and it looked like an amazing dream-like dance of bodies. It was so intimate.
So this winter, in the midst of a burgeoning artistic partnership with my genius dear friend Bellamy Brewster, I showed him the photos and said, “I always wanted to make a music video with this style, for ‘Goodnight Baby.’” Schneggenburger had created this imagery that I’d always felt matched so well visually and thematically with my sad dreamy lullaby, and I came up with a story to match. He immediately said, “Let’s do it! I’ll shoot it!” (I f**king love Bellamy), and 20 minutes later we were playing around with different shutter speeds on his camera in my bedroom. He’s the best person ever.
LUNA: Has producing this video opened up a new passion for videography for you?
TARUNE: Definitely. It’s something I started doing more for fun with friends, but this last year learning to do it more professionally was something I didn’t realize would be so fulfilling. (I also produced a narrative short in Vermont.) I love knowing the ins and outs of every bit of the creative process so that when the time comes to make something of my own, I can make the most intentional choices, whether I’m doing it myself or collaborating. I think that’s what being an artist is all about. Following that curiosity and inspiration, wherever it takes you, so that you can make the most intentional work, in whatever medium, that’s honest to your core.
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