INTERVIEW: wsteaway
wsteaway can’t be put in a box. The 21-year-old nonbinary artist has quickly become the sound of a generation, effortlessly fusing genres and aesthetics. Their sound oscillates between gritty, alt-rock shoegaze and pulsing hyperpop. Sprinkle in some late-2000s emo, and the result can only be described as otherworldly.
Born and raised in alt-rock haven Reno, NV, they’ve been experimenting with different instruments and sounds their whole life. They picked up the viola in seventh grade and became classically trained in just six years, playing in orchestras at legendary venues like Davies Symphony Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Since then, they’ve added the guitar, bass, ukulele, and keyboard to their musical vocabulary.
Noisescape sat down with wsteaway to learn more about them as an up-and-coming artist, talk about their latest breakthrough song, “Losing Sleep,” and get a sneak peek at their debut album set to release early next year.
Tell us about yourself! Who are you outside of wsteaway?
My name is Tea Wise, and I’m an independent artist, songwriter, and singer. I’m currently based in LA and studying music industry and cinematic arts at USC. I love coffee! I’m a barista when I’m not doing my job as a student because that in itself is a whole job it feels like sometimes. I’m pushing through, though! I’m in my junior year, even though I’m supposed to be a senior. I took a gap year during COVID, and that’s when I actually picked up working in artist management and writing for a blog. I also started curating an artist discovery playlist during that time, so I’m very thankful for that break. But now I’m back at it and just trying to see what opportunities come to me while I’m at USC. The community is super talented; everyone is always working on something.
I want to be a music supervisor post-graduation. I’m very interested in the idea of putting a soundtrack together and syncing music to film, tv, and commercials. I always tell people that the movie 500 Days of Summer is why I go to USC cause the soundtrack made me realize that someone actually had to sit and pick out those songs. I remember being like, ‘I wanna be able to pick the music that makes someone cry while they’re watching a movie!’ I grew up making little YouTube vlogs for my channel whenever I traveled, and I’d always know I’d have the perfect song for each video. I’ve always had a love for matching music and visual media together and just movies in general. I also love dogs! I have two of them, even though I’m allergic. I went home recently, and my allergies were acting up so bad, but I was like, ‘I don’t care! I love you and will shove you in my face even though it’s gonna hurt later!’ [laughs]
Who are your top 3 artists that inspire you?
Teen Suicide is definitely one of my top influences. My whole artist name, like all of my socials and even my Xbox gamer tag when I was a kid, was “waste yrself” because they have this whole album dc snuff film / waste yrself. So initially, I was like, ‘ooo, my artist name could be waste yrself,’ but I thought that was too direct of a reference to another band, so I changed it to wsteaway. And now my name is in my artist name, so that’s some lore for you!
I’d also say the Drain Gang collective with Bladee, Ecco2K, and Thaiboy Digital. Their sound is very weird, it took a bit for me to get into it, and some people don’t like it. They’re from Sweden and have different ways of making their music, but I really love that. I just love how their music sounds. The topics they write about are kind of dark in some of their songs, but they still sound right, and that’s kind of how I’m making my music with my friend WXMELL right now.
Then in terms of the more singer/songwriter music I make on my own, I take a lot of inspiration from Gregory and the Hawk. There’s this album Moenie and Kitchi I found in middle school from a YouTube recommendation, and it’s always stuck with me. I love their music so much, and I feel it’s definitely impacted how I appreciate music and want to create my own music.
What is your creative process like? What encourages you to write songs?
It’s funny because this past semester, I’ve been in a songwriting class, so all the music I’ve been working on has been for school. But I plan on taking those ideas and making them into an EP – I have about 3 or 4 songs we’ve made. I like to sit in my room with my guitar and make a guitar riff or some chord progressions. Then I’ll loop the instrumental, sing a little melody on top of it, and then write down the words. That’s how I’ve written a lot of songs. When I’m feeling emotionally overwhelmed, I sit down and write in my journal. I do all of my songwriting in a journal now; unless I’m on the go, then I’ll do it on my phone. But that’s my way of catharsis, kind of. I don’t let myself talk to people about things sometimes, and I tend to let things bubble up. By processing all of this through art, I’ve finally been able to work through these things that I didn’t use to want to think about or talk about. Then when I go back to it, I’m like, ‘oh, this is really depressing, but it sounds so good reading it; I should turn it into a song!’ I was walking to my car the other day, listening to a demo I made and really listening to the lyrics, and I just started crying! I’ve had friends tell me that they’ve cried to my song “Lonely” before, so I’d love to keep that going! [laughs]
How would you say you’ve grown as an artist this year?
I think I’d say seeing my growth in how I approach songwriting and just creating in general. It wasn’t until last year that I realized I could bring the songs I write to life. During my freshman year of high school, I had a ukulele, and I would use that to write little songs, but I never liked how my music sounded because I thought it was too cheesy and dumb. Over time, I’ve realized that it’s not cheesy – it’s somewhat relatable, and there are ways to make these ideas sound more sophisticated. I’ve grown a lot more in my confidence and ability to create music, which is really cool. Like, this is my work, I’m proud of it, I want people to listen to it, and I get excited about it!
Just putting out my first song is a big highlight from this year. It’s funny cause “Lonely” was actually a school assignment for a class. We had to either release a song or follow a song's release and track its progress, so I was like, ‘why don’t I just drop this song?’ The date 2/22/22 was coming up, and I was born on April 22, so 22 has always been one of my favorite numbers. I also like angel numbers and stuff like that, so I thought it was the perfect timing. So yeah, just dropping that song and having the support of all of my friends and everyone was really heartwarming. This latest release, “Losing Sleep” with Geller, has been huge. Like it’s been doing crazy numbers, which is so insane to me because this is only the third song that I’ve put out, and it’s popping off! It just makes me super excited for the next stuff I’m going to release.
How did you connect with Geller, and how did you two come up with the idea for “Losing Sleep”?
When I was freelance writing for the blog A1234, I would do a lot of coverage on hyperpop and alternative electronic music. I enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t my goal. I wanted to start songwriting instead of blog writing, so I made that transition. Geller and I actually got connected because I wrote a piece about one of his releases, and he knew a bunch of other music industry friends of mine. The same thing with my friend WXMELL – we met because I did a write-up for one of his singles, and now we’re working on a whole album together!
I play viola, and Geller does film scoring and composing. He wanted a viola part, so I offered to record some strings. We also both just wanted to sit down and work on something together. So I recorded the string parts – I also brought my guitar, and it started with me just playing something and building off of that. That song is really cool because we both felt this kind of burnt-outness since we’re both in school and constantly doing a million things. Geller told me he had writer’s block, and once we sat down and started working on that song, it shifted for him, so I thought that was really sick. But yeah, it just started with my guitar and adding a few layers to that, and then he put his magic on it! As he was working, I was just sitting there with my little notebook writing down ideas. Then my verse came, so we recorded that, and he sat with it, and then he sent me back the chorus, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is sick.’ And we just kept going from there! I love that song; it is very dear to me.
Now that you’ve collaborated with other artists, do you prefer working with others, or do you like creating solo?
I actually really have a lot of fun collaborating with people! Especially when I’m collaborating with producers because their abilities are so much better than mine. I just haven’t had as much practice. I’ve been teaching myself how to produce, but I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. It’s a really fun process creating with others because it expands what I can do, especially working with WXMELL because he will send me, like, the craziest instrumentals, and he gives me creative freedom when it comes to songwriting. I also really appreciate the input that I get from other people when I’m working with them. Things like, “this is sick, but you could try altering your lyrics this way, and it would sound a lot smoother,’ or ‘wow, that was a really cool riff; we should work on something more like that.’ I’m all about learning new things in the process – I really enjoy it. Plus, it’s so sick sitting in a room with a bunch of different creatives and hearing everyone’s ideas. It’s fun hearing the final product when we sit down and listen back and then look at each other like, ‘This is fire! We just made this!’
Here at Noisescape, we like to highlight independent artists making great music. What has been the biggest challenge thus far, being an independent artist? How do you approach your musical promotion?
I think the most challenging part of being an artist is this shift with artists expected to be content creators. It is so hard to constantly film stuff for TikToks, edit it, and market myself that way. Because if I don’t do that, it’s tough for my music to get the attention it needs just because of how algorithms are based. I’m very anti-that, which is why I’m off socials for a while; even just having it kind of stresses me out. I already struggle enough to think of things to write songs about if I’m experiencing writer’s block. So making videos and posts just to get numbers and attention on my songs is like ‘AHHH!’ If I could, I would just pay someone to do that, but I can’t because I’m a broke college student! So I’m just thankful I have the tools for that and enjoy it since I grew up filming and editing videos and doing my own stuff. But it’s like, if I want to drop a song, I need to write the song, I need to record it, and I also need to make all of the video content for it and then edit it. I love making my own lyric videos but making TikToks just irks me.
I’m on Twitter a lot – well, I used to be before I took my break – so I remember before I released my first song, I was tweeting a lot like, ‘guys, should I drop “Lonely”?’ knowing that I’m actually gonna release it, but just trying to get people’s attention and then tweeting about the release date and then when it was out and stuff. And the same with Instagram. I think I made a few posts and then posted about it when it finally came out.
As for “Losing Sleep,” Geller knows someone who runs ads, so we paid to run ads for that song. It’s been super successful because there are different audiences worldwide, which is insane. We also did a lot of social media marketing. Geller did a lot more than I did, but he’s used to posting on Tik Tok and stuff. I think I made like 3 videos, but he would post, like, every other day. I was like, yeah, I can’t do it – I’m sorry. I just don’t have it in me! I’ll do what I can, but it’s just not my vibe [laughs]. We didn’t get any editorials for that song, but we’re hitting people’s discover weekly playlists, and we’re getting a lot of plays on the radio.
Do you plan on doing any live performances in the new year?
I definitely want to get into the live music space – I just want to do anything that comes to me, really! If I try to make things too strict, I get too stressed out if I’m not hitting my end goal at a specific time, and I just don’t want to do that to myself. One of my coworkers at the coffee shop either interns or works for a company that connects artists directly with venues, so I could reach out to them myself. I haven’t done much with that yet, because I need to develop a setlist, but once I have that settled and I’m not so busy with school, I definitely want to get more into that.
I’ve been collaborating with a friend and writing her instrumentals. We actually did a performance where I was her bassist, which was really fun! We’re looking for new band members, and it’s hard to find a guitarist, so I’m gonna be the new guitar player for that project. I write the guitar parts anyway, so it just kinda makes sense. But yeah, I would love to have more of that live band experience because it’s really fun! When I was in orchestra, I performed live, but that was a lot more of a formal setting. Like I was dressed up in all black, there were spotlights, and the audience was silent, so playing in a band is a completely different vibe. So I’m really excited about more opportunities to do that. WXMELL does djing, so we thought that once we solidify our project, it’d be cool to have him do some live djing while I perform the songs we’re working on. So definitely two different vibes for live shows, but those are the two things I have in mind when it comes to live performances. It’s honestly just a matter of me not being so overwhelmed with school and work at this point.
Finally, let’s talk about your debut album, Indigo Forever, that’s set to release in February 2023. What can you share about it?
Yeah! So we have quite a few demos we’re sitting on right now – probably about 7 or 8 songs that we recorded. I’m actually meeting up with WXMELL soon to finish up this last song we’ve been working on that’s super slow and pretty and has a bit less autotune. A lot of this album is really hyperpop-y and electronic. There are some songs with more drum and bass-type beats to them, but it’s all pretty electronic for the most part, which is fun cause “Losing Sleep” is kind of electronic, but not in the same sense as some of these new songs. So it’s gonna be another complete shift in my sound, but I think that’s cool because it’s no fun to box myself into one particular genre or style. I’m constantly trying to blend and make stuff that sounds kind of weird but good! I would probably go crazy if I made the same 10 songs on every album every time. I feel like, at the end of the day, music is such a personal thing, you know? Even though it’s meant to be put out and heard by anyone who picks it up, so yeah, it should still have some universal aspect to it, but at the end of the day, it came from something that’s on the inside, and it should be true to yourself.
WHERE TO FIND WSTEAWAY
YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music | Soundcloud | Amazon Music | Deezer