With the release of her recent single, “Can’t Lose You Now”, I had the chance to chat with Riah about her new song and creative direction. Take a look below:
Laura: As your song and music video follow a very similar direction of trippy beats and almost magical scenes, did you use some of your inspirations for the song in the music video? definitely.
Riah: That’s one of the coolest parts about music videos is being able to dream about the feelings and stories and visuals that match the music and make you feel more than just the music on its own.
Laura: During the video there are a variety of scenes including floating objects, blurry faces, and close up images; is this symbolic to parts of the song? If not, does it reflect the production of the song?
Riah: The video feels like you’re kind of stuck in my mind. It’s spinning and things are all over the place. We wanted to create something that just felt a little off. Like when it feels chaotic or things in the room are floating, we wanted you to question whether or not this was a dream or reality since the song is basically the thought process of losing someone and not wanting to lose them again.
Laura: When creating “Can’t Lose You Now”, was there an ideal place you wanted it to play? Such as in the car, etc.
Riah: As someone who loves listening to music, the car is always the place I play it first to see how it feels while we are mixing. There have been so many pivotal moments, happy moments and sad moments, in my life where all I wanted to do was get in the car and drive and listen to my favorite songs. i wanted can’t lose you now to be that song people get in the car just to drive and listen to it and feel whatever they need to feel.
Laura: In this part, I would love to know a bit of your inspiration and thoughts behind this set of lyrics.
I wonder what it’s like to really lose your mind // Instead of feeling all this pressure
Riah: When I’m writing a song, there’s never really a specific part of the song I write first. It’s just whatever melody and lyric that come out but with this song and this lyric, it came first and I think it was very much how I felt in the moment. wanting to look like I’ve got it together but wondering what its like to just let go and feel everything. Especially when you’ve lost something or someone and sometimes it seems like there’s an unspoken appropriate time to feel that but I think we all know that these things don’t have a timeline.
Laura: When writing new music, do you focus on creating ideas first or start writing whatever comes to your mind?
Riah: I have a running list on my notes app of song ideas or titles or phrases or thoughts that I can pull from when I need it. Some days the thoughts and concepts flow easily and somedays you need a reminder of things so being able to refer to that is huge for me. I grew up writing songs locked in my room and I would just sing until something clicked, and now so much of my writing happens in a studio with a little more of a structure which I love but I’ve been really trying to take the time to just go to my room and close the door and sing like I did when I was 16. There’s something just so special and healing about music being able to guide you in some moments.
Laura: Do you find it easier to write music based on personal stories or general concepts/ hypothetical situations?
Riah: I write based on my own experiences and a lot of things that I’ve watched others go through too. I think it’s a really special thing to take a moment in time for your life or something you know everyone can relate to. I don’t always write about the thing that happened yesterday or the most present thing on my mind. Sometimes it’s something that happened years ago that maybe I didn’t feel like I was able to properly articulate in a song yet. Sometimes I write about the future, where I think I’ll be, or fears I have and even dreams I have. One thing I’ve really worked to refine is the ability to draw inspiration from anything and everything. Once you see beauty and depth in everything you can weave it into your art.
Laura: Since you were featured on Grey’s Anatomy, what other shows would you like to see your music featured on? Is there a specific reason why you chose that show? What type of scene would it be in?
Riah: Well my song ‘Prom’ was recently on Never Have I Ever and I screamed I was so excited. And I was the perfect scene for it too. I think for CLYN I would love for it to be in like the big conflict or resolution scene of a movie. Like you can see it right? The person is running to the other persons place after being apart and burning the bridge and there’s this moment of i can’t lose this person. Im watching it in my head!
