Archie is a female singer and songwriter with nearly a million Spotify plays under her belt and a growing audience who’ve become enchanted by her empathic lyricism and her forward-looking melody and beats.
Filling her songs with messages of hope and desire, she wants her audiences to understand that they are never alone and that they should leave a little room for magic in their lives. Rather than having fans, she wants to build a community of friends so that no one should feel lonely, lost, sad, or unworthy. Your future is yours to own, and her music gives people the chance to achieve that.
“When Will it End?” is Archie’s 7-song meditation on emotional life and perception. She comes off as a melancholic-sanguine personality, she feels quite a lot and intensely too, and that’s intrinsic to the ethos of this Record. “When Will It End?” is not exactly a rhetorical question, but neither is it a fatalistic whimper, it’s more of a vigorous exasperation of sorts at the wide gamut of emotions we’re subject to in daily life. In her own words. “when will I die and not have to feel so much anymore?” I ask because what I’m usually feeling lives at the junction of desire, nerves, hope, and misery. It’s a weird, big feeling and I find it so overwhelming but not exactly in a bad way…just a scary, exciting, titillating way that usually means I’m doing something new and unknown.
On the occasion of the premiere of her latest record “When Will it End?”, she took the time and talked to us about her life, her views on her craft and what the future might hold for the feeler of the “Big Feel”
As a musician and performer, you’re definitely ‘out there’, vulnerable, and exposed to the public, so When people see you, what do you hope they see?
It’s so true! I do feel very exposed, but I’m ok with that. I honestly enjoy it. I’m pretty introverted in my everyday life and do not like to approach people first so it’s been a real joy to have people approach me when I’m out and about because they listen to my music. I hope when they see me they see someone they could say hello to on the street. Someone who feels deeply, cares deeply, and is a strong artist. A visionary, a creative, someone with imagination, and someone they want to take the time to get to know through my art.
What’s your goal as a musician? What do you believe your music can achieve?
My goal as a musician is to share all this creative juice inside of me and connect with as many people as deeply as I can through it. So much of what I talk about is sorting through how I’ve been able to go through abysmal periods of my life with my hope and softness intact and I really think my music can help people in similar situations. I may be down, but I’m never out, I think my music can help people find that within themselves as well.
How do you like to think of yourself in musical terms? If you contemplate your own work so far, what would you say is your ‘niche’ in music?
This is always my hardest question! I like for listeners to decide this typically, but I will take some stabs at it, haha. I think if I survey what I have made so far I would say I land in the pop genre in a more indie or alternative sub genre. I don’t have a massive catalog out so it’s still too early for me to definitively say my niche since I have so much more I want to explore, but I think I will probably land in one of the pop neighborhoods.
You said that these songs are all answers to thoughts in an attempt to “make better sense of the big feeling.” What is the ‘Big feeling’? Have you discovered anything since the album was finished?
“The Big Feeling” is really many converging and sometimes contradictory feelings going on simultaneously. I feel at once excited and full of dread, hopeful, nervous, elated, energized, exhausted, each emotion sort of taking turns dominating my experience but all really coexisting. It feels overwhelming and music is really the only way I have found to untangle this ball of yarn made of feelings into something I can deal with and understand.
I know better than to ask what your favorite song of the lot is, but would you tell us which song(s) you feel the proudest of in this album?
Oh I ABSOLUTELY have a favorite! it’s “Instant Crush” by a mile. That song came to me damn near fully formed in a dream almost two years ago and I immediately woke up and sent a voice memo to the first producer (Shane Hall) with how I wanted the guitar to sound, what the melody should be, etc. Then when I got in the studio with P. Kruise and we played around with it, it just quickly became my favorite. It was so fun to step out of my comfort zone with that one. I’m really proud of it. I would dance to that at the club. I hope I do one day!
Tell us a bit about the recording process for this album. It sounds like it was very therapeutic. Did it feel like that while you were in the midst of it?
Writing this album was incredibly therapeutic for me. Getting to say out loud these things I am struggling with privately was very cathartic. Recording the album was an altogether different experience. I don’t know that I would describe it as healing, haha. It forced me to be vulnerable because I was sharing these really personal songs and ideas for how I wanted them to sound with producers and engineers and if we had differing opinions on aspects of these really emotional creations, it was a challenge for me. I do not love to share my feelings with people individually so I had to push myself to open up and be vulnerable so I could take advice and explore different parts of my voice and dig deeper into the songs during recording. It was a growing experience for sure and I’m happy about it.
Will you be taking these songs on tour any time soon?
I do have an early-stage tour in the plans for 2023! Nothing I can share yet, unfortunately. Touring with Alaska Thunderfuck a few months ago was such an incredible experience I really can’t wait to get back on the road.
What’s on your horizon for 2023? What are you working towards and what do you hope to achieve?
I have some fun things lined up for 2023. A tour in the works, another mini album in the works, a new live show-all set to release or debut this year. As far as what I’m hoping to achieve, I really would just love to connect with more people who resonate with my music. The last tour was so incredible in those terms, I just want to keep that ball rolling.
Credit: Courtesy of the artist Story By: LADYGUNN Staff
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