Meet The Dynamic Rising Artist CHINCHILLA
CHINCHILLA is a London-based emerging artist that’s capturing the attention of music listeners with her debut EP ‘Awakening.‘ The alluring project details a journey of self-realization and touches on topics like female empowerment, sexuality, body positivity, and more. Her unapologetic aura has been a constant presence in her music since her first release in 2019. Over the course of a year, CHINCHILLA has earned over 9.5 million streams, performed at some of the UK’s most popular festivals, and has been nominated for two Estonian Music Awards. With her dynamic new EP making the rounds, and more new music down the pipeline CHINCHILLA is showing no signs of slowing down her 2020 takeover.
We were able to chat with the songstress about everything from ‘Awakening,’ quarantine hobbies, and more…
Your EP, ‘Awakening,’ is incredible (obsessed with the track ’You’re Kinda…[Heads]’). How did this record come to fruition?
Last year I kind of found this new lease of life in myself… I hadn’t even thought about romance in my life for about four years, and then I suddenly felt this surge of desire. I was a happy, hardworking, young feminist woman, but I think I’d forgotten that desirable side of myself completely. I suddenly felt sexy and flirty again and was having so many new thought processes about confidence, empowerment, sexual independence, femininity, infidelity, love, morals, self-respect, and self-WORTH. I feel like once every few years, we all have a growth spurt on some level. This EP is basically a documentation of my most recent period of passionate personal growth… It’s still going on. I’m calling it my ‘sexual awakening’ to those who understand my humour, hence the name ‘Awakening’ And boy is it FUN. Come join the Awakening.
Ok, we need to talk about the sound on the EP, absolutely fantastic. Each track has its own unique style but flows seamlessly. What type of styles and genres did you want to explore on the EP?
I’ll always have my favourite artists whose styles I’m eternally influenced by, but I didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself when creating this EP in terms of ‘it needs to sound like this artist,’ or ‘this sound is commercially hot right now, so I need to use some of that,’ and that’s because I never actually thought of this as being a big project. To be honest, I mainly got bored of performing my old songs and wanted to splurge out a bunch of new ones, and release them as almost a throwaway project, just to get them out of my system… Over time, it naturally became more apparent that this was going to be a BIG project, and in fact, my biggest yet, but initially, that wasn’t the plan. Maybe that was a blessing, because it didn’t force me into a thought-process or pressure me to create anything that wasn’t authentically me.
Out of the eight songs, which was your favourite to create, and which was the most difficult?
Literally, this whole EP was so fun to create. The writing process was pure fun because (for the reasons above), I didn’t put any pressure on myself really to create ‘hits’ or chart-topping hooks. I just wrote exactly what I felt like and thought sounded good, that’s why I think for me this EP is such a personal one. If I had to pick, I’d say ‘One Time’ was the most fun to create, because of the shock factor of the chorus, and disapproval I knew it would provoke from some… The idea of an angry chauvinist’s outrage was an enjoyable image and inspired a lot of the tongue-in-cheek inflammatory, yet frank, lyrics. On the flip side, ‘Shadows’ was probably the hardest to write as it’s the most personal. It was about such a real situation which immediately attached my heart to the song and meant every lyric had to be perfectly honest. Although, in saying that, it didn’t take long to write. The emotion sort of just fell out onto the paper, as it sometimes does with those sorts of songs.
Are there any artists that you draw inspiration from?
Loads. Beyoncé is a massive one. Rihanna, Lizzo, Christina Aguilera, Doja Cat, Little Mix, Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, Kendrick…there are TONNES…
Will you be creating any self-isolation visuals for the tracks?
Maybe there’s a little something in the works already… (yes.)
Speaking of quarantine, what have you been up to? Have you taken up any new hobbies?
Yes, I have taken up Sauvignon Blanc, and I’m really good at it… I have also become really good at climbing out of the window onto my roof (despite one traumatic fall), have become an expert at Bond movies, and Doja cat verses, and I have learnt how to make vegan egg mayo. Other than that, I’ve just been writing and doing music-related things as usual, really (but without the outdoor aspects).
When self-isolation is over, where is the first place you’re going to go?
You will probably find me at the pub with everyone I’ve ever known, unable to socialise because all I can say are Doja Cat lyrics and ‘Shall we make some food?’.
What can music listeners expect from Chinchilla in the coming months?
I have some exciting things going on, but I’m keeping my cards close to my chest! I’m mainly just writing at the moment. I am always progressing, and I want each project to be a level up from the last in its own way, so my next project has got to be an exciting one. To be honest, I’m very fortunate musically in this time that I write and produce a lot of my songs myself – Lockdown has given me the time, liberty, and creativity to come up with some really different stuff. I think it is forcing everyone to become more creative, so for the music scene, it’ll be a mega exciting time. Just you WAIT for the Chinchilla madness that is birthed out of this.
Make sure to check out CHINCHILLA powerful debut EP ‘Awakening’ below…
