In Conversation with Googly Eyes: ‘It's important for women who produce to be loud about it.’
It’s a beautiful sunny autumn evening, and I’m sitting outside my parents’ house with a view of the countryside. The tone is set to have a gorgeous conversation with none other than the incredible producer and singer-songwriter Googly Eyes. Having followed her career since she released music under the alias Deza, I was so excited to chat with her about her journey and her music, but also about how it feels to be perceived and marketed as a female producer. Her smiley face pops up on my phone screen, and as I’m joined by a personality that matches her iridescent eyeshadow, we get to talking about the effervescence that can follow when you put your creations out into the world.
Amy:
I'm so sorry it's taken so long for me to organise this.
Googly Eyes:
That’s totally fine, it's literally the end of the year. Everybody wants everything done and they all want it done now - I am in the same boat.
Amy:
Oh God your makeup looks so cool! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, is it really early where you are?
Googly Eyes:
Honestly, it's only 9:00 AM, I'm usually up by 6:00 AM against my will. My body just is like up and it's the worst. Is it late for you?
Amy:
It's around 5:00 PM so I've just come outside because it's literally so unlike Britain today, but look at this - it's like the most gorgeous sunny evening with blue skies, so I’m making the most of it.
Googly Eyes:
Stunning!
Amy:
I've been following your music for a while now, since the Deza days. Why did you feel the need for a fresh start? What gave you that compulsion, and also why did you choose Googly Eyes as a name?
Googly Eyes:
It's so funny because looking back it's all very serendipitous, but at the time I was so incredibly burnt out. I had done this huge project with Deza that was 12 songs and like 6 music videos, and I was just throwing literally all of my soul at it so that it could work. I got to the end of it and I just felt so burnt out, and I feel like I was trying to make music that was pop and commercial. At that point who are you trying to compete with? Like Taylor Swift? I think I needed a place where I could just go full left of centre and really start over.
I was really inspired by people like Caroline Polachek and Joji, and all these incredible artists who believed in the power of the pivot. Let's just try again. The truth of the name is my friend was here from New York, Rachel Bochner and we were stoned in my room and I thought I need to try something new, I should just start something. I think Googly Eyes just kind of fell into my lap, and so that's how that started.
Amy:
So the name just came to you that night with her?
Googly Eyes:
Yeah, I wish I had a cooler story.
Amy:
It’s interesting you mention the power of the pivot. It's something that I think a lot of artists are reaching into, especially if they've been around for a while anyway. There's so much intuition in that as well. It's led you on to other things too! You've recently signed to Tove Lo's label, and this EP is the first thing that she's released outside of her own stuff, which is so amazing. It must be so exciting for you?
Googly Eyes:
It is, I feel so lucky.
Amy:
I hear a lot of her influence in your music, but then again, I think you've carved out your own niche and sound there anyway, but is she an inspiration to you, and how's that been?
Googly Eyes:
A hundred percent. There are so many monoliths of pop music that I am so inspired by consistently, and I think Tove's carefreeness, just in the way that she presents herself, is so inspiring to me - it's been amazing. I think she's such a champion of the vision, which is always helpful. You could easily end up in a scenario where they're trying to push their agenda, but honestly it's just been nothing but support for the creative vision, which has been so fantastic.
Amy:
That's amazing. Have you felt like there's been a lot of freedom then?
Googly Eyes:
Yes, there are so many horror stories that people share about signing to labels and feeling squashed or pushed into a corner, but if anything they're like, ‘Are you sure you want this? You don't have to say yes just because we like it'. They've been really, really supportive in a really healthy way.
Amy:
How did you get into production in the first place? Where has this talent come from?
Googly Eyes:
I had been writing songs since I was nine, and throughout High School I was getting kind of tired of just writing them on my keyboard, so for my high school graduation gift my parents got me my first DAW - FL studio, which is hilarious looking back on. I was 18 when I really started to produce and I just kind of self-taught and stumbled my way through it and I'm continuing to do more of that. It's been really fun.
Amy:
How long has that been?
Googly Eyes:
I mean, I'm 26 now, so 8 years I think that I've been producing.
Amy:
Wow, that's a long time. Have you completely self-taught or have you done any courses? How did it work for you?
Googly Eyes:
I know it's such a nebulous process, I'm mostly self-taught. I did go to a few different colleges and took some courses on Logic, but I wasn't working out of Logic at the time so it wasn’t as helpful. When I did end up making the switch, all the basics were kind of ingrained in me from that. I also think I'm so lucky to be in some of the writing rooms that I'm in, and so a lot of the stuff that I've learned has been from watching these fantastic producers do their thing and just thinking 'I'm gonna take a note on that'.
Amy:
That's hard to make sure you're consciously learning from people as well, so props to you.
Amy:
You must get asked a lot about being a female producer, and obviously I think it's really important that we all talk about that and back the push for it, but do you ever get frustrated when that's the only narrative? I think sometimes when we define 'women in production', it can slightly undermine or trivialise your success. Or alternatively on the flip side, are you happy to be raising and supporting that issue? I'd love to know more on how you feel about that narrative as a whole.
Googly Eyes:
That is such a good question, I'm really intrigued by that. You know what's funny is it's never bothered me in the production realm, mostly because I've had a lot of women stand by me and support me as I moved for a long time. I had 'producer-ish' in my bio 'cause I was like, 'Oh, I can't call myself a full producer'. Then my friend Gucci who is a producer just said, 'Girl, if you don't take the ‘ish’ outta your bio right now...'.
I think it's important for women who produce to be loud about it. There are so many women who are afraid to say they can do it. What I like to say is - do you know how many college boys who can't produce half of what you can are calling themselves fully fledged producers? We can and we are able to do that. I think what's funny though is that the question that bothers me more is 'how does it feel to be a woman in the industry?', that one really gets to me, but the production one feels good.
Amy:
Yeah that makes sense. I guess it's so important to remember that if you are doing it - if you're producing music, you can call yourself a producer, and like you said, there are so many men who will go out there and shout it from the rooftops, so why can't we do the same?
Googly Eyes:
Yeah I've been with so many women who songwrite and they're all afraid to say it. I'm like, ‘No, we have to like be loud!’, but I get it and I totally understand why we feel that way - I was there too.
Amy:
I guess maybe that comes with the pressure to be, you know - the advocate, or the ‘voice of the people’. Sometimes surely it's just 'yeah this is just what I do as a job', I think that was what I meant in my question.
Googly Eyes:
Women do get relegated to an activist position if they're ever in something that is less dominated by women and so that is an interesting question. I'm sure over time it might get tiring, but that's an interesting thought.
Amy:
I would love to talk about the two EPs you released this year because I love them both so much. I'll start with 22-25, and I'm guessing the theme of this is those years of your life?
Googly Eyes:
That's funny, that's kind of close! Okay honestly, it's numbered by demos. I wish it was deeper than that, but it was just the number of the song that came out, but I love that it’s got a correlation to the age thing because it is true.
Amy:
I was just thinking because the songwriting has similar themes to that age range. I wonder what your favourite song is from that EP?
Googly Eyes:
Oh, that one is so hard, I love that EP so much. I think it's hard to beat Sex Sells. Everybody loves Sex Sells and I do too. I think it's a special song for me lyrically, so I do really love that one.
Amy:
Do you feel like that EP has a kind of overall concept and theme? Can you talk me through that if it does?
Googly Eyes:
Yeah, I mean honestly that's been the nice thing with Googly Eyes, just trying to just let the theme be what I'm experiencing at any given time. Letting it be a one-to-one correlation of what's happening in my life and not having to try and create a concept from it. It's funny because it's just kind of like what I'm going through without much extra concept around it.
Amy:
That is liberating, and also gives the listener their own creative freedom to think and take what they want from it, like how I did with it - I assumed it was your age, but again, maybe that's just because it was how I wanted to feel in the moment I first listened. I love to think of my life in chunks and it got me thinking if I was writing songs from those years of my life, what would that be like? Do you enjoy opening that discussion for your listeners?
Googly Eyes:
Totally yeah. There was an interview I read with Imogen Heap years ago where she said that she wrote about Hide and Seek and everybody was like, ‘what does it mean?’. And she's like, ‘what do you think it means?’. I was so moved by the idea that such beautiful things can happen when people are allowed the space to imprint their own stories onto your music, it's just really special.
Amy:
I want to talk about your EP Starlet, and in specific your song Internet Star, and the listeners reaction to that one. I saw the clip from HT Haze when he reacted to that song. I love how much he feels the music, it's amazing. How is it watching someone physically react to your song like that, how I assume, you intended it to be felt?
Googly Eyes:
I mean it's just so much fun, right? We as the artist are so rarely privy to the moments when people get to feel what we're making. It was just so much fun, I think he's such a gem too. We were acquaintances from a long time ago in Nashville and I had no idea he was gonna be making that video. It was just the sweetest thing, I felt really honoured.
Amy:
He had a really good point about the part when you laugh at the end of that song, which I want to come onto, he reacts and says 'personality!'. It's so true, he really understands where the artist is coming from.
So that little bit you decided to keep in, what was your creative choice there? It's kind of breaking the fourth wall a bit when you first listen to it, it's unassuming, I think if you'd never listened to your music before, it's a really nice touch.
Googly Eyes:
Thank you. It's so funny, those moments can so easily polarise people. I feel like some people find them really corny, some people really love them, but it's just so genuine. I've been in a period of my life where I'm finally feeling joyful when I make things again. A lot of the early Googly stuff is just really depressing because I was really sad, and I was having a really hard time. When I was writing Internet Star, I was having so much fun because I was fully focused on the hope and the optimism, and the strangeness - so getting to that end part of it, I was genuinely laughing and I just thought ‘oh, let's just keep it’.
Amy:
It's so good. Like you said, it's fun and it's intriguing, and it makes you wanna listen to more. Having that playfulness in music is really important as well, for everything not to be serious all the time.
Do you have a favourite track from this EP at all? Is that a harder question?
Googly Eyes:
That is a tough question. I think I'm slightly partial to the ballad Starlet Sellout Pageant Princess just because I love writing ballads and it's rare that I do release those. I'm not unique though, and like every other artist it changes every day, but I think that's been one of my faves for sure.
Amy:
Jumping back to Internet Star, I remember I was DM-ing you when I was listening to it on the bus, and I was also listening to it in the gym once, and I can't describe the feeling it gave me listening to that track. I think it's a feeling that is probably quite common for artists, but also maybe to anyone that's ever had a dream and then having to face that reality that it might not happen. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts behind the process of writing that song and also the thoughts you were having at the time?
Googly Eyes:
I think when I experienced the intense burnout that I did at the tail end of Deza, there were a lot of those moments of running high speed into the wall - where you're just like, ‘oh shit, everything I thought that was gonna get me to where I wanted to be is not doing what I thought it was doing’. I think facing that reality is a wake up call, and I feel like growing up whenever you are hyper-focused on a goal and are set on something, there is an element of inevitability to it. Then when I got to the point where maybe it's not inevitable, the panic that set in was really intense. Internet Star is when I've kind of digested that it might look different than what I thought it was going to be, and that's totally fine. There's a delusional acceptance I think in Internet Star that is really comforting to me, and was comforting to go through and experience in real time... being at peace and not experiencing any more resistance to the path, I think was really special with that one.
Amy:
It's a daunting feeling, isn't it? I think that it can also take a long time, it's not an overnight thing. You're not suddenly feeling 'oh, maybe this won't happen for me', but it's a kind of internal prang that you have and this feeling that you have. As you said, acceptance is so important. I think it's beautiful that you wrote that into this song and encapsulate it so well. It's so easy to understand exactly how you're feeling. I love how it's kind of existential in a way?
Googly Eyes:
Yeah I mean honestly... There's a quote by Bo Burnham where he talks about how we're all performers now just in the age of social media, and it's just such an odd place for the human psyche to constantly live in. I think that's why so many people can relate to Internet Star because we are all performing in one sense or another and starting to feel the effects of that and what that means for us as people. So I love that people are enjoying it and seeing themselves in it.
Amy:
I love the irony in it too now that you released this new EP and it's doing really well. So maybe some of these thoughts you've had, we can push them aside - because the song is a hit and it's fantastic…
Googly Eyes:
It is funny, it is so ironic.
Amy:
It's manifestation backwards, right?
Do you have any advice for anyone who is a young musician or creative?
Googly Eyes:
I think it's important that people just make things. I've been releasing music since 2018, or maybe even 2016? I've always been putting things out even long before I was Deza, I was releasing all my demos to SoundCloud. I think a lot of growth happens when you exist in the public forum even if no one's listening. It pushes you to think about your vision differently and accelerates the growth of the creative vision. My advice would be to just keep putting things out, and exist in the world, because the second you do everything starts to change faster. I just think it's a more fun way to do it. It's really easy to sit there and think, 'it has to be perfect before I put it out', but I think perfection is the enemy and trying to just move with a freeness is really what I would try to do if I was them.
Amy:
That's great advice, but my next question to you after that would be ok so I hear the advice, but how do you actually get over that fear of putting things out there? You might hear an inspiring talk and think 'yeah I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it', but then ACTUALLY posting it is a whole other story. How do you get over that imposter syndrome?
Googly Eyes:
Totally. It's so much easier said than done right? But the truth of the matter is nothing will happen until you do. It's a bad answer, but you really do just kind of have to force yourself. You have to move past that because there's just such a sparkly thing on the other side and nothing is forever. If you wanna take things down, you can - I've done that before too. There's things that I've made that I've scrubbed from the face of the internet. I think it's so important that it's worth pushing past that fear. Baby steps. It doesn't have to be all at once, but I think if you're able to push yourself and force yourself to do it, it's really, really helpful.
Amy:
Amazing answer. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. I loved it, you know I am such a big fan and that was so inspiring - you're so inspiring.
Googly Eyes:
Thank you so much for taking the time! This was so fun!
Amy:
It was so nice to meet you - finally. Have a lovely rest of your day.
Googly Eyes:
You too. We'll chat soon!!