JVNA opens up about debut album ‘Hope In Chaos’, her inspirations and more: Interview

Hi JVNA! Congrats on the release of your debut album ‘Hope In Chaos.’ Could you give us an insight on the main inspiration(s) behind your love for music, and how challenging or not has it been to make your mark within this industry?

Thank you! Music has always been an escape for me. It feels like I can take myself to a world I create and relive an experience vividly just through audio. I come from a film scoring background so music has always felt like storytelling and other worldly for me. I think it has been challenging to make my mark in the scene mainly when I first started. The industry is so heavily male that I felt like an outsider in many ways. I’ve experienced sexism where I’ll be at a show and people will come to my green room ignoring me and introducing themselves to my lawyer thinking he’s the artist. It’s pretty annoying but it encourages me to keep pushing for making a change in this scene.

With your debut album now released, could you give us an insight on the production process of each track, and how significant is this album on a personal as well as a professional level?

Throughout the creation of the album, I was inspired to be an artist who can create any genre but still have their signature sound carry over. Over the course of writing this in 2020, I started listening to more genres outside of my usual future bass. I made various DJ sets on my YouTube channel for genres like psy-trance, and drum n bass. I’ve always been scared to try out different genres because I felt like I didn’t want to experiment too much and stay on the safe side of doing what I’ve already been doing. But I couldn’t hold myself back from restricting any creativity so I thought “eff this. I’m going to put out a psy trance song and I’ll even make a drum n bass song”. ‘Bullseye‘ is my psy trance track and ‘True Colors‘ is my Drum n Bass track on the album. ‘Sins‘ leans more Nu-Wave and Trap for me personally. The rest on the album stays in my typical future bass/pop sound that my fans are familiar with but with new influences of rock and cinematic elements.

When I listen to ‘Hope in Chaos’, I literally feel hope within chaos haha. This album is written about a time of instability where I was going through so many rapid changes at once – breakups, death of father, graduating from college, entering the entertainment industry. I’m now at a pretty mentally stable part of my life and in a way, writing this album is my way of processing my journey to adulthood.

Having sang, written and produced each and every track of your debut album, could you give us an insight on the thought process when creating ‘Hope In Chaos,’ as well as any challenges that you may have faced when creating this body of work?

The overall theme of this album is about the story of Pandora’s Box. The Greek tale follows the goddess Pandora who opens a forbidden box out of her own curiosity, thus unleashing chaos, diseases, and sins into the universe. The one thing that was left behind was hope. This album is about reaching into the unknown, fighting chaos against all odds, and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

In the creation of this album, it became a journey of discovering myself and my sound as an artist. As a female producer, I think I struggle a lot from mansplaining. People like to tell me how to mix my songs, how to write my lyrics, and what will “sell” to the EDM crowd. I was prompted by people to work with A&Rs for connections. They would tell me how to write my music and I absolutely hated the whole process. I wrote this entire album with no one navigating me as a statement of writing from authenticity for my debut album.

With the tracklist of the album sequenced in stages of grief, there is a clear message that you have chosen to portray with ‘Hope In Chaos.’ Could you give us a further insight on any aspects in your life that led to the main inspiration behind your debut album?

I staged my tracklist in a similar fashion to the stages of Grief. In the first song ‘Chaos (Prelude)’ my last spoken lyric says “I’ll soar among the chaos”. That is why the last song of the album is called ‘Fly‘. The songs ‘Where You Are,’ and ‘Ghost‘ are songs about breakups and wanting them back in your life. ‘Breakdown‘ and ‘Sins‘ are angry songs dwelling on the situations that have happened. ‘Sins’ hold very dear to my heart because I wrote it about the regret I have for having my last conversation with my father be a fight. The drop of ‘Sins’ sounds like pans and dishes clashing – a memory of my divorced parents fighting. ‘18‘ is about my female story. The song that has the most emotion behind it is probably my song ’18.’ This song is about the dangerous box of impurities that come with turning 18. You are immediately legally able to be sexualized by others. My lyrics “Will you cut your face just to be pretty?” is about the plastic surgery industry and the unrealistic beauty standards that many young women like myself have wanted to attain. “You say I want to be naughty” is a really direct line about the cringe messages I’ve gotten in my DMs as a high schooler from older men. It is an overall song about how I felt transitioning into adulthood as a woman and also a turning point in the album.

‘Bullseye‘ is taking action and reaching for ambition to turn your life around. ‘Hope‘ is the interlude from the emotions of Chaos to Hope. From here on, the album becomes more hopeful and bright. ‘At Least It Was Fun‘ and ‘Dystopia‘ are songs about accepting your past, and current conditions. ‘True Colors‘ and ‘Fly‘ are about my experiences of happiness and resolve coming out of this journey.

Releasing singles such as ‘I’m With You’ and ‘Catch Me,’ helped enhance your presence within our community. How much of the essence is it for you to impact a certain audience with your music, and what have been the key elements in your success so far?

I think ‘I’m With You‘ resonated well with many people because the music video and song were metaphors about my father’s death. Writing about personal experiences have always been key elements to my art.

With your sound sonically revolving around pop, rock and bass, have there been times where a different approach to your usual sound has come to mind, and if yes, what other genres would you like to explore as you progress within the dance scene?

I would love to write a house track or even jazz influenced electronic dance music. I also think it would be really dope to take influence from the romantic era of classical music like Chopin and Schumann and translate their pianistic motifs into an EDM track.

With COVID-19 resulting in the cancellation of your sold-out tour across the U.S., could you give us an insight on the impact that the pandemic has had on you as an artist, and on whether the pause of tours worked in a beneficial way or not for your album release?

I’ve always wanted to be an album artist. I think albums are really special in the way where you can tell a story visually with it’s branding, placing specific tracks in certain areas, having hidden messages whether it’s in your interludes, intros, outros, and the ability to create a grand experience for the listener. I started writing these songs in late 2019 and had hoped to put out a finished album by mid 2020. However, the pandemic hit and I thought “oh okay, well I get some more time to work on these songs instead of rushing the process.” I think it was a blessing in disguise because over the pandemic I opened myself up to new genres and developed my vocal style more. I feel like this was the right timing for me to learn more as an artist and put those influences into this album.

As measures begin to ease around the world in regards to festivals and live shows, could you give us any hints of any future plans, as well as any new JVNA music that may be set to follow your debut album?

We have a few really exciting collabs in the works! They are all artists I’ve admired for years so I’m stoked to be working on new music with them.