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secondhandnewsradio · 4 years ago

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SHN INTERVIEW: Rachel Bochner

by Claire Silverman

Rachel Bochner is a singer/songwriter based in New York City. Her career in the music industry began with an A&R internship at a record label, and it was there that she realized her true passion for creating and sharing her own music. Her passion lies in making pop music that resonates with people through the good, the bad, the lighthearted, and the heavy.

CS: Congrats on the release of your song “hating myself in the summer!”

RB: Thank you so much!

CS: The song feels like a song that so many people, especially young girls, can relate to a lot. What initially prompted you to write this song?

RB: I actually started writing this song back in October, so it wasn't written in the summertime. But the phrase in the chorus “I'm tired of hitting myself in the summer” is kind of what sparked the song as a whole. And like you said, it's something that a lot of people, especially young women can relate to. I think it's just something that I have always struggled with for as long as I can remember. There are periods in my life where I noticed, at events or seasons, that I'm feeling particularly self-conscious, and summer is definitely one of those times. There’s this push and pull of “I want to be enjoying myself, and I just want to exist and not be worrying about this,” but there's also a pressure that “okay, my friends are all going to the beach, and I don't love how I'm looking in this bathing suit, and now that's consuming my mind,” and it's a really exhausting thing to worry about. Also as I've gotten older, it’s become so much more apparent that it's not something that actually matters, and it's not something that I should be basing my worth on. So the song is about coming to that realization.

CS: One thing I like about this song is that it's you and yourself, but also it’s you speaking to a lot of people. I appreciate that this song is a pop song, and it's a really good pop song, but it's not about a love story, which is something I really like. I've noticed this type of theme in some of your other songs too. Could you tell me a bit about what kind of messages are you interested in writing about, and what's important to you and your songwriting overall?

RB: It's funny that you say that because this song is on a project that is a collection of songs that are all not love songs. I think, for this project, I wanted it to be exactly that — my thought process and things that I'm feeling and what I'm going through but not really about another person. I do love a love song, and I love the last EP that I put out that had this story of one relationship not working out and like coming into a new one that feels better and more authentic. So I felt like I got that off my chest for a bit. I started with “how am I feeling?: And “what are the things that I am struggling with?” And what are things that I think that other people who are around my age, so high school through mid to late 20s, can relate to? I love being able to write something that feels really personal to me, but when someone listens to it, they might have a completely different life experience and still be able to place themselves in that song.

photo: Sasha Bellentine

CS: Who are the artists that you feel have really influenced you and your songwriting?

RB: I am definitely influenced by a lot of different artists. Some longer-term inspirations for me are Julia Michaels, Maggie Rogers, and Lana Del Rey. I think Julia Michaels’ writing is the kind of pop music that I am really drawn to, where sonically it’s a bop, but lyrically, you can read into it and it’s a thought-provoking song. Recently I've really been loving Conan Gray. Also, Sasha Sloane is great. I always feel overwhelmed when I'm asked this question because I feel like I need to list everyone. And I also love Taylor Swift. She consistently blows my mind.

CS: I love that. One of the coolest things that I’ve noticed from speaking with female artists around our age is that literally almost every single one of them has been deeply influenced by Taylor Swift. She has really helped create this next generation of songwriters. It's so cool.

RB: And I also love Lorde so much, but I feel like people always kind of name Lorde as their inspiration.

photo: Alex Lyon

CS: So how did you get started in the industry? What made you realize that music was what you wanted to pursue?

RB: I have always loved music. I've always been a singer, for as long as I can remember. But I didn't really start writing and working on my own music until later on. I think part of that was being a little bit afraid of failure. The part of me that wanted to do that got overshadowed by the part of me that was afraid of being bad at it. But I actually started seriously writing during the summer of 2018, which is weirdly recent. For a while, I thought I wanted to work at a label, so I interned at a record label that summer of 2018. I was doing A&R and was listening to new music every single day and looking for new artists. That’s when it clicked for me that I loved writing and I wanted to be sharing my own music. From that point on, I've been focusing on finding my network of people to be making music.

CS: As I was getting ready for this interview, I was listening to your EP 2 AM again, and I wanted to ask you about that EP as well, specifically, your song Ultraviolet. What was the story behind that song?

RB: Ultraviolet was written at the end of last summer, so we were deep in COVID times. From not being able to see people and just having so much time to sit with my own thoughts, I started to understand things about myself that I hadn't previously ever even thought about. I needed an outlet for thinking about that and processing the questions and realizations I was having about my sexuality. Naturally, I wrote a song about it. It created this space for me to explore everything that I was thinking about given the circumstances.

CS: You mentioned earlier with that EP that there was a big emphasis on the storytelling aspect of your songs. Can you talk a little bit about that, and, and the process of that EP, and putting out an EP in a time where playing concerts can’t be a part of a release.

RB: Since I started releasing music right before COVID, I’ve never really lived in a world where playing shows is a part of the release strategy. I'm excited for that to be a thing. In terms of the storytelling, the songs on the EP weren't actually written in the order that they appear on the tracklist. Afterwards, I figured out how they made sense to me, which was fun. Something I like to do in my writing is pull from experiences and emotions that I have personally felt, but also using fiction and applying an emotion that I have actually experienced and I can speak to, but in a different situation. I think as a songwriter it is really important to be able to open yourself up beyond what you've experienced firsthand, and still be able to make it sound genuine and have it resonate with people.

CS: Do you have any news you can share with us? Any exciting things coming up in the future?

RB: Definitely. I have new music on the way [Rachel’s new single “ghosted my therapist” is out now]. I won't say too much, but there's a little easter egg in the music video for “hating myself in the summer.” It's cryptic, but it'll make sense eventually.

CS: Is this the Taylor Swift fan in you putting easter eggs in your videos?

RB: Oh 100% yes.

CS: Can you give us a few recommendations to end with? What are the songs you've been listening to recently?

RB: Conan Gray recently put out a song called “People Watching” and it's so good, it was co-written by Julia Michaels as well, and she’s one of my favorites. There's a song that I literally cannot stop playing and it destroys me emotionally but I am obsessed with it. It's called “I Can't Wait to Be British” by Carol Ades. If you're looking for a song to cry to, that's a really good one. I’ve also been listening to a lot of JP Saxe lately. I'm actively not sad, but I love listening to sad music right now.

CS: It was really nice to meet you, and I'm looking forward to hearing your new music!

RB: Thank you!

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