In Conversation with Dafna: Mermaids, software engineering and her upcoming music.

Hey Dafna! Your next single is out on May the 9th called BAD PEOPLE BAD THINGS - will your new music differ from the music you've already put out or is it a continuation would you say?

It's probably a continuation. I think there are some songs on my last album that are probably similar vibes to what the upcoming music is, but I'm definitely leaning more into the distorted kind of sound and just building off of the more fun rocky elements.

Exciting! How do you celebrate when you release new music? 

Honestly, I don't really celebrate.  I probably should. I think in the past I've had friends I go out for drinks with or something, but other nights it's just like  "song's out", and then I post and go to bed.

How would you say you found your sound? Did it come naturally to you in your earlier days, or has it developed?

I guess I always try to produce whatever sound would make sense for this song e.g. I feel this song would make sense to be this kind of genre, so then I do it in that way.  And then I think my writing style and how I write my lyrics has been more of the consistent kind of thing. But then as far as the instruments or how I produce it, I always like to change it up. 

Who would you say were your biggest inspirations in creating that sound?

I feel like I'm always listening to different music. More recently I've been listening to Djo a lot. I love his new album. Also Fleetwood Mac. Love them. Yeah… or Ashe for a while I really loved her music. I don't know. I've always kind of had different albums that I fixate on for a certain amount of time which I like.

Obviously you're super multifaceted and a software engineer. Your 3D website is genius. I was having so much fun clicking through it. What drew you to something so completely different from music?

Thanks, I don't know… My whole family are all techie or engineers. So, I think part of it was definitely the push to pursue an education, study and get a job. I also didn't want music to lose its magic if I had to rely on it for money…I think I’ve always loved math and science and computers. It just felt a very natural progression to pursue that, and I still have time to do music and everything on top of it.

I first heard you in the whole Light Of My Life days when you wrote a heartbreaking banger about losing your glasses and essentially your sight… Are there any other sensory experiences which inspire your music?

I mean I don't know about sensory…but I guess a lot of songs I love have a certain concept that I want to write about. It might not be something that I specifically went through, but it's funny to build it off of. I have an upcoming song this summer that I wrote based on this podcast idea of two people sitting on toilets facing each other. And so I wrote a song called S*** Talking just so I can make that. I've done a lot of songs where I have a visual idea for something and I'm like, "Okay, I guess I need a song to go with that”.

BAD PEOPLE BAD THINGS sounds to me like a bit of a rage anthem…Do you use music to document your emotions after they've come to the surface or do you use music to work through them? Is it a bit of a chicken/egg scenario?

I guess it's usually to work through them. If something’s happened and I'm feeling really frustrated from it I think it does help. That's when writing flows the most and I feel like I need to write a song about it. Usually writing releases that. It's like, “okay, I can't be mad at this thing anymore because I have a song from it”, so it was good that it happened. Yeah.

Do you ever get stuck in writer's block?

No, since I have the luck of only writing by myself for the most part, and producing by myself, and it's not for money. I never push myself to write when I'm not feeling like I want to write. I kind of just let it happen if lyrics are coming and flowing, then I'm able to write a song, and if not I don't force it. So it's never been like an issue.

You can do it on your own times and terms and let the creative juices flow. 

This is kind of a fun one, if you had to describe your music as an animal, what would it be?

That's difficult. I mean, I don't know if it's an animal necessarily because it's not real, but a mermaid is what I want the world to understand as this next concept. It was like a digital mermaid kind of thing. So, I think I want the aquatic kind of life. Maybe a whale if we're doing a real animal, but same thing.

What are you most excited for in your career that's coming up?

I think I'm just excited to release music again. I haven't really released any since I guess November or October. I'm just excited to get the new project out there and all the videos that are coming with it. I'm having at least a visualizer for each song. So that'll be fun.