In Conversation with EMMMA: LA, singledom and invisibility.

Hello EMMMA! How are we doing? How's your day been?

Literally so good. So good. I got my hair done. 

It looks beautiful. First things first…. What's with the three M's in EMMMA? Does each M have a purpose?

Yes. I'm going to say yes. And here's why… everybody has 2 Ms in Emma. Add another one and then you're the only one with three M's so you can be easily searched. If you search Emma with two M's there's just a million Emmas that are going to pop up. But no one has three M's. So if you Google EMMMA with three M's, it's probably only going to be me. 

You're so right. So also obviously you've moved to sunny London (it actually is sunny today - for once I'm not being sarcastic). What is the biggest cultural divide you've sensed since moving from America?

That's actually a really good question. I'm going to compare LA to here because it's closer to my hometown. People here are a lot more, um, what you see is what you get. I think people are generally nicer here if not to your face, just as a person. They won't be so outwardly warm to your face though they're actually nice people. Whereas in LA everyone's going to be, “Oh my God, you're so beautiful!!!”. Like they’re going to be so nice to your face and then probably never want to talk to you again, and talk sh*t about you behind your back. 

That makes sense. Do you think that mindset has impacted your music?

Yeah. I think I'm allowing myself to be less poppy. LA wants you to be a part of the pop machine. I think here, or at least in the sessions I've done, people are a lot more willing to be a little different and maybe not as central and a little bit funkier, which I appreciate. 

Why do you think that is? Is there more creative freedom here compared to the LA pop machine?

LA is like a big machine. I feel like everyone's trying to make money. And if you don't have the numbers they don’t care about it. I feel like at least in sessions I've had here people have been lovely and excited to experiment and try new things, caring less about the machine. Here people are more like, “Oh, let's make art because it's fun; instead of like, ‘Oh, my manager, wants me in this session with you and like yeah dude you're so sick. Let's make something that will make us so much money” I'd rather vomit… In your face.

Real. Moving on from vomit, your visuals are really strong and beautiful. What's your key to developing them to fit with your songs? 

Hollywood. Holly Wood. Holly is my creative director. Her name is Holly.

Oh, Holly. Wood.

She is a powerhouse of a woman. She's from here, lives now in Brazil and developed Ashnikko’s branding. She and I were put in contact by my manager, who's also from here and also worked on Ashnikko. So they met during Ash. Now they work together on me! Basically, Holly is pushing me out of my comfort zone and allowing me to fully be an artist visually, which I never really allowed myself to do before because I was afraid of looking ugly or not perfect. Everything I did in my old project was very nice and perfect and pretty, floral and pink. And that's nice, but no one really cares about being pretty and nice. She is pushing me in so many ways to be confident exploring myself visually. What we'll do is talk about what the song means to me. We'll talk about the colors,the feelings, the emotions, I think are associated with the music, and then she'll go and create a concept based off of what I want it to feel like. And then she'll be like, okay - ‘I think we can like work with projectors..I think we can do your makeup like this’  And then we'll do it. It's really fun that I can be less afraid of being not perfect. And in turn, I feel like it's really cool. 

That's like the shift from LA to London. Instead of a pop machine, it's do it your way. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I interpret your image as quite ethereal, but witchy in a really cool way.

Exactly.  

On the superhuman vibe, which superpower aligns with you and your artist project right now?

Oh, girl. Being able to fly. Or talk to animals. I was thinking maybe I'd want to read minds, but I don't think I'd want to do that. I'd rather not. If I could just jump off a building and not die that would be cool. Also invisibility, whilst I'm flying.

So all the superpowers! That works, they all fit in with your project.

Haha yeah. You're so right.

Moving on to your writing process. What does that normally look like for you?

I have to have feelings. Right now, genuinely, I'm running out of feelings. It's hard to keep having enough to talk about to fit the amount of sessions I have. I have a lot coming up and I feel I'm depleted of feelings, but that changes…sometimes I have a lot of feelings! I'll go into a session usually pre-knowing my feelings. It'll be like here’s a reference track that I want to write to. Then I'll word vomit a paragraph about my feelings. We'll pick through it and use that.

So it’s guided by your intuition, which is nice. Again, it's not manufactured.

No, can't, can't, can't. So many people actually have a talent, (which I don't have), to write a song from someone else's perspective or about someone else’s story, and that's amazing. I wish I could do that. I can't. So I have to put myself through a lot of feelings to have stuff to write about, which is also kind of unhealthy.

It shows how real the writing is for you and how important and true the art is. Does writing help you process emotionally? 

I think it has to help, but while I'm in it, I don't know how I'm feeling. I need a bit of time to process. I wasn't able to write about my breakup with my ex for five months after it happened. We kind of separated in September of 2023. And I couldn't write about it until February 2024. By then I was in London for the first time and I was writing four songs a week for four weeks and I wrote so much about it. I don't know. I wasn't able to write a lot about like boys over the past year and actually being single has helped my content, which is so dumb because I don't want to be single, but like it does help the art which is so toxic.

It's so weird, in most other jobs there isn't that interaction.

Oh my God. I wish I had a lovely office job.

Just can't help yourself, can you?

My life would be so much easier. I could be like, here's my résumé of all the professional things that I've done in my life. Boom. Hire me for your office. Alas, I technically probably could, but I just can't in my soul.

I love that. 

On to something completely different - you've been touring loads recently. What's been your favorite aspect?

I loved being able to go to cities that I've never been to before and meet people who really connect with my music in cities that are brand new to me. That was great. I loved meeting and chatting with everyone. Hopefully, if I made one person in any of those cities feel like they could relate to my music, my job is done. I think I did it. I hope I did. It was really fun.

I'm sure so. Where was the best crowd? You can let us in on this cheeky secret.

Manchester? I think it was Manchester.

What is your most treasured item to take on tour?

Oh. It has to be...It's my in-ears. Oh my God. I can't do a show without them. If I didn't have those, it wouldn't happen. It's not even like a sentimental item.

No, you went practical. I really rate that. What is the message you want people to take away from Wednesday's Child?

Mmmm. It's not anger. It's not a meanness. I think this song is about acceptance with frustration, that it’s okay and this is the way it's supposed to be. I don't know if that makes so much sense, but it's okay to be frustrated. You're not angry at this person, but it's just sad that it is the way that it is. One of the lyrics is, "It's not your fault. You didn't know."....Like, he's not a bad person. It's not his fault. He's the way that he is. He can't help it. I can't help it. And if you've ever felt anything other than anger from a breakup, it's probably this. And that happens for people and it's okay. I did. I'm okay.

I understand that completely. Finally, what can we expect to come?

Two more singles and a six song EP in October! Each one has a full length music video, plus visualizers. I did a live performance set that'll be coming out in a week or two with eight dancers that we filmed in LA. Um, and I plan on announcing my first London show soon!

Gorgeous. Thank you so much EMMMA.