Features : Exclusive Interview with Kiara Garcia

Artist Spotlight: Kiara Garcia

Kiara Garcia is a singer, songwriter and producer from Las Vegas, Nevada that loves making music that makes people happy. Her song, “Obsessed,” is a playful pop love song that’s upbeat and catchy. It comes from her new album Ocean Pearl which compiles tracks that tell a story while still keeping everything lighthearted, creative and fun.

In this exclusive Q&A, Kiara Garcia opens up about the stories behind the music, lessons learned along the way, and what keeps their passion alive.

FreshMusicWorld: Can you walk us through your typical songwriting process?

Kiara Garcia: My typical songwriting process varies. Sometimes I'll have a melody already in mind that I want to incorporate into a song and other times I'll have to take a night to go over different melody ideas I've come up with. Sometimes I'll have lyrics already in mind and other times I'll have an idea I want to base the entire song around. Although the ideas and melodies may vary, without a doubt, one recurring process that happens every single time is that I'll have to listen to the song on loop numerous times and however long it takes for me to come up with something. Usually it doesn't take long because if I like a song and I hear the harmonies in my head, it'll be a simple phone recording and then go into the studio and record it. That's actually why my phone is so important because it has all my ideas and recordings that I for sure would forget if I didn't record it the second I thought it or sang it. Overall, I like coming up with various ideas and rearranging where I think they should sit in the mix and then figuring out what sounds fun to listen to as the audience. Getting in the mind of the audience is what helps the songwriting process the most for me.

FreshMusicWorld: What’s your favorite part of the recording process?

Kiara Garcia: My favorite part of the recording process might be finishing a take and then hearing it back. I think every producer, writer, musician, or artist might think this way, but whenever I listen to a recording back and I feel and can see the vision in front of me, I feel so ecstatic. When you get that take that hits just right and then you listen to it back, and you just know exactly what needs to happen next. You'll want to start to sing the harmonies, layer them, and add fun vocal adlibs and effects, all so you can listen to the overall product. Feeling that excitement about what you've recorded and what the final product will sound like—that’s the best part of the recording process by far

FreshMusicWorld: How do you handle writer’s block or creative slumps?

Kiara Garcia: When I have writer's block or creative slumps, I just take time away from it. Sure, I'll probably be thinking about it and having it gnaw at my brain, but eventually, I'll have fully reset my mind and calibrated it to start fresh. I think that's the ultimate hack to handling writer's block because then you allow yourself to rewire your perspective. When you have a slump, you naturally want to immediately get through it, but that impatience actually hinders the process. I've had many slumps where I couldn't get "through it," so I instead chose to "get over it" by letting it be and coming back to it when I had a fresh new start. Some of the projects I put out are exactly that—songs I set aside and came back to when I felt I had overcome that writer's block. At the end of the day, the issues we face in the particular moment may seem like a lot, but as time goes by, life shows us that those issues were simply in that single moment and we've got plenty of life to create the solutions to our problems.

FreshMusicWorld: What comes first for you: the music or the lyrics?

Kiara Garcia: I'd say the music comes first for me rather than the lyrics. Lyrics only come when I have the melody already in mind. I can decide to base a song around lyrics but truly it won't be perfect unless the music is already there. For example, my song, "Obsessed," was created by the idea of wanting to make a disco pop styled song with that main word as the chorus. I wouldn't have been able to create the flow of the lyrics, had I not listened to the track multiple times and decided what I wanted the song to sound like. I fit lyrics into the box I've already created for myself—it's only once in a blue moon that I'll have the lyrics already inside the box.

FreshMusicWorld: How do you know when a song is truly finished?

Kiara Garcia: I know when a song is truly finished kind of by intuition. Usually, working through a song, you'll think to yourself, 'I need to do this and I need to do that.' But when I go through a song and I don't feel that exact urge to add or tweak anything else, I'll know it's finished. Overall, it's listening to the whole song without stopping to change anything, and if I can sit through it in one go two or through times, I feel that it's finished. Of course I could always be wrong, which is why I take a day or two to listen to the finished product and before making my decision of whether it's truly where I want it to be or not.

FreshMusicWorld: How do you decide on the theme or concept for an album?

Kiara Garcia: I decide on the theme or concept of an album spontaneously. It isn't random, it's more so the direction I feel I need to take in that moment. The concept for, "Ocean Pearl," was actually decided after all the songs were made. I gathered all the tracks I felt were right for this album and went through them and decided that I wanted the concept to follow the flow of our lives, especially with regard to love. Ultimately, I want the audience to hear any of my songs and go, 'Oh yeah that's me.' Whenever I assemble an album, I always tend to ask myself: how well do these songs fit? What does this album mean to me? What do I want it to mean to someone who hears it for the first time? As well as, what makes the most sense for this album? I try to create concepts that people can dissect, pick apart, relate to and have fun with. Truly, what's more relatable than love?

FreshMusicWorld: What’s the most challenging aspect of being a song artist?

Kiara Garcia: The most challenging aspect of being a song artist is tapping into the mind of the listeners. As someone who grew up listening to all types of genres and works, it can be tough to gauge what I like versus what I think the listeners may enjoy. I personally find fun in creating whatever comes to mind and exploring different musical avenues I can take, but sometimes whenever I put myself in the listeners' shoes, I can second guess what I'm creating. I try to do what I think is best, but I can get into my head at certain points, questioning whether the choice makes sense only to me or if it will resonate with someone else. It's a very classic, 'Beauty in the eye of the beholder,' dilemma. Shifing my perspective and positioning myself as the audience can truly alter the route I take in any song I do. It isn't the worst problem to have but looking at your music from multiple lenses is exactly why navigating this balance is the most challenging part of being an artist.

FreshMusicWorld: Have you ever had a dream to inspire a song or an album?

Kiara Garcia: I've absolutely had a dream to inspire a song or album—many of them, believe me. The hardest part about pulling inspiration from your dreams is that when you wake up, and this could be 3am or any other time, you're fighting the clock to record what you'll otherwise forget in a matter of seconds.. it really breaks my heart every time I forget a song I heard in my dreams. I still have old recordings on my phone of tracks I created from my dreams years ago. To me, conveying stories that come from your dreams is a lovely expression of who you are. In fact, most of my melodies actually come from me sleeping; I'll hear an entire song in my dream, wake up to then record a rough voice note, and then later on record the real studio track.

FreshMusicWorld: How do you handle a song idea that doesn't fit into your current project?

Kiara Garcia: The way I handle a song idea that doesn't fit into my current project is either to find a way to work around it or to create a new concept to accommodate it—which could be an entirely new landscape or restructuring the entire project to fit it. The easy way would be to scrap the song idea and save it for another project, but most of the time I tend to work around it. For example, for the album I included two hip-hop styled songs, one Spanish Pop song, and the rest were pop and afrofusion. That seems like a lot of genres but at the same time, they all fit under the spell of a cohesive story. I originally had two other songs I was going to include in the album but decided against it and to save them for an entirely new concept album. I felt that the storyboard flowed well enough that the audience could hear the songs and enjoy them, without me having to scrap any of my song ideas. Song ideas are flexible, so it's interesting to handle the ones that don't fit the project.

FreshMusicWorld: Do you ever revisit old songs to rework or find inspiration?

Kiara Garcia: I do revisit old songs to rework more often than not. I revisit looking to see if what I liked and what I didn't like, which could be effects, mixing, etc. I find myself going back and reworking stuff all the time, it's a reminder of how I'm continuing to learn and grow, not just as an artist but as a person too. I always want to see what I was thinking in that particular moment and what I'm think of as of the current moment.

Funny story, my mother sometimes calls me a perfectionist, I always deny it because things don't have to be perfect for me; I like being perfectly imperfect. I think that label comes from the fact that, I put an immense effort into whatever I do and if I make a mistake, it weighs on me because I feel like I could've done better. 'If I know I can achieve 100%, why am I achieving less than that?' is the mindset I tend to fall into sometimes. Yet at the same time, I can acknowledge that there is no perfection, and that's actually what makes life beautiful.

When I was younger, there used to be a cartoon show my cousins and I would be so eager to watch. I can still picture getting home from school, running to find snacks, and barricading ourselves in my older cousin's room. We would turn off the lights and switch on the TV to watch, 'Courage the Cowardly Dog.' I mention this because, the grand finale of that show was about how beautiful we are precisely because of our imperfections and the uniqueness we carry as individuals. That's why, when I revisit a past song, I'm not just finding inspiration in it; I'm learning from past imperfections to push my future effort even further.

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