Trace - Could I Break Your Heart?

Oh! Pretty New Music #3

** this blog post came out on January 14, 2022 via the old website **

TRACE was the first legend I interviewed in 2022 and the first one since an entire half and I am glad it was her. She joined our Zoom meeting, very relaxed and made a very calm impression, sitting on her couch and drinking her morning coffee. It was 8am in LA, 5pm in Germany.

I discovered TRACE through someone else’s story on IG. Someone shared a clip from an episode of her podcast Glad You Said No and I was hooked. Discovering a musician as well made me double follow her hehe.

Being a newbie to her music, I was excited to meet her and get to know her journey & story from the legend herself. I entered the meeting feeling in a bit of a slump of lovesickness and disillusions, I went out of it knowing there is an artist releasing a song that will hug my heartache & yearning and encourage me again to move forward.

We had a great conversation about her musical journey to the music video of the song, to getting healthier and much more.

Here she is: legend TRACE.

Bonnie Orbison: Introduce yourself a bit!

TRACE: I’m TRACE, I live in Los Angeles and I do music. I have been doing music for about six years. I never really planned on doing music my whole life. I grew up wanting to be in advertising. I love writing, so I’ve always been a writer, but music is a newer career for me. And I love it. I can’t believe I get to do it as a job. I grew up in a musical family. I guess it makes sense. But I definitely didn’t plan on becoming a musician.

BO: I am a writer!

TRACE: Writing is so fun. I think you can do anything with writing. And it happens to work with music. I want to write about everything and anything.

BO: The reason why we’re meeting is your upcoming single. What is the title of your upcoming single and when does it come out?

TRACE: The first single of my EP is called Could I Break Your Heart?, and it comes out on January 14. So from this interview, it’s next Friday. And yeah, I’m super excited. It’s independent and I haven’t released anything off an official project in over two years. I’m pretty dramatic and I’m like This is the new me, but I just actually like my music more and more, because I keep doing it. And I am grateful to be able to keep doing it.

BO: Coming back from a hiatus is always a scary feeling. You think you need a completely new branding and actually you don’t have to change a lot. 

TRACE: You don’t and my manager laughs at me, because I’m always like Are they gonna forget me? Who are they?. It’s a tough world out there, you know?

BO: Yeah. Could I Break Your Heart? Does the title have a special meaning?

TRACE: It’s really fun for me to be able to relate the songs I write to any time of my life. And obviously, when I first write something, I’m in it, and I’m just like this sucks, and I feel horrible. Until a year later, I didn’t release the song and I don’t feel the same way I did about that person anymore, but I feel that way towards another person. Overall, I try not to make my songs so specific. This song is almost like this question. It’s a rhetorical question, obviously, Could I Break Your Heart?. I guess I’m tired of being hurt. But maybe I’m doing it to myself. Like, no one’s hurting me. I just feel hurt. And I think this song is more this callback of like, Man, could I just hurt anyone else? Is anyone else sad over me? That’d be cool.

BO: What inspired the track? What is it about?

TRACE: I write most of my interesting melodies or lyrics when I’m driving. I like being in my car. And obviously, you’re in your car a lot in Los Angeles. I remember driving on the two freeway and I was just thinking about how weird it is when you date people in the city and you drive by their places where they live. What inspired the song was just me driving around the city and feeling a bit of a, not like a yearning, but like you miss certain things about certain people and you miss their places where you used to hang out at. Literally, a line of the song is I’m overthinking on the freeway. It sounds like a song you can drive to it.

BO: Yeah, I love this. I will listen to your song as soon as I have my driver’s license. The first time I’ll drive, it will be the first thing I will put on.

TRACE: Don’t listen to Olivia Rodrigo. Listen to my song. Perfect.

BO: What did the process of making a song look like? And how long did it take?

TRACE: I wrote the song and then I worked on it with my friend Ryan and his brother, Nathan. And they produced it as well. Usually, I come into the studio and I have just the words and the vibes. It depends on how I feel. I’m always throwing tracks to my producer and tell him that this and that sounds cool. Frank Ocean was a big influence for this track, just really chill, driving. Basically I have this melody I’m working with. And they would just start being geniuses and play the piano and get the guitar out and stuff. I finished songs fast only because I don’t care about perfection. So I went into the studio, we wrote a song, finished it and then we had a good demo. And then from then on, I’m just sitting with it and just dissecting the sounds that are in it, especially because it’s this new, evolved sound that I hope to bring in the next project and battling what was popular in the past for my music and then what I like now. We all change and this is a big deal for me to release this song because I’ve had a lot of other songs, but I chose this one. It feels the most familiar, perhaps to what I’ve done before, but I hope people can say something like Oh, she is growing up.

BO: You label yourself a non-perfectionist.

TRACE: I do. I wasn’t in music class. I wouldn’t consider myself a good musician. I don’t know things. But I’m learning and I can tell you what I like. I wouldn’t say it comes with age, but I have a lot of friends who are insane perfectionists and they’re older than me. I find efficiency way more important. And I try to not be precious with everything. Though I’m precious about a lot of other things. And I overthink a lot of things. For sure the song could have been done differently, but I like it the way it is now and everything else would just be a waste of time right now.

BO: So healthy.

TRACE: Thank you.

BO: What is your favorite lyric?

TRACE: *scrolling through the lyrics* Wow, I’m a good writer. *continuing scrolling* There is a line that says then I worry about a closeness that could make me feel I don’t need much more. I’m just getting used to when you’re close to someone just in general and you become obsessed with them. You realize that this is all I need. It’s not even a real thing, so we get confused. We confuse closeness with intimacy. Yeah, I think that’s what I’m learning to discern because I’m emotionally very open. So I feel close to everyone and people feel close to me. I’m learning that and as well that I need way more than I’ve been given.

BO: I stopped breathing for a second because of the lyric line as it relates so much to my situation right now.

TRACE: Oh, really?

BO: Yeah, these are the words I desperately looked for to describe my feelings.

TRACE: Aww, that’s beautiful.

BO: When the single comes out, where is the perfect place to be listening to it for the first time?

TRACE: Nighttime, for sure. It’s nighttime and I think you should be alone like driving alone to a safe party with your friends where there are drinks and you can hang out and just be around people who love and know you. So you’re alone driving and I want to give you hope with this song. It reminds me so much of young love and falling in and out of love the first time. You don’t even have to be driving, like just be able to sit with yourself and grieve.

BO: I want to get my driver’s license so badly now.

TRACE: Get it so soon. Just get on it, okay? 

BO: I will. Is there a music video to it?

TRACE: Yes. My best friend Nathan Presley directed it. He’s very talented and he did my first music video ever for my first single ever called Heavy Shoulders seven years ago which is insane. He’s been growing and doing great things. And obviously, I’m like I don’t have your budget anymore., but he’s my best friend and he believes in me. He had time to do this which I’m very thankful for. The music video is really cool. I rented an old Ford Mustang from the ‘60s. One of my good friends, she’s a stunt driver and she drove me around Los Angeles. That’s the music video and it’s being edited right now as we speak. It’ll probably be done right before the sound comes out. And then I’m going to premiere it on YouTube.

BO: I love vintage cars. My father is a car mechanic and my dream is to get one in the future and he should repair it if it has problems.

TRACE: That’s a goal. It’s smart.

BO: How long did it take to shoot it?

Trace: Like four hours? It was a night shot and it was freezing. I’ve had bigger productions with like, when I was signed. It’s really fun being indie again, because I can afford to do like a cute little music video and we’ll shoot in a couple hours and this one might be my favorite one. It can be very helpful for you as you endeavor into things, but trying so hard is so tiring. And I am just grateful enough to have been in this for a little bit to where I have the people that are so excellent at their job, and who also want to just hang out with me and do good work. Like a friend who’s a stylist told me to grab this jacket and wear it in it. It doesn’t have to be this big, I didn’t have hair and makeup done. I just was in a car with my hair blowing. Yesterday, I saw a little snippet of it and I had to smile. I think I just really like myself more than I ever have before. It’s all cohesive with the stuff that I’m doing and the way that I’m releasing my music videos. I think maybe even for women. It used to be stressful for me, you know, like comparing yourself to other women and especially like in pop music. Obviously, I’m not a very pop artist, but I want to be popular and you look around and no one looks like me which is great. But for a while I compared myself and put pressure on myself like “Okay, I have a shoot on the 12th. So for a month, I’m not going to drink alcohol. I’m going to work out every day. I’m not going to eat carbs” just because I wanted to look really good. Now I have a better sense of what health and perception is and it’s cool to be like “Oh, I look great.” It’s wild.

BO: It’s a journey. Somewhere I think the project you’re gonna release next should be your favorite one. 

Trace: Yeah, I agree. 

BO: Any honorable mentions you want to make?

Trace: I have a really good team who really cares. If it’s from my management to my business managers, to my lawyers, it’s just cool to have people who are really good at their job and who want to work for and with me. I always want to be able to take care of everybody and I wish I could make millions and millions, so they could live off working with me, but they can’t. I’m grateful for people’s time. You can’t do this alone. It’s super hard to do music alone, but you can do it indie. But I’ve never been without a manager. I’ve always had a team. And I hope that says a lot about me and I hope that it really pushes my understanding of doing this work because I want to do this forever. That’s why I’m mentioning them.

BO: If you’d have to put the song, your song on a playlist of five other songs, which would they be?

Could I Break Your Heart? is out now on all streaming platforms!