A Conversation with Carmela

Carmela is a musician, songwriter, twitch streamer, theater kid, and self proclaimed “Queen of the Suburbs”. Within all her years of music, going from her first Youtube cover in 2011 to releasing her 2nd full album, she’s garnered a dedicated following and collaborated with companies like Twitch, Dr. Pepper, and even Squatty Potty. I got to sit and chat with her right before the start of her “Queen of the Suburbs” album release tour here in Los Angeles to gain a little more insight on her history and passion for music.

Soooo, how are you feeling?

“Excited! It’s been a long time coming, the show and the album. It’s been 4 years since I released one, so it’s gonna be fun.”

I saw. “New Strangers” was your last release right? I’m really excited and I’ve been looping a lot of your songs lately. This is also the start of your tour, right?

“I know, this is stop one! Then it just goes on and on for the summer; I’m really excited. It’s special being here because, I’m from Orange County and I’ve bopped around and, the OC and LA have such different vibes, but I feel like LA is home, you know? So a home show to start the tour feels right.

So did you really fracture it [her elbow] before the start of your tour?

“So the fracture is real, first time I’ve ever broken anything. I’ve never seen my bones before in an x-ray, so it’s been kind of wild. But tonight we’re so lucky! My friend Rachel texted me and was like, ‘do you need help with the guitar?’ and she’s the best guitarist. I mean, besides Gideon, who’s my other guitarist, two of the bests I know. So they’re both playing tonight. So it’s gonna honestly be even better. Serendipity.”

I did want to ask, because you’re starting this whole tour and your show is literally starting in an hour, do you have any pre-show rituals that you kind of do?

“I warm up my voice because that’s very important, I’m a nerd about vocal health. I [also] love Prince. So [sometimes] I’ll watch Prince perform just to kind of get in that right mindset, you know? But honestly, one little glass of soft blanc and I’m good to go [laughs] that’s kind of how I do it. I love performing; I have such a blast up there. I think when you do anything with music, especially releasing an album, it’s such a big feat and it’s such a long time coming. Like, some of these songs … it’s been years in the making.”

Three years if I remember correctly, right?

“Okay, low-key it’s four [laughs]. I realized that the other day I said three years online and then was like, wait a minute, it’s four years. So it’s been a long time coming. So I started to, you know, you kind of get in your head, building it up and all this stuff. But I get with my friends and we did sound check and I feel so good. So like, the pre-show is just hanging with them and trying to relax. … The post show routine? Del Taco. They’re always open, always good.”

You mentioned before that you’ve been performing for a while, and I know it’s been a long while. I think you’ve done a little bit of musical theater too, right? A little “Fiddler on the roof”?

“Yes!!”

I did a little deep dive [laughs]. So why not go into musical theater?

“Well, honestly that’s a great question because I was going to do that. I loved theater and then I discovered Nirvana. I watched their performance in Redding [CA] and he comes out in a mental hospital gown on a wheelchair, gets thrown off the wheelchair, dumped onto the stage, and it was so theatrical. And I loved the music. I love, love Nirvana. I started to dive into rock and I saw how you could pair that sort of theatrics with rock music and it was kind of all over at that point. I want to do this. And as you can see, I have taken that and ran with it. I think albums are so theatrical. I mean, they tell a full story and that’s what I’m hoping to do tonight. [To] kind of give a little taste of what that is and keep the theater [kid] alive, you know? Like, she’s still in here. Honestly, dream role, Elphaba. Maybe I’ll do one of those Carly Rae Jepson’s where she’s a pop star that does broadway. I still love theater but it’s not my pursuit right now.”

Speaking about your album, I’m sure you’re gonna be playing a bunch of those [songs]. Do you have any song specifically that you’re really excited to play? You know, something that maybe isn’t a 15 year old cover of a Secondhand Serenade song?

“Oh my god, that’s dirty [laughs]. How dare you!”

It was a great cover!

“I was a fan! That was my first concert ever and he was at the House of Blues in Anaheim. There’s curtains at that venue and when they opened up and he’s turned around jamming on the guitar. I cried. Secondhand Serenade, that was my shit. Anyway, I’m really really excited to do some of the newer [songs]. Like, we haven’t done a song that’s on the album that’s not out yet. It’ll be out midnight tonight called ‘Suburban King’. It’s more stripped down and I might cry. We’ll see, but I’m excited to share that. A lot of the songs are very like, hard rock and really energetic, but we’ve kind of built in some chiller moments tonight that I’m really excited about.”

So I saw something pretty interesting the other day and noticed you’ve done a bunch of different collabs over the years, Dr. Pepper being one of them. I couldn’t really find a ton of info on it, so I wanted to know more about it.

“Yeah, so I also live stream a lot on Twitch, that’s kind of a lot of the people that’ll be here tonight. They’re the Carmela crew, shout out! But Dr. Pepper came in when I was a real, like, baby streamer and basically helped me. It was called ‘a Dr. Pepper level up’. The video’s not on Youtube anymore, I’m so sad. It was like that house show, where they say, ‘move that bus!’ [Extreme Home Makeover]. It was like that, but for streamers. So they were like, ‘what are your pain points with streaming? How could we make this easier on you’. So they got me a new camera, new monitor, new stuff for my stream. Oh and a new mic, a really nice mic, It was amazing.”

And you also collabed with Squatty Potty and you were a judge or something??

“Squatty potty was wild. So I was a college student in the pandemic, which was a lot. I was studying music and one of my classes, we had to write a jingle for anything. So I was like, what should I write for? My sister was like, squatty potty doesn’t have a jingle, they just have a mascot. So then I wrote the jingle and then squatty potty heard it and they were like, ‘Hey, let’s collab’. They sent me swag; They sent me that pooping unicorn [laughs]! So yeah, it was a wild, weird collab. That’s the power of the internet, right?”

While we’re talking about your past stuff, The Band Thrift? What was that about? I know you were a teenager doing stuff on Youtube and then it just happened to happen?

“It’s a very long story but I’ll try to summarize it. I posted on Youtube, I was quote unquote ‘discovered’ by this random dude. I mean, all things considered, he just wanted to start an indie rock band with a female lead singer. [We] loved ‘The Kills’, kind of the White Stripes meets Lady Gaga kind of vibe was what we were sort of going after. I was like, 16 and he was auditioning people and ended up choosing me. He flew me out to Canada where we recorded our music. Then after high school, instead of college, I just moved in with him and his family in their basement and made music. The east coast [they were based in Pittsburg, PA] was great because you could tour everywhere … Eventually we moved back here [California]. Honestly, when that band ended, it was kind of my identity for a long time. So going to my name, Carmela, but kind of changing that [feels] like shedding the ‘Thrift’ skin and coming into my own was pretty symbolic. When ‘Thrift’ ended, I really was like, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. That was kind of everything. We were a duo and my guitarist wanted to move on and do other things. I wasn’t wanting to do that, so here we are.”

So you’re not playing “Bombshell” tonight then? [She laughs] But again, I love the music you’re producing now and it’s great that that was part of your journey into who you are now. With that said, is there any kind of messages you want your music to convey?

“Be unapologetic. It’s something I’m still learning, but I feel it when I feel most like an artist and like myself. Obviously, like the world can make you feel insecure and tell you, ‘you should be this, you should be that’. But when you strip all that back and you really get to be your authentic self, that’s when the whole world opens up to you. What I try to convey is that I’m trying to learn how to not be scared to be my full self. I want everybody at the show listening to my music to feel that and truly be themselves, be unapologetic, and not worry about how that looks being in the moment.”

That’s really sweet. I was going to ask what advice you’d like to leave other artists but I think this covers just that. I remember in a recent TikTok video, you talked about how you were scared to say that you have these dreams [of wanting more] and stuff like that. You’ve already done so much that I feel like people all over the world would kill to have what you have now and I think that’s amazing.

“Yeah! I think it’s okay to want. I think that’s what I’m trying to learn right now, it’s okay to want more. I mean, the fact that I met you is amazing! Like the power of the internet and just being, like, I dont know, TikTok scares me [laughs]. Because I’m a Twitch streamer, that’s kind of been the last few years of my life. I’ve not gotten used to being perceived on the other platforms. It’s so amazing to connect with people [that way]. That’s what I want to do, more of that. Whatever that brings, I’m open to it.

One last thing because I don’t want to hold you up for too long, do you have any guilty pleasure songs or things that people wouldn’t expect you to listen to.

“One of my favorite albums of all time is ‘ Anti’ by Rihanna. Maybe that’s not that surprising because it’s kind of her edgier album, but I love her. Okay, so that’s one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum, I’ve been obsessed with this song called ‘MacArthur Park’ by, oh my god, Richard something [Harris]. It’s this 7 minute ballad from the 80s(?). It’s so extra, it’s like so bad it’s good kind of thing. That has been hyping me up. Then obviously ‘Pet Shop Boys’, like ‘West End Girls’ gets me going, like 80s kind of stuff. I like this sort of cheesy, you know, quote unquote cheesy [stuff], because it’s like the total commitment to the bit kind of vibe. Love it.”

Written and photographed by Richardesque