Sophia Bella Cucci is an artist who translates her beautiful perspective into authentic songwriting. Today, she released her second single, “From The Garden.” Gentle fingerpicking, simple production, delicate harmony and emotive lyrics create a relatable dreamscape of deep love. Cucci is a jack of all trades as her interest in the arts goes further than creating music. She designed the cover art for the single and also did 3D and 2D animation for the “From The Garden” lyric video. We had the pleasure to talk with Cucci about her favorite artists, the importance of breaking song-structure and her ultimate DIY recording studio set-up.
How did you get your start in music?
It feels like music has been a part of my life since birth. Both of my parents were in the music industry when I was a kid, my dad still is. I grew up going to concerts and Broadway shows. I took singing lessons, then started guitar lessons and I taught myself piano. I joined an a capella group during college. I’ve always been a listener. My dad used to sing me, “Stairway to Heaven,” as a lullaby. Music has always been a huge part of my life and has always been an inspiration.
I started writing about a year and a half ago because I wanted to create music of my own. For the first time, I had an urge to not just perform other people's music but to write my own and to write my own stories. I wrote a few songs and I really loved doing it. I never thought that songwriting would come naturally to me. I wrote my first single, “Riot,” and put that out at the beginning of quarantine which was a really weird time to put out my first song.
What was your creative process behind, “From The Garden?”
I write a little unconventionally. I don’t write with any instruments. I focus on lyrics and then a melody will typically come to me while I’m writing. I’m a super lyrically-driven person, whenever I listen to a song, the message of it is what comes through to me first. When writing “From The Garden,” I wrote the first stanza first. I sent a little voice memo of me singing it to my producer, Graham Gilmore, and he loved it. This was in October or November and then everything except the chorus came super easily. Once I wrote that first stanza, it just made sense. The song is about my relationship. We’ve been together for about a year and a half. Something that we bond over is nature. We love going on hikes. We love foraging for wild mushrooms. All of those feelings inspired this song. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin, Lady Lamb and Mazzy Star during quarantine.
I love Lady Lamb.
She’s my favorite artist ever.
I recently came across, “Crane Your Neck.” I think it’s a brilliant song. I love her passion and conviction.
Yes! That makes me so happy. She’s so underrated when she is truly the greatest songwriter of this generation. She’s not that much older than me and has inspired me so much. This song doesn’t represent the stream of consciousness style of writing necessarily, but it’s so interesting how lyrics pour out of her when she is singing and writing. Every single word has meaning.
That’s really what I was channeling when writing “From The Garden.” We were writing it and we wanted the production to be super minimal because it was all about the lyrics and the intimacy of the vocals. Graham, my producer, came up with the guitar melody and we wanted to carry that throughout the song. We wanted a little bit of a build in the chorus so we added some really low synthy elements. We wanted it to be very pure sounding, uplifting and intimate. I hope that it shows. It was really fun to produce. All of our passion and love went into it. Obviously, that happens with every song we write because we love what we do, but with this song specifically, it was really amazing to be able to work on it together like that.
Aside from songwriting, what are some of non-musical influences that inspire you creatively?
I love everything about being outside, being in nature or being in a city. I love experiencing what’s out there. Being in nature inspires me so greatly because fresh air really changes your mindset. Especially now, sometimes I will spend a week in my house which is insane and should not happen. So, when you're able to go outside again, that feels incredible. I’m inspired by the mental health struggles of people our age especially related to social media. I work in social media so I’m experiencing it first-hand. I’m so inspired by being a woman right now and the countless social issues that continue to arise and that have always been there. “Riot” was about feeling like you're isolated even when you are surrounded by people and how that is layered with the influence of social media: needing to be ‘perfect’ or not feeling good enough. We wanted to add a little bit of an edge to it with the synthy production elements, but deep down I wrote that song thinking about times in my life when I felt those feelings. This song is very different, it’s the complete opposite. It’s very lovely.
Going back to Lady Lamb. I’m not very familiar with her discography. You were saying her writing is very stream-of-consciousness. What do you mean by that?
A lot of the words in Even in The Tremor which is my favorite Lady Lamb album feels like the words keep flowing. There is no set rhyme scheme or verse structure. She keeps going, almost like there’s no breath in it. There’s a song called, “Deep Love,” where the verses are so conversational. When I was a kid, I would pretend to be a songwriter. I would be like, “Ok, there are four lines and I can have five words per line.” That’s how songwriting was for me as a kid, but experiencing people like Lady Lamb and Billie Eilish who have crazy song structures has changed that. It’s so inspiring to see other artists be so unique and not stick to a typical way of doing things.
I love that. I had a music theory teacher once say, “I’m going to teach you all the rules of conventional music theory and songwriting, but your job is to break them.”
Yes! And I’m so inspired by artists of the past. I love Led Zeppelin, I love Mazzy Star, I love David Bowie. All of those writers are just unbelievable: the greatest songwriters and musicians of all time. I also love Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish. I want to combine nostalgia and moderness into my music as best as I can. That is what I was trying to do with “From The Garden.” Especially with the stripped down instrumentation, really trying to make those elements sound super pure and intimate. “Rain Song,” by Led Zeppelin was a huge inspiration. The thing that I admire about that song is the way that they use musical interludes which are just as important as the lyrical elements of the song. I find that part of the song so inspirational. In the pre-chorus of, “From The Garden,” it’s essentially just guitar and very minimal harmony. This song represents who I am as a songwriter so much and it's only my second single
Through this process of releasing, has there been excitement, nervousness or both?
Because I’m so new to this part of music, there is always anxiety around it. Whether that’s asking myself, “Are people going to respond to the single cover? Are they going to like the song? Are they going to think it's authentic? Are people going to listen to it at all?” When you are a small indie artist like I am right now, there’s always fear that no one is going to listen to it. Maybe that will go away after a while. Writing a song about the person you are in a relationship with is so vulnerable because you are truly bearing your soul to a person. I’ve been with Graham for a year and a half, he knows so much about me and knows that I feel all these things for him. When you write them on paper and record them, it's a whole other feeling. It also created an even deeper bond while we were working on it. So, I’m thankful for that.
That’s so beautiful. What’s your studio setup like?
We recorded “Riot” in my dorm room closet. When quarantine happened, I didn't have a ton of space in my room to do that. My sister is not living at home anymore and her room is empty so I decided to utilize the space. I set up a little metal countertop that we had in our basement, I got a little Audient iD4 Interface, I have a laptop and Graham set up a hilarious vocal booth made out of PVC pipes and probably about ten comforters and sleeping bags draped over it. Whenever my sister comes home or my parents come into the room, they laugh every single time. It’s ridiculous looking, but it works and it’s what we have. You don’t have to have the perfect space to make music, it’s about the fun of writing and recording and putting it out in the world. It’s hilarious and fun and a very intimate space for the two of us. We co-write everything together, Graham produces all of my music.
What’s next for you? Have you been writing?
Yes, we’re writing constantly. When Graham is here we work on music all day and all night. When we are apart we write separately and we also write on the phone as well. We want to do everything. We have another song that we’re working on that’s extremely close to being finished that will come out eventually. It is a little bit grittier about a much more serious topic. We’re working on another song that kinda goes into Panic! At The Disco theatricalism, like early Panic. I am an emo-rock girl at heart: My Chemical Romance, Panic, Paramore… those were my favs growing up and still are. I also do all of my own creativity. I love video-editing, digital art and animation. There’s a lyrical video attached to “In The Garden,” that will come out a little bit after the single is released which is all animated by me. I did some 3-D animation as well as some 2-D animation on there. I love writing the songs and creating everything else that goes with it: the single art, the videos and all things like that.
Listen to “From The Garden” on all streaming platforms and look out for Sophia Bella Cucci’s lyrics video!
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