You're from San Francisco but “I like me better” it's your love story in New York, The video is shot in New York. Why was that & what's your favorite thing about New York?

You know for me New York was I can I moved around a lot growing up I lived in a lot of different kind likes small towns outside of major cities and I was kind of felt like everybody already knew each other in this town and then I moved there and I have to like figure out my way and making friends I moved to New York and it was like every you know obviously there's a lot of people from New York but there's a lot of people who moved there from all over. They're all just trying to like to all just trying to build their dream and so for the first time I was kinda like okay I feel like this is I felt really kind of a home in that. kind of Chaos and then yeah you know and I found out for the first time when I went there for for college and inside the combination of you know moving to a city like New York and then also. Being in a long crazy relationship for the first time in now is like those a lot so just to be a major part in my life.

You were supposed to come to Japan with Ed Sheeran, but the show was cancelled.  There's a lot of Japanese fans called “Louvers” over here. Did you know about that? What was your perception of Japan before you came here?

Up until this tour everything I've seen is just been on the internet. I see like Spotify says I have this many fans in Indonesia and this many fans in Japan and you know, so on & so forth but it's not really real, it doesn't feel real. and then you show up and see the show sold out & we book a second night for another show and so I had no idea how to really like conceptualize until I got here and I really like saw the energy and met fans last night and everything's blown me away.  I thought everybody was gonna be really shy but actually they were a lot of fun. 


When you used to make music back in the day when you were writing in school you were making music based on what may become popular. You stopped doing that but your music is still popular. Why do you think that's the case? 

That's a good question. I’ve been kind of reflecting on that you know, it's like I spent years & years & years & years & years kind of like trying to fight my way into the music industry. When I was a kid I was in bands, we book our own tours, and we played to no people or 5 people and we begged our friends to buy tickets and we would drive around the country. When we did that I would email managers, being like would you manage me? But I didn’t know what I was doing so I was always fighting fighting fighting, and I was like I should learn how to write hit songs and I spent all this time trying so hard, and then I just, after all of that I wrote my first song “The Other” and I put that out with no expectations and all the sudden I didn't need to like be fighting the same way. It was like people just like connected with it, and so yeah it's been, it's been a really interesting journey you know. It's like as soon as you just stop trying so hard and just existing and just being honest, I think that's kind of what it taught me is just being honest.  People connect with that. I think there's a lot of crafted pop hits. I think there's a lot of, especially now hit songs that are just really honest and really just people just feel them you know, I hope I can make songs like that.


We also heard that you wanted to put more focus on yourself and your music. When you started doing that did you discover something new about yourself?

yeah I mean I feel like it's constantly, I feel like every song kind of teaches me something you know. Because it's like even when I was in a long term relationship I was writing songs about it that maybe I was uncomfortable. For example in my songs “Comfortable” or “Adrenaline” they're about,  Are you really in this? or are you just comfortable in this in a situation? Do you want to fight for this? Do you not want to fight for this? I think if every step of the way I’m writing songs if I can just explore a feeling or explore thought without letting it take over my life and you're allowed to feel this then you can discover you know what's really happening. Many Japanese fans especially the ladies say you have a very sweet “melty voice” & sexy. Is there something you do to maintain your voice?  


I'm not very good. Some singers only drink tea but I drink tons of coffee. I mean I warm up but I'm not the most careful of my voice. 

But the funny thing is growing up when I was in bands, in one of the bands I was in, our friend’s dad, he was right at the time, he was like you guys need to get a new singer because I sucked. He didn’t even say it to me, he said to them and they told me.  Yeah and then I just was like I'm gonna just practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and yeah. 


When you were much younger, when you were just a little kid, you started playing the Piano, Viola and Guitar. What kind of influence do those instruments have on making your music right now.

I feel like the guitar was the biggest one for me. Once I started playing guitar that's when I started to write music. Connect with writing with it. Not just playing music, like Viola and Piano, kind of like learning pieces or whatever. Guitars is actually like just expressing myself so that was like the biggest thing for me.


Who do you want your audience to be? What kind of situations do you want people to be in when they listen to your music? 

that's interesting I mean I hope I can connect with everybody. I'm just writing my music from a human perspective of being vulnerable and being honest, I think what I seen is a lot of my fans are kind of like me in that they want to express themselves and they and they have a lot going on in their head, but they’re afraid to share that with other people. I think it's really cool when I can through making my music I've had that fans message me and be spilling all this stuff about their lives to me and I think that's really cool and people can just feel free to do that. 
I think you we spend a lot of time on this planet small talking and bullshitting because we are afraid to just be honest with each other.  Hope that’s  the kind of situation I want people to be in. 


What are your plans for the rest of 2018 and beyond?

This world tour, I’ll be doing that until the end of April. Meanwhile finishing new songs on the road. I got a bunch of stuff that’s just sitting on my computer that I can't wait to release. And actually I was just recording vocals in Toronto, in a hotel room. After that it's gonna be more writing and festivals.

Interviewed by Satt