Interview: Sravya Talks “Softly” and Navigating the Music Industry
Interview by Tara Saraf
Sravya is an artist and creative director helping others akin to herself bring their vision to life. In an event by her company, Jetlag, titled “Soundscape”, South-Asian artists like Avara took the stage and performed for a passionate crowd. Sravya’s inspired by artists like The Marías and fuses nostalgic rock with R&B to cultivate her signature dreamy sound. In the future, though, she intends to incorporate elements of Indian culture into her music as she started with Carnatic singing for fifteen years: “I definitely in the future also want to try making a song that's like, I speak Telugu, so I definitely want to make one that's like Telugu and English, because I feel like a lot of people do it with Spanish, but I want to try that out.”
That kind of segues into my next question. Like, I noticed you have some Avara who's also Telugu and Quiet Light songs on your playlist. So what is it like to be a part of this rising artist community as someone who looks up to these artists?
I think it's really special because I feel like I've only discovered these other artists in the last few years. I feel like before that, when I was younger, I never felt like there was anyone that was brown and also making music and, even though I didn't realize it affected me, I feel like in some ways it does. Having someone have those experiences and just existing and making music, I feel like it's important. So I think it's really nice to know that there's a lot of other artists now that are similar to me and making music and they're some of the artists that I look up to the most.
“Ends,” released a year ago, is a song about a relationship that has run its course, but appreciating that it happened anyway. I asked Sravya about her songwriting process for it and she said, “It felt the most stylistically where I wanted to be as an artist, because my two favorite genres are R&B and rock, and I feel like it was a good combination of both of them.” She wrote it in a day because her emotions about the situation were at the forefront of her mind. “Every line in the song is the end of something and then the chorus is the end of a relationship. At the very end of the song, the last line was like, “What if I never find love again? At least I can say again.” And I feel like as an artist, something that's important to me is looking on the brighter side of things. I think that sounds kind of corny, but I feel like every situation in my life, I always try to think of it like there's at least one good thing that comes out of it. I'm actually working on an EP right now, which is called Doors, and it’s kind of like the concept that when one door closes, another one [opens]. And that's why I felt like “Ends” was a fitting song to release first.”
With profound lyrics and traces of LCD Soundsystem and M83, “Poser” is about facing insecurity caused by doomscrolling on social media and wishing you were living someone else’s life. “I actually kind of agree that lyrically, it's one of my favorite songs, even though I literally say the same line over again.” She wrote it in the summer of her freshman year of college with her friend Jack, who produces for Sravya. “He was having construction in his house or something, so we couldn't record any of the stuff I was working on because we couldn't use his mic.” That’s the reason you may hear an alarm go off in the song or hear the producer’s dog in the background. “I feel for me it was the first time I wrote a song and I kind of just let myself go with the flow and improvise it. Before that, when I used to write, I would think about it a lot. But for that, he kind of just handed me the mic. Sonically too, I really liked the fact that it was all over the place. We were just literally improvising and that's what I like the most about that song because I feel like that's how it feels at nighttime when you're just like, in this weird state and you're just like, I don't know. Do you know what I mean?”
On her YouTube channel, Sravya shares glimpses into her student life. Studying music business at NYU has informed her artistry in several ways, as someone coming from San Jose, California. “I feel like where I grew up, especially my high school, there weren't a lot of people around me that liked music and art and stuff that I liked. I feel like it was very STEM focused. It's just nice to be in a community of people that also have the same goals and passions as me [at NYU].” She’s also the co-founder and creative director of Jetlag, an experiential marketing agency that hosts pop-ups and merch releases for artists who are building their brand. Sravya told me it’s one of her favorite parts of being in NYC as her and her best friend, Jane, created the initiative together in the summer of their freshman year. “We kind of got inspired from one of the classes we took. But me and my best friend, her name's Jane, we both really liked the class. It kind of started off as just like a live music concert company, but it kind of grew into an experiential marketing company.”
“Softly” recently came out, and Sravya wrote it during two very different phases, or semesters, of her life. “The concept of the song is kind of when you're feeling like you don't have clarity from someone and you're kind of hoping for them to say it to you. The first half is like feeling really confused and lost and sad. And then the second half I wrote like in the first semester of junior year and I actually wrote that from a reverse perspective. So it felt like in the first half, I was experiencing that. And then in the second half, I felt like I was doing that to someone else. So that's why the second half is a lot more upbeat because I was a lot happier and like, it was just more fun. And I'm actually working on a music video [for it]. Have you seen 500 Days of Summer? So the first half of the song is when you're like Tom and you're kind of delusional a little bit about it, and then the second half is when you're Summer and you're doing that to someone else. That's kind of the concept behind the music video.”
Speaking with Sravya felt like catching up with an old friend– excitement and passion oozed through her updates on the latest Jetlag events, going into her senior year, and the making of her debut EP, Doors. I can’t wait to see it all come to fruition. In the meantime, check out Sravya’s singles on Spotify and stay tuned for the “Softly” music video!
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