Wild Wild Woman EP out via Neon Gold Records
Wild Wild Woman is the second release Your Smith has unveiled since adopting her new moniker in 2016, the result of starting a new chapter after a few years of making music. Since then, the LA-based artist has signed with the iconic label Neon Gold, a flourishing relationship that first provided a platform for 2018s Bad Habit EP.
Now, after a year, that saw Your Smith tour alongside K. Flay in Europe, X Ambassadors, and many others, the rising artist has embarked on her first headline tour across the U.S., with a sold-out stop in D.C. and many others. I caught up with Caroline to discuss her tour, latest EP, 2020 plans, and more. Read on below.
INTERVIEW
Hi Caroline – it’s nice to chat today! We’re connecting as you kick off your debut headline tour and it looks a lot of the dates are selling out quickly. What’s been your reaction to the response?
YS: Honestly, I’m just so overwhelmed by it and so grateful. It’s a huge deal to me, I don’t take it lightly because I’ve been touring for a long time. It feels great to see them start selling out way before I’m even there.
The tour is in support of your latest EP, Wild Wild Woman. Can you tell us a little about the creation of this project?
YS: I released the Bad Habit EP in 2018 – that was my coming out as Your Smith. With this newest EP, I kind of looked at it as my opportunity just to solidify my voice as an artist and the message I’m trying to say and the vibe I’m trying to put out there. I feel like Wild Wild Woman is an extension of Bad Habit, which has a little more attitude or something you know.
“When I wrote that song, it was really at the peak of abandoning what I was doing before that wasn’t working for me.” – Your Smith
Do you feel like there are emotions you’re able to communicate more clearly or easier as Your Smith?
YS: Yeah – I invented Your Smith to kind of take on the characteristics that I as Caroline have a little more of a hard time owning. Just the overall unapologetic-ness of who I am and what I stand for. Your Smith can be a bit of an alter ego and I think that gets a bit more solidified with Wild Wild Woman. I think Bad Habit came around just easing people into the idea of it and I feel like the new EP is in the same vein but a bit more brazen.
This is your second release with Neon Gold, how has working with such a strong label helped you develop or discover more of your sound?
YS: I think when you have a label like Neon Gold that’s really in it for the music, and give off immediate family vibes, caring about you as an artist, and they sign people who they really believe in, it’s such a wonderful environment to be creating in. They’ll say, “you know, you’re not creating for us, you’re creating for you – we didn’t sign a single you made or some dream version of you that we’re going to create or concoct” – which I think can be so suffocating for an artist – “we’re signing you, we like your vibes and whatever you’re going to do, we’re going to get behind.”
That doesn’t mean they aren’t constructive and don’t have incredible sage advice to give, but there’s just always in the middle of that, this kernel of just overall belief in you and your project, and that just feels really good. Unfortunately, it’s rarer than it’s not in this industry.
You shared a one-shot video for “Man of Weakness” on the same day the EP released. How many takes did you complete before picking one?
YS: We did seven takes and I think we ended up going with the fourth.
Was that a lot harder than you anticipated?
YS: It was actually the first time I did a music video that was really fun. The choreographer that I work with, Melissa Schade, she’s really brilliant and she’ll say “I love how you move and I don’t want to change it too much” – so she’ll just add some things to help me accentuate it. She’s helped show me moves that are very me but just weren’t in my cannon before now.
It all just felt really natural and the dance was really fun. The dancers were all friends, just doing me a favor and being extras. So it was nice, we were eating some free Canter’s Deli, hanging with friends, so it was fun.
The tour we were talking about earlier is called ‘In Between Plans,’ which is also one of the songs on the EP. Do you still feel like you’re in between plans even now?
YS: Yeah, I think it’s more of a mindset. Where I have a hard time just taking things as they come and I can be a bit type-A or just try to over-plan. It just got to a point where that wasn’t serving me, not creatively. Of course, it’s good to be organized but creatively if you’re thinking too far ahead of what the plan is, you sort of miss a bit of the immediacy of it and how it’s important to put the music that you make before the plan itself.
In Los Angeles, it can be a little ‘cart before the horse’ and for me personally, I can’t speak for other artists, it’s just really suffocating for my creativity – making songs when you must or trying to fulfill a quota – so when I wrote that song, it was really at the peak of abandoning what I was doing before that wasn’t working for me and just kind of taking on this fuck-all attitude of “well if it doesn’t work out, I really can’t worry about it or care” because I’m not happy doing it the other way, I just need to do it my way. If that means nose-diving into the ground and having to go back to the driving board and figure out a new career or something, I don’t care, because at least I was doing my way genuinely and happily. That’s when everything kind of turned around for me.
Yes, it was this moment in time that I want to remember but moving forward I also want to use it as a mantra. Just be in the moment, just be in between the plans.
What can someone new to your music expect from this headlining tour?
YS: It’s a bit of a one-woman show but in that sense, I’ve packed it with excitement. My lighting tech coined the phrase “pop Sinatra” and I thought that was cool – *laughs* that’s dope, I’ll take that.
After various shows across the U.S., you’re playing a sold-out Songbyrd in Washington, DC on January 30th before wrapping the tour in Philly. Can fans expect anything else immediately after from you?
YS: Well, I don’t know you see because I’m in between plans *laughs* but honestly, I’m just trying to keep putting music out. I’m not making too solid of a plan right now because the way this industry is formatted is really interesting and changes at a breakneck speed. So instead of me trying to fight that or going against the grain, I just let it carry me. We’ll do singles, EPs, or whatever we’re able to get out.
I’d love to create an album, that’s a huge goal of mine, but with how quickly things get consumed and how fast things get looked over, you pour your heart and soul into an album, and I can’t wait to do that, but I want to keep building my platform, so when it does happen, it does it justice at the right time.
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Your Smith‘s debut headline tour ends January 31st in Philly but will first run through Portland, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, LA, Denver, Chicago, DC, and more. See all future tour dates here and stream Wild Wild Woman below.
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