Q&A With Guyville: A Duo You Need To Know
This is an interview done with Guyville, read their story below! If you, or anyone you know, would like to be highlighted in The Zillennial Zine, shoot us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram!
Q: Tell us your story! Where did you begin and how did you reach the caliber you’re currently at?
Emily: Well, both Kat and I have had similar musical journeys. We both attended the same music school and were in bands, wrote/performed as solo artists, etc, and just kept honing our craft throughout the years. We both have such a shared love and taste in songwriting and that’s really crucial when starting a partnership with another musician!
Kat: Our partnership really felt like serendipity to me. I was feeling really down on my songwriting journey in Los Angeles. A lot of my co-writing sessions were surface-level and unfulfilling. Emily and I had met at my birthday party through a friend and I ran into her at a random show in Highland Park at The High Hat (now Goldfish). We got to talking and I was really honest about where I was at creatively. She suggested that we write together and as jaded as I was feeling, I decided to go for it. We wrote “Should Have Never Dated” during our first session so I definitely made the right call! The chemistry just felt natural from the get-go. We had similar life experiences and had made similar mistakes. That comradery has really bonded our writing and our partnership. We have a very easy flow in writing songs and bring out the best in each other. Emily has a knack for making melodic shapes and being a keen editor. She really helps me think strategically in terms of a song’s structure and she never settles for less than fantastic. I think we both have aptitude where each other lack and it makes us a super strong partnership.
Q: What makes you love what you do? How long have you been making music? Would you call it your passion?
Emily: I’ve been making music since I was young, but I started writing songs in my junior year of high school. It’s definitely not an easy industry to navigate, but there really is no better feeling than making music with your best friends and having people respond to your art. It’s definitely not only a passion but what I am intending to do with the rest of my life.
Kat: I love telling stories and I always have. It took me a long time for me to realize that my love of music was rooted in storytelling beyond all else. This love has translated to writing poetry, fiction, non-fiction and prose. It used to feel like I had to choose between the literary world and music, but I feel like I’ve found the thread that ties all of my loves together. I’ve been making music most of my life. I started singing as a little girl and I performed in talent shows, musicals, choirs and church band. I always loved singing on a very primal level. I started writing songs in middle school and ended up in bands off and on throughout my young adult life. I would say music is my passion, but beyond that, my passion is telling stories.
Q: What are some accomplishments or milestones you’ve reached lately?
Emily: We are really excited about this last single release! We also recently put the finishing touches on our debut album and that whole recording experience was really something special I feel incredibly proud of!
Kat: Releasing “Should Have Never Dated” feels like a milestone! We’ve gotten so much love on the single which just validates that we have something special here.
Q: Tell us about “Should Have Never Dated“!!
Emily: We met at her birthday party and decided to have a writing session. She came to my house in North Hollywood and we just started talking about paramours gone wrong and the song just quite literally tumbled out. I think we wrote it in about two hours. Sometimes you just get that “lightning in a bottle” moment.
Kat: It was the first song we wrote together! We really connected on this idea that some friendships should stay platonic, even if there’s chemistry. We spent so much of that first session lamenting over making this mistake with collaborators and friends of the past. It can be really easy to feel close to someone you create with and there can be this deep intimacy that builds in that environment. When I reflect on my mistakes, dating friends is probably at the top of my cringe list.
Q: Do you have any advice for someone who is starting out in the music industry?
Emily: Stay true to what feels authentic and natural to you. Trends are going to come and go and people can tell when someone is just following them. A real artist follows their own compass.
Kat: I’m not sure how qualified I am to be dishing out advice, but I’ll consider this advice to my past self. I would say that if you want an opportunity, you need to show up to it. If you want to play at a venue, go to the venue and see a show. Any career win I’ve had personally or on behalf of my projects has been a result of me putting in extra effort. I used to be a bit more entitled in my career aspirations and kept wondering why I wasn’t getting further. It wasn’t till later when I realized that I was showing up to life like it owed me something for merely existing.
Q: What do you want our readers to know about you and your music?
Emily: I think the best thing to let the readers know is that Guyville has a little bit of everything to offer sonically. Well, maybe not rap or metal, but in our album we have some ballads, some more straight-ahead 90’s rock songs, some more country tinged- southern rock, stripped down acoustic moments, something for all ears. We just focused on the songs and curtailed the productions to fit them.
Kat: We really craft what we put out there, nothing is phoned in and we make sure it’s exactly the story we want to tell before approaching a release. We care ya’ll!
Go Check Out Guyville!
Facebook: Guyvilletheduo
Instagram: @guyvilletheduo
TikTok: @guyvilletheduo
Spotify: Should Have Never Dated