Recently I sat down with up-and-coming Welsh artist and freshly graduated Cambridge Law student GG Fearn. Her dark pop sound makes her music stand out with its visceral and eerie imagery sung over catchy pop beats. I was excited to learn more about her and her music…
Tell me about yourself, who are you, what do you do, what’s your background?
My name is GG Fearn, I just graduated from your rival Cambridge. I read Law and I’ve been doing the music thing for years now but now I’ve just graduated. Graduating has given me time to concentrate on doing music and do more productivity wise. I’m releasing stuff again after a four year break and I’ve got a new single coming out on the 27th called Permanent Record which I am really excited to drop and the genre is dark-pop-synth-weird basically!
I definitely noticed and loved that darkness behind your music when I listened to it! But I am interested in your start in music and how you got to where you are now?
I’ve been doing it for a really long time now. I started learning guitar and teaching myself piano when I was 10 and the writing came really quickly after that. I’ve been doing it for 12 years now. I started gigging young as well, busking a lot young, which was quite novel. People often laughed when they saw a 12 year old girl busking – it was a bit strange! Since then I’ve been trying to discover what I find interesting to write about and hear. When I started writing I was listening to so many different things that I was in turn trying to write so many different things, that it became muddled. It didn’t have something original that was truly “me”. It didn’t have a vision. Trying to find that sound has taken a lot of time but I think I’m getting there at this point and I know what I’d like to hear from myself.
That ties into my next question which is: what are some of your influences both as a lyricist but also in your instrumentals? You have this darker side of pop that is unique and I wondered where you grew that from?
I listen to everything. I know that sounds silly and everyone says it but I genuinely listen to everything; my music taste is so eclectic. If I had to pick people I feel have influenced me the most it’s probably three artists; Fiona Apple because she explores individualised darkness and how that works out emotionally for the individual, Kendrick Lamar – surprisingly I really like – as he explores that darkness not for the individual but instead its societal effect, and Melanie Martinez from a production perspective because I really like her sounds and she combines the individual vs how that effects generally looking at that darkness, but she does it through synth pop which I also really like doing.
I see that. Those are all very individual artists so I can see what you like about them in their distinctiveness and uniqueness. You talked about all these different influences, and I get that any music is hard to define, but if you were to pin yours down then how would you?
I think dark pop is the best way to describe it. I really like pop music. I know people get snobby about pop music but I really like the sounds and the catchiness of it. I really like synth and love that these eighties sounds are coming back. I do really like the pop element, but I also like the lyricism that is slightly off putting. Something slightly strange and visceral image wise. I like to have those images sung over a catchy beat.
This is a stupid question that no one ever likes to answer, but what would be your goal as a musician?
Oh God. To be honest, I just write stuff that I like listening to. I know that sounds strange, but I write it because I like it. I genuinely do like listening to my songs, I’m like ‘yeah banger!’. And then when other people are like ‘yeah banger!’ I got really excited. Even if art seems super removed, everything we make is a weird expression of ourselves. So when other people also enjoy that, that’s what I like, and that’s the only thing I want to get out of it. I mean, obviously, fame and success and money would be great as well! But I like it on a small scale, I like the conversations around it.
You’ve talked about your newest track ‘Permanent record’ which is being released soon. What is different or special about this track for you and what sort of experience or thoughts do you want your audience to take away from it?
It’s come after a long break where I was finding it hard to write when I was studying. I just didn’t have time to do it, or if I did try nothing was coming from it. And I think it’s different because it’s a more targeted sound from anything I’ve released before. I feel I knew exactly what I wanted out of it when I was writing it. I wrote it because I read Edward Snowdon’s biography. I really enjoyed reading it, I did Law so all the privacy implications and stuff like that were cool. I went down a horrible rabbit hole for weeks just watching documentaries about whistleblowers and surveillance – I was turning into a twitter conspiracy theorist! But the core idea stuck with me and I wished this could be looked at or described in audio format. So as soon as I was writing it – I went off on a tangent, sorry…
No! Do continue.
I think I want people to take out whatever they take out of it. I know that’s a really wishy washy answer, but I always find that when someone describes something they’ve made ‘this is what i’ve made and this is what I want you to take out of it’ I always think that’s not really the point! I think when people listen to it, whatever they feel or think about, that’s what I want them to take out of it. Liking it or not, agreeing with it or not, understanding what I’m saying or not, I just want them to get what they get out of it. I think that’s what’s really important about listening to music for me. Projecting me and my inner emotional landscape onto what I create. That’s all art really is.
I agree you can’t define someone’s experience of something. Which is always key with any sort of art. I am curious – taking an Oxbridge angle – did you know when you were going to Cambridge that you wanted to pursue music? Especially considering that a law degree seems very different to music on paper.
I was always pretty decent in school, I had the whole Oxbridge thing of gaining unhealthy validation from academics! I think because I was releasing music so young, I was always told I had this weird sound. That always stuck with me. I wasn’t so interested in music theory, I was more interested in just making what I wanted to make. I thought if I did that at uni it wouldn’t give me any more tools than I didn’t already have to express what I wanted to express. So I decided to do Law. which I really enjoyed also, but I knew by the end of it that I wanted to go back to doing music. That is what I wanna do full time. It’s just hard to be a full time musician! If it doesn’t work I’ll go into a really boring training contract somewhere…
I know so many Oxbridge students in the same sort of position – doing a degree but wanting to pursue music. Oxbridge students are always seen in a particular light of being very academic and not creative but there is such a creative side of Oxbridge. Did you find the Cambridge music scene good?
It was alright. There weren’t that many events going on because – like you said – people are just so talented in the background of their degrees. There were so many good musicians and they’d have jam nights and of course the May balls which I played. Those were really fun.
How do you find being an artist in Wales?
Trying to revitalize local scenes is – to an extent – working, but there is also a lot of focus on welsh language stuff. Which is amazing, I’m all for that! But if you are a Welsh artist not doing Welsh language stuff then it’s harder. It’s difficult to do original stuff in small communities.
Finally, where can people find you and your music?
My website is https://ggfearn.com/ and it’s @gg.fearn on every other platform. I did score an independent horror film that is out in September and I’m doing a live performance of that soundtrack on Saturday 7th September in Cwrw.