IN CONVERSATION WITH COMET

When I ask Comet when she first became interested in having a career in music, the NYC-based songwriter says that the desire started early, but took some time to accept. “I have honestly always wanted to do that,” she says, “But when I was a kid, my mom was always like, “Oh, you can't be a musician, that makes no money,” like “You shouldn’t even try.” So for years, I remember I would tell kids on the playground —  they'd be like, “I want to be a pop star,” and I’d be like, “There’s no money in that.” 

Luckily for us, she eventually changed her mind.

“As I got older I realized that's not really true,” she says, “I definitely have plenty of friends where all they do is make music, and that's how they survive. And so, it's showing that it's possible. And, I don't know, but I always wanted to be a rock star, ever since I was a kid. But doesn't everyone kind of?”

I caught up with Comet earlier this year to chat about her upcoming music projects, darker art making a comeback, lost innocence, the music scene in NYC vs LA, and more.

When I saw you perform at ONOS, I noticed a lot of the music and the tone is dark and can be really heavy, but you totally balance it with tight songcraft and arrangements, which makes it pack so much more of a punch in my opinion.

I'm curious if you have different influences that relate to those aspects of your style, or if there's 1 or 2 artists that were really essential for you in finding your sound?

I feel like my main influences are very classic — Courtney Love, The Distillers, and just girl rock in general. But I love this kind of revival of that Def Tones-y kind of sound. I really like Sunn O))), and bands that are heavy and kind of gazy.

I wouldn't say my stuff is very Shoe Gaze-y, but I do think that there are some fuzzy elements in it. I like vocals a lot, that's what I think is actually my strong suit. I'm not that great of a guitar player.

Yeah, when I saw you perform I noticed you had a really great control of your voice. You also did this kind of scream-singing thing — I don't know what you call that, but I thought it was an impressive, skillful way of really pushing your voice. Did you take lessons, did you train, or did you just teach yourself?

I come from a musical family. My dad was an opera singer and a ballet dancer, and when I was really young he put both me and my sister into dance lessons and voice lessons and whatever. I even took piano for a while, but I never really was good at an instrument. I was very impatient with instruments. But I've always loved singing, I would sing in the car as a kid and stuff. I didn't take voice lessons for a long time as an adult but I feel like a lot of it is natural and just practice over the years.

So having that initial training, in the long run, you kind of have those fundamentals to build upon when you get into other things that they probably weren't showing you, with heavier music and stuff.

For sure. As far as screaming goes, I literally just did it until it sounded not cringey anymore, because I feel like screaming can sound so cringey. 

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but you grew up in LA?

I grew up in Florida mostly. I was born in London, and I grew up in Florida for most of my young life. And then when I was 17, I moved to LA.

And is that where you started to perform more and kind of try to create an artistic identity?

Yeah. I’d written like lyrics and stuff when I was younger, but I never really performed or had a band or anything until I was 18, almost 19. I dropped out of college and just decided to form one. 

I picked up a guitar for the first time when I was like 18. It was senior year of high school. One of my friends, we would always go to her house and make songs and stuff. And she was like, “Oh, do you want to play the guitar for this one?” and I said, “Oh, I don't know how to play the guitar,” and she was like, “Me neither.” And I was like, “Oh. Well, I guess you can just kind of fuck around.” Then I had a band in LA, and we made an album when I was like 19. And that first album, I literally did not know how to play guitar. Like, we decided to make an album, and I could not even tell you like a single chord on the guitar. I just was like, “Let's do it.” 

And was that as Comet, or as a different band?

It was my first band. We were called Girl Theme. We still have put out some stuff, recently. But I feel like right now, I am newly focusing on Comet since I've moved.

Right. So, what was that move like and what has the direction been with Comet as a project since then?

It's been great. I'm so happy that I moved, I feel like the scene here is a lot better. I feel like there's a lot more young people making interesting music. LA is just like a bunch of rock...well, for one it’s a bunch of dudes, but also it's a bunch of 30-year-old dudes that, for the most part, are doing cover songs, or making a song about a girl named Sarah. And, I don't know, it's not interesting at all. And here, I feel like there's a lot more people my age like making interesting music of all kinds. 

Direction wise, I released an EP last summer that was completely just done by myself. I recorded every instrument. I programmed the drums, or got a studio drummer to do them, and I mixed and mastered it and put it out myself.

But since coming here, I've been working with my bassist, Grant Lepping. And we are recording in the studio that he works at. It's going to be my first studio project, this EP that we're working on right now.

With that self-produced project, was that something that you just totally undertook to learn through like YouTube tutorials or asking friends in terms of mixing and mastering and stuff like that?

Honestly, I can't watch YouTube tutorials. It doesn't make sense to me. I can't like learn that way.

My band's projects were all produced by other people, and so I just watched them. And then the rest has kind of just been trial and error. But I feel like watching someone produce my band’s projects, I was like, “Oh, I could do this.” They would be doing stuff sometimes, and I’m thinking, “If I was doing it, I would do it like this.”

You said you were taking your time right now recording a proper studio album, what are you drawing from in this moment — inspiration wise, vibe wise, from life experiences, etc.?

I feel like mostly, I'm drawing from the really awful state of the world, and the constant darkness that it is to be a woman. That is... those are my main inspirations right now. And lost innocence. I feel like lost innocence sums up the EP for the most part.

As a central theme in the writing that you do overall?

Yeah, definitely. And just accepting the way things are.

I was digging into the rest of your catalog after seeing your perform, and I was really captivated by the lyric writing. You said you'd always kind of played with writing songs, has writing in general been something that you've connected with for a long time? And were there any writers or authors that inspired you tonally or through their style?

I love Sylvia Plath and VC Andrews. I feel like writing is like the only thing I'm actually good at. I feel like I could go up to someone else who's good at writing lyrics and still say I'm good at writing lyrics. But guitar, no. To someone who's a classically trained singer, I wouldn’t go up to them and be like, “I'm a good singer.” But I would go up to a good lyricist and be like, “I'm a good lyricist.”

What current art is inspiring you right now? You talked about the kind of community and the scene that we have going around here — are there people or projects or artists that are making things that you're really into at the moment?

Yeah, I love Richard Orth. He's so great. He's my friend. We made a song together for the EP that we have coming out. I've never worked with someone who produces music that I feel like they make it sound exactly how I wanted to without me having to tell them. But he is really good. And then I love this band in LA that I played a show with called Faetooth. They're like a doom metal all-girl band.

Is there some part of your work that you're looking to dive deeper into, express more totally or just refine with the new recordings?

I want this EP to be technically good. I love a lot of my songwriting, a lot of like the old songs even that I've released that were recorded so horribly. I still like how they sound, but I’m like, “If this was recorded better, people would connect with it more.” And so this time, I really want to focus on the technical aspects of recording it well, getting tones right, mixing it properly. Yeah, I guess the technical aspect. Because I feel like everything else is there. 

Yeah it sounds like a way to sort of round out the project intention by making it just more artfully presented and crafted.

Yeah. I want to take my time. Like, no one knows who I am. There's no reason for me to rush.

Do you think of yourself right now as really just focusing on the art that, once presented to the world, you’ll be able to build off of as a strong foundation?

Definitely. I mean, I do have a release schedule, blah, blah blah. I don't have dates but I have ideas of how I want to do it. But as far as rushing and putting out random singles and stuff, I don't really care to do that. I actually hate the single world we live in, I feel like it's so corny and no one thinks about stuff that much anymore.

It's weird too, because you feel like the trends change by the minute.

Yeah. I feel like as far as trends right now, I'm happy about seeing some harder, darker art again. I've started seeing a lot of people's projects get darker and heavier. Which is good, because that's my favorite type of art.

I feel like recently, I started seeing people like good art again, which gives me hope. Because for a while, I don't think anyone cared.

Where do you see the live aspect of your performance, your project, your sound going within the next few months to a year? Are you trying to play certain shows, develop your sound, expand it?

I want to make shows a little bit more theatrical than they are right now. I want to add some different elements and some props and stuff that will make them a little bit more interesting to watch. 

I would love to, for the release of the EP, maybe get some other instruments and have a little mini-orchestra to really flush out the sound and make the release show special. 

Yeah, I have a lot of ideas, especially for live performance and visuals, but I feel like the sound, I'm actually really pleased with the sound.

That sounds sick. I feel like that's a little underutilized, that theatrical element.

It's hard when I'm playing guitar and singing, because I can't be like a pop diva prancing around the stage when I have a guitar on. I have to be near the mic stand. But I do want to move around and do some more theatrical stuff and have other elements.