INTERVIEW: ASTA on new single 'Want You To Know', changing her sound and creating music via email

Tasmanian-born ASTA first emerged on the music scene in 2012 with the release of the single ‘Escape’. Initially performing guitar based, indie rock, albeit with a hint of pop, her major breakthrough came in 2015 when she switched her to a glorious electro-synth-disco sound with the single ‘Dynamite’, which charted on the Australian singles charts and has amassed over 8 million streams to date. A debut EP Shine followed in 2017, and after a period of silence ASTA returned earlier this year with the Luke Million collaboration ‘Heard It On The Radio’, a velvety smooth slice of melancholic synthpop dripping in 1980s vibes. In late November she turned up those 1980s vibe to the max with the release of the single ‘Want You To Know’ which channels early Whitney Houston in its joyous melodies and party starting beats. We recently caught up with ASTA to chat more about her music, finding fame early and writing songs via email.

Hey Asta, how are things with you these days?
I'm good. I feel like this is the start of my career in a way with this new release. I feel like I've come to my… thing. My sound, what I love, what I don't love. It's so good.

You're at the starting line. 
Yeah, for sure. 

That's incredible self-awareness as well considering how far you've come. Let's talk about the track ‘Want You To Know’. I want to say it's a hot stepper, but it's a shoulder shimmy hot stepper. 
It's so weird. Every time I listen to it I’m like ‘It's changed tempo!’ I have to contact my producer say ‘what the fuck the tempo has changed!’ Every time I hear it I’m either going crazy, dancing or I’m grooving. It’s bizarre.

I'm hearing Whitney. I’m hearing Gloria Estefan along with a bit of Katy Perry. Can you tell me the inspiration behind the creation of this gem?
I was in the studio with Yeo [Choong] who’s worked on previous music of mine and he's always had that, you know, garage-y funky like flavour and synth stuff, he’s obsessed with that. We were just in the room and I think it was the first day of writing and my friend Janeva was there as well. We were listening to so much Mark Ronson during the day. All that really high energy funky stuff. We were literally just bouncing off the walls. I think because we'd had so many Zooper Dooper ice blocks we got high on sugar and were just sweating. It was just so ridiculous. I remember belting out the chorus and it was like ‘This is so fun. This is me. This is fun.’

I like to imagine that you had such a blast creating Dynamite back in 2015. 
Yeah, for sure. It's the same feeling.  Full throttle. ‘What You To Know’ is ‘Dynamite’s bigger sister. She’s matured.

That's so good. Let’s go back to 2012. Still in high school you won Triple J's influential Unearthed High competition, resulting in ‘My Heart Is on Fire’, with its moody folk seduction, making the Hottest 100. You then blast Australia with follow ups like ‘Escape’ and ‘I Need Answers’ and then 2015 ‘Dynamite’ explodes all over our headphones like some floor-filling disco rug-cutting gold. Everybody loves the chameleon artists.
That's the thing. I feel like I'm all over the place with my releases, because, in my head, I'm like ‘well, if these were albums it would make sense’. The ‘I Need Answers’ album or the ‘Escape’ album. But now we're going through a time where it is just singles for a lot of people and so much goes into one song. Now that I feel like a whole chapter goes into one song instead of an album, if that makes sense. 

How important is that for you to keep pushing the boundaries and experimenting, to change it up and mix it up?
It's so important. I just love exploring different things. I'm not like ‘oh that's not me so I’m not going to do it’. Working with my friend last week, he was pulling out these cool bass sounds and I'm just like ‘this sounds so fresh’. It doesn't sound like my past releases but obviously there's the same flavours and stuff. I don't know if you can really pigeonhole me into one thing, like. Asta is just this weird chameleon thing. I look at bigger pop artists and I’m like ‘well they can get away with doing that, why can't I?’

Do you think there are the risks in changing it up?
I guess you just lose fans or lose interest. My dad and other people are like ‘we thought about doing acoustic stuff again’. That is not exciting to me. Of course I could pull that off. If you were like ‘here's a guitar, you’re writing an album, let's go,’ I can do that, and I can be this indie artist, but that's not why I’m doing it. It's not exciting to me. That's just easy. 

Nice. This is why you attract fans because you're doing what you love. Your artist profile described your profile as pop and ambient rock/folk. 
Who put that in there?!

I have no idea! Can I also recommend ass-shaker on that as well because you've already got quite a few?
Literally, it needs to be. You've finally found my genre, thank you so much! That's on Facebook. 

Also your recent Triple J Like a Version cover ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’. Please! That was beautiful. 
Oh thank you. 

Such a song to do, you know, Whitney.
I was so ballsy. What the fuck? Whitney Houston. Like woah. And also, you're kind of meant to cover Australian artists. I'm like no, this pop queen.

Now lyrics for ‘Want You To Know’. You like a guy, you can't tell him because of that gut-wrenching shame spiral that may follow afterwards and so you put it into a song. Can you talk us through this one?
I hate admitting to people that I like them. I'll always just play it cool. That's just me and then this amazing dude comes along and I'm like ‘oh my god, I like this person’. But he lives so far away. I'm talking a five hour road trip in a car. Not worth it. It's like all these other boys want me but then he isn't like at my doorstep. Do you know what I mean? And it's just that typical thing of ‘why?’ So annoying. 

Maybe that's the attraction as well. 
For sure. I hardly know this person. You know? I met him once and I'm like ‘you're the one’. Writing down all this in my to-dos, all these guys I've had sex with but there's still you. You know?

In July you released ‘Heard it On The Radio’ with Luke Million. What a beautiful velvet sofa of a song. How did it come about? 
Email. That's not what you want to hear, is it?!

I'll fluff that bit up!
Luke and I wanted to do a song for ages and he just sent me that track and then I was like ‘dope, let me do some singy stuff on it’ and I did and I sent it back to him. He said ‘I’m releasing this next week, it's my new single.’ So he came up and we went in the studio and recorded vocals properly and all that stuff. It attracted me the whole 80s kind of feeling. I really liked his vibe. It's quite dark. I just knew the vision as soon as I was writing it. You know those songs that have such a clear trajectory of all that visual shit. I was just like ‘wow’.

What people don’t understand is it takes so long to produce, release, create just one song. The fact this one turned around in an email - that's incredible efficiency right there. 
Yeah. I don't know why that happened so quick. Then my song has taken 12 months. I’m like ‘what is with that?’ It comes down to a lot of things. For me, it was my ex manager saying ‘this isn't good enough, you need to keep working’, and so that's why it's taken so long for me I guess.

I wouldn't say so long. Some songs take a lot longer, so don't be hard on yourself. 
Yeah, for sure. I just think two years is so long though, for me. It eats you alive if you don't release those creations. I've got like 50 tracks that I want to put out I'll be 70 years old in a little leotard performing, if I’m still around. 

There's clearly a battalion of diamond fans behind you. You have their backs as much as they have yours. What are your hopes for this generation of music makers and world changers?
To have patience. I feel like that's quite a big thing not many people have. To have patience and take time with your art. To develop it and not rush into stuff, not rush into management, not rush into labels not rush into anything like I have done in the past.

Do you think that came from having started so young, that you just jumped at every opportunity? 
In a way, yeah. If I had my time again, I wouldn't really want a song out at 18. Probably would've taken my time.

What about that do you regret about having a song out at 18? Was it the publicity? Or just the song itself?
Just the song itself. I still have to perform that song, but it doesn't really make sense. With my current songs it’s like ‘this is so weird, how are you going to perform this song? Can I get rid of it from my set?’ I'm sure so many people go through this same thing that they don't want to perform old songs but their fans really love that song. A friend of mine said ‘you just have to keep writing bangers and for them to be better than your old stuff so you can slowly cull all the old stuff’. So, that's my current mission.

I think a lot of people, whatever horrible poetry we wrote at 18, I think if we find it now - and I'm speaking from experience - the last thing you do is go ‘oh yes, I still feel that way’.
Literally. My heart my heart. There was so much controversy around that song with the boys I was dating at the time. They were like ‘it's about me’. I was like ‘it’s not about you’. It was so funny. But I know who it's about…

He’ll get another song possibly. Now, it's no secret that the music industry has more than its fair share of sexism. You have been working in this industry for over 7 years now. Have you noticed a shift in the way female artists are perceived? 
I feel like in some ways yes, but in some ways no. I feel like women are a lot kinder to other women now. It's really weird, I'm like ‘why are you speaking to me? You were such a bitch to me 3 years ago, what's changed?’ It's so weird. I feel like there's just been this whole switch.

Did you used to find that other women would be almost competing against you?
Maybe. Maybe they were just intimidated by me. I don't know. I never understood it because I've always been open arms to everyone and in a sense that's why I felt more comfortable being in my boy group of my band. But it's good now. It's good to see that change. I’m just trying to think what it's like for a dude. The whole dressing up thing can be exhausting. Making sure your body is in form. Make up, hair, all that shit. It is fun doing it but when you've slept for two hours and you’re on tour it's like ‘not this again.'

And the guys rock up in a flannie
Yeah, seriously. They haven’t washed in three days. They've got food marks all over their clothes and it's fine. There's just a bit more expectation for women to look a certain way. But also it's finding that weird balance between sexually expressing yourself but not too much.

Is it possible to be a sex object and an empowered woman? 
Yeah, exactly. Because I feel very sexual. I’m 25, most of my songs are about that in some form or whatever.

This year, you have been I’m going to say overachieving, you can call it what you want. 
I've done nothing this year!

You have! You've been touring Asia with Cosmo’s Midnight, playing Splendour, collaborating with Luke Million, Japanese Wallpaper and Genesis. What is on the horizon for 2020?
It's all about Asta next year. I'm going to release lots of my stuff. Do my shows. It's interesting not having a manager now. I'm like ‘what do I plan? I don't really know. All I know is release music, and then release more music. Tour music. Release music.

One last question - musical inspirations growing up. Who were they?
So many. You know when you're not conscious of them actually being an inspiration but then later down the line you're like ‘woah, they had an effect on me’. I feel that way about Gwen Stefani, Jamiroquai, Destiny's Child, Michael Jackson. Even Kylie Minogue. I'm realising that those flavours are definitely in my music. But in general I feel very out of touch with music. I don't even think I'm in the music industry. I'm in my own world. I don't know what's going on (laughs)

 Still singing Whitney. 
Just at home singing Whitney. That's all I do. 

‘Want You To Know’ is out now through Ditto Music. You can download it on iTunes and stream on Apple Music, Soundcloud and Spotify.

To keep up with all things Asta you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.