Interview: Ea Kaya

Image: Petra Kleis

Denmark’s Ea Kaya (real name Christine Kiberg) today releases her third single ‘Don’t Complicate It’, a gorgeous slice of electro-pop with some pretty sassy lyrics into the bargain. The follow up to singles ‘Remedy’ and ‘Tied Up’, ‘Don’t Complicate It’ is another impressive addition to Kiberg’s portfolio and she is quickly emerging as one of the most impressive pop artists to emerge from Scandinavia over the last year.  Women In Pop recently spoke with Ea Kaya to find out more about her career, her new single and what‘s up next for her!

Hi Ea Kaya! The new single ‘Don’t Complicate It’ is out today and it is absolutely fantastic! Can you tell us a little but about how the track came together?
Thank you! ‘Don’t Complicate It’ is about when you’re seeing someone and you want it to be more serious, but every time you bring it up, the other one - we’ll just say ‘he’ because I wrote it - he just kind of tries to change the subject and avoid it - obviously he does not want us to be serious. And it just pisses you off because you can’t finish it and he just can’t be honest.

It’s got a great electro beat to it – the kind of song you can dance through the heartache to.
It’s not really a big heartbreak song, it’s just a frustrated, annoyed song. It doesn’t have any melancholy in it and that’s very much on purpose. It’s a fun, upbeat song because it’s such a classic issue when you’re young and in love. I think most people can relate to it.

Can you tell us a little about the song writing process for the song?
I wrote it here in Copenhagen. I actually wrote it before I was signed anywhere, it was written in one of my very first writing sessions ever. I got quite lucky there because my first session was awful. I was very shy and I did not like that I had to sing out loud and improvise in front of other people because I want to be perfect. But with ‘Don’t Complicate It’, it was very easy. We wrote it on guitar and then we made a little demo of it. That was actually the demo that got me signed everywhere. It’s been a long time coming with this one.

Has the song changed from when you first wrote it?
Not really. We’ve got a slightly different production on it, but it’s very similar. Writing-wise there is nothing different.

Will you be releasing a video for the song?
Yes, we made a video at the end of August. It was filmed in Denmark and I cannot say anything more about it!

You started your music career as a teenage star on YouTube, performing cover versions of other artists’ songs.  What was that experience like?
I think it’s embarrassing (laughs). But yeah, I went on YouTube a lot. When I was 13, I started doing that because I’d been watching a lot of YouTube stuff and people here in Denmark didn’t really watch YouTube yet, not really as a music platform at least. People thought I was really weird when I began posting videos of myself singing on YouTube. Nobody understood that. But it taught me a lot. I learned how to build a fanbase and I’m pretty sure the way that I build up my songs originates in me having to learn all those 100 songs because that’s what people were going to click on.

The comments section on YouTube and all social media can be a battlefield. Did you have problems with trolling?
Well, people commented when I wrote my first song, I was very young and I had no experience with love or with boys or anything. People were like, “this is so cheesy” or “this is just a cliché.”  What I did in the beginning was just mainly to learn how to build up the song and then the lyrics could improve later, when I gained more experience in life with everything and my English got a lot better. But yeah, people are brutally honest. So they commented a bit on whatever they liked and sometimes people just think you’re annoying and they just write that.  

What’s coming up next for you?
I’m releasing one more single after ‘Don’t Complicate It’, which is one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written, so I’m excited for that one. And after that I want to release an EP. It’s either at the end of this year or the beginning of 2019, but I would like it to be at the end of this year but it depends on how well ‘Don’t Complicate It’ is doing. But, there’s definitely an EP coming!

‘Don’t Complicate It’ is out now. You can download it on iTunes or stream on Spotify.

To keep up with all things Ea Kaya, you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

More on Ea Kaya in Women In Pop soon! Stay tuned…