INTERVIEW: Rising star Darcie Haven on latest single 'Coping': "It's a nice segue into the songs that I will release in the future...it's the sound that I'm heading towards."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Gemma Schlink
Perth’s Darcie Haven launched her music career at the beginning of this year and just two singles in is shaping up to be an artist headed for big things.
Creating indie tinged pop, Haven’s music has a warmth and beauty to it that instantly attaches to you, while the vulnerability and raw honesty in the lyrics and her voice allow you to intertwine her stories with your own.
Debut single ‘I Wanna Be’ is a guitar pop tune and explores jealously, the emotion that exists in all of us but one we are reluctant to discuss out loud. ‘She'll fulfil all your dreams / Just one touch cos she's the queen / Only room for self belief / She's the girl I wanna be,’ Haven sings against a backdrop of buzzy guitars and a steady drumbeat.
Second single ‘Coping’, released last month takes things down a notch and is a gorgeous, gentle piano ballad which gradually introduces shuffling electronic beats. Lyrically, Haven remains as open as ever as she openly details the anxieties and mental health issues faced by people of her generation throughout the pandemic lockdowns: “I can’t see much past this grief / Coping seems so out of reach.” Her voice is both detached and expressive and expertly conveys the feeling of isolation within the lyrics.
Haven is proving she is a seriously gifted artist who has everything it takes to become a major name in the Australian music scene. We recently caught up with her to find out more.
Hi Darcie. So delightful to get a bit of your time today. How are things?
Things have been good, busy, but in such a good way. It's such an exciting time releasing music.
Recent single ‘Coping’ has just been this long overdue sigh that the world needed. It's so beautiful. Have you always created music?
Always, like, forever. I can't even remember when I started, I just started singing when I was really young. My mum was a choir teacher so it just kind of came naturally in our family. I grew up on Taylor Swift, and she kept speaking about songwriting and I learned how to write songs through listening to her music incessantly. I started properly writing songs with a guitar when I was about 11. And I was so embarrassed! I don't know why, I just used to think, and really I still do, it's a weird thing sharing how you're feeling. It's such a weird concept to be like, ‘hey strangers I've never met here's my deepest and darkest feelings for you to listen to for your enjoyment’. That's a weird thing when you think about it!
Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?
The first song I ever fully finished was about going away to boarding school, because I grew up on a farm in a really rural area so I had to be sent away to Perth, the nearest capital city to go to high school. I was actually really excited to go away, but I wrote this really dramatic sad song about leaving home!
That's so wonderful. Your voice is just so incredible. For you, did it always start with the singing? Was it more about the lyrics? Or did you just want to create the whole package?
I never really like saw myself, and I still don't, as a very good singer. That comes very secondary to my writing. I've always been a writer first, and just use my voice and guitars and pianos as a vessel for my writing. I've always been super into English. I started out writing poetry, before I was writing songs, terrible poems about school bullies! So that always came first, and then melody writing, and then it was like I better learn how to sing properly if I want to have people hear these [songs]. So that kind of side of things has come secondary to songwriting.
Beautiful. Debut single ‘I Wanna Be’ has me just girl crushing and wanting to embrace them all. You've written this beautifully gentle and kind song about envy and idealisation and crushing. It was so well received, how did you feel about then going into releasing ‘Coping’ which again is just such a gorgeous song, but I can imagine the pressure must be on a little bit?
It was really daunting. I knew that I just had to follow it up with a song that was going to be really different. Because if I tried to do something similar, another kind of up tempo, positive vibe, that I wouldn't be able to compete with what I had originally released. I actually want to go somewhere different. I spent six months doing the speed dating rounds of meeting every producer, essentially, in Australia and heaps of different writers. I met this lovely guy called Aidan Hogg, who I've now essentially produced a whole EP with him and ‘Coping’ was one of the first songs that he made of mine. I fell in love with what he did with it, the production of it was just so beautiful and complimented what I'd written so well. It really is a nice segue into the songs that I will release in the future. That's the sound that I'm heading towards. So ‘Coping’ was a nice kind of in between of ‘I Wanna Be’ and what I will be releasing in the future..
But it was definitely scary scary releasing it, because I knew that it wouldn't get the same amount of [attention], because it's not as cool as a debut song.
It’s such a beautiful song. Considering you're so early in your career, that pressure to follow up the first hit, but at the same time, create something with integrity for the avenue that you want to go into, that must be quite a battle within yourself?
Yeah, that's so true. That's the perfect way to put it. I actually write a lot more ballads than I do up tempo songs. That's a much more natural thing to me. So I knew I wanted to go softer with this next song. I want to show that side of me, I don't want to get boxed into writing really upbeat fun songs, because that's not what I'm most comfortable writing unfortunately.
Can I ask you just about your career trajectory thus far?
Like I said, I had been writing for ages, for years, and I had developed this big catalogue of songs that I'd written while I was a teenager. While I was in school, I was really, really focused on school. I was quite a driven student so I never let myself think that I would ever be able to release the songs and be you know, an “artist”. When I graduated I found myself writing ten times more than I was when I was in school and I got to a stage I was like, I actually really want to show people these songs. I did a whole bunch of research on lots of different producers where I live in Perth, and I found this guy called Andy Lawson who I'd heard so many good things about and I booked in time with him. I was so nervous emailing him, I had no idea how you were meant to do this. Like who tells you how to release and record a song?! Like no-one. I was so nervous speaking to him and going in to record that song. I had no idea what to expect except what I’ve seen in the movies. It was so much fun and those two days in the studio cemented that I want to do this for a living. I felt so in my element more than in any other facet of my life. I felt like I'd finally found what I loved and that was such an amazing feeling to have. I want to chase that feeling now.
I released ‘I Wanna Be’ completely independently, I put it on Triple J Unearthed and crazily the radio hosts and other people in the music sphere just liked it and picked it up and shouted about it. It gave me a massive boost so early in my career to have those kinds of people on your side.
That's a pretty incredible journey. I also love this notion of that feeling of knowing exactly what you wanted to do, and how wonderful that feeling must be. You said you were a very good student and very studious. If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what were you pushing yourself through school to do?
To be honest, I was always pushing myself through school just to be good at it. I just put stupid pressure on myself. I never exactly knew where I was gonna go after school, but I just thought I had to get a really good ATAR and I had to be good at school, because that's where I was at the time. I was studying law and journalism for a year before I stopped this year.
Your songs are so personal, but at the same time, you've got this way of writing that is from another perspective, you've got these many facets. It is the thoughts of a girl in the best sense of what that is, it’s really beautiful. You bring power to vulnerability. I imagine you've had some glorious responses from fans?Yeah, It's been a weird thing to get messages and comments from people that I don't know. That is still really strange for me. For so long, it was my few friends and family that would be like, ‘Oh, that's pretty good’. It was always nice to hear feedback from friends and family, but in my mind, when I'd hear that, I'd be like, ‘Oh, they're only saying it's good, because they have to’. So hearing feedback from people that I don't know, has been the most groundbreaking thing for me. It's so strange to think that people I don't know are listening to my songs, and to hear feedback from them is so, so valuable.
Gorgeous. And lastly, before I have to leave you. obviously we have two incredible singles that were twirling to, what’s coming up next for you?
Well, I'll be releasing another single in a few months time that I'm really excited about. And with that single there may be an announcement of some kind of a larger body of work that I'm really excited about….!
‘Coping’ is out now. You can download and stream here.
To keep up with all things Darcie Haven you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter.
Darcie Haven will be supporting DMAs on October 1 at Fremantle Arts Centre. Tickets on sale now.
