INTERVIEW: Sannia returns with her first new music in two years 'Love You Like'
Melbourne indie-pop artist Sannia today releases her first new music since 2019 with the single ‘Love You Like’. The song is a glorious, melancholic telling of the age old story of falling in love with the wrong person and having your heart broken in the process. “My friends keep saying you’re no good for me / I get anxious thinking you’ll forget me,” Sannia sings. Starting off mellow, the track soon becomes wrapped in delicious electro-pop beats and builds to a stunning, multi-vocal crescendo before slowing to a single beat and Sannia closing with the words ‘my heart’s breaking baby while you forget me’.
It is a brilliant return from the singer who first created waves in the music industry in 2018 when her debut single ‘Go And Get Over’ attracted critical acclaim, and lead to her winning a Triple J Unearthed competition to support The Reubens on their 2018 Australian tour.
‘Love You Like’ is the kind of lush, mature and totally immersive pop music that ripples through your soul and refuses to let go in the way truly great music never fails to do. With music this good, we can’t wait to see what else Sannia brings out this year. To celebrate her return, we recently sat down with her to find out more.
Hey Sannia! Thanks for taking the time chat to us. How is everything in your world right now?
I’m under the comfort of a very heavy blanket on a very cold Victorian winter morning and life is beautiful.
Congratulations on the release of ‘Love You Like’ it is such a brilliant track. You have mentioned the song was inspired by a documentary on Amy Winehouse, can you tell us a little bit more about the inspiration behind the song?
Thank you so much! And yes I can – this is a real first for me, I usually write from my own first-hand experience but in true 2020 form, my inspiration for the track came Netflix rather than my own life (thank you lockdown?). Like most Melbournians I was doing a lot of streaming last year and after watching Amy (2015) on Netflix I found myself just fixated on this moment in the film where Amy’s ex checks her out of rehab so he has someone to get high with. I thought about it for days, how alone she must have felt to willingly walk out of a place of help and healing because she only felt whole with him, a person that was wilfully harming her. It just broke my heart. It’s almost like her addiction was to him, not the drugs and alcohol, and they were just part of the package.
Has Amy Winehouse always been an artist that you have looked up to, or has informed your music?
I think she was an influence before I even realised. When I first started singing people would tell me that I either sounded like her or that I should listen to her and when I eventually got around to it, it felt like something just fit into place. A lot of her writing, her experience growing up, her struggles with mental health issues resonated with me as much as her voice did. I’ve been a pretty huge fan for a while yes!
You worked with Oscar Dawson on this track, what was the creative process like for the song?
Being in lockdown at the time meant I had infinite hours in the day to work on the production for the song, and I really enjoyed having that time with the track. The first line of the chorus was the first line I wrote, I think that idea had been kicking around in my head after watching the film. And I worked on the harmony beneath it before taking it to Logic and coming up with some beats, a couple of synth ideas and the vocal harmonies. And honestly I let it sit there for a while because of the uncertainty of last year, I didn’t know if I’d be able to release or tour again for a long time. But in January I was super lucky to take my stems to Oscar Dawson – who is a literal genius – and watched him take the song to that next level.
This is your first music release in quite a while. How does it feel to be back, and has the break from music changed your approach to creating music?
The time away has almost made it feel like a first single all over again rather than a follow up – I feel a bit like a kid. It wasn’t so much a break from music, I was writing and recording the whole time, but as a independent artist I’m self-funded and I ran out of money for a bit there, and then the pandemic hit so I’ve sort of been trying to gather my resources and line up the dominoes for the next year.
If we take it back to the beginning, what are your first memories of music?
I started piano lessons when I was four, and you couldn’t keep me off that instrument honestly. So a lot of my early memories are Suzuki concerts and forgetting to bow after a performance, but even before then the house was always full of mum’s music, my grandparents always played their old Italian records, and much to all of their dismay I was constantly singing at home!
When did you decide you wanted to pursue a career in music? Was there a light bulb moment or was it something you always knew would happen?
I was begging mum for piano lessons as soon as I could reach the keys of the family upright. I’ve always loved music and I think I always believed I’d be working in music maybe as a pianist or composer but I never considered the option of being a singer until I was about seventeen. If there was ever a light-bulb moment for me it was when the school needed someone to perform at an assembly, normally I just performed on piano but I thought maybe I’d sing something I was writing at home. And the reaction from the audience was one of those life affirming moments where I first thought “maybe I am good enough to do this?” It was one of the first times in my life I ever felt heard and like I could connect to others, I think that’s where it started for me.
Coronavirus has been devastating for the music industry and every time we think we turn a corner for the better, it comes around and hits us again. What are your thoughts on what we can all do to support musicians until we can hopefully get back to ‘normal’?
We’ve seen North America and Europe recover with huge rates of vaccination and as someone who’s already had their first dose I would strongly encourage everyone to just do it. I would also say just keep actively supporting your favourite artists online in any way you can, whether that’s following them, streaming their music, sharing it to socials, buying merch, it seems small but it means the world to us.
The music industry has traditionally not been a kind place for women to exist in, partly because it has been run for so long by older, white, straight men. In the past few months we have seen a number of brave women force the industry into re-evaluating how things are run. What are your thoughts on gender equality and sexism in the music industry?
Firstly I’m incredibly passionate about this topic and just want to say thank you for asking. The music industry, and in particular lately the Australian music industry needs to admit it has a problem before it can actually repair the intergenerational harm done by abusers. Every few months a new name appears, they’re relegated to the sin bin and we all move on. But collectively you have a long list of names, that are all part of a system that ultimately protects them. The brave and frankly necessary work done by Beneath The Glass Ceiling, Jaguar Jonze and Michelle Pitiris has shown (even just in the last fortnight) the power we have when we stand together. I’m a big believer in quotas on line-ups and in leadership teams and even simple things like consent training should be mandatory in order to enact change.
What’s up next for Sannia?
So much new music. I think I wrote an album’s worth just in that 112 day lockdown, and there was already an EP ready before that. I think now it’s just deciding which song next and when to release them all. I’ve also got a single launch gig at Workers Club (Melbourne) on July 21st where I’ll get to play all these songs for the first time. After 18 months of nothing it’s so exciting.
‘Love You Like’ is out now. You can download and stream here.
To keep up with all things Sannia you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
