EPS 56: Pop prodigy Chicago native Sabine Sauvage

Hello and welcome back to the Student Pages podcast.

Once again, I am your host, Grace Sanders, and unfortunately you might be able to tell my voice isn't very well right now, but luckily I am joined by the incredibly talented voice and personality of Sabine Savage. How are you, Sabine? How are you doing? Good, I'm doing good. How are you? Well, I could be doing better, I'm gonna be honest. Now, I see that you're in like somewhat of like a Swedish sauna-esque background there. What have you been up to this weekend? Nothing much.

I mean, we just got into Nashville from Chicago on Friday, and ever since then I've been working. So Friday, I worked on some new songs with my writer, Stephanie Middleton, and then today we're shooting some new images for the website. So it's been really exciting. Now you say that sounds like what, but that sounds like the best weekend ever. You've been to Nashville before?

Yeah, I've been here so many times. I've come here pretty often because the producer I work with, Keith Thomas, is based here. So we take turns. He comes to Chicago. I work with him there, and then I come to Nashville and then, you know, how that works. See, I can tell you're an industry pro because you are jet-setting, you are name-dropping, just all the cool as cool as anything. I've had my fair share. I love to watch these interviews, like, for one of my favourite artists. Brilliant.

Now, I say that you're an industry pro, you are very, very seasoned, but this is because you started incredibly young. Now, to make me feel very jealous, how old actually are you? I'm 17 now. Oh, don't tell me. I feel even older with my little grandma voice. Now, we've had like a couple of younger guests on the podcast before, but I always like to take things right back to when you first started your passion

for music, which I believe you were only like a tot. You were only a couple of years old. Yeah.

I mean, I always remember my dad just playing music in the car. I'd just be belting it. And then like there was one day I vividly remember like I was in the backseat and it was Take Me to Church by Hosier and I was singing it. And my dad looks back and he's like, and I'm like, because I mean, I think that was the moment where he realized that, you know, that I guess I could actually sing. And then ever since then, I've just been singing all the time.

And then when I was around eight or nine, I started writing my own songs and I kept it to myself at first. And then I eventually shared with my dad and he was like, we have to do something with this. Like we have to, you know, make an album or something. And so that's when that started. And yeah, it just seems so real because it doesn't seem that long ago to me. It sounds like you've got an amazing support system with your dad. I believe he's with you in Nashville right now.

Yeah, he just went back into his room, but yeah, he's always here with me, supporting me all along the way, so it's really nice.

See, I know you've probably got a lot of influence from your parents, which we'll talk about your musical influence a little bit later, but you've always been a part of much larger singing groups and musical groups as a child as well. How did you find and work your way up out of a group into being a solo star? Right. So I started in Chicago Children's Choir when I was younger.

And like, it was really good at first to kind of introduce me to some more musical concepts to make me like music theory, all that stuff. It was a really good introduction to all this stuff. And then once I started, like evolving more and like learning more about these concepts, it kind of like helped me go off by myself and be able to, you know, sit by the piano, do chords and understand like what I'm actually doing.

And then that's kind of when I realized that like oh I can do this by myself I don't need other people like behind me to do it with me so that's kind of when I figured that out.

And you're still in school right are you studying singing or would you say you're more of a music student than a singing student?

I'm more of a music student but also only in high school my high school doesn't really like there's not a lot of heavy focus on musical classes or anything so I kind of rely on sources outside of school and then school is more like academic based you know if that makes sense so so how are you finding like balancing those two things as well because I had like one am drum class after school and that was it for me I clocked out after that.

It's definitely hard and it's a lot of work but I don't see like sitting at my computer and you know trying to like come up with melodies all that stuff that doesn't seem as like a task for me it's more of a hobby so it like it's more fun for me but definitely with you know coming to Nashville pretty often it gets a little busy but I'm very dedicated I'm motivated so like it's easy to manage my work and then manage music on the side.

Absolutely. And like when you started properly doing music as like a solo, I believe you released your first EP when you were only like 13. So you'd literally just got into being a teenager. I think I was full of angst at that point rather than music. Yeah, it was definitely, I mean, I look back at it now and I just sound like such like a little baby, but it's kind of nice to look back at because like, I realized like, oh, 13 year olds at that age were not doing the same thing that I was doing.

So you have all of that like career experience and you've been building upon that EP. And you just said when you looked back, you thought you were like a little baby. Like how has your sound matured since then? Even though it's only been like four years, which to me means nothing.

But when you're a teen, it means absolutely everything. yeah big difference I've also done a lot of professional voice lessons so that enhanced my tone a lot and also when I was younger so my like overall like my favorite artist has always been Ariana Grande and you know how she sings like it's very sometimes a little nasally and she does a lot of those runs and I would always as a young girl I try to replicate that so in like my old EP you can hear me like trying to sound like Ariana Grande but

now after doing like vocal training and singing the stuff that I like like to sing and doing my own songs it's like created more like my own voice but also with a mix of like if that like like the little runs all that stuff now like when when I hear it like she makes that like breath work feel so easy and then when you even try and do you're trying to go from like here to here in absolutely no time whatsoever, that is really hard I mean I used to do that when I was younger but now.

I don't know if I can do that anymore. See, I bet you were introduced to Ariana Grande as a pop star, as a musician. Are you slightly too late for Ariana Grande, the Disney actress? Yeah, I used to watch her all the time on Nickelodeon. And when she was like the famous pop star, I didn't know that that was her on Nickelodeon until like, I don't know. But it was surprising for me. I've always loved her.

How do you feel? I think she's Oscar-numbed. I know Cynthia for the Wicked film. Have you seen that? Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it like four times. It's so good. Would you ever stray into musical theatre and kind of branch out and trying to do triple threat or use this like, this is it, this is singing? I mean, not like... For performance-wise, I definitely enjoy singing musical theatre because I like to have, like, the range of a bunch of different genres.

And when I did vocal training, like, musical theatre is such a different spot in your voice and it helps you also, like, learn how to act and all that stuff. So, like, definitely for more of, like, a vocal training aspect, but not for performance. See, that's it. A lot of the new pop girlies, Sabrina Carpenter, Renee Rapp, I do have the roots in musical theatre.

Because I do think just trying to day in day out hit those notes at like an incredible pace probably gives you all of that training as is like you mentioned so we talked about Ariana Grande but we've also talked about who you are as a maturing performer and now who else do you actually look out within your catalog in order to like reach those different genres and reach out across your vocal range I definitely I mean now I love Tate McRae I mean also ever since I was younger my dad he's

a big like rock fan heavy metal fan so I really love bands like Motley Crue.

Def Leppard and that's kind of been like my whole childhood and I really like how that kind of like I have aspects of not only like a pop star but I. Love like the whole rock and all that stuff so I would love like in the future to definitely involve that in some of my music and I love like the aesthetic of all that stuff so definitely like rock bands see I mean I love all genres I love country my playlist like that I have now is so like it goes from like Elvis Presley to like Iron Maiden

to Bob Marley it's just so off the board I don't know if it's too personal but if you brought up your Spotify right now what is the song that's on repeat dare you dare you tell us oh gosh.

Okay let's see on repeat as of now it is it's life in the fast lane by the eagles that's that's my most released song as of right now i love that whenever i'm driving my friends and i always you know blast the music all the time they're always like how do you go from morgan wallen to like buddy holly it's just you know but they get a lot of my like i whenever we're in the car it's always like all right sabine here's the ox i always get the ox for the music trusted with

the ox right that's a big thing that thing it's like i'm like a person that listens to one song on repeat for maybe three weeks and then i'll say a song and then i'll be like i never want to listen to it again so you spoke a lot about rock music and you have an upcoming single which is coming out on march the 7th called hide and seek do we get to hear any of those rock influences within that not so much in the song but if you see the music video there's a look that's very i'd say it looks rock.

It's sparkly, I mean it's leather jackets. You know, you would definitely think it has that aspect of it. And that's kind of what we were going for. I didn't want to like, all the looks are very different from each other. And I definitely wanted to involve something with the more like rock aspect. I don't know. I just love the whole aesthetic of it. Well, I believe you are out here filming this in Nashville, which is where you

currently are as well. And you said you've been to Nashville quite a lot just before on the call. Do you take a lot of like cowboy influence? Is it all that? Is it the leather jacket meet in the cowboy boots? A little bit. There's definitely, in some of my photos on the website that we had previously, I mean, there's some shoots where we're walking down Broadway and I have my cowboy boots on.

I mean, I also love that aesthetic, but that's definitely like hard to mix in with pop star and rock star, like, you know, all together. But I don't oppose to it. I mean, I love the style. I love the music.

So a lot of musicians nowadays are having like eras. So like, obviously we have the era's top from taylor swift what would you say your old era was and what do you say your new era is i think old era is more if i'm comparing it like you know how taylor swift writes i guess like not sadder songs but i think like more just happy cheerful and i think nowadays like it's more confident empowering and i really like the music that like you can easily

dance to and it's just nothing like not as of now like i have a couple songs that i've written that's a little sadder but I like the dancing ones more. So that's kind of how I'm straightened to right now. That's good to hear. Dance is back. Brat was back. It sure does last year. Yeah. See, and what inspires those lyrics when you are writing those more meaningful pieces? I think a lot of comes from personal experience.

It's kind of like a way, like for me, I'm very enclosed with my emotions and I don't like to share it with a lot of people, but writing music, especially those personal ones, like it kind of helps me express what I'm feeling and you know it's kind of like a way of like it's kind of like a therapy for me to be honest so you can just like let me spill out my emotions but not like directly you know and if you get it to add it to a dance beat then great yeah exactly,

absolutely and see this is the student pages podcast which is a question we always ask however I feel like reversing it almost because obviously you are too young to be a student what you guys would call college what we would call university but what advice do you have out there for people of any age who are just starting out within music within singing or maybe just joined a choir yeah I think definitely like I mean I wouldn't be able to make

through this if I wasn't motivated I mean you have to stay, consistent and you can't let you don't listen to any other people I mean I remember when I was younger a bunch of people used to say stuff about my old album and I you know I just I'm just doing what I love you never listen to people if.

They have negative things to say and time management which is tricky but when as you get older like it'll get better and you know just push through all those hard times and it is the is the the main thing absolutely and I bet you like you like you mentioned you got a lot of support from your parents you got a lot of support from like your choirs that you were in but like when you're going to shoots like you've been today or possibly even any auditions for labels etc

etc how do you actually keep a bottle on those nerves or have you just been well trained from the start I. Mean I I mean I guess yeah my first times it's definitely nervous but the people I surround myself.

And especially if my family's there it comforts me a lot and like go in it with a confident manner don't you know don't be like oh I can't do this blah blah like in the end it'll all work out which have I've learned because I remember going to my first photo shoot I was like I'm not gonna be able to do this you know and then it was just like fine my photographer was just keep it comfortable and all that stuff and then I just you you kind of like learn I mean you learn from

yourself it starts when you're a little nervous but eventually you get used to it and it's kind of how it works and you'll only get that as you mature as a musician even more yeah 100 now see we've spoken a little bit about hide and seek which is coming out on march 7th keep on keep on mentioning that but what else we have for you in the future i definitely have more songs in the works and a couple ones that i really really really love so i'm excited to see what comes from

that definitely soon after hide and seek hopefully in the future i want to make an album with you know some of those personal songs too and then also the dancey songs and maybe like a couple rock songs fantastic it's been so lovely to talk to you sabine yeah you too thank you so much for having me and a huge thank you to our sponsors at smart by glasses smart by glasses prides itself on providing unbeatable range expert advice from

its certified opticians and world-class support from its customer experience team. So, put your best face forward as you head back onto campus with eyewear designed for lectures and leisure. Check the link below for exclusive student discounts off frames and lenses.