Music with Mia Lord

On Ktalk dot Seal done today on the app on DEARSTV channel eight feet five.

And across the city on five six seven am. Join the conversation. This is Kate Talk. Let's go from the theater now to the music stage, and I'm delighted to welcome into studio Mea Lord. Mia is a South African indie pop artist from kay Town. She is known for her songs Citrus and Fantasy, and she is joining me right here in studio on weekend breakfast this morning. Mia, Good morning, Thank you very much for joining us.

Good morning, thank you for having me so you.

We were told by our colleague at KFM, Carl Waste, that you are the person we must interview, and I'll tell you that's a big feather in your cap. When Cale Waste says mere Lord is the musician that you need to get into studio.

Wow, I'm flattered. Thank you, Carl.

Mia. Tell us a little bit about your career in music, how it all came about.

Oh gosh, well, I come from a family of musicians. I guess I've been writing since I was eleven or twelve, and it only really started taking off when I shamefully dropped out of high school. I started producing things in my room by myself on my really really old iPad and producing very badly as well. But the songs themselves started getting good at it around that stage. And yeah, I've I've just kind of been going through the motions.

Mia, you said it all kind of started when you shamefully dropped out of high school. Do you feel that way about it? Do you feel shameful about the fact that you dropped out of high school a little bit?

Yeah, definitely. I feel like there's a bit of a you know, if you tell someone you've dropped out of high school, they probably assume that you're, you know, a bit thick, or you're not in things or something. But I dropped out because I was struggling very much with mental health issues and depression and social anxiety and things like that, and addiction started at that age as well, So I guess I had my reasons.

I'm glad that you are open to talking about this because I think it's almost a pandemic. I think so many of our young people are struggling with their mental health. Ye, in this day and age, and the fact that you're willing to share and say, look at me, I'm a musician, and yes I dropped out of school, and yes I really struggled with my mental health.

Yeah, I still do a lot, especially now being putting myself in the position of being a musician. It feels like there are a lot more eyes on you. And as someone with social anxiety, even sitting here talking to you now is kind of difficult, and knowing that people are listening in. So I'm not too sure why I did it, but I'm glad to talk about it. Yeah.

You're obviously very talented, and it's wonderful to see somebody being true to their talent and sort of living the path that they were meant to do. I just you know, it's interesting because you look at people performers, particularly musicians. I mean you watch them on stage performing and you think, wow, they've got it all together, They've just have the best life, right, and yet behind the scenes, your people just like us.

Yeah. Yeah, I constantly think that I have a few friends and uh, you know, people that I'm familiar with on the Cape Town music scene and I'm constantly looking at them, comparing myself to them, the amount of followers they get, someone's going on tour, this person's doing more live shows than me, or getting more streams than me. It's very tricky to navigate this whole scene while keeping your mental health in check.

And you must be very aware of that. Especially as you grow and go forward become more popular and more successful. You're going to need your own personal boundaries and tools in place to cope with that.

I'm guessing yeah, yeah, I've already tried starting to implement it. Like with restricting myself on social media, I had to like force myself to take a bit of a break and stop like comparing myself to everyone else because, like you said, it's it's all a facade. It's it's this, it's this image we put out there for other people to see. It's not who we really are. And you know, I just have to see to try our best.

Where do you get your inspiration when it comes to writing?

Uh, definitely, I guess I'd just say my emotions in general. I only really write as an outlet of for for any strong emotion I'm feeling, and I can't really force myself to write. I've never written with other people because I cannot sit down in a room and collaborates and get that stuff out when I needed to. I have to just if I'm feeling really depressed one day, or if something's happened in my life, I have to sit down and try and write about it. It's the only

It happens quite organically for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Luckily, I've had enough organically stressful times in my life to get quite a good amount of songs written in a short period of time so that I don't have to constantly worry about I need to write so that I can get the next thing out. I've got like thirty or forty songs that I'm just sitting on waiting to put out because I just let it happen organically at this point.

Yeah, what's the end goal for you? Are you like, oh, I want to be the next Taylor Swift or are you just sort of living what you feel like you were meant to do and enjoying the ride.

Well, I guess both. I've always wanted to be a singer. My mom was a singer and a band, my dad was in a band, my grandmother was a classically trained singer. I felt like I was born into a family of musicians, and from a very young age, I've always wanted to sing, no matter how many many times in my life I've tried to like not pursue it because I felt like this is too stressful, I'm not meant for this, But I've always ended up going back to it because it

I are you going to be performing in Capitan anytime soon? Can listeners get out and see you somewhere close by? Oh?

Gosh, not at the moment. I don't have any shows. God, I keep kicking myself in the butt because I know I need to start performing live. It's just difficult at this very point in my life with personal things going on. But hopefully in the next few months you'll be hearing about live shows you can come to and.

I'm guessing probably with all you young people, the best way to follow your journey would be Instagram.

Yes, probably.

Let our listeners know your handle and how they can follow you.

Okay, I think it's Mea Lord Underscore Music. That's my Instagram handle and you can find me on every streaming platform. I'm on YouTube as well Facebook under the same name Mia Lord. Yeah, see if you can find me.

We're going to end by taking a listen to your song fantasy Mia, tell our listeners what it's about.

Okay, So I wrote this about how I slash. We tend to project an image onto others to fulfill a certain fantasy that we have, Like this infatuation that can sometimes take over your life is easier than living your actual life. You need to like, living your daydream is way easier than living your life. So that's what it's mainly about, and getting into a bad cycle of prioritizing that daydream and fantasy world over your real life.

What a relevant message to people young and old in today's age, Mea, is there anything else that you'd like our listeners to know?

Ah? Just I hope you enjoy. I hope you enjoy enough to go stream it and try and follow me on Instagram and stuff so you can keep up to date with any other music that's going to come out here.

Thank you very much for coming into studio this morning, Mia, and I'm sittingly going to follow you in just a moment on Instagram and hopefully catch you live in action. Thank you. Just in future, let's take a listen to that single fantasy you.

Boys yourself comfort. I'm naturally inclined to hold them to a standard keeping