Tristan is simply “Too Good to Forget”
NOVEMBER 26TH 2023 | by MADISON NORTH
Photo by Brooke Flecca
Wondering who Tristan is? Wonder no further, the 22 year old is sure enough to become a staple artist on your next playlist. Tristan’s debut EP, i hurt my own feelings, released last year and since then the pop star has not been slowing down, with singles “Keep That to Yourself”, “Last Girl on Earth”, and “Tough Subject”. With every song, Tristan tells stories of love and heartbreak in its rawest form, inviting listeners in with her dream-like voice and whimsical melodies.
We sat down to chat with “The Last Girl on Earth” about her latest singles, her debut EP, musical inspirations, and how she’s been able to find her voice.
RAMBLE: You released your debut EP “i hurt my own feelings” just a little over a year ago…This is kind of a loaded first question but, how has your life changed in that past year?
TRISTAN: Oh my god ok (laughing), I’ll try not to ramble on about this cause short answer, in every single way possible… For reference I’ve written songs my whole life, I feel like every kid to some extent makes up songs when they’re little and whatever, but I have journals full when I was little of like I would write, journal, chorus, pre-chorus, bridge, I caught the taylor swift bug early or something, I was like on it, but I’ve done that my whole life but I never thought it was something I could actually go out and do, so a little over a year ago…I was in school in Boston and I got my heartbroken really bad for the first time and I was like I feel like I should do something we these songs I’m writing, I’m really proud of them but I’ve never been in a studio, I’ve never tried to like build anything around the songs I write…I just kinda went for it and I made those songs from that first EP with my friends…Since then I think I’ve grown in lot of ways as a person, I feel very different from that person, I’m not in school anymore, I dropped out around that time…Life has just completely shifted from it and in a good way, in a good way I feel in a much better place then when I was when I put that project out and also like soundwise, I feel not as connected to it and I think I’ve grown more into exactly what I’ve always been searching for which is good, but yeah that’s my short version answer (laughing).
RAMBLE: (laughing) What has the support system been like from like your friends and family like making this project, dropping out of school, cause I saw you posted your sister ran the New York City Marathon…And she was listening to your song like that’s gotta feel like ‘oh my god crazy!’.
TRISTAN: I have literally the most supportive friends and family…When I put out that EP last year, no one was listening to it other than my friends and family, like I wasn’t putting it out to like an audience of listeners, it wasn’t in the cards for me at the time, but I really feel like that’s what helped me a lot was like my friends and my family treated the project like they were fans of it who didn’t know we personally, they were just excited about it and it was kind of a bold move of me as well, because I was releasing a bunch of songs about like a specific scenario, and a specific person who I’m still seeing at school, and like everyone else around me, and all of my friends and family who were listening to it knew who it was about, and that person knew who it was about so it was kind of like (laughing) a really ballsy, risky move of me and I don’t think I would’ve felt good about that decision if my friends and family hadn’t supported me like crazy…I could not possibly be making the music I am right now if it weren’t for the way that my people have reacted to it, they’re the best ever.
RAMBLE: Were you nervous at first to show them, because how you said before you had written songs your whole life but you never really did anything with them, that’s gotta be nerve racking.
TRISTAN: I was very protective of my songs for a while, I would get really weird about playing them for people, or posting them, I would never post them, and at some point while I was at school I like posted a couple little things and my friends were super supportive and I was like ‘Ok, I can keep doing this’, and still I get pretty nervous playing songs for people for the first time, but I decided around the time that I put out that EP that I would start posting on TikTok everyday…And that really forced me to get into a habit of sharing my work, it’s scary, it’s your innermost feelings and thoughts. At first it was really difficult cause it was just people in my life who knew the people, knew the details or xyz, but once it started reaching more people it doesn’t feel as scary cause it’s not people who know you personally…It’s gotten easier for sure, it just took me quite a bit to even want to post or play any songs for people at all.
RAMBLE: I went to school for screenwriting, and before that I never showed people anything, I wouldn’t do that and I had one professor, she said ‘It seems weird at first, but the more you do it the easier it gets and the less it gets scary to show people things’.
TRISTAN: Yes totally! I totally agree, and just that initial hump that you gotta get over and now it’s kinda like the norm for me, but it’s so scary, it feels like a diary almost too and you don’t read your diary to people, but this is just something you’re expected to do if you want to make music.
RAMBLE: When you wrote the EP did you already have i hurt my own feelings in mind as the title or was it you wrote the song first and thought ‘I kinda like this for the title of it’?
TRISTAN: It’s so funny cause it wasn’t that long ago, it was maybe like a year ago but now I’m so fuzzy on the timeline, but I remember writing that intro song “i hurt my own feelings” and that was one of the only songs at the time that I was like ‘I feel good about this, I wanna post it online’ and I had posted it on Instagram as like a feed post, which I have never done ever in my life and I just remember really liking that bit of a song and I never wrote the rest of it, it was just a minute and thirty…I was like ‘Ok maybe I could use it as an intro on like a project of some sort’ and I was always kind of holding onto it and then the time came around and I just felt like i hurt my own feelings was just a good, general explanation for that project and also how I felt at the time.
RAMBLE: I feel like with that EP, it feels a lot like angstier, aside from the closing song “stopped feeling a long time ago” and “colorblind” a little bit you see softer sides to your music and to yourself, and then with the three singles you just released they feel softer, all the songs are vulnerable but they feel vulnerable in a different way, was the intention to do that or when you were writing was it kinda like ‘this is how I’m feeling vibe wise now’?
TRISTAN: I love that opinion on the sound, I think it’s so interesting. I think the main difference is when I put out that EP I was actively going through heartbreak and actively navigating those feelings, it was like a diary almost, whereas now the music I’m writing and I’m putting out I think is so much better personally, and I like it more and it feels softer and a little bit more vulnerable because I’m like past it and I’m healed from this and can look back on that and like other things throughout my life. It’s kind of like looking at it from a birds eye view rather than being directly in it and I’ve realized that I think that that benefits my writing a lot and I’ve gained new perspectives on certain situations, or I can like reword it in ways I couldn’t word it before while I was still in it, I think that’s the main difference but I’m definitely just more and more excited about all the new stuff for sure.
RAMBLE: The first single that you released off of the EP was “Keep That to Yourself’ and then you also released the voice memo of it, both amazing, I love the songs. What made you wanna release both versions?
TRISTAN: “Keep That to Yourself” was crazy and a journey in itself, but that took off in a way that I never expected ever and then suddenly there were a bunch of people that weren’t my friends and family listening to my music, who were like ‘We want an acoustic version’ (laughing) and I was like ‘This was not something I was expecting to have to do’...And I don’t know, it’s not anything fancy it’s just how I write all my songs, the acoustic version is a voice memo with my guitar in my room. I just felt like that was another side I wanted to showcase and give to people because they were asking for it, but it’s also how all my songs start. I think the production on the original version of “Keep That to Yourself” it was kind of the gateway to this music that I’m making where I was really like ‘Ok this is it, this is me, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for’ and then I just threw an acoustic in for fun (laughing).
RAMBLE: Your other song that you released, Last Girl on Earth, I’m obsessed with the opening line where you’re like ‘I’m in the mood to feel worthless again so I might call you’, I heard it and was like ‘hooked! saved!’ (laughing). The whole song in general, I love, it’s been on repeat, what can you tell us about what the writing process was like for that.
TRISTAN: Thank you! Yeah that one was weird, that one is different than how I usually find the words for all of these songs I feel like. That song I had that first line, I vividly can picture it, I was walking around in Boston when I was still living there and that line just popped into my head, I’m always thinking of lyrics or writing random things in my notes in my phone. I remember thinking ‘I’m in a mood to feel worthless again so I might call you’ so I wrote that down and I like didn’t do anything with it for a long time and then I ended up sitting down to write a song using that and I wrote the whole first verse and I think the second verse, and I had just written those two verses and I posted it on TikTok like seconds after I wrote that and people were like ‘Oh my god I like this’...And for some reason I could never write the rest of the song, I was super stuck with it so it just live as those verses for a long time and I’ll circle back to it eventually and then I had written an entirely different song that had an entirely different melody, different verses, but it was around the concept of “Last Girl on Earth” but it was that chorus, and I think that chorus was very different, I think the bridge was the chorus, I don’t know, something was very different about it, but it was the ‘If I was the last girl on earth I think you’d want me again, my standards have gotten so low I’d definitely take that as a compliment’ and I was like ‘Hold on, I feel like that could mash up with that other song I’ve been so stuck on’ and then I kind of combined the two and this weird satirical pop song was created, but usually that’s not usually how I write but I was in a rut with both of those songs and decided to just put ‘em together and I really love this one so I’m glad that you like it.
RAMBLE: The lyric video too I think it’s so cool, it’s so dreamy and everything like that. How did you come up with the concept for it?
TRISTAN: Oh my god, well, Ceci (Cecilia Mula) who did that video for me I’ve been a fan of her work for a while and she had heard “Keep That to Yourself” and was like ‘Oh my god I love this song’ and I was like ‘Oh my god I love you’ and we both were like ‘Well we should do something’ and so when I needed a lyric video for that song I was like ‘Hi!” (laughing), and she’s a genius and she was like ‘Ok, I love this song and I’m hearing like a very end of the world, but like fun, ballerina, like whatever’ and I made a Pinterest board and I was picturing the music box and the ballerina, and the pink and bows and whatever, and then she was also talking about how she felt it was also very funny and silly, but it’s also super devastating, (laughing) which at the core of it if I sang it acoustically it is pretty sad, so we were trying to blend those worlds and then I was like ‘You just run free with it and you just create something super sick’ and she did, I love that lyric video it’s so cool.
RAMBLE: Your song writing, every lyric I’m like ‘She like picks my brain, she went in my journal’, it’s just so interesting cause everything is so vulnerable and honest, and you say things that…You would only really write in your journal, you would only say to your friends. You would never admit like ‘Yeah if I was the last girl on earth he’d pick me and I’d be ok with that’ (laughing) cause it just sounds awful, or even with “Tough Subject”, nobody wants to be like ‘Well, I hope I’m a tough subject in their relationship’, it sounds crazy but I just love it.
TRISTAN: (laughing) Thank you! Thank you for saying that, that means so much to me! I was so scared, specifically about “Tough Subject” for that reason, cause I was like ‘Is this too selfish and too crazy of me?’.
RAMBLE: (laughing) You’re like ‘Did I go over the edge of this one?’.
TRISTAN: (laughing) Yeah, I didn’t know if anyone was gonna relate or get it, or think I was like bad. I appreciate you saying that because that’s my favorite thing about the music I listen to, cause I’m a big lyrics person so when someone can write something and I’m like ‘Wow, that’s how I’m feeling but I haven’t been able to find the words for it or like that is phrasing it in a way that I’ve never heard but I have felt that way before’, so that is what I always like try to do but mainly I just try to be honest. As we just were saying, it’s gotten easier to do as I’ve putten out more music, but initially I was really scared to be 100% honest, and then with these new songs I’v just really kind been like ‘Fuck it…Put it all out there’ (laughing). I’m glad that you relate and it makes sense to you (laughing).
RAMBLE: (laughing) I love the part in “Tough Subject” where you say ‘When she walked in she lit up the room’ and it’s like this kind of silence almost and then it’s like ‘buh buh’, this kind of like epiphany moment. You’re like ‘Obvisouly he’s into her, but maybe’ (laughing). I just love it.
TRISTAN: (laughing) Thank you! That line specifically, I also love the production on it… I had that line in my notes for a while and I wanted to do something with it but I didn’t know where to put it, and then it felt right in this song to continue the story in that direction, but I did have like that specific experience and so when the music cuts out right there it does like take me back to standing there and experiencing that and ah I love it and also it’s horrible (laughing).
RAMBLE: (laughing) What has the experience been like being able to play these songs live for people?
TRISTAN: Oh my goodness…Here’s the thing, I did theater like my whole life so I was like always performing for people and I feel pretty comfortable on stage, and like that’s always been something I’ve felt ok with, but I had never like been myself on stage…When I had to start doing shows as myself, it is like a completely new universe I felt like I had never been on a stage before, cause it’s me usually by myself with my guitar singing songs about my personal life and my like experiences (laughing) in front of a bunch of people I don’t know, and I was like ‘I thought I was so well equipped for this and I don’t know if I am’. It has become easier and easier of course, the same way with putting out music, performing it has become more and more fun and I feel like less nervous everytime and I feel more excited everytime. The opportunities, mainly stemming from “Keep That to Yourself”, the shows that I’ve been able to do, or people that I’ve been able to meet at shows, it has just completely changed my life to have people come up to me and tell me that that lyric or that song that I just played seconds ago really meant something to them, and to talk to people face to face and hear that…Shows have become my favorite part of it I think, something I wanna keep doing for sure.
RAMBLE: Do you feel like when you were first performing for people on stage it was almost like a fake it til you make it kind of a thing, maybe let me try to be like this type of person on stage but then you’re like ‘Well that’s not gonna work cause that’s not who I am’.
TRISTAN: Yeah, totally. And I think I’m just a huge fan of music in general, I always have been…I’m just such a fangirl and I think I’ve just subconsciously studied so many artists that I love for so many years…I’m a huge concert girl, I’ve been to so many concerts and I’ve seen so many different ways to perform and the way they do it and I’m always like mentally taking notes…So yeah when I was trying to start performing as myself I’m like ‘Ok, well maybe I can bring that kind of confidence that so and so has’...Overall it has just come down to me trying to share these words and my experiences with people who don’t know who I am and trying to be as honest as possible and I think that’s what’s working and making me feel less nervous.
RAMBLE: You had teased a new song that you’re working on, what can you tell us about that?
TRISTAN: Oh man (laughing).
RAMBLE: I heard it and I’m very excited, I was like ‘She needs to drop it’ (laughing).
TRISTAN: (laughing) I’ve teased a few like little things…I’m telling everyone very soon and I’ve kind of said it a few times, but I’m putting out an EP soon, my second one and it’ll be these three songs that I put out this year and then a couple others and then I have more ready to go after that that aren’t even on this project…I kind of said this a second ago but I just kind of feel like I’ve really started to find exactly that sound that I’ve been searching for that feels very me and when I play all these new songs for my friends and family they’re all like ‘Oh this, this is you, this is so Tristan’ and that’s so important to me and I want to put them out, it’s very soon, so everyone will find out soon (laughing).
RAMBLE: Yay! I’m excited (laughing).
TRISTAN: Yay! (laughing) Thank you.
RAMBLE: Were there any specific artists you listened to when making these songs or is it just whatever you’re feeling or in the mood?
TRISTAN: Yes (laughing), I listen to pretty much everything. I think that’s why it was also hard for me to find my sound at first because I listen to so many different genres, and also like music at this point is pretty genreless, I feel like so many artists are dipping into so many different styles at once, but I listen to so many things that I was like ‘I don’t now where I wanna lie on this spectrum of music I listen to’ and so the first EP i put out was definitely leaning more pop punky in singer-songwriter land. This new stuff I would say is mainly singer-songwriter pop whatever, but I mean my, some people are shocked by this, my go-to, my pillars that are my main inspirations that I know every word to every song of theirs are Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.
RAMBLE: Pop duo right there, c’mon.
TRISTAN: Literally. But obviously Taylor’s lyricisim and the way that Ariana stacks vocals and her production, just my two pillars (laughing) and while I was making this EP…I was listening to a lot of Ryan Beatty-
RAMBLE: I love Ryan Beatty.
TRISTAN: I’m literally wearing his merch right now.
RAMBLE: I’m seeing him in February I’m so excited.
TRISTAN: He’s so good! I’m obsessed with him, I’ve been listening to him since high school and he was a super big inspiration for me then too. I love him, I love, I don’t know if you know NIKI…She put out an album Nicole it’s so good, that was like all I was listening to, I love like Maisie Peters, and Conan Grey and Clairo and SZA and I lie all over the spectrum but those mainly were the sonic influences for this I feel like.
RAMBLE: My final question that I have for you, what is one piece of advice that you would give your year ago self that is starting to write your EP?
TRISTAN: I’m giving this advice to myself and then also in general just to like anyone that would be wanting to do that, but I think that just consistency is anyones best friend who is trying to do that. I was super scared to even start putting anything out and once I kept going then it got easier and easier and things just started to fall into place how they were supposed to, and also at that time I was super (laughing) I would say unwell, I was not doing well and I wasn’t sure of anything I was doing would like go anywhere…I would just say to keep at it, and keep consistent and know that it’s all gonna fall into place like it’s supposed to. It sounds a little cliche, but I think that’s it, that’s my main advice.
Listen to the interview on YouTube below.