INSIDE INTERVIEW

Why did you write Texan In Me, and what made you write it?

 

So, I had been in Texas for Spring Break in 2021 and I was dyin’ to write a new song. I went to Arkansas to visit some friends and while I was there, my friend Drake decided to hype me up about the soon-to-be song. We started writing it and it was sounding awesome! I finished writing it in New Mexico when I was on my way back home. It was awesome just being able to write a song in-person and finally be more social musically.

 

Why did you write The Other Side (Bilingual), and what made you write it?

 

I wrote this song because I have always had the pressure of speaking Spanish, and the thing is that I don’t enjoy speaking it either. My grandma on my dad’s side doesn’t know English, and so I just wrote this song to explain that it takes me a few minutes to think what I’m tryna say coz I have to translate my thoughts in English over to Spanish. I wrote the English part and then I asked my best friend, Ramon Echavarria, who is a native Spanish speaker, to help me translate everything from English and put it in Spanish because I was having a hard time translating on my own. I recorded a demo of the song and sent it to my grandma and she really enjoyed it. Everything that happened in this song is how I did feel on the inside.

 

Why did you write Bottom of My Pocket, and what made you write it?

 

I wanted to share an experience that I go through every single morning and evening, so chose to talk about my chores, and I decided to focus on the key that makes it possible for me to to my chores. Reading back on the lyrics just make me realize that you can fit liters anything into song even if it’s just talking about and describing a little key, which sounds crazy and stupid, but it’s actually genius.

 

Why did you write Typical Cowboy, and what made you write it?

 

So, I’ve come up with this habit to write my brother a song for his birthday. I asked him some questions and I knew about some things that I know he’d like so I just said that he likes to listen to Johnny Cash, he likes to go to the ranch, how he likes his money, and he loves Texas. Then I sing about how he’s your typical cowboy doing things like roping and doing chores on the farm. I include that he likes drinking Coke after church. In the second verse I sing about all the things we like to do together now that we’re older like driving really fast and go through mud puddles in the truck.

 

Why did you write Dirt, Tumbleweeds, & Boots (feat. Mia Whetten), and what made you write it?

 

Mia actually started writing this song. She came to my room and asked if I could help her write a song. I ended up fixing up the lyrics and writing some new lyrics. After finishing the song, I immediately knew that this song had to go on this album. And the cool part about it is that this track is right after the song I wrote about my brother, so it’s really cool seeing a song I wrote about my brother next to a song I wrote with my sister.

 

Why did you write Pour On This Town, and what made you write it?

 

So it’s the summer and it’s burning outside. All you want is it to rain and cool off. I was actually outside when I was writing that song, so I guess that’s where I got the idea to write Pour On This Town. I came up with all these lyrics that were made up like getting in my Chevy and going to the river to cool off.

 

Why did you write Redneck Like Me, and what made you write it?

 

I guess I was just wanting to prove my “redneckness,” and so I wrote some things that I liked that were of course redneck. So I wanted just to include something that’ll like get people’s attention and then I just say “If you agree with all these things, then you’re redneck like me.”

 

Why did you choose to put In Those Boots on this album, and why make an album version?

 

Well, this song was an amazing song that I wrote and I chose to add it to the album because I knew it would fit the “inside of me” part. Like what I was feeling and what I wanted. I knew that the version that is on the In Those Boots - EP wasn’t the best quality, so I decided to go back and tweak a few things. I didn’t re-record anything, but I added an effect that would sorta “enhance” the vocals, I produced the drums all over again and made them sound better, and I fixed the volume on the electric guitar that comes in during the chorus. That is the album version of In Those Boots that you can now hear on the album.

 

Why did you write Truck-bed Party, and what made you write it?

 

So, I wrote Mud Got Me Like That and put in on the In Those Boots - EP, and so there’s these lyrics in that song that go “Sippin' on root beer in the back of my truck” and then there’s this one part in the bridge that goes “And I guess we’ll pro'ly / Just go out and party / All day on this truck.” I made up this community name called the “Truck-bed Party” because of that song. I changed my email newsletter name to the “Truck-bed Party” and about 9 months later, I made an online store named the “Truck-bed Party Store”. I was feeling the pressure to just make a signature song for the name, and so my song, Truck-bed Party, was written on December 1st, 2021.

 

Why did you write Side Effects, and what made you write it?

 

This song wasn’t the only song that I started writing on December 1st, 2021. It’s like Truck-bed Party’s explanatory song for why I said root beer brands and soda brands including A&W, Mountain Dew, and Mug. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so I was taught since I was a kid to not drink and smoke and stuff like that. In the song I sing “At church I learned about some things that set you free like the Word of Wisdom in D&C / Those rules were made a long time ago by the Man Upstairs to a guy nicknames Joe.” I don’t remember exactly what year it was but it was somewhere in the 1800s’ that the Joe (Joseph) Smith received a revelation from the Man Upstairs (God) about the Word of Wisdom, which talks about what is good for our bodies and what we should avoid such as alcohol, tobacco, coffee, drugs, and a few other things. These things can be found in D&C, which is short for the Doctrine & Covenants, a book written by Joseph Smith that us members of the church use as scriptures. At the beginning I say that “If I’m gonna drink a beer, it better say “root” before it,” and “If I’m gonna be smoking, it better be beef.” I include things like that I don’t have a fake ID to go to a bar and that I’ll end up fighting someone and that I’m not gonna be crashing into cars because of it. I just clearly say that “Those things I do reject ‘cause of the side effects.”

 

Why did you write Starring You, and what made you write it?

 

I wrote it basically for the same reasons I did with You Are Perfect in 2019 with my cousin, Denya Ruvalcaba, and in Feel Your Love and Sunset in 2020, from my debut album, Outside. It’s just another one of those love songs that in real life, I’m not dating anybody, but it’s just a really nice song and I thought that this album would feel quite empty without a love song. I wrote it with my best friend Ramon Echavarria. We started writing it in September 2021. I sent him the guitar melody ,and he said that it totally felt like a love song. I hadn’t really focused much in my life since mid-2021 about liking girls, because it has sorta been a distraction from everything else, but after Ramon gave me all these ideas, I started writing it and I took the longest pause in writing it, that I didn’t start focusing on it ’til January 2022. I finished writing it in April 2022 because I didn’t like some specific lyrics I had written in January, so then I sent the new lyrics and a voice memo of the song to Ramon, and he absolutely loved it.

 

Why did you write Toyota Tacoma, and what made you write it?

 

I wrote Toyota Tacoma because it was the kind of truck I came home in from the hospital when I was born. I had been thinking about it for about 3 weeks, and then all of a sudden, I’m sitting on my bed with my guitar, writing lyrics down on my phone. I wrote it on January 12, 2022. I have heard the story of when I was born hundreds of times, that I decided to just once and for all put into a song which is only like 3 minutes long that summarizes everything that happened. So, what made me write it, you say? Let me change “what” for “who.” The pregnant lady and the soon-to-be dad made me write it.

 

Why did you write Unwritten Songs, and what made you write it?

 

Well, I wanted to share with people an experience from a songwriter. I get lots of ideas that can go into songs, but a lot of those ideas just disappear within a couple minutes. I’ve had lyrics come up about my life, a girl, or a situation I was in. Sometimes they weren’t even worth writing down because I didn’t like them, so “all those thoughts go into unwritten songs.”

 

Why did you write Inside, and what made you write it?

 

I wrote Inside because I wanted to. I wrote some things that I was feeling on the inside. I don’t know why I wrote “There’s a fire burning so bright / It’s never gonna stop shining light / I see flames shooting left and right,” but it was what I was feeling at the time to write in the song. There may be a definition that listeners interpret differently than others. I still don’t know what it means. That phrase is where I got the idea to use a picture of my fireplace as the artwork image for the album.

 

Why did you write Inside the album, and what made you write it?

 

Well, I first got the idea when I was making my debut album, Outside, and knew that the second album I was gonna make in the future was already gonna be named Inside. I just knew it. So the whole deal with this album is that I chose to write these songs and put them all together because I wanted to and that’s how I felt on the inside. No one stopped me from doing it, because it was something I really loved doing, and working on it made me happy. All the songs on this album definitely fit the “inside” of me perspective like what I wanted to do and chose to do, so in Texan In Me, it’s being born in Texas. The Other Side (Bilingual) tells of how it takes me a while to get all my thoughts in English over to Spanish. In Bottom of My Pocket I felt that I should write a song about an everyday topic, and that’s how this song came about. Typical Cowboy, I chose to write a second song about my brother for his birthday. When writing Dirt, Tumbleweeds, & Boots with my sister Mia, I knew it just had to be on this album. Pour On This Town, I was dying for it to rain, and I chose to write a song about rain. Redneck Like Me, I wanted to show how redneck I am and to prove you’re redneck like me. In Those Boots, I chose to put it on the album because I loved writing it and having it be on the album would be like that one puzzle piece you’ve been looking for for hours and have finally found it. Truck-bed Party, ‘cause I wanted to make a signature song that would be a bop. Side Effects, just to let y’all know I don’t drink or smoke, and even if I wanted to or did do those things, I’d have to deal with the side effects and life would be absolutely miserable. Starring You, because the album would feel a little off without a love song, so here’s this jam. Toyota Tacoma, I just wanted to summarize my whole birth story. Unwritten Songs, I chose to write a song that would share the experience of a songwriter. And finally, Inside, I don’t think there’s much explaining there to do, but I just wrote literally anything that came to mind and what I was feeling to write.

 

• Therefore, I present to you, my sophomore album: Inside

 

Thanks y’all for reading this self-interview today!