It’s a gorgeous morning in rising Los Angeles-based act Somme’s home neighborhood of Eagle Rock. A community parked between better-known giants, Glendale and Pasadena, it’s a gem not to be looked over. With cult-status businesses like video store Vidiots, or bar/restaurant Capri Club with its family-style Lasagna Mondays, Eagle Rock has a unique character, attracting artists and art enthusiasts alike. Somme was gracious enough to show me some of her favorite neighborhood haunts, as well as introduce me to her fiancée, Zoë, and their two cats, Boy and Girl.
Somme is no stranger to the music world. “I have been writing music for as long as I can remember,” she says, “I started using the stage name Somme at nineteen.” Somme got involved in audio engineering early in her career, which taught her the ins and outs of music production, as well as the dark side of the industry. With years of artistic evolution and a deep knowledge of the music business, she has since made waves in the indie pop world. Somme has released three incredible EPs, she’s performed all over L.A. (including the historic El Rey Theatre), and even had her song Goin’ On featured on Hulu’s Good Trouble. Most exciting of all, though, is her upcoming album. We caught up with Somme to discuss the industry, new music, her process, and more.
What was the first song you ever wrote? And what was it about?
I have no idea. I mean, I'm sure it was really stupid, haha. I think when I was younger, and I first started out, I didn't really understand what exactly I was writing. At that point I was just trying to write music that sounded like other music that I liked. The way that I've thought about songwriting has obviously evolved a lot since I first started, and now I enjoy creating stories within my songs. I still do like to write songs that sound good for the sake of sounding good. They don't have to necessarily always be deep or meaningful.
Oh, absolutely. What is the story behind “Somme”?
Once I had an EP that I felt proud of, I was like, okay, well, now I need to make a name. And I didn't have any ideas. I was driving from San Diego to L.A. and listening to a song by the band Refused, which is a Swedish rock band. They're super epic. One of their songs had the word “pome” in it. I was looking at it on the screen, and was like, oh, like, I kind of like that. I think it would look cooler if there was another m. However after looking it up, I found that there was a French artist with a huge following called Pomme. Someone I was working with at the time was like, why don't you just put the “s” at the beginning. And I was like, cool, great. And that's how it came to be. People tell me different meanings for it all the time, which I think is cool. You can assign your own meaning to it. To me, it’s just a name.
Who are your biggest musical influences? How have they shaped your sound?
Definitely Paramore– they’ve grown so much as a band over the years, and I feel as though I grew alongside them. Every time I think that I've grown out of Paramore, they put an album out that completely blows me away. I would also say Radiohead. I mean, they're probably my favorite band of all time.
You have been based in L.A. for quite awhile now. What do you love most about living here?
Anything you could ever need is in Los Angeles! You're close to the mountains, you're close to the ocean, and you're close to the desert. Overall, the state of California is the greatest place on Earth, you cannot change my mind. I had an opportunity to move to New York for work awhile back, but when I actually thought about living there, I'm like, sounds exhausting.
As a New Yorker, it is exhausting for sure, haha. Which of your songs is your favorite to perform live?
I've kind of been in a bit of a live performance drought, but I'm super excited to play more shows next year. I think the new record is going to be so fun to play live. A lot of the songs are a lot more live instrument heavy, and rock guitar heavy, so it’ll be super high energy and fun to play live.
You have a lot of experience working in the music industry, and have been exposed to the not-so-pretty side of the business. Tell me more about that, and how it’s been finding your own voice through it all.
I spent many years (basically my entire early 20s), pushing myself beyond my capacity to to “make it” in the music industry. Which, by music industry standards, is all about numbers and dollar signs, etc, etc. But after years of overexerting myself, music was not fulfilling to me anymore, or fun. At that point, it was all about business. There's always going to be people in the business who see you as a product, and not as an artist or a person– they see you as something that they can sell, and make money off of. I feel that the music industry is not an artist-friendly place anymore. It's impossible to make profit from streaming, so many artists go on tour thinking they can make money from that, but there are so many expenses from tour that you barely break even. The one independent tour that I went on, I ended up losing money. Following that, I've had to completely reframe what music means to me. I learned a lot from those experiences, I became a much better engineer. I learned so much about engineering, production, songwriting, different personalities, and how to manage all of those, which was valuable to me in the end. I now have the privilege of only doing music when it feels good to me. I’ve taken the pressure off of myself. I just do what feels good and what feels fun, which is making music with my buddy Jordan Krimston, who I made this album with. It’s all about finding people that you feel comfortable to write and express yourself with, and just be stupid with.
I am so excited to finally listen! Tell me more about the album, and what’s next for you.
The whole record is about my past relationship kind of falling apart. The song Wake Up, which will soon be released as a single, I was one of the first songs I wrote for the album. At first, I couldn't quite finish the lyrics, it was probably like half written. Fast forward to like, a month or two ago, I'm wrapping up the album, and I’m like, I really like that song, but the lyrics just don’t feel right. I was so stuck on finishing it. My fiancée, Zoë, is an incredible writer, and she’d been wanting to write a song with me. We always joked about it, and I wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. I was like, “would you gonna like try and help me finish this song?” and it is probably some of the best work on the album. It’s kind of funny that it's about my ex, but it's written from a perspective that I think most people have been in before– realizing your relationship is over and that you need to break up with your partner. I remember being in songwriting sessions in my early 20s where people would constantly be talking about “oh, the algorithm this,” or “oh, if you want to get onto a Spotify playlist, then you need to do that” and X, Y, and Z. At the end of the day, I just care about the music. This time around, I'm excited to not care about that stuff, and just put the music out. I’m finally in a place where I’m sharing music that I'm really proud of, and that I really love. ❤
STORY CREDITS
PHOTOGRAPHER Kate Berry, TALENT Somme, ART DIRECTOR Cecilia Smith, HAIR Cristina Goode, MAKEUP Mariah Valdez,
PRODUCER Cecilia Smith, STYLING Talent’s Own
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