Disco Shrine Shines With New Music and Upcoming EP
I was finally lucky enough to meet Disco Shrine while she was in the East Coast on tour! She’s a self-proclaimed "Persian-American Valley Girl" and her electro/pop music is fun and guaranteed to make you dance. We caught up to talk about what’s next for her, including new music videos and a new EP due near the end of the year. Check out an excerpt from our chat and scroll down to listen to the full interview. You’ll also get a sneak preview of her brand new song, Power!
PR: Who are some of your musical inspirations?
DS: My mom was a classic rock sweetheart, so I grew up listening to U2 and Tom Petty and all of the classics. My sister was a 90’s kid and took me to Madonna concerts, Avril Lavigne, and Justin Timberlake so I feel like I’ve gotten an eclectic history growing up. Now I think the people that I still tend to love are people that are kind of similar to me so I’ve been listening to a lot of Empress Of.
PR: Can you tell me a little about your touring schedule?
DS: So I just went on a cute little mini tour and it was really fun! It was a half DJ tour and half live show. I went to Chicago, San Francisco, LA, NYC, Brooklyn, and going to DC on Friday. It’s been fun and so cool doing all of these shows in less than two weeks. I love playing shows and playing my own music and visiting different cities because every city has such a different vibe.
PR: What can people expect from your live shows? They look so fun!
DS: I live for my live shows! It’s fun, I like to keep the crowd constantly surprised. I basically start off pretty simple, me and a drummer and a keyboardist. Throughout the show, I’ll bring different people and different artists in and out. One thing that I’ve loved that I’ve been doing for a few months now is bring out a sax player, Steven. I always introduce him like, “this is my sexy sax player Steven!” It’s cool because I don’t have sax on any of my songs on the recorded tracks, but it brings such a cool live element and it goes with the songs so well. I feel like saxophone and pop should be a marriage.
PR: Who would be on your dream tour?
DS: Oh my god, that’s crazy. I am obsessed with Gwen Stefani. She’s another one of those artists that my sister got me into when I was really young. I’ve been so obsessed with her my whole life. I used to tell myself before I started a show, “channel Gwen Stefani.” The one thing I love about her is that pop artists like to be a very pretty, perfect pop, and she’s not afraid to be ugly, which I love. I love being grungy and ugly and a don’t give a fuck kind of attitude on stage.
PR: What was one of your favorite places to perform?
DS: Santa Monica Pier was kind of like a dream for me, because Santa Monica Pier is iconic for Persians. I remember when my family first came to America, I was watching VHS tapes of them and that’s the first place they came to. They would always go on the weekends and hang out and picnic on the beach. Even when I was born, so many of my childhood videos were at the Pier, so being able to perform there as an adult and have my mom and sister there was a tearjerker for me.
PR: Can you tell me about the meaning behind Up in the Air?
DS: I wrote Up In The Air right after Thanksgiving as the Trump election was happening and I realized I never asked my parents the whole story about how they immigrated to America. I sat my dad down, gave him a strong drink, and I asked him a million questions. The story was crazy, my dad was a political journalist and he was imprisoned in Iran for criticizing the government. He eventually had to escape with my mom and thy traveled all throughout Europe trying to find a way into America. He befriended someone in the government and their plane ride was literally on a military plane where the seats were on the side of the plane and I was so moved by how much they had to do just to come to America and everything they went through to get their family here for a chance for a better life. Up In The Air just kind of flooded out of me when I got to the studio with my friend Sam. Up In The Air is symbolic of that plane ride of them literally up in the air but also figuratively once they got here having to start a new life and everything being up in the air.
PR: When do we get to see the music video for your single Alright with UNBLOOM?
DS: So we have a music video that we shot. It’s so cute, very pink and girly. It’s coming out in a few weeks! It was shot in LA and the story behind it is me and a bunch of badass women having a pseudo sleepover having a fun time. It’s going against the grain because sleepovers are considered the stereotypical thing that girls do when they get together, so we are taking the power back.
PR: Is Alright part of a future project that you’re working on?
DS: I have been writing a lot of music lately that I’m really excited about. I’ve been writing with these two amazing producers, Waine Musix and Tay Dex. I’m excited because I have an EP that I’m in the works and finishing a few songs right now. Hopefully I’ll have an EP out if not by the end of this year, then the beginning of next year. The vibes are definitely more of an R&B laid back kind of pop.
PR: So I was very lucky to listen to a new song of yours off your new EP. Can you tell me about your song Power?
DS: This new song I’m really excited about. I think it’s a good follow up to Alright because it’s just as empowering. I wrote it with my good friends Magdalena Bay, we just performed it for the first time at Santa Monica Pier. We shot a music video for it already, and it’s basically about losing yourself as an artist, human, or as a person. It’s about feeling lost and maybe you don’t know the right direction to take. It’s about saying I have the power to change my future and tell myself that I can do it, and I’m going to take the power back.
Listen to our full interview below to hear even more about Disco Shrine and check out a sneak preview of her brand new song, Power!
Follow Disco Shrine on social media @discoshrine
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