Poesy, by definition, is “a poem or body of poems”. Poesy, the artist, is the embodiment of that and a musical prowess you’ll never forget. With the release of her new single “Diamonds”, Poesy shows her vulnerable side that works as “a little love letter to myself to be a bit more gentle”, which is definitely something we can all relate to in 2020.
The message of your new single “Diamonds” is one that’s needed more and more these days. Is this the type of song that just flowed out of you or was it an idea you held onto for a while?
A little of both. I find songs are like little time capsules of where you were in your life at that time – so there are always similar themes coming up. I wrote Diamonds almost two years ago and it was during a time in my life when I felt so much pressure to adhere to some kind of prescribed timeline of what I ‘should’ be doing. And I think a lot of my friends felt it too, but as soon as we started writing it, it came very naturally – almost like a little love letter to myself to be a bit more gentle.
The video for the song takes place in such a magical forest wonderland; what was the inspiration for this setting?
Diamonds is very much a transition piece into what you can expect in 2021. So when I started planning the video with my wonderful Director/Producer Kate Harrison, we knew it had to take place outside, somewhere that felt isolated and primed for discovery. I feel most grounded in nature and we really wanted to capture the journey of self-healing and rebirth that you hear in Diamonds – so the forest was a natural fit! It’s filmed at my keyboardist Will’s family cottage and we couldn’t have asked for a better set.
I assume being signed to a label after winning The Launch was one of the biggest takeaways, but any other lessons learned on the show that you’ve held onto?
Be assertive. Nobody is going to care about your art more than you do and no one is going to advocate for you better than you can. That is a lesson that took me a while to learn, but it’d be the first thing I’d tell any young artist.
You have these fantastic ’90s-grunge elements to your music; who were the artists that inspired this sound in you?
Thank you! I grew up listening to Radiohead, Nirvana, NIN, Alanis, Annie Lennox, and Kate Bush (I know those last two are technically ‘80s, but you get the idea). I’m a very gentle person, but I also have a real angsty side to me, which I think is where that pull to 90s-grunge comes from. I like the idea that music can be messy and imperfect and still totally unbelievable and to me, that’s what grunge is. Just 150% emotion. Though, I would say the newer stuff coming in 2021 will have flares of many different decades.
What are your plans for the next six months?
COVID has really changed a lot of things in terms of the music industry, but it’s also really opened up a lot of different avenues for me – namely, giving me so much time to write! Over the next six months, my keyboardist Will O’Donnell and I are working with a few other wonderful collaborators on another EP (which you can expect to start hearing at the start of 2021). I’ve got a whole new team around me now who I feel are the perfect fit for what I want to accomplish at this point and I’m really psyched to be telling this new story. I’ve also become a lot more interested in video (since live performance is currently on hold), so we’ll also be working with my Director Kate Harrison to produce a bunch of amazing follow-ups to the Diamonds video (maybe even with a few live videos), to fully paint the world I imagine these songs taking place in.