[My mom] said that that’s why people began to notice her as a pilot. ’Cause she’s a girl. But yeah, back to you. [Laughs]

What were we saying? Oh yeah, premium. Yeah, I didn’t wanna be seen as, “Ohhh, poor me. How I got where I was because I’m a young girl.”

Yeah, because when you think about it, everyone’s just a person.

But also, some people find their niche like that. They know it, and they cater themselves to that kind of thing. I didn’t want to make music for people exactly like me. I just wanted to express myself, I guess. It’s funny because a lot of young girls talk to me and say, “You’re making music and you’re a girl!” I’m just like “Ahh…” But also, that’s cool. Even though I wrote a whole talk about not taking the age thing seriously. The fact that people are really passionate at such a young age, and they would wanna do the same thing. That matters more to me than a good review, or sales. The fact that people are inspired to be passionate about something and follow through.

That’s what I got from your TED talk. You have to follow through. You’ll get somewhere, no matter what age you are.

You’ll get somewhere as long as you put in a lot of time and effort. Some people do their research, but they don’t actually put in the time to be bad at it before they’re good at it, which is very frustrating. I was very bad when I started, when I was playing guitar in my room.

I’m interested in the DIY part of your music setup. Did you start from one thing and did you just build up from there?

When I was 13 or 14, I went to a computer shop and I bought an external sound card because my laptop couldn’t handle recording actual things. I had a MacBook Air. I had a dumb auxiliary cable like the ones you connect to your stereo. And I had an adapter, and I’d connect it to my guitar. Ever since then, I would find crude solutions to the things I wanted to do. Before I would load my tracks into a looper, and I’d just loop and loop and loop them. That’s how I started, and that’s when I figured I’d be OK solo. I’d play in bands before, and I used to be in a band. When I was starting to play solo, I had to figure out how to do it on my own. So I would connect an electric drum set and a keyboard—from my childhood, by the way—into this looper and I would just play on the fly.

But also, when I started earning money, I would buy secondhand electronics off the internet and off friends, too. Now, my setup looks like a spaceship module. It kind of looks like I’m trying to pilot something because there’s a lot of things, and they all serve a dedicated function. It reminds me of having a band, ’cause they all have their parts. Like, this plays the rhythm part, the bass part. They’re like, atmospheric things.

How did you know what to get? You just researched…

Yeah. I spent a lot of time being on the internet, looking at tutorial videos and gear videos and be like, “I wish I could buy that, but I literally have no money.” But I found ways to make it happen. One of my favorite things is my mixer. I run everything through this mixer from the early 2000s. You know how everyone is on everyone’s laptops? I have nothing against that, because that’s how I make my music, too—I connect a controller to my laptop. When I perform, it’s very analog. Everything is pre-loaded and mapped in my head. Sample loops are already on loopers, samples are already on samplers. I don’t wanna just press play and like, “Yay!” There’s a certain performance element to it. I try to balance everything I’m doing by doing everything on the fly. It basically looks like I’m piloting a spaceship. But that mixer in particular has a chaos pad where you can record stuff and do effects real-time with this touch pad. It’s the early 2000s though, when people had to DJ with CDs. It’s called a CDJ, and it’s from Newmark, and it’s red, and it’s awesome. I got it from this guy named Diego Castillo, a member of Sandwich, a legendary band here in the Philippines. He gave it to me at a friend price—ridiculously cheap, and I couldn’t let go of it ever since. It’s so important to me. I think that encapsulates how I feel about my gear in general. Most of it is secondhand. I would go on eBay or second-hand shops. I would work it into my routine. Now it’s like, seamless. If I break my laptop, it’s OK. I have a flight case filled with my life’s work. They all have their own stories.

I think that a lot of people don’t understand electronic music because they think, “Oh, you’re just pressing buttons.” And you have to record it onto the system, right?

Yeah, and you have to loop it. And I have to sing at the same time. It’s not like you’re listening to the album on your earphones. You’re watching live. My live performances are very seamless. I don’t talk as much anymore in between my songs. When I play my music live, versus when you actually listen to the album, it’s still in order, and has that feeling of immediacy. There you go! I try to make it happen. I try to switch it up every time, and it’s nice. It’s really different. When I sing on the tracks in the album, it was more reserved…

I noticed that it’s louder.

Yeah, I put myself in it more. I sing more emotionally. You know how method actors are like, [in a deep voice] “OK, I’m just gonna [put myself in it]”? For 30 seconds, I try to really feel it a bit. I don’t know. It sounds really pretentious, so I make sure that people get their money’s worth.

What would you say to people who would like to get into your kind of music as well?

Don’t be afraid of YouTube. [Laughs] Go on forums. If you’re very passionate about your current ambition, there’s nothing limiting you from doing anything. The internet is full of…You look at a meme, and you’re like, “Disgusting, I hate the internet.” But then you have so many people who are kind enough to show you how to do certain things. It’s still for money, but the internet on the flipside is also so informative. So there’s literally nothing stopping you from doing what you want to do. And when you think about it that way, aside from your own self-esteem issues, it’s there. You just have to devote a lot of time and patience, and again, allow yourself to be bad at it. Allow yourself to be confident. Allow yourself to be more self-assured. Because you kind of know. When you’ve found your passion, when you actually wanna do it, allow yourself to take yourself seriously. ♦