Simon Interviews Cecily Renns

Cecily Renns is one of the artists in the South-Korean indie-rock and emo scene that have been getting a lot of attention in the past few years. Her powerful voice and catchy hooks are as iconic as can be. She is also a good friend of mine! This sunday, the 29th of october, I conducted an interview with her which you can check out right below!

SIMON: hi Cecily! great to have you here, thank you for showing up :)

CECILY: Hi simon! of course!!! thanks for having me as the first one.

S: when i had the idea, you were the first person in my mind!!

C: Hell yeah >:)

S: so, for the first question, i'd like to start with something simple. what would you say have been your favorite albums this year so far?

C: My favourites have been the new Parannoul album, After the Magic, Biddy Fox's album BIDDY FOX 1000, and Wapddi's EP "Ah I've been thrown out", and HELLMODE by Jeff Rosenstock! Tons of other good ones that's come out this year too, I think it's been a great year for indie music.

S: it seems so! i haven't listened to a lot of stuff from 2023, but HELLMODE and After The Magic are definitely highlights.

C: Yeah i loooove those.

S: it's great that you mentioned Jeff Rosenstock, because that leads into my next question!! 

S: i know you're a huge fan of his work, and i'm also aware that one of your favorite artists is the great Patricia Taxxon. between the two, who would you say inspires your music the most, as a whole? (and i'm also including Jeff's other bands, specially Antarctigo Vespucci)

C: Oh this is a hard question. Songwriting wise, Jeff Rosenstock definitely inspires me more, while Patricia has influenced my production and general philosophy when it comes to art. I also discovered Patricia earlier, but nowadays I listen to Jeff's music way more, so generally I think Jeff's work is more reflected on my albums, but Patricia's albums (especially her older albums) have great nostalgia for me.

C: If I could say someone else though, the works of Jeff Burgess (AKA Just Fern) are the most influential music to my art, I think. He's a lesser known indie artist, used to make a lot of My Little Pony fan music, but his songwriting and lyrics have been the most inspiring for me throughout my music career. We've worked a lot together too, which for me is kinda the equivalent of getting to make a song with Will Toledo or Kanye West. It's a crazy thing lol, you can't believe how much it meant for me

S: i totally get the feeling. that would be like if i made a song with Devi Mccallion :'), i'm glad you had this opportunity!!

S: and for my next question: when it comes to lyrics, do you prefer writing in korean like your older songs, or in english?

C: I think for music, I like writing in English more, because singing in English is more fun. English has a very rhythmical feel to it, like every emphasis feels really fun to sing. I like writing in Korean when I'm writing prose, like writing a novel... this is why when I write lyrics in Korean, it's less poetic and more direct.

C: I think Korean is a beautiful language, I love studying it and figuring out the grammar and syntax, trying to write sentences that sound really nice. For English, I actually really hate how the language is structured, it's so random and chaotic and not fun to learn, lol. I just like singing in it, talking in English is always fun and so is singing.

S: i actually completely agree! i usually write in English because it feels nicer to sing, but the structure is too chaotic, so when i want something simpler and more direct, i go for portuguese.

S: now, back onto your inspirations, are there any pieces of media outside music (such as films and videogames) that inspire your art?

C: Well obviously there is Homestuck lol. It's good imo I like it a lot.

C: Books also inspire me a lot, I'm really more of a writer than a musician, is how i think of myself. I love the works of Kurt Vonnegut, his books always fill me with a lot of hope and humanity.

S: i've never heard of this "Homestuck" thing before, but i have a feeling i wouldn't like it very much.

C: You would HATE it. HATE it. Hate that stupid idiot from it... david striker...

S: that's such a stupid name, i can't believe someone would even use it! 

S: jokes aside, my next question IS about Homestuck. what exactly is your favorite thing about it, and why?

C: That is the million dollar question isn't it lol.

C: I read homestuck when I was 13, so when I was about the kids age, and I related to them a lot I guess. It was a story unlike anything I've seen, there were so many cool music and animation and multimedia stuff to it. It's also genuinely very well written, both as a drama and a comedy, which is really hard for anything to achieve.

C: I do agree with a lot of people that it gets worse, but I've always defended Act 6 and 7 as having their fun moments, and they have some of my favourite characters too. I think my favourite thing is either the characters or the music, they're both really good and why I kept reading!

S: i would say for me is the same. i've always been drawn to media that focuses on well-written characters and that's probably the biggest part of HS. i didn't read it when i was younger, but i feel (and know) that it has been alongside me during all this time... sort of like Lord English himself!

C: Exactly! He's my fav character actually, or Caliborn, he's just like me I think.

S: LOL, that's something i don't see often hahah.

C: I'm like Caliborn if he was trans (which I think he actually is, like for real, so no difference). I related to him the most 7 years ago and I still do!!!! Very relatable struggles as another ARTIST myself.... So many haters around here...

S: hell yeah. the struggle is real asf. now, let's change the subject to something else i know you like: videogames. what games have you been playing lately? any favourites from those?

C: I got a new graphics card (RX 6600 XT) JUST to play Starfield.... And it sucked man. It was not worth it. I wanted to play Skyrim instead lol. So I'm just playing my usual favourites. FTL, Slay the Spire, Terraria... Ah, one of my new indie favourites is FEAR & HUNGER though. Amazing RPG maker survival horror thing. It's so fucked up.

S: i've heard a lot of bad things about Starfield, so F about that. i saw you talking about F&G on twitter! that really is a one-of-a-kind game, which i will probably never ever play due to me being such a noob.

C: Yeah might be a game that's more fun to watch videos about haha.

S: true that!

S: getting back to your music, i think most of your listeners know about your 2021 "one album every month" marathon. i was curious to know: which one is your favourite, and why?

C: I have a few favourites! My overall favourite was the last one I did, Heart & Soul, as it was a type of album I always wanted to make. I got to combine a lot of different genres and make an actually progressive sounding pop album, something akin to the albums of Porter Robinson and Vylet Pony, who were my big inspirations. Still might be my most proud work!

C: Besides that, I was really happy with the album Lily of the Valley, where I got to collab with a phenomenal vocalist and a good friend of mine, Ucklin. I think her vocal performances combined with some of my best songwriting made for a really standout album, and it's also my most popular album on Spotify so I suppose my most accessible album too haha. I also liked the album The Odyssey of Cyrilia Allison, for the lyrics alone, but I have a lot of regrets about that album and I'd like to re-record it entirely someday.

S: very interesting. some of these i haven't listened yet, but i must agree about The Odyssey of Cyrillia Allison; it's a really interesting album with a very ambitious concept, but sadly ended up sounding not very fleshed out. maybe one day i do a "Cecily Renns discography ranked" list on RYM and voice my opinions about all of that though hehe.

C: That would be awesome :D, I'll have to do the same for you too

S: that would rule!! i'd love to know what you think of my other stuff (as i already know you loved petrikov)

C: I do! I wanted to check out recoil.

S: i highly recommend it-- and not just because i made it hehe. (...)

C: Of course!!! Will get back to you, I think it'll be soon.

S: (...) still on your discography, your next album is coming out somewhat soon isn't it!! can you tell me more about it and its themes?

C: Yeah! Well it's very much inspired by Parannoul's works, especially his new album. In 2021, I heard To See the Next Part of the Dream, and that inspired me to make an album called Childhood Erasure Logs. That wasn't really a shoegaze type of album, it sounded more like Jeff Rosenstock honestly. This album is meant as a sequel to that album, and this time it's a bit more shoegaze and noise pop inspired. (...)

S: that's interesting about Childhood Erasure Logs! it's actually my favorite of your 2021 albums, but i always thought it sounded more like Shinsei Kamattechan.

C: Oh yeah. They are a HUGE influence for both albums. I even cover them in both albums haha. It's a way of connecting the two albums.

C: (...) Thematically I think it's all there in the title, it's called "EVERYONE, LIVE". I hear a lot of my friends talking about their lives, and honestly, it's been a rough couple years for all of us, I think. I hear about suicidal thoughts a lot. Whenever I hear stuff like that, I just wanna grab them and tell them to LIVE!!! So in the title track, that is what I am doing, and that is my purpose for this album. I just wanted to write songs that could perhaps bring comfort and catharsis for anyone who listened. As long as someone is inspired by it, I'll be happy, I think!

S: that's such a humble and kind sentiment! i'm very glad to hear this, as i'm going through some heavy shit right now as well. i'm very excited for the album and the feelings i'll get when listening to it :>

C: Thanks!!! I really hope people enjoy it, it's really personal to me and I put a lot of myself into it.

S: looking forward to it! i'm also aware that there's gonna be a new Midi Bunny album as well. can you tell me about that?

C: We're not too far into the production yet! But we can definitely promise that it'll be even better than the EP. It'll be a concept album about... something, and it'll have a lot of features. We want to work with as many cool people as we can!!!

S: ooh, that sounds awesome!! if you want, i'd love to be a part of it as well :D

C: Of course!!! Would love to have you onboard

S: then it's settled, i'm opening FL right now and already got 2 minutes worth of music for you guys.

C: Hell yeah!!! Haha

S: anyways, onto my final question: what is your favourite album from the year you were born?

C: Ooooh, I'll look into it just a sec.

(She then looked into it.)

C: Ok it tells me Against Me is Reinventing Axl Rose came out on 2002. That's a really good one. I also love Ozma's The Double Donkey Disc, if anyone likes weezer you should check them out. My favourite is the album Hate by The Delgados. I think people probably know about this band because their song The Light Before We Land is the opening song to the anime Gunslinger Girl. It's really good, noisy chamber pop and I've loved it for a long time, real nostalgic stuff for me!!!

S: i'll check all of them out, thank you for the reccs! thank you so much again for talking to me Cecily! it was very fun :) 

S: if i can say a few words, i'm very glad to know you and listen to your music as i think you're one of the most talented and emotionally honest artists in the scene today. you have a very strong and compelling voice and i think more people should hear it!!

C: Thank you so much simon!!!! I'm really glad to be your friend and to have found you!! I dont even remember how it happened, lol. I think it was on twitter?

S: aw, thank you! yes, it was on twitter :D

SIMON: to wrap all this up is there anything else you'd like to say to my readers and your fans?

CECILY: Sure!!! Uhhhhh my album comes out on 11/3, listen to it when it comes out! Check out Simon's stuff too, it's really cool shit. And stream MIDI Bunny. And Free Palestine!!! the genocide in Gaza right now is horrible and everyone needs to be talking about it. That's it for me!!!

SIMON: HELL YEAH!!!!!!

That was the great Cecily Renns! And thank you, for reading all that.

- Simon