The online column “Piazza Navona” returns to talk about music with an exclusive interview with Chloé Bird, the famous Spanish composer and singer-songwriter who came to success thanks to YouTube.
Chloé Bird is a singer-songwriter – born in 1991 – native of Cáceres, Spain. She studied piano in the Conservatoire and Dramatic Art. Her success arrives thanks to YouTube and her videos singing and playing famous covers.
Chloé Bird is also a composer and she has created the soundtracks for some plays such as La clase de los niños raros, M.C. Manco y de La Mancha, Ninonita y Cesáreo en el misterio de los juegos perdidos.
In 2015 she recorded her first album titled The darkest corners of my soul followed in 2017 by her second album The Light in Between.
Let’s listen to what this young Spanish artist has to tell us about her great passion in her life and her work.
- When did you decide to become a singer?
If I think about it, I’ve always wanted to be a singer. I remember singing and dancing and playing the piano from a very early age. It was like my secret dream. I grew up and, although I keep studying piano, I focused on science, drawing and maths to become an architect. The last year of high school, I decided to quit what I was doing and take a sabbatic year. My parents, wisely advised me to continue studying and doing something creative to clear my mind, and I started Dramatic Arts at a new college in my hometown, Cáceres. Studying theatre I realized music was my true passion and I turned that dream I always had into reality.
- You began your career by playing guitar and piano and putting your video on Youtube. Could you tell me more about your début?
As almost everything important that has happened in my life, my début arrived by chance. I uploaded some videos on my YouTube Channel without telling anyone, because I was too embarrassed to do so. One of the covers I sang became really famous and the video went viral among the people near me. One day, I received a phone call from a music promoter, offering me to play in his music festival. And from then until now, I have made music my way of living.
- You are a composer, too. Is it different to create music for you and for short films?
When I make original soundtracks, I focus more on the ambient and the feeling a particular scene needs. When making my own music, I have more freedom to express through music what I want to say.
- In 2015 you released your first album The darkest corners of my soul and in your work Un mundo de niños raros you sing in Spanish. Could you tell me more about them?
The darkest corners of my soul was a very deep, emotional and personal album. I was going through a tough time and that feeling is captured in every song of that album. Fortunately, this work has brought a lot of joy to my life, my career and my achievements as a musician.
Un mundo de niños raros (A world of weird children) is the first album where I sing entirely in Spanish. It is based on the poems of Raúl Vacas, a well-known poet from Salamanca, Spain. It has been such an experience to create music for already-made lyrics, a really fun process. And singing for children and their parents is amazing. I never thought about making music for the little ones, they are a very difficult public, really sincere, but I am very pleased with this work. It is a bright, fun and crazy album, and my aim was to reclaim the oddity everybody has and be proud of it and being enthusiastic about being different.
- I love your song Fade and its videoclip, too. You received so many awards for it. What about your emotions? How was born this song? And what about the idea for this videoclip?
The process with Fade was very particular. Ainhoa Rodríguez, the director, and I, had several meetings to work together, and she proposed me to make a song for a story that hadn’t been defined yet at that point, but had some things clear like it was going to be a story about and old woman. I made Fade, a dark song about Alzheimer watched from the perspective of the person that suffers this disease. The short film came after, and Ainhoa created the story from the song.
The story the video narrates is a totally different story, but it suits perfectly. It is about an elder lady that breaks free after the death of her husband and rebels against an oppressive society having a sexual fantasy. The piece was so interesting I decided to include the song in my album The darkest corners of my soul and use Ainhoa’s short film as a music video.
- What is the Music for you?
Is a passion, a way of life and a way of understanding the world we live in.
