Interview: sora
In the musical metropolis of New Orleans, it’s easy to be typecast into a genre. For the young pop songwriter sora, labels are meant to be broken.
Forging his own path, sora takes a timeless approach by taking emotional and personal experiences and bringing them to life, using a vast arsenal of sounds and influences and unique, striking visuals. The end result is pop rock for the digital age. Alt-pop made easy.
With a heart as big as his sound, this up-and-coming pop sensation is ready to show the world what he's made of.
We had the pleasure of checking in with sora recently and he was kind enough to respond to a few interview questions.
Hi sora, congrats on your new single "Sugar Pop" and thanks for taking the time for a few interview questions!
Heyhey! Of course, thanks so much for having me today! Always down to kiki over an interview.
What can you tell us about the creative process this time around? We love the promo shots!
Aah, thank you so much! I'm really happy with how everything turned out, and I definitely could not have done it without my best friend and longtime collaborator Sam Morel. Love you bestie!
In general, I always like to make sure that a release is a complete package, not only sonically but also visually. A lot of times I'll go into it with everything in mind, how I want the artwork and music video to look and what all I want to do with the song. With this release, I worked a lot more closely with Sam in terms of fleshing out the fine details, which isn't anything new for us, but the energy he brought to the table really gave life to "Sugar Pop" overall, so I'm grateful for that.
Tell us about the music video, what can readers expect to see?
I love me a good storyline moment, and this video allowed me to bring that aspect back to the forefront. When Sam heard that this was effectively the Halloween single, he wanted to bring more of that spooky element into the overall visual concept, so what better way than to make the video about a magical boy in love? It was really fun to shoot, just prancing all over my friend's bedroom, playing dress-up and being silly. I also brought back a character from the PARAMOUNT era, which was my first full-length album, so tying that into the new project felt like a cute Easter egg moment. Special shout-out to my friend Al for letting me into his home for the filming, as well as cameoing in the video!
What's the inspiration for this song? What about for the artwork, where did that idea come from?
So I was messaging one of my friends one day, and he opened up the conversation by saying "Hey sugar pop, how are you?" It really tickled me because it was so cute and made me feel cute, like I was legitimately giddy for a few days after that. So I strived to capture that feeling of just being really happy in the feels, and as much as sadboi writing comes so naturally for me, I really wanted to have this kind of overly sweet track in my discography, so it felt like a perfect opportunity. I'm so happy it came to fruition; I've been working on it for I wanna say two years now at least?
So to give you some context, my current musical project, VOL.24, isn't really an album per se moreso a single-a-month project, and I've had things planned out until at least halfway into next year. When I was trying to figure out what song to have for October, I was torn between Sugar Pop and another track that was a lot darker, sexier and brooding, which would still be perfect for the Halloween season. Ultimately I figured having something more lighthearted would be a lot more fun, but the other track will be a great V-Day counterpart (spoiler alert hehe).
To tie in the overall vibe, we went with this super cute candy vampire look. We both felt that going with this sort of creepy-cute image was the perfect blend, similar to J-Pop musician Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's visuals. I grew up with an immense love for Japanese street fashion, so we incorporated decora styling within the pastel hair and hairclips, as well as bringing a touch of lolita fashion with the frilly blouse and vest combo. The result is a single artwork as sweet as the song.
Tell us about the production of "Sugar Pop," did you do it yourself or did you work with a team?
"Sugar Pop" marks the second song that I produced. I primarily focused on the sound design and songwriting of the song, with Sam on board for co-writing the lyrics. I also asked Elliot Lakefield and Rusty to help me with the mixing and mastering. Elliot previously helped me mix and master my last full single, "Over," and Rusty featured me on his single "Feelings For Us." He also taught me some mixing tricks for my last track, "Ida -interlude-," as well as mastered that one. They're all dear friends to me, and insanely talented, so I couldn't have asked for a better group to work with.
I really wanted to have like a pop pop track (it's even in the name!), so with "Sugar Pop" I focused on making it sound as bright and happy as possible. One of my favorite parts of the song are the small sound effects I managed to sneak in; you can hear the audible biting, the soda pop blips, and the extra energetic vocal bytes sprinkled all throughout, which really add to the personality. And honestly, these last few days I've had it stuck in my head, especially while driving (prime music-listening time for me), so I can't wait to unleash it on the world and infect everyone with this lil' sweet bop.
Thank you for catching us up sora! Where can our readers find you online, and where can they stream "Sugar Pop"?
My handle is @soracalling across all social media platforms (Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok), so definitely stop by and say hi! Sugar Pop will be released October 15th on all streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, and more, and the music video will be up on YouTube! Hope y'all enjoy it, and let me know what you think!
Have a listen and connect with sora on social media:
