After following up her much-loved 2022 EP 'u were a fucked up fantasy' with a string of vibrant efforts throughout this year, Slovakian artist Vanessa Weisz continues her dynamic ascent once again on the immersive new single 'child of insecurity'.
Capturing more of that broad and compelling alt-pop aesthetic she has been building for herself, 'child of insecurity' makes for a brilliantly bold and inventive listen. With its raw and driven production perfectly elevating her sweeping voice from start to finish, she is cementing herself as one of the more captivating names doing the rounds right now.
So with the new single available to stream now, we sat down with her to find out more about her origins and what has been inspiring her most recently.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
If we don’t consider ‘voice’ to be an instrument in this case but rather something physical, it would have to be a soprano flute. I got it as a gift when I was about five or six years old and I really loved playing it. The thing with me and instruments is that I never really learned to play in the conventional way by using note sheets – even though I did learn music theory later on when I was trying my hand out in guitar and piano – I was more of the ‘listen, get the melody inside your brain, then repeat’ type of learner. I’ve always either immersed myself in things completely to the point of it being a bit obsessive perhaps, or on the opposite side, if I didn’t deem something stimulating or challenging enough, I couldn’t force myself into it, no matter how hard I tried. That’s probably why only certain songs that I felt a special connection to stuck and others didn’t.
What kind of music did you love when you were younger?
I grew up watching Disney Channel a lot, haha. Back then, it was called ‘Jetix’, and I have a younger sister so it was so revealing that we were pretty hooked on all the rising ‘Disney stars’ and their musical soundtracks don't really come as a surprise. Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez & The Scene, Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers, you know the gist. That’s what my childhood consisted of, but on the other side there was also a lot of ABBA, Michael Jackson, Modern Talking, Madonna, Rihanna and the 80s/90s music influence present in our household coming from my parents’ side.
What was the first album you remember owning?
Beyoncé – Lemonade. I got it as a Christmas present and I absolutely adored it, from the song choices on there to the design. I don’t know what it was exactly about that album but I remember having a brief thought “How cool would it be to have an album like this out one day?” when I first held it. Beyoncé was also the first concert I ever went to and to this day, I have so much adoration for her both as an artist because she can put on a terrific show but also as a human being for remaining genuine and authentic to herself.
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
As of right now, “Dying Star by Ashnikko (feat.Ethel Cain)” immediately comes to mind. It’s really strange but I intimately relate to every single word in that song, paralleling it to my own life, even though someone else that I have zero correlation with has written it. It’s not anything unusual to relate to a lyric, we all have some general internalized surviving patterns, emotions, thoughts, ideas etc. that each one of us can more or less relate to on a certain level but when I first heard this song I was like “This. This is exactly how I’ve been feeling my whole life,” but I just wasn’t able to put it into a compact ‘shape’ until I heard someone else say it.
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
Music is a huge part of my life, I literally sing everywhere when I’m alone – while driving a car, showering, even cleaning the house, haha, and sometimes, I get these random bursts of inspiration where I’ll be walking my dogs across the city for example and a sentence, a melody or a hook hits me – hence the reason why I have so many voice notes recorded on my phone. However, my process of creation varies a lot. I’m a firm believer in quality over quantity at this point of my career and I do need periods of time where I’m not creating and I get to just live life, so when the period of psychotic frenzy comes and I completely cut myself off from the rest of the world – barely sleeping and eating and communicating with people or whatever else because I’m so focused on creating – I have a lot of inspiration to pull from. It’s probably not healthy to be so laser-focused on things but as I mentioned before, I’m the kind of person who either gets consumed by something entirely or couldn’t be bothered by it, there’s not really an in-between for me and I’m trying to work on that.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
I like to think of myself as a versatile listener because I listen to literally everything – pop, rap, indie, hip-hop, techno, electronics, experimental dream pop, etc. – it all depends on my mood, really. Lately, I’ve been listening a lot to FKA Twigs, Bicep, Tash Sultana, Alina Pash, Jorja Smith, Chromatics, Sofia Isella – she’s hands down an effing lyrical genius.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
This is an extremely tough question because there are so many people I adore musically. I can’t pick just one so my top three choices would be: Lana Del Rey, Aurora, Tove Lo?
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
For me it's self-expression. Being authentic and vulnerable and healing myself through that thanks to not repressing anything that I’m feeling. I think it takes a lot of courage to split yourself open like that, letting people inside your mind, showing them what you’re really about but I think it’s also very important to do that nowadays because there’s just too many people out there putting their personas instead of their genuine selves on display. I don’t mean this to come off as selfish or conceited but I started writing music for myself, as a sort of therapy, so when I see people connecting with me on that level, it truly means the world to me. There’s a satisfaction in knowing that someone somewhere feels the same way. We’re in this together.
And what is the most frustrating part?
That would probably be the whole ‘marketing and social media strategy’ aspect. I hate feeling like I’m forced to sell myself on the internet in order to get my music in front of people but it’s a very thin ice that every artist is skating on because you have to promote your work somehow and when you’re independent, it’s even harder in my opinion because you have to take care of it all. Also, the amount of how much of yourself you really want to ‘show’. I value my privacy but I also don’t want to feel like my public presence is completely different from who I am as a person.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
I’m a huge perfectionist and I struggle to feel completely satisfied with anything that I do because I have incredibly high demands on myself but I was having a conversation with my sister recently about feeling like an imposter at times because I wasn’t born into artistic family and growing up, art felt like something I had to fight for— I felt so out of place among my peers who had different interests and I used to water down my passions in order to fit in and be accepted. I was telling her that I feel like I could do better, I should already be further along in my career, planning ahead long-term, pushing myself more, and even contemplating stuff like “But do I have what it takes to get where I want to go? Am I talented enough? Do I believe in myself enough? Or is this just an irrational childish dream?” and she told me something along the lines “Don’t get so caught up in things that don’t really matter, just be who you feel you are in that moment, freely. Focus on what you want to say with your music. Be a good person – be good and do good, and stay true to yourself – not everyone is going to like you or what you bring to the table and that’s okay. You won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but that just makes you more unique to those who will fall in love with your being, so stop overly obsessing over yourself.” It did strike a nerve because it’s so easy to fall into that pit where you start downplaying yourself and comparing your journey to someone else’s, which then makes you feel like you’re not good enough but when you take a step back and look at it objectively, you do realize that there are far, far more important things out there than dissecting every single thing you do.
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Vanessa Weisz's new single 'child of insecurity' is available to stream now. Watch the new video for it in the player below.