FEATURE:
Spotlight
PHOTO CREDIT: Elinor Kry
see her as the sister of Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor), Indy (Yelich) is a superb artist in her own right. One that I want to spotlight here. Again, like I say with many, she has been on the scene a little while. However, I feel that with her new E.P., Fame Is a Bedroom, out in the world, it is a perfect time to feature her. I am going to start out with a feature/interview from Teen Vogue. She discussed her Fame Is a Bedroom E.P. and talked through all of the tracks. I have included her words about the first two singles:
“To Addison Rae, fame is a gun. To 26-year-old singer-songwriter Indy Yelich, fame is a bedroom — one she witnessed take shape firsthand from the moment her sister Ella Yelich-O’Connor launched her public career as Lorde with the 2013 “Royals” music video, set in a suburban bedroom.
It’s also the title of Indy Yelich’s latest EP, out August 1: Fame Is a Bedroom. The title is, in part, a reference to “leaving your identity at the door and being blood and being sisters, and everything else kind of falls away,” she tells Teen Vogue. “It's the emotional tug-of-war of loving a sister who belongs to the public, but learning to trust that private relationship when it feels like the world is watching.”
That’s not to say this EP is wholly about Lorde, or even about fame in a literal sense. The intimacy of sisterhood in the public eye carries over into the idea of knowing someone in a deeper way than other people do, whether it’s a friend, a lover, or a famous sibling. Growing up with people watching — and they’re always watching, even if you’re not a celebrity — changes the way you see the world and your relationships. What once felt like true love can eventually be seen for all its flaws, and how you see yourself at 23 can shift totally by 26. On Fame Is a Bedroom, Yelich processes breakups with friends and the ends of romances, but also an end to a past version of herself.
Below, in her own words, Indy Yelich takes us through the making and meaning of her new EP, from the songwriting to the sound to the Sex and the City references.
Track 1: “Savior”
Sample lyric: “You're 35 and you've got a daughter / How would you feel if this happened to her?”
You know the five stages of grief? I wanted to start on this [moment when] it felt like the end of a formative relationship, and it's the first time I started to see it as it really was. I wanted to come in swinging. I wanted to lay the foundation for Fame Is a Bedroom as, not a violence per se, but a cut you open. And then, as the EP kind of goes on, you're starting to understand what's happening.
Each track is an act of departure, and I feel like this one, sonically, is my most jarring, so by the time the song is done, there's some kind of acceptance in the lyrics. You're going to see me everywhere and all the things I do. I'm going to haunt that bar you like on 7th Avenue. A lot of “Savior” was written in a few dive bars. I would write down notes on little pieces of paper.
It's very raw, the strings are very vulnerable, and it's very rich in imagery. The first post chorus —it's like the gold that I can't get back. I'm 26 now; I started writing it at 24, so it's unlocking this part of me that's very, not just Carrie and Big-coded, but a version of myself that I've had to claw back to. I'm single and I'm very kind of happy in that fact, and it brings back a past version of myself I'm very protective of, I think.
Track 2: “Up in Flames (The Wayland)”
Sample lyric: “I saw you on a date, she’s just as young.”
I can only write as much as I know at the time. “Up in Flames” and “Idol” solidified that for me, because those are songs just written for me truly, down to the co-production, down to using a lot of my vocals, turning them into instruments. It was really important as a 26-year-old for this record, [for me] to write songs that I would want to listen to myself, the kind of inspirations that I like. The ability to enunciate — that was really validating for me because I'm realizing that I'm doing this art, yeah, of course to connect with people, but ultimately it's to make sense of my own experience.
I wrote “Up in Flames” in New York, so that was the one record that was actually written in New York, which I feel like you can tell just because it's so me. I knew that I wanted to have this really sad, kind of dirty, jarring electric guitar, a pulsing synth.
The themes — it's a lot of things. It's borrowing someone else's body to get a new one. It's my part in a fling. It's the first time I'm thinking, I'm not perfect here. I'm essentially, maybe subconsciously, using someone to get over somebody else. The outro, for example, relates to another song.
That outro, that bridge outro, is my favorite work. "Where is that world we lived in? I tried to find my way back / You're on a plane to Reno to meet her mom and dad / You're in my blood now / You're in the taste of everything I miss, so I go back to the Wayland." I felt very Ethel Cain-coded in that bridge.
I co-wrote that song with Gaia Menon and then Noise Club, these two producers I really like. I could hear Gaia singing in the room — the “oh oh oh” part — and I was like, "Gaia, it's really important. Can you sing this on the mic?"
“Up in Flames” is not just my debut as a songwriter, in a sense; not a co-producer, because I didn't get those credits, but someone who trusted herself enough to hear those instruments, and I'm carving them out. I felt a little bit like a director. It was incredible.
Sometimes it's not my voice that is most powerful in moments. Sometimes it's an instrument, sometimes it's what someone else can bring out in me. It's funny, because that's the one song that I feel like people have been like, "That's your best one yet." There's actually this playlist where they put “Broken Glass” by Ella and me next to each other on Spotify — I think it was on the “Young and Free” playlist. I thought that was really special, to see us together like that”.
This interview from FADER chats to a New Zealand-born artist who has drawn a lot of influence from New York. Indy is navigating her own career and someone that you cannot compare to Lorde in that sense. Fame Is a Bedroom is very much her own experiences and sound:
“Indy says that moving to New York City at 18 sparked her transition from poet to songwriter, and her new EP is packed with nods to the city. The shaky music video for “Sail Away,” a song about a codependent queer friendship, was shot in front of Indy’s favorite local bar, while the bridge of the pensive “Grace” was inspired by Carrie Bradshaw’s popularization of the taxi cab theory.
“I'm attracted to bars and people and things that aren’t the norm because my life is not necessarily the norm,” Indy says. She’s hinting at not only the unique experience of being a young artist, but also the connection at the core of her new song “Idol” — her relationship with her older sister Lorde.
Ahead of the arrival of Fame Is A Bedroom, a project that grapples with the “abnormal” and brings hidden parts of her life up to the surface, Indy talks honing her identity as a songwriter, doing album rollouts with Lorde, and the New York City of it all.
The FADER: I saw your Instagram post celebrating the Virgin release and thought it showed a really wonderful relationship. What has it been like to do album rollouts with Ella (Lorde) at the same time?
Indy Yelich: We're only two years apart and we spend a lot of time in the same city. So I think that we became a lot closer, as you do with your siblings when you're older. I heard a lot of Virgin throughout it being made, and she heard a lot of my songs. There's a song “Idol” that I've written about her that she's heard and she loves.
It's kind of funny, there's this [Spotify] playlist called Young and Free and this new song I have, “Up in Flames,” has just come out and it got all this amazing Spotify play. But there's one thing that I noticed. There was [Lorde’s] song “Broken Glass,” and they put “Up in Flames” right next to it, which I thought was really special. It's quite magical, especially because I'm really over the moon about Virgin. It really feels personal to me in a sense because we spent so much time together when it was being made and so many sleepovers and things like that. It's quite surreal as Fame Is A Bedroom is starting to come out and it's alongside each other.
One of the things that you've talked about quite a bit is the impact of moving to New York when you were so young at 18. How do you think that you and the city have both evolved since you first came here?
New York doesn't really take bullshit from you. I moved overseas so young, with such a preconceived idea of who I thought I was. Being in a fast-paced city actually helped me slow down, I think. It helped me get a sense of community, just learn about myself, my own identity. I've been [in New York] so many years that I have seen it change. I moved there way before COVID, so it just felt very different. Even my favorite bars I go to, you know, that are cash only, local dive bars, I've just seen such an influx of people.
What do you love about The Knicks?
It's joyful and people love it, and it's American, and it makes me think of New York and my love for it. I met some of my best friends through just talking to people at Knicks games. I don't know what it is, and I don't know where it came from, but it's truly my obsession. I know I would have made it when I'm going courtside. And truly one of the reasons why I want to do this is so I can go to Knicks games”.
I am going to end with a very interesting interview that I want to people to read in full. It is from SPIN. Published back in March, Indy discusses the single, Savior, and how “lessons in love shaped her songwriting”. It is a great place to end. Make sure you follow Indy on social media and listen to her music:
“While Indy notes her parents never neglected her, 31-year-old lawyer Jerry, or 23-year-old engineer Angelo amid Lorde’s rise, it helped that she was a “typical middle child—loudest, naughtiest, and would never let myself be forgotten.”
With Lorde’s success having inspired grander dreams, Indy moved to L.A. to pursue acting at age 18, before New York won her heart. The bustling, vibrant energy invigorated her, whether it was by sitting in bars with a book, attending New York Knicks games, or lugging suitcases of laundry to the laundromat.
The creative stimulation meanwhile spawned two poetry books, sticky notes and Dudette, which helped her develop her artistic identity enough to feel ready to venture into songwriting. “Then it took a few years of doing sessions and demos and chatting away to people so I could get in rooms with them and learn how to write songs. Songwriting versus writing is still very new to me.”
“I wanted to work on my creative voice and figure out what I had to say first,” she adds about her unhasty transition into music. “I didn’t put music out until I was sure about it and my first song, ‘Threads,’ is still one of my favorite songs ever. I knew in my heart I wanted to give this a shot and I’m lucky to have this unique perspective and upper hand [of learning from Lorde’s experiences].”
While comparisons to Lorde were inevitable, Indy was never hesitant about following in her footsteps. Writing and releasing music simply felt “natural” and necessary. “I would regret not expressing myself if I didn’t do this. I don’t want to be 80 years old and have been too fearful to express myself because of what people may say. My sister gives me good advice because she’s experienced the industry and my mom’s an artist as well—we’re a family of artists, so it’s like create or die!”
Lorde’s advice has been invaluable to Indy. Having released three records, topped the charts and toured the world, Lorde, 28, has urged Indy to trust in her personality, experience and musical instincts.
“Especially if I’m in a room full of producers and I think something sounds good and they think something else sounds better,” she says. “It’s about trusting your artistic vision, sound, and ability to enunciate what you’re going through. Learning how to advocate for my art has really helped me. I’ve had to fight for a melody or guitar part to be a certain way. It’s a skill that takes time to learn, but it’s so important for young women to have it and to also have role models—especially someone like my sister. Having her guidance has helped me so much with remembering to protect my art and remembering it’s my art.”
Indy also credits her New Zealand background for instilling traits which have proved beneficial in the cutthroat music industry, like talking to anyone and not taking herself too seriously. “Kiwis are just chill. Things don’t faze them and applying that to life is nice.”
It was en route to New Zealand that Indy couldn’t help being fazed by the devastation she’s now sharing in “Savior.” What should have been an exciting flight home to release her first EP turned into a “shell shocked” 13-hours in the air after her ex dumped her before she boarded the plane. “There were all these rom-coms on the plane and I was like, ‘I cannot watch a rom-com,’ so I watched Shrek … which turned out to be a rom-com. I felt like I was going to break down. I ended up watching a documentary about birds”.
A tremendous talent, there will be a lot more coming from Indy. If you do not know about her music already then do go and check it out. Fame Is a Bedroom is a terrific E.P. In terms of where she goes from here, it will be interesting seeing how her music grows and develops…
THROUGH the years.
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