March 19, 2024

Hey Ava!! We are so excited to premiere your new single!! How does it feel to have your latest single “Leave Me On Read” released? 

I’m so honored for Teen Music Insider to be premiering the song!! I’ve been working on it for around a year now (no kidding, wrote the demo in December 2019!), so it feels great to finally see it released!

Can you tell us how this song came about? & What this song means to you?

Welllllllll… it IS from personal experience, somebody didn’t answer my text (lol!), but I think in this era of online dating (and specifically during a pandemic which moves all our relationships online) this happens often to everyone.

I read somewhere that when you are ignored by someone, the same area in your brain lights up as if you were slapped in the face.I’m personally a pretty emotional person,for a long time I coped with that by hiding my emotions and pretending that things didn’t affect me, that I was the “cool girl.” 

But the last couple of years I’ve been working on being able to feel and really own my emotions.  By making the song so over the top about such a small thing, I wanna say, “Hey, it’s ok to have emotions, however small the thing that caused them is, they are valid, we don’t need to be the ‘cool girls’ all of the time.”

You also released the video for “Leave Me On Read’ today as well!! Can you tell us how the concept for the video came about?

(The video will actually coming out on Sunday so two days from the release of the song) Great question! So I went down this youtube rabbit hole (as everyone does on a quarantine Saturday night right?) and started binge-watching these videos of Jocko Willink.  He’s a navy seal who is SUPER serious about everything (including staying physically fit in order to ward off all the immediate and non-immediate threats of any neighborhood).

I thought to myself, it would be SO funny to have a Jocko Willink type person teaching me (currently the least fit person in the world) the art of military strategy and combat. From there the idea of that character teaching me how to kill my boyfriend came about.

I thought “the song is already about someone who is clearly a little over-emotional about a text not being answered, why not take it the whole mile and make it SUPER dramatic!” Then I brainstormed everything with my bestie/roommate/art director Lady Beaver, she came up with the idea of including Kill Bill references since the video essentially is about a woman on a revenge mission.

Obviously I don’t condone murder, but if someone who. is feeling crazy over being ignored watches the video and thinks with a sense of relief: “Hey, it’s ok to feel a little crazy, at least I’m not as bad as Ava in her video”, then my goal will have been achieved.

Were there any recording challenges for the song or video?

Another great question! Yes! Many 

I think I wrote about 7 versions of the lyrics of the song, my co-producer (and mentor) Rob Cavallo (Greenday, Lil Peep, Alanis Morissette) kept reminding me “tell the story, make sure the listener understands where your emotion is coming from.”It was tough because someone not answering your text isn’t a big deal, but what it symbolizes (for instance the person may not be interested in you anymore) can be a big deal.  So I had to walk the line between making fun of myself but also conveying how hurt I am in the song.

Video-wise: In the age of corona-virus of course there had to be a pandemic related problem.We’d booked this person who was actually a real undercover cop to play the role of the Jocko Willink-type character (he’d specified he wouldn’t be able to shave for the role because he was afraid the group he was infiltrating would think he was a cop).Then the day before the shoot, he sent me an email saying his children had tested positive for covid.So we had to find a replacement actor the day of.

Any fun moments while recording?

So aside from being my roommate/bestie/art director, Lady Beaver is also an amazing trumpet player.  We had lots of fun in the studio with Rob recording her playing (especially since there is a running joke that as a music producer I try to steer clear of any actual instruments aside from the computer).

How do you balance your professional career and private life? 

Another great question! I’ve been pursuing a music career for about 3-4 years.  As a workaholic, I’m realizing now one of the most important things is making sure I have close relationships with people outside of the music industry; that I have a thriving life beyond music to I look forward to when I get out of the studio.  

With music it’s so easy to develop this very goal/future-driven sense of self-esteem.  You start telling yourself, “Once I become successful in music I’ll be able to do this/I’ll be able to feel this/I’ll be able to be happy.”   If you have rich friendships and a rich life outside of music then you can just enjoy the whole process of making music, and create your art with a sense of freedom, knowing wherever it takes you is perfect and fine.

If you could collaborate on a song with any artist who would it be and why? 

Dillon Francis!! I absolutely LOVE his sense of humor and how he infuses his production with his personality.  I would honestly just love to be a fly on the wall in a session of his and take copious notes.

Please share your IG link and where we can find your music!! 

yay! My IG is @avakingmusic , you can find my music on all platforms under the name Ava King.

Thank you for spending time with us! 

THANK UUUU!

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