Ivy Mode – Balancing Your Personal Life With Your Professional Life In Music (Interview)
Spending time doing what you love, or making time for your the ones you love,
The flashy lights of the stage, or the warm light of the fireplace,
The studio and dedication, or the sofa and relaxation,
Owning things as proof of your success, or owning things that money can’t buy, like your happiness
Everything is good as long as you can find your balance, cause some win some but end up losing one.
Today, Ivy Mode, 21 year old singer-songwriter from Belgium, is questioning her balance between her ambitions and relationships in her debut single titled ‘Money Can’t Buy’,
An Electro-Pop song filled up with feels, melancholic rendition, contrasting with an uptempo beat.
This uptempo can either emphasize the regretful thoughts of the vocalist, or drown them in an electro-vibe, escape for the mind.
Inspired of the likes of Banks, and James Blake, she marries original and penetrating vocals with soft piano keys and unpredictable and impacting electro beats.
Ivy Mode explains her thoughts saying that ‘Money Can’t Buy’ is about sacrificing a serious relationship for her career, with regrets,
Feeling all empty, as you figure it is better sharing your joy and success with your love ones.
Available on Spotify, the single already reaches over 20,000 streams.
Along the following interview, we’ll get to know more about Ivy Mode,
Plus she will confide how she conciliate her music career with her private life, and how she finds her balance.
INTERVIEW
1) Your single talks about professional success and relationship, a concern many of us are familiar with. As might say Lauryn Hill, you might win some but you just lost one. How do you conciliate your private life and your professional life on a regular basis?
I try to balance both very well. Up to this point in my life I haven’t had any difficulties with this. I hope this will stay this way.
But even if my life would come to a point I’d have to choose between the two , I know I won’t give up on a relationship.
If I’d ever get to a point where it would be too difficult to balance your career with a serious relationship,
I’m pretty sure that if you and your loved one really believe in your relationship,
You’d do everything to make it work and not see it as a burden.
2) Sacrificing relationships over success recalls the likes of Mali Music, singing No Fun Alone, with lyrics telling the following:
People often try to make it seem That their success is individual But what’s the point in even having dreams If you got to celebrate, all alone, It gets cold at the top Make sure somebody loves ya…
As singing and being on stage has been your dream forever, and considering your single, how much can you relate to these lyrics?
I can totally relate to the lyrics. Sure my dream has always been becoming a singer and performing and touring and all of that.
But at the end of the day, after a performance for example, everyone just wants to come home.
And to me a home is not a building or a crib, it’s a place I share with the one(s) I love.
Whether it’s family or a boyfriend, it’s the place you feel most comfortable.
So you can have all the fame and success you want, and live in a million dollar mansion, I’m sure you’ll feel lonely if it’s just only you living there.
3) Banks is one the artists that inspires you. She’s such a touching and sensitive person, what moves you the most when it comes to Banks? What has been inspiring you in her music?
I love how she comes up with unpredictable vocal lines in her music.
She’s also a genius when it comes to a dark atmosphere in her music when she tries to express a certain emotion.
I often get chills the first time I hear a new song of hers. And when this happens, you know you really like a song or artist.
4) Why did you choose to go from Sarah Godard to Ivy Mode?
Well Ivy Mode is a new beginning for me. It’s a new chapter and adventure in my life.
It’s a project where I can make the music I want, wear the clothes I like, and just be myself.
That is what Ivy Mode means to me. It’s not just a project where I try to rise to fame the best way I can, nope, it’s about doing whatever I want.
5) Finding yourself, finding your own identity can be a journey. How did you work on your music identity since you’re 18 years old?
What helped me in finding myself is discovering a lot of sorts of music and artists.
I listen to a lot of genres so it was difficult for me to sort of “pick” the genre I liked most, but that’s not something I ever did.
I tried to explore all sorts of music you can find, and try to make music I like to listen to the most. Even if it is a mashup of different genres.
6) How would you like to evolve in the long term with your music project(s)?
Well of course I’d like to grow as an artist. I don’t have an awful lot of experience so I’m sure there’s a lot I still need to learn.
I also would like to work with other artists and create great music.
I also would like to get more comfortable with myself, as well as performing on stage. I think a lot of these things come with experience and age so I hope I will evolve in these ways as an artist.
7) Fashion seems to be at the core of your craft, plus your music is a match for brands like H&M. Besides H&M, which other brand fashion would fit your music identity? Why?
(Cf Urban Soul PR)
Wow this one’s a difficult one to answer because I think Ivy Mode would match with a lot of brands, preferably the more alternative ones.
Though I must say I’m more of a low-budget and thrift shopper myself, a dream of mine would be to partner up with a big brand and come up with a cool clothing line.
But aside of this I must say I love brands like Vagabond, Cheap Monday, Lazy Oaf, Underground, COS, Acne, Vans, Jeremy Scott and Alexander Wang for example.
8)Any live soon? How do you prepare yourself?
We are preparing for any lives soon. Of course this takes time because it takes a lot of practice to put together a great showcase.
We’re still putting together a live band and also focusing on making new music and songs first so I can’t tell when we’ll focus on lives.
