Interview: Singer & Songwriter Emily Weisband Releases ‘New Salt’

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HollywoodChicago.com: Let’s talk about a specific song. What inspired the lyrics for ‘The Way I Say Goodbye’?

Weisband: UGH … one of my favorites I’ve ever written. I dated a guy for four months and around month three I decided to really open up. I wanted to know if it was going to work and the only way to do that was to actually be vulnerable and let myself feel. And I fell really hard, I poured out my heart to make him feel safe and loved… and then I got dumped.

I don’t know what it was in that moment – I would usually cry or blame him or beg him to change his mind – but I let him go. I told him if I loved him the way I claim to I had no choice but to do that and wish him the best.

We did end up getting back together and I wrote this song a couple weeks into us trying again. I think I had to wait months to write the song because I had to process it… but sometimes when you love someone, it’s all you can do to let them go with grace. You don’t have to hate someone when you break up.

HollywoodChicago.com: So out of Nashville, you write a song for one of the hottest international groups, BTS. What does hearing ‘Boy with Love’ feel like?

Weisband: SO SPECIAL! It just reminds me that no matter where you are in the world, no matter how you were raised or what you believe, human beings are really all the same at the end of the day. So much divides us but music has this powerful way of unifying. For three minutes all that matters is that song and how it makes you feel.

At concerts, when the lights go up and the music cuts out and everybody singing at the top of their lungs, nobody is thinking about what makes them different. We’re all in it together in those moments, so to know that some little girl in Nashville helped write a song that people on the other side of the world connect with, and want to represent, is such a powerful idea to me. Plus I’m a BTS fan and I’m so honored they invited me to work with them.

Em3
Singer & Songwriter Emily Weisband
Photo credit: Facebook @EmilyWeisbandMusic

HollywoodChicago.com: I have to ask … what are your musical influences and inspirations?

Weisband: I’m inspired by A LOT of different kinds of music. The first album I ever bought was ‘Songs About Jane’ by Maroon 5. I listened to a lot of bands like The Fray, The Script, Keane, Coldplay, Snow Patrol… emo stuff. It was actually 1990s country music and the craftsmanship of those songwriters that really got me going.

Then of course there is Joni Mitchell, The Carpenters, Cat Stevens… but the one kind of music that influences me more than the rest is the various songs and songwriters that contributed to Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Doris Day, Barbara Streisand, even dipping into some musical theater show tunes! I value timeless music, and that means timeless music we are all still listening to all these years later. I want my music to still mean something 70 years from now as well.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally, any plans for future collaborations, live or streamed performances?

Weisband: YES! Just like everything else I strive for in my music, I wanted to be really intentional and authentic when it came to choosing collaborators. The stories behind those are coming soon.

As for performances, I CAN’T WAIT to get back out there and sing these songs live for audiences in the flesh. I played one show in Nashville before quarantine and they sang every single word of every song I’d put out back to me. I’m ready to feel that again!

Follow Emily Weisband:
Website: CLICK HERE 
Instagram: CLICK HERE
Twitter: CLICK HERE 
YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE 

”New Salt,” the latest single from Emily Weisband, is available on February 19th, 2021.


Interview by: Jeff Doles
Published by: Patrick McDonald, Editor, HollywoodChicago.com

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