In Conversation with Eva Westphal
Eva Westphal is a 20-year-old singer-songwriter based in New York City. At age 13, Eva began writing her own songs, combining her love of writing with her love of music. Though she is classically trained, her transition to pop music has led to various successful gigs, including singing at Fenway Park and Outside the Box Music Festival. She regularly partners with organizations like It Gets Better, Phluid Project, and Project HEAL to spread awareness through music for LGBTQ+ issues and mental health. The release of her newest song “She’s Mine” this pride month is a celebration of love for her girlfriend.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I'm Eva Westphal. I'm a singer-songwriter – I do acoustic pop, indie pop, that general genre. I write about living in New York and loving New York, I write about my relationships, I write about recovery from my eating disorder, I write about literally anything that's going on in my life and the people in it. Right now I'm based in New York City, but I'm originally from Boston and Miami because I moved around a ton as a kid. I have four little brothers who inspire me and I am proudly gay.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I remember seeing your early TikToks when you were covering Taylor Swift. Looking back, how would you say you've grown from that and changed since then?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] The reason I started doing those was that I started being such a Swiftie during quarantine. I'm a new Swiftie like straight up I did not listen to her music when I was younger, probably because of my internalized misogyny, and I was like, "Ew, Taylor Swift" and when Reputation happened, I was like “Wait, this is like so cool,” and I became a fan. I just started loving her songs and I was like, “let me put my own twist on [them]” because, in my mind, I already sang things with female pronouns anyways.
So I was like, “I'm just gonna put it on TikTok for fun” and then people started listening to it. Obviously, I'm not trying to be the next anything else, but I do consider her one of my biggest inspirations/influences, so I thought maybe the people who like when I sing Taylor Swift will also like my own original stuff, and then it grew from there.
Also, I identified as bisexual when I started posting those, and then through TikTok, being in quarantine, and writing my own original songs, I was like “Wait, I'm totally gay” so that influenced everything and my content has changed a lot. Mostly when I sing now, it’s original songs or contemporary songs by different artists. There's more of a focus on my original music now which I feel grateful for.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What role do you think that TikTok has played in your music career?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] Well, I think TikTok has given me a space to share my original songs, including the ones that I would never put out into the world at all. I know some songwriters that I really admire that will write not that often, they'll start and finish a song and that's the only song they write in a given period of time and it's excellent, and I admire that because I write like a million crappy songs a week. Every single day, I've probably written a song or two and a lot of them sound a lot like each other and I smoosh them together. TikTok gave me the space to put out half-written songs because it's short form so I can put things out into the world.
It [also] just helps me narrow down what the songs are that I want to put out and so other than having more people listen to my music, which obviously changed a lot for me, it's also changed how I feel about my own creative process and really made me appreciate the way in which I go about writing songs, which has been really nice and made me more confident.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How excited are you to release, "She's Mine," especially for Pride Month?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I'm so excited, I honestly I forget where I was sitting in my room writing it and I was like “Okay, I'm gonna go put it on TikTok” and then people were like “Oh this is so cute,” and I said, wait, what if I make this not just my song, but everybody's song? So I'm super excited because the video is going to feature 400 couples. I was reading through everyone's stories like, this is so freaking cute. I love it so much.
I'm really, really excited to see people's reactions and hopefully, it lives up to what they were hoping for and I have such amazing collaborators. I could honestly go on about the process of making the song and how happy it's made me feel because I collaborated with Gloria Hui (Kaiyi) who produces all my songs. My friend did the lyric video. He's incredibly talented and every single collaborator on this project has just made it what it is and I'm so so excited to release it.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How does your girlfriend feel about it, has she heard the whole song?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I'm a very organized person, and the biggest difference between me and my girlfriend, which I've learned and grown to really love, is that she's very spontaneous and adventurous. That also means that sometimes she's not great at texting back, so I just need to remind myself just because somebody doesn't text back, it doesn't mean she doesn't love me. It turned into this song about loving your partner not despite their quirks and things that make them different, but because of their quirks. The fact that she is less apt to text me back actually helps me a lot to challenge my own anxiety about always being on my phone and things like that. It was kind of an ode to a relationship that has really made me grow in a lot of ways. She likes it. Long answer for that.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have a favorite lyric that you're willing to share?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I really like in the bridge, it gets more specific, and there's a line where I say, "I see you smoking a cigarette dancing through fountains you almost fell in, and you're drinking Redbull at night when I can't have my coffee past 12 pm," and that's very my relationship in terms of [how] I literally can't have coffee past noon, if I do, I won't be able to fall asleep and she's just so adventurous. I distinctly remember we were in Miami, and she was dancing around a fountain and we were stone-cold sober and I [told her to] get down, and it was just one of those core memories. She's pushing me to be a more adventurous version of myself and I'm grateful for that.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Besides the song, what else can your fans look forward to in the future?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I have a cool opportunity coming out with a media outlet that I really enjoy that's doing the feature. I'm just gonna put out more songs and I'm really excited. Right now I'm kind of tunnel vision on this next release, but afterward, I have another song lined up for the end of the summer, which hopefully is a summer to fall bop, and then hopefully an EP late fall or early winter.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Are there any artists that inspire you? Where else do you get inspiration for your songs?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I love Brandi Carlile. She is an incredible songwriter, also she's gay and, she's my folk lyricist inspiration. I really love Kacey Musgraves, she's just a badass. She changed the whole country vibe, it's this liberal country space cowgirl thing that's going on, it's so fucking cool and the musicality and all of her songs make me really happy. I only have female inspirations, I should have known I was gay because I only listened to female songwriters. I like the female voice better, so really any female singer-songwriter.
One of my biggest inspirations is my producer, again, plugging her: Gloria Hui / Kaiyi. So inspirational, so cool, I love everything she makes. Some TikTok people too like Olivia Klugman, who makes such beautiful music and just incredible lyrics, but literally any girl who writes her own music or produces her own music, or nonbinary person too, is going to inspire me.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You're going to school right now at Columbia, right? What's that like?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I like it a lot. I love being in New York City. I think it's definitely had me meet some of the most awesome collaborators and it's just been a joy being able to connect with booking agents and people in New York City who I don't think I could have if I had just suddenly moved there out of college. I probably could have done it, but it wouldn't have been as easy or seamless. Columbia has been a really good experience and I really like school. I really like learning so no regrets in terms of coming to Columbia.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Looking back in your life, up until this point, what do you think your younger self would think if they saw you now?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I think my younger self would be proud of me, and also hopeful for my future too. I guess it depends what it is, if I was five, I was like “I'm gonna be a pop star by the time I'm 18,” so I'd probably be like, “What the hell, why am I not the next Taylor Swift?” But if I was my 16-year-old self, I think she'd be very proud and happy that I'm genuinely happy and also surprised that I'm gay. I genuinely thought I was straight.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Your Spotify bio says that you're “passionate about mental health, body positivity, and LGBTQ+ issues.” What message do you want to convey through your music for your fans?
[EVA WESTPHAL:] I think my main thing is I want people to not only be inspired to find, but also love the most genuine version of themselves, whether that's through recovery, or coming out of the closet. Whatever the personal journey is like, I hope that people who listen to my music get the sense that I'm becoming my more genuine self every day and through every song that I write, and hopefully they are too. Even if it's just a small piece of a song that inspires them, I really hope that people take that with them, maybe it's a big goal but I definitely hope for people to love themselves a little bit more because then that inspires everyone else.
