On Being Genuine: An Interview with Casey Conroy
My interview with Casey Conroy began with her immediate interest in my bookshelf, followed by an anecdote about her own personal library, which was quickly growing in numbers. We briefly spoke about our shared love for One Direction, and frankly, it felt more like a conversation than an interview. Casey is down-to-earth and strikingly genuine. To best describe her, think no further than the popular girl who was nice to you in high school — ridiculously cool with a persistent kindness about her.
Casey has released a litany of singles throughout the years, the most popular being, “Say It,” which has accumulated more than 275,000 streams on Spotify and over 16,000 plays on YouTube. On April 7th, she released a new single titled “Background Noise,” which will be on her debut EP, coming out this year.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about yourself.
[CASEY:] My name is Casey. I’m twenty-two. I’m from Orlando, Florida. I’m a singer and a songwriter. I do indie/alternative pop music. I’ve been releasing music for about six years. I’m trying to navigate life as an indie music artist. I just released a new single called “Background Noise,” I’m really excited to talk about that, everything I’ve released, and what I have coming next.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How did you start your journey into the music industry?
[CASEY:] I was fifteen, and I used to have really horrible stage fright – to the point I would shake and you wouldn’t even hear what I was saying because my voice would shake so much. But one year, I was watching One Direction on the X-Factor — I loved One Direction — and I started thinking, “if they were brave enough to get up in front of people, I could do it”. I auditioned for this singing competition in Orlando, and I lost. I only passed the first round, but I made some connections in the Orlando music industry. I started to get into the community here in Orlando, then released a few songs.
Even though I’ve been releasing music for about seven years, five of those years were complete trial-and-error. I really don’t think I’ve been truly going in the direction I wanted to until about two years ago. It’s been a lot of learning.
[UNPUBLISHED:] The first collab available on your Spotify is from 2019, called “Can’t Get Enough.” Can you describe the process of getting this song released?
[CASEY:] This one was really fun because the guy I’m singing with, Azad [Murtazin], is one of my good friends from Orlando. I didn’t even know he wrote music, until one day he released this song on Soundcloud, and I was like, “this is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. I love this song.” So, I was like, “Azad, please let me do a remix of this song.” And he did. I went and I did this verse, and I was so lucky that he liked it enough that he released it as the real version on all his platforms. It was his first single ever, and the only single he’s ever done, which makes me so mad because he’s one of my favorite artists. He’s so talented.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You’ve released quite a few singles and each feels like a new era. Did you plan on releasing music as singles, or did it just happen this way?
[CASEY:] In some ways, yes. I wanted to do singles for a while and grow my audience that way and try out different things. I try to make music that’s as real to myself as possible. As I’ve grown the past two years, so has my sound and my life experiences. You have songs like “Remind Me” and “Best Shoes” that are slower and come from deeper emotions. Then you have ones like “Say It” that come from excitement and fun. I really want my music and catalog to be a reflection of my human experience. Sometimes that’s fun, exciting moments, and sometimes that’s scary moments, some are super loving — it kind of just follows my emotions as a person.
[UNPUBLISHED:] For someone new to your music, which single would you recommend they listen to first?
[CASEY:] I would say “I Want U.” It was the first song I ever released where I was thinking, “I just want to make music I would listen to.” It kind of goes back to what we were discussing earlier, that I’d been making music for about four years prior to [‘I Want U’s] release, and I always felt like I was trying to chase something. Finally, I got to this place of wanting to make music that’s real. I want to make music that I love, that I want to hear. “I Want U” was my first step, so it’s definitely the perfect introduction.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I went through your YouTube and watched some of your old vlogs. In one from November 2019, you mentioned nannying during the day and recording music at night. Is that something you still do?
[CASEY:] Yeah! I nanny Monday through Thursday, so my weekends are for music, as well as nighttime. Back then, I was doing more nannying and babysitting than I do now. Now, I do a little bit more music than I do nannying. Sometimes the days look like working ‘til five or six P.M. and then music would be seven P.M. to three A.M.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How do you manage that schedule?
[CASEY:] I don’t know! I think A) you don’t think about it, you just run off the adrenaline. And B) in a lot of ways, music — especially when I’m in the studio writing and creating — it’s my place to exhale and relax. It doesn’t feel like 24/7 work. I need that time to decompress. I don’t think of it as work so much.
[UNPUBLISHED:] In your vlog “A Day in the Life of an Indie Artist,” you detailed a close relationship with your co-producer, Willy Colón. What’s it like working with someone you’re so close with personally and professionally?
[CASEY:] We’re dating, so we’re very close. We’ve been dating for a little bit. It’s the most amazing thing because we get to experience the incredible highs and lows of working in the music industry together. You feel highs like most people won’t ever feel highs, but you feel lows like a lot of people don’t feel lows. It’s a rollercoaster of failures and wins, so having someone to go through that with you, that understands exactly what you’re feeling at all those places, is so comforting. When you’re at those highs, all you want is someone who can understand exactly what that feels like. In the music industry, you want to celebrate all the small wins. Something that, in most people’s eyes, that doesn’t seem like a cause for celebration is like, “no you don’t understand that’s a huge win for us!” To have someone that’s there and can keep you balanced is great. Sometimes when he’s having his lows, I’m having my highs, and vice versa. We can kind of hold each other up.
We’re so connected. When we go to create, we’re on the same wavelength. We know each other so well that we can take out all the extra fluff and get right to the good stuff. It’s the best experience. I love it. I know some people say not to work with your significant other, but for us, it’s awesome.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you ever intend to do more vlogs?
[CASEY:] I would love to! I love vlogging. I’ve been finishing my EP for the last few months and it’s so time-consuming. Your brain is just so focused on that one thing because it’s so important and you want to get it so right. I’ve been in that space, but I’m really excited to come out the other side of that and go into a new stage, and definitely bring back vlogging. My relationship with my fans is important to me. I want them to know me as much as possible. I want them to know who I am as a person, what my creative life looks like, and vlogs are such a great way to connect with fans on that level. I can let them see that it’s not all this glitz and glam, or as polished as it might seem from the outside. There’s a lot of jagged edges throughout the process, and I love showing that.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Your two most recent releases are called “As Deep As You Loved Me” and “Background Noise,” but they have very different sounds. What went into the decision of putting these songs together on your recent EP?
[CASEY:] I think it’s going to take hearing the EP as a whole to understand that. The EP is very much a journey, a story, so I think the other songs on the EP will bridge that gap. We’re not releasing too much about the EP yet, but it’ll be coming soon.
[UNPUBLISHED:] For the “As Deep As You Loved Me” music video, you mentioned that you got to do some camera work for the flashback scenes. What was that experience like? Did you have previous experience in camera work or film?
[CASEY:] Not at all, only through doing other music videos. I wanted the flashback scenes to be from my point of view. I wanted them to be my memory. I wanted them to be what I was thinking about while I was driving in the car, walking down the street, or on the rooftop. It was so important to me that it had that blue overlay because, in my head, it was as if all of those memories were just flushed in blue. They were so sad, even the happy memories where we were laughing because everything went so sour. Everything was just heartbreakingly sad. We did all of those shots at the director’s house, and when we got there [with the actor], I didn’t even want there to be a crew between me and the actor. I wanted those scenes to be very personal. I got to do the camera work, but there was nothing technical involved with that. I was just holding the camera while all those scenes were happening. I wanted the camera to be at eye level. Whatever was happening, if I was turning my head to turn away from him, I wanted the camera to be my eyes. My arm got very sore because those cameras are huge! I wanted him to hold my hand, and then we were running, and I had this giant video camera in my hand! It allowed for a personal experience, which was important for the video.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Your most popular music video — and the most popular song on your Spotify — is titled “Say It.” What would you attribute to the success of both the song and video?
[CASEY:] It’s the most fun, outgoing song to date. My personality sounds a lot like “Say It” does. If you were to see me on social media, and the way I talk and engage, and compared it to “Say It,” you’d be like, “oh my gosh, that’s so her!” It’s a song that people could put on and have fun to. It came out during quarantine. Even though everybody was low-energy, it was important to me to write and release a song that gave me the energy I was missing at that time. In some ways, “Say It” represented some of that energy that people needed.
[UNPUBLISHED:] “Background Noise” came out on April 7th, could you tell us a little bit about what this song’s inspired by?
[CASEY:] I wrote it in a moment where I was feeling fed up with all the noise in the industry, especially in the age of social media. I felt like I was getting compared a lot to other artists, and I got frustrated, so I wrote this song thinking, “I just want to do me.” I feel like everyone has this idea of what an artist should be, or what it is to be an artist. I wanted to write this song explaining how I just want to have my own journey. The funny thing about that song is, when you hear it, it sounds like a very fun, careless song. The production was created to be super fun and upbeat. It’s meant to be sort of ironic and to rebel against what the lyrics are saying. I’m just going to let loose, do me, and not care what that looks like, really wanting to find that confidence in myself.
The message is intense, so I wanted the music to be free and loose because, in the end, it shouldn’t be that serious. My dad always says, and this is my best life advice, “life’s not that serious.” Just have fun. We’re all going to the same places, we’re all trying to do the same things.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Could we expect a music video for “Background Noise?”
[CASEY:] In terms of the near future, there will be a lyric video coming soon. The music video isn’t coming quite yet. When I release my EP, I want there to be a music video for every song. That’s a big goal of mine.
[UNPUBLISHED:] If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your fifteen-year-old self about the music industry?
[CASEY:] When I first started in music, I felt like I had to put my finger down and say, “I want to be this.” I want to make these kinds of songs, they’re going to sound like this, I’m going to be this kind of person. The older I got, the more I learned I just needed to keep creating safe spaces for myself and keep creating music. I needed to allow whoever I am to grow and evolve and shine. It wasn’t so much that I had to stop and say, “this is who I’m going to be.” That already exists inside of me. I would definitely tell myself not to chase what anyone else is doing. Just do what you love. Do what makes you, you. In the end, you can only be unique if you’re being as true to yourself as possible. If you’re trying to do what anyone else is doing, you’re just going to be the second-best version of what they’re doing. If I try to copy what someone else is doing, I’m never going to be as good as them at that.
I’m such a firm believer that our weaknesses and our strengths are all so important to what makes us, us. If you go hiding some of those weaknesses, or pretend they aren’t there, you wind up losing some of the things that make you great. I feel like every part of you is a puzzle piece, so you have to allow all those pieces to connect. I guess I would say, be confident in being you and have fun with the process. If you work hard, stay consistent, and stay persistent, you will get to where you want to be. I’m still telling myself that now. I don’t think that changes.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Five or ten years down the line, where do you want to be career-wise?
[CASEY:] My dream is to wake up every morning and do nothing but my own music. If five or ten years from now I’m playing stadiums all around the world, that would be amazing. Whatever that looks like, I hope I’m waking up every day and I don’t worry about anything else but my music. That’s the real dream: sustainability and longevity. I also really want to keep growing my songwriting career, so I hope I’ll have an established songwriting career, as well.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What’s next for you?
[CASEY:] We have some fun things coming up on an EP, coming out sometime this year — hopefully this summer! I’m really excited to release my debut EP. It’s my first project as an artist, and I’m super excited about it. Follow me on social media, @iamcaseyconroy, and go listen to my new single “Background Noise.”
Two of my favorite things about Casey were her openness to failure and her incredible resilience. She spoke of her loss at an Orlando singing competition, and the process of trial-and-error when creating music. She’s at ease with phrases such as “I lost,” and “this attempt went poorly,” both of which are admirably followed with, “let me try this, instead.” There seems to be no brakes on her ambition, but still a strikingly humble approach to the way she creates.
What I’d say speaks most to Casey’s character, however, was her demeanor after the interview concluded. She stuck around to hear my poetry book recommendation, quickly jotting down the author. We talked about moving cities, our plans crushed by COVID, and life after the pandemic. Throughout the interview, Casey spoke of a desire to connect with her fans, and I’d say she certainly followed through on that front. If you’re looking for a new indie artist to add to your playlist, look no further than Casey Conroy.
