On Pop-Punk, Billie Eilish, and Her Sophomore Single “Go Away”: An Interview With Yen Strange

Since releasing her debut single “Donnie Darko” in the middle of a June lockdown in Australia, Sydney-based queer artist Yen Strange has been having an interesting year. As of this writing, the song has received over 150,000 streams on Spotify and praise in publications including Paper, NYLON, and Guitar World. With a new single “Go Away” coming out this week (and more songs in the vault ready to go!), Yen continues to experiment with her sound, echoing her pop-punk heroes while also saying something new, strange, and completely her own. 

With an eighteen-hour time difference between Sydney and Los Angeles, we met up over Zoom to talk about her early start and influences in music, her love for Billie Eilish, and her excitement for the next steps in her career. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: So you hail from Moruya, a small town in Australia. How did growing up there influence your sound and songwriting? 

[YEN STRANGE]: A lot of my music talks about the little things in life. It’s pretty gloomy and my voice is soft, not over the top. That was all influenced by growing up there and feeling not very important. I live in Sydney now and I’m growing and changing, so we’ll see what happens. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Because your voice is so distinctive, especially for your style of music, did that pose difficulties when you began singing lessons in your youth? I know you’ve spoken before about why you didn’t want to sing ‘the proper way’.

[YEN STRANGE]: My singing teacher was classically so she tried to take apart everything, and I wasn’t. She’d say things like “This song is too low for your voice” or “You need to breathe at this exact point.” It helped a bit but it frustrated me because ever since I was young, I’ve always known what I wanted to do. So I did take on those techniques but I don’t think about them now. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Was there a moment when you knew music was what you wanted to pursue or was it always an accepted part of yourself? 

[YEN STRANGE]: It feels like it’s been the only constant in my life. I’ve moved around a lot and nothing’s been reliable. But ever since I started playing piano at 7, music is always there when I need it. I know it will make me feel good, it always does. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Who would you say influenced your look, image, and music today? 

[YEN STRANGE]: I’ve always liked Mallrat because she’s understated but she’ll sometimes wear a fairy dress. She does whatever she feels like at the time. If she’s feeling like it, she’ll wear a hoodie and jeans. But there are heaps of people that I’m inspired by. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: I see a Billie Eilish poster behind you, too! Has she also been an inspiration to you? 

[YEN STRANGE]: Yeah, I’d say that. She’s not the only poster on my wall, like I have Joji, Jacklyn, Grimes, Bon Iver, Vincent, The Weeknd. I got a lot of people that I think are worthy of my wall but I like her brand. Her music is beautiful and incredible, like the first song that I gave a lot of listens to was “i wish you were gay” because it’s so catchy. On the new album, I like “Everybody Dies” and “Therefore I Am.” But the thing that attracted me to her was her brand. It was her speaking voice, not her singing voice. I started spray painting a lot of clothes because of that one outfit in “Therefore I Am.” That kind of punk aesthetic mixed with boss bitch energy. I think she’s sick. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Speaking of branding, you have a great one yourself. How did you cultivate your image? 

[YEN STRANGE]: A lot of the graphics are done by my friend Eliza, from Eliza and the Delusions. She’s a real role model for me as a musician. And it’s consistently her that does the cover art. She’s like my stylist, she gets everything right. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: And your stage name Yen Strange is absolutely brilliant. Is there a story behind it? 

[YEN STRANGE]: Yen Magazine is where I got a lot of my inspiration and where I found new artists so that’s where I got the name Yen. Strange was just tacked on the end because my last name Scobie starts with an S. And me starting to release music was me embracing the fact that I’m a bit weird and strange and different.

[UNPUBLISHED]: What do you love about making music and writing your own songs?

[YEN STRANGE]: I struggle to reach out and explain what I’m feeling because I’m the kind of person to curl up in a corner and say, “Leave me alone. I’m not talking about it.” I was 13 when I wrote my first song, around the time my parents’ divorce happened. Music was good around that time because there was no one to talk to and it worked for me. It was my counseling. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: How do you approach the songwriting and production process? 

[YEN STRANGE]: When I write music, I don’t just write a whole story at once. It’s all bouncing off each other. Maybe I’ll start with what chords I want to use or do a verse, and then I’ll figure out something on the guitar that will then trigger the next bit, and the lyrics will fit that. It’s so fun and important for me to have things crossing over and happening at the same time. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: You released your debut single “Donnie Darko” back in June of this year. How would you say it differs from or is similar to the music you were initially making? 

[YEN STRANGE]: When I first started out, I sounded a bit like Elton John because the first music I listened to was on my dad’s brick iPod—Elton John, Fleetwood Mac. So I was doing ballads and it was really weird, super nerdy. I thought they had to be show-stopping and really inspiring! Now it’s really random and that’s what I’ve found that I like the most. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: The single currently has over 150,000 streams on Spotify and after it was released, was featured in several major publications and official playlists from Spotify and Apple Music. It later was even remixed by UK buzz band Porji. What was your initial reaction to all that support? 

[YEN STRANGE]: It was weird because I was in lockdown and wasn’t playing any shows. It just felt like a dream. I didn’t react and don’t think I will until I have a gig where people are singing it back to me. The people that reacted the most to it were my parents. Having them be like, “We’re so proud!” was definitely the best part. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Have your parents always been supportive of your career? 

[YEN STRANGE]: Yes, they’re just very realistic. My parents are architects but they both grew up on farms and all my uncles work in farming. A lot of my cousins are laborers. My dad was the only one in his family that didn’t go into the land. Now I’m one of the “weird” cousins because Mum and Dad strayed away from what they grew into. In that sense, they’re supportive because they’ve lived through that. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Now this Wednesday, you have a brand-new follow-up single coming out, called “Go Away.” What do you love about this song? 

[YEN STRANGE]: I like that it has my production on it. I remember when I first made it, I was like, “This is so good, I just made my own genre!” It was one of the first songs I built in Ableton, really focusing on all the weird sounds like a reversed electric guitar, and how they functioned electronically. Then it turned into this massive pop-punk thing. I love listening to it. It’s about accepting the shit feelings that you have, which isn’t always the best thing to do but as a young person, I’m not always gonna deal with everything. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Did you have other collaborators help out with the production? 

[YEN STRANGE]: I was living outside of Sydney in Wollongong at the time when I finished my version. So I drove up and gave the Stems to Fletcher, who produces a lot of Sydney artists. We sat there with the whole track for the whole day and he added his flair to it, including the chorus section. Then when I got signed, the label wanted it to go even further so they said, “What about Alice Ivy? Maybe she could help you out.” She added so much that was subtle but effective. I remember jamming around the idea of having a bigger drop because I like when songs have subs below the vocals so that bit was added with her. Alice and I, Fletcher and I, we all really clicked on this song. It was perfect. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: What other producers would you love to work with? 

[YEN STRANGE]: Mallrat. I just love her EP, Driving Music. She worked so hard on it and you can hear her pioneering her own thing through it. My friend Bonnie and I have also worked on a couple things and I just wanna work with her more. Being in the studio with her feels like being with an old friend. Because I could dream and say all these names but it’s more important to work with people that are humble and understand where I’m coming from. People who I actually want to pursue friendships with. For me, that’s what matters the most.

[UNPUBLISHED]: I absolutely loved the music video that is releasing alongside “Go Away”. The animation style, the story, it’s all impeccable work. What was the overall inspiration and creation process like? Did you have input?

[YEN STRANGE]: I did but the animators Tom and Jeremy just took it to the next level. My original idea was that I wake up and go to an abandoned mall like in a zombie movie. Then the label sent me the first draft of the animation and I was like, “Pfft, this is so much better!” And Jeremy put more work into it than he thought he would. As he got into it more, he got really ambitious and excited, he couldn’t stop. I love the video, it’s so cute. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: For you, what does the little white ghost in the video represent?

[YEN STRANGE]: That was another thing Jeremy chucked in! My original idea was that there would just be the bad ghosts and I would fight them with a sword. But then he brought in that white ghost as a motif. Because the song is about how I was feeling like shit, I wasn’t ready to do anything about it and it’s hard for a bit but then there’s that energy that comes down and picks me up. So that hope ghost is about the resilience inside of me. And that was really clever on Jeremy’s part to bring that in. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Looking forward, after the release of this single, what’s next for you?

[YEN STRANGE]: I’ve got heaps of songs finished, shy of 100 songs written at any one point. Some are done or close to being done, some are mastered. It’s a slow process so maybe not an album but an EP. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: Outside of music, what other interests have you been pursuing? 

[YEN STRANGE]: I go to uni at the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School. They do heaps of cool stuff—cinematography, sound effects, animation. I’m doing a three-year degree in screen production making soundtracks for movies. I do see myself doing that in the future as part of my music career. I really liked the movie Submarine directed by Richard Ayoade and they got Alex Turner, the guy from Arctic Monkeys, to make songs for the soundtrack. But then other movies like Avengers seem like they just have a stock orchestra. A lot of blockbusters sound exactly like what you expect to hear. 

[UNPUBLISHED]: What kind of movies would you love to compose the soundtrack for?

[YEN STRANGE]: I wanna do movies like Perks of Being a Wallflower but instead of taking songs from the past, you make nostalgic songs. The people who made the soundtrack could’ve been like, “We like this David Bowie song but how can we emulate it in a new way?” I would love to do that because sometimes I make music that I don’t put lyrics to. That would be the absolute dream. 

Follow Yen Strange on Instagram, stream her music on Spotify, and watch her brand-new MV!