Housewife Embraces Flaws and Messiness in New Era of Music
Photo by Luke Rogers
Housewife fully steps into a new era of music, accepting the messiness and flaws of it all. “Fuck Around Phase” is the first taste of new music from Housewife this year and introduces a more mature and intentional indie-rock driven sound. Guided by a lush mix of distorted guitar riffs and pop-flavored melodies, “Fuck Around Phase” is an infectious song that embraces an unapologetic, unfiltered side of Housewife.
“Fuck Around Phase” sounds exactly as its supposed to. Throughout its creation process, Housewife learned to take themselves less seriously after a phase of their life came to an end. Housewife found themselves learning to have freedom to resocialize again and to have fun in their life. For the singer, it was a conscious choice to learn to have fun and learn to lean into that feeling.
“The song is about a period in my life where certain things and situations have ended for me and I can take it and move on from personal experience,” Housewife says. “It’s also an aspirational zone because I want to be the person who embraces flaws and embraces messiness and doesn’t take things seriously. I think those are all really wonderful qualities in a person and I think we all need to do that a little more, but I am not that person yet. I'm trying to get there.”
Housewife's music regularly touches on the experience of being a young, queer, AFAB person existing in a male-dominated industry. In addition to exploring these themes in their music, Housewife is also an advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ rights, reproductive freedom and environmentalism, proudly fighting for immediate government response to protect ecological catastrophes as a founding member of the Canadian chapter of Music Declares Emergency.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for sitting down and talking to Unpublished Magazine. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music better. For any readers who aren't familiar, what inspires your creative persona and style?
[HOUSEWIFE]: It's all over the place for inspiration. People often ask me what my influences are and it's really like all over the place. I listened to every genre of music. Obviously, I was inspired by Riot Grrl and a lot of the kind of feminist punk growing up. It’s all over the place in terms of persona. I feel like it's just me but more dramatized. For housewife, the name inspires and kind of brings up a lot of things about gender roles, and so I really like exploring that in my music and then also in my photoshoots and the music videos.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your favorite Riot Grrrl band and why?
[HOUSEWIFE]: I really liked Le Tigre growing up. I don't listen to Riot Grrrl as much anymore, but I did Girls Rock Camp Toronto as a kid and we learned a lot about Riot Grrrl and that was a very big inspiration for a lot of the campers as kids.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your newest single “Fuck Around Phase” just released and a huge congratulations is in order. Can you tell us about the evolution and your music since you started up until this release?
[HOUSEWIFE]: I've always really loved more indie-rock stylings, but I started out as a singer, songwriter doing folk music when I started releasing music eight years ago. It's been a natural progression of slowly exploring first pop and then indie-rock a little more. This is me starting to do more rock progression and I finally have the confidence to do that. I think it's very easy to hide behind that singer, songwriter and folk thing, as an AFAB person, and then also I grew up listening to a lot of rock. I was surrounded by folk festivals. It was a very natural thing. Recently, I had to push myself to pursue a rock direction.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I love how empowering and upbeat “Fuck Around Phase” is. What was the inspiration behind the song?
[HOUSEWIFE]: I'm just trying to learn to take myself a little less seriously musically and I think that is largely what the song is about. It's about going through a breakup or some sort of ending in a relationship, like a work relationship or a friendship, and the freedom you have to go and resocialize yourself and go and try to not take things too seriously and have fun with your friends. I'm 20 and I have anxiety and I am always worried about being professional. It is a conscious choice to learn to have fun or make the choice to have fun, and so that's what the song is about. It's learning to sink into that feeling and embrace that.
[UNPUBLISHED]: The song obviously touches on embracing flaws and messiness, taking life less seriously. How do you convey this attitude outside of your music that helps you channel this into your songwriting and creative processes?
[HOUSEWIFE]: I'm definitely still learning. The song is about a period in my life where certain things and situations have ended for me and I can take it and move on from personal experience. It’s also an aspirational zone because I want to be the person who embraces flaws and embraces messiness and doesn’t take things seriously. I think those are all really wonderful qualities in a person and I think we all need to do that a little more, but I am not that person yet. I'm trying to get there.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What did the creative process look like for “Fuck Around Phase?”
[HOUSEWIFE]: I wrote this song with Savana Santos and Gabe Simon. I had this idea that I just wanted to write a song with imagery. It didn't end up making it into the song but by taking the night bus home, at like 3 am with your friends in it, which is always a very surreal experience. They looked at my creative inspiration and converted it into lyrics. It was a really fun process. It was embracing not only taking things less seriously, but the song itself is a messy song.
[UNPUBLISHED]: This is your first release of 2023 and it follows your EP, You’ll Be Forgiven. What can listeners expect from this new era of music?
[HOUSEWIFE]: Messier. More fun. I think my music still deals with a lot of the same issues like mental health issues and gender roles, but sonically, I'm trying to get a little more wacky and explore more.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Have you been taking any new risks or experimenting more with “Fuck Around Phase” that differs from You’ll Be Forgiven?
[HOUSEWIFE]: I guess for me being blunt and open in my lyrics is a big risk. My dad is a poet and I’ve grown up reading a lot of poetry and literature, and so I’ve always had this instinct to clock what I’m saying, and that’s both simultaneously alike, like I have to find the most poetic way to say this, but also find the most poetic way of saying something means that it might not be clear what you’re actually saying. I think it’s a risk for me to be more blunt about what I’m saying, like this is what I’m feeling and I’m gonna share it with the world. I’m not someone who’s super open emotionally and anyone who knows me can agree with that. I’m also embracing indie-rock more which has a messy side to it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: The throughline that connects a lot of your music inspiration is your experiences of being queer, especially in a male-dominated industry. I know you're a huge advocate for queer rights in and out of the studio and I know how important inclusivity is to you in the music industry. Sadly, there's still a huge gap between female nonbinary artists compared to their male counterparts. I would love to know your thoughts on this and what you would like to see changed.
[HOUSEWIFE]: One big one is that I would love to see more non-male sound people and that's not a hot take. I think it's really inspiring to see people and queer people who are competent and trained on the technical side of things because the technical side of things feels very much like a man's world, and so it's really cool to see that. I'm not gonna pretend to say I have all the answers on how we can improve things, but for me, the trick is to just keep being very open about who I am and strong about who I am, and to continue to be like, I'm here. I'm queer. A huge part of my music touches on feminism. It doesn’t have to be an angry political statement. People assume that because I talk about being queer and addressing gender roles in my music that it’s a conscious political choice, but that’s not me. That’s me being open about who I am. That in itself is inherently political. I think people need to continue to be strong and take up space and not be afraid to take up space.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I also read that you're a founding member of the Canadian chapter of Music Declares Emergency. I'm really interested in learning how your passion for activism started for you and why you chose this route for activism?
[HOUSEWIFE]: My mom is a climate activist. She worked at Greenpeace when I was a kid so it's always been something that I've been around, and then also growing up in the folk music scene, I went to a lot of folk festivals. I was around a lot of hippies growing up and it's always been something very present, and also seeing that connection between climate and music. There’s a lot of film festivals in Ontario and in Canada that are really sustainable and they put an act of focus into how we can reduce our waste and reduce our carbon footprint as a festival. To me, that kind of connection between climate and music has always been a no-brainer. I grew up going to protests for various environmental causes, and they would always have people sing a song and do that kind of thing. My first recital performance ever was for a Greenpeace fundraiser. Greenpeace in Canada was started with a fundraiser that iconic folk musicians played at like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and all that connection has always been a no-brainer to me. I think musicians are very emotional people, so they're gonna care about things like climate. Music and social issues are always gonna go together because music can tap into people's emotions and get them passionate and inspired about issues in a way that reading the facts can't do. That combination is a no-brainer, and I'm a musician and so my activism is going to come from a place of being a musician.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How has the response been from supporters, listeners and friends in terms of the organization?
[HOUSEWIFE]: People are really interested in it. I know for Music Declares in Canada, our biggest issue right now is we've had too much interest almost like people being like, we want to work with you or we want you to appear on this thing and not enough time and resources and people who actually are working, like are part of the organization to go out and fulfill those things. So it's cool to see how much people care about it, and then it's also interesting to see that there is a lack of institutional support to a certain extent, not just in the music industry, I'm talking just generally it's like people care about climate and there's support but not financial support or resources. The government isn’t paying attention to the extent that citizens have been, so it’s a double-edged sword.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Unpublished?
[HOUSEWIFE]: I'm just excited. I'm sure all musicians say this once they release a new thing, but it does feel like a new chapter for me and I'm just really excited. I've had a lot of fun making this song and working on other songs that will be coming out. I feel like in the last six months I have just sat myself down and been like, this is your thing, and this is what you're devoted to. I think that's going to show in my music that I love this so much. I'm putting all my time into it and hopefully that'll show.
Photo by Luke Rogers