Q&A with Musician Em Crowe

The older I get, the more convinced I am that humans were made to be creative— the types of creativity vary from person to person, but the thread connecting us all is an innate desire to create. So often, when I talk to people about their dreams, they aren’t dreams of sending emails or corporate jobs but rather creative projects they want to pursue. Especially in a day and age when there has been a push to incorporate AI into anything and everything, there is something truly magnificent, freeing, and uniquely human about creating.

A couple of years ago, when my day job was working at a talent agency, a new person, Em Crowe, came to work in my department. While the job was very analytical—focused on punching numbers and spreadsheets and answering way too many emails, I quickly discovered that, similar to myself, Em had aspirations beyond their day job. I learned that they’re in a band and have released some independent work as well, and when I listened to their music, I was blown away by the talent hidden in a corporate 9-5.

Em has big musical plans for 2025, and I was lucky enough to sit down and chat with them about what they’re up to, what inspires them, and so much more. As always, this artist Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How long have you known that you wanted to be a musical artist?

A: From a really young age, I was involved in a ton of musical things. My grandfather could play like every instrument if he just touched it and my grandmother was really on the classical side, so she was very by the book. We had a lot of music in the family. I think I started doing musicals when I was nine, and then it just snowballed from there--I was in like six choirs in high school. In college, I actually took quite a break. I didn't play piano, I didn't sing for four years. Then, the pandemic was a moment when we all were looking inward, and it all started again.

Q: You recently released your single 26. Can you talk a little bit about the process of writing and creating that song?

A: I actually, funnily enough, was just wanting to scratch a creative itch so I found a monologue online, and I was writing notes on the character that I was trying to look at. The first thing I wrote down was the first lyric of the song, which is, "This is mine even though it isn't." That was just like a really poignant feeling that I really related to. That's kind of where it started, and then lyrics and melody kind of end up being added along the way. That's what songs do for you is give you a space to put a feeling down instead of having to carry it around all the time. So that's kind of the inception of the song.

Q: You're an independent artist and because of that, you've had to do a lot on your own—what types of things have you learned to do as you've made your way in this world?

A: I run up against a lot of resistance within myself and I think many people do. It's kind of that thing where you're like, "Well, I can't play on this record because I'm not good enough to play keys on it." And so I've spent a lot of time trying to learn how to produce because I felt so disconnected from my instrument (other than my voice, that's its own thing). I'm just so passionate about singing much more than I am about playing. But playing is kind of unbeatable; you have to get in there and do it. Lots of production is going on---trying to learn how to make beats, trying to figure out mixing and mastering. I definitely still need the cavalry to come in when it hits that stage. I do a lot of vocal layering, which is really fun. And that was something that was kind of natural because of the 70 choirs I was in. So, I find it really fun to arrange that way. Some influences I can think of off the top of my head are Emily King, Sarah Kinsley, or other artists in that realm of really stacking the vocals.

I feel really lucky because I've been a part of a band for the last four years. So I'm surrounded by musicians often, and we collaborate, and it's really nice.

Q: You mentioned that you're in a band as well as doing your independent stuff, can you talk a little bit about that?

A: I have such great bandmates. I love them so much. We're called the Forest View Movement, and we're playing a show in New York in April; that's going to be really fun. Two of us live up here (in New York); two are in Philly, and one's in Jersey. So we're all kind of spread out now, but we're a Philly-based band. It was kind of serendipitous; we all met a couple of days after my birthday, I remember, and we wrote four songs together on the same day. For my side stuff, I run it by them; I'm like, "What do you think of this? What would you want to see? What's missing?"

They've influenced my style and taught me what I can actually do because I've been able to perform live with them. That was my first dive back into being on any kind of stage so that really expanded my horizons.

Q: How would you characterize your musical style?

A: I really love to defy the boundaries; I want everything to be smushed together. And I think that's becoming more and more popular as time goes on. But I would definitely say my style is indie with some funk-rock influence. I really want to challenge myself to write a song around a bass line next because that's always kind of the driving force of the groove that you kind of get into.

So many of my influences are so vastly different. I love Medium Build; he's my most-played artist of the year. I also really love being sarcastic, and I think that's kind of a Hayley Williams influence; she writes really sarcastically for Paramore. And then we gotta throw some jazz in there and call on Amy Winehouse once in a while. So those are kind of my friends I keep with me when I'm writing.

Q: Is there a story behind any of your songs that you'd like to share?

A:There's nothing better than writing a song and then finding out what it's about. And I think that kind of happens to me most often; I'll be writing a lyric and trying to surround it with the feeling that I think it evokes. And then I'm suddenly like, "This is about this." Like I'm writing a song that is in the works right now about past lives and how I feel like I'm on the eighth one out of nine. Like I'm almost the wisest and almost there. And then I realized that that's actually about queerness. We're all going through a tough time right now. And that feeling that we were almost the generation who could have fun in our 20s unabashedly, and then it keeps getting given and taken away.

To speak to 26, I ended up writing it thinking about childhood, and there are a lot of nostalgic lyrics in there, like sitting on a beach chair with my dad watching a storm is something I used to do, or playing games like Sorry and Life, which are mentioned in the second verse. I kind of wanted to evoke this feeling that going back to the nostalgia doesn't work anymore. It doesn't make you feel better; it just makes you feel stuck. And so the song, in essence, is about not even realizing that you won. Like you're focusing so hard on what you lost on the way to the game. And so that, I think, is a pretty universal feeling with really specific information from my life and memories and childhood.

Q: How does queerness impact the type of music that you create?

A: It's something I think we all, as a group of people, are kind of always coming to grips with, just like anything else. I think queerness kind of gets singled out as that thing that, like, is this point of suffering and pain in your life. And I think you need to write about those things; you need to let them out and let them be a part of you. But I also think that the biggest act of rebellion is joy. And so I think that's really important. You can write the saddest song about it, and it still makes people feel better or makes them feel related to it. And I think that still brings about joy, even if it's like a sad kind of concept or the song is talking about your struggles through it.

Q: Outside of music, what other types of art influence and inspire you?

A: I'm an AMC A-list member, which is very important to me at this juncture in my life, and so a lot of my passion is in film. Writing and understanding characters, I think, is kind of the same thing as writing a song. I think of songs each as a character version of myself in a way because you have to commit to that feeling that you're trying to put out, and you don't need to address all the other ones.

Also, I am that friend who you kind of don't want to go to a museum with because I need to read every placard and look at everything for about 20 minutes. I love getting lost in visual art and trying to piece it together because I think it's the thing that I understand the least. I went to an installation down in Hudson Yards called Luna Luna. And it's all these carnival rides that were built by Keith Haring, Basquiat, Dali, and all these people you never thought you would have met. It made me cry, and then I went home and thought about it for days. I had to write stuff down and take notes on it.

Q: Is there anything new or exciting on the horizon for you?

A: After putting out 26, I've set a goal for myself this year to write, I mean, I have a lot of songs written, but I want to get one done each month---like produced, mixed, mastered, ready to go out. Then, by August, I am planning on having an eight-song EP out; it might be nine if I'm really ambitious. I have two songs that are kind of coming up on the ladder, one's ready to go out. One of them includes that song I was talking about, where we're talking about past lives and things like that. It's a letter to whoever's next. And it doesn't necessarily mean your child or someone in your family; it's just kind of like, whoever I get recycled into, this is your guide. So that one I'm excited about. And then I have another one called Wide Awake. That's gonna be the next one ready to go. It's honestly about being grimy post-breakup. And I'm looking into this as a progression of feeling. Basically, there's going to be twin EPS. I don't know if I'll say the names yet; I think I want that to be a little bit of a later development.

Be sure to give Em’s work a listen on Spotify or anywhere you get your music, and check out their Instagram to stay up to date on new releases. Additionally, next month, this conversation with Em will be available as a podcast on our new podcast, hankycode Presents: The Sewing Circle.