Spot On: Luca Vasta

When you’re young, there’s always the fight with your own feelings. One day you feel strong enough to conquer the world within seconds, the next day you’re too depressed to get out of bed and you just want to hide from life. On her debut album, ALBA, German singer/songwriter LUCA VASTA deals with those two sides of human nature. It’s black and white,dark and bright, hopeful and hopeless at the same time. Just life as you might know it.

Taking voice and piano lessons as a child or playing songs with her family at home established the position of music in the now 25 years old’s life . No wonder one of her main goals was to release her own music one day. After moving to Berlin and working for several German TV stations, VASTA also started writing on tracks for her first record. Dealing with loneliness and heartsickness during this period, the artist produced a record which would be described later on as a ‘portrait of a young woman’s emotional ups and downs’ among critics.

In March 2013, almost a year before the release of ALBA, VASTA leaked her first single Cut My Hair on the web. Her first statememt as a musician was a catchy and coltish dedication to her hair. The song was used immediately for a German commercial. The track’s music video, which was filmed within three days in Italy, her native country, reached almost one million views by now.

After uploading some more stuff during the past months and clips about the production of ALBA, the singer finally released her debut LP in April this year.

Suddenly people started to recognize the former TV host with the long brown hair again. Bloggers spread the word about LUCA VASTA‘s so-called ‘vintage pop’, the music station she used to work for introduced her right before and after its commercial breaks. TV performances, a lot of interviews on radio stations followed. It’s like everyone wants to know the ambitious girl who has switched position from interviewer to interviewee, starting her career once again, this time in music. Her real passion.

NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION didn’t miss the chance to get to know the charming singer as well, so we visited her in Cologne right before her gig to talk a bit about life on tour, feeling alone and timless music.

 

So it’s your first tour. How is it so far?
It is great. I’m with my hole family here and I know the band for a long time. We worked together on the album and it’s just great. It’s really funny, we’re super childish and laughing all the time. Our band is a very good combination. There are four guys and one girl. She’s been a really good friend of mine for a long time and we’re giggeling a lot.

 

You’ve also spent some days in Toronto earlier this month? How was your time in Canada?
Amazing! It was the firt time for us in Canada. It was a good feeling to travel somewhere and to show your music to other people and not to be only in Germany. We’ve played in small venues and it was a whole new experience for us. We couldn’t do soundcheck or anything. It was just like going there, putting all your stuff on stage and then perform. It was definitely an interesting experience. And, of course, Canada is great. Toronto is great. We would like to go back there someday.

 

Is there any difference between a Canadian and a German audience?
(Thinking) Yeah. Maybe the people there are more fun in a way. Toronto is like a music city. The people are not that super critical, I think. Sometimes the sound was a bit shitty, I would say. But they had so much fun. They were all dancing and screaming and everything. They gave us a really good time.

 

Let’s talk about your first album. What does the title stand for?
ALBA is Italian. It stands for sunrise and I think it fits as the title for my first album. It’s like the sunrise of my music.

 

The record has been described as a ‘portrait of a woman in her early twenties’. It’s about feeling lonely, being young and alone. Was it an emotional journey for you then, while working on your music?
Yes, it was. I started to write songs about three years ago. I moved to Berlin and it was a new situation for me. I moved into my first own apartment. I come from a big family, so I never had my own space. Then suddenly I was there: first job, big apartment. I started to feel kind of lonely. Berlin is a great city and I admire its vibe, but if you don’t have much friends there or people you know, it can become depressing. It was a very special time of my life. The first time I felt really lonely. I also had a big breakup before.

 

So what song would you call the most personal then? After all you’ve experencied during this time?
I think it is Take The Gun. It tells the story about a boy and a girl who meet for the last time. They just can’t breakup, even when they have to. It’s the last time for them. Before it all ends.

On stage the singer didn’t loose her charm at all. She even seemed a bit shy when entering it. Without a big introduction, the band started playing and filled the room with the mysterious sound of Angel Heart, the album’s first track.

The ‘Studio 672’ in Cologne, which was located right below a restaurant, had this certain underground vibe. VASTA took the role of the girl next door who just slammed down her tunes, whipping up her hair and giving her audience a great time. You can’t do much of a show when you are just at the beginning of your career, but the artist made the best out of it: small stage, her name in white neon lights in the back. A private gig for belovers of her music. She performed all the songs from Alba, one non-album piece called Sun and a three-track acoustic session as an encore, including her second official single Black Tears White Lies, the nasty Imperial and an italian song she used to sing as a child.

The temperatures outside were high, in the club the air was thick, but VASTA managed to hypnotise the small audience (about 50 people, maybe 60) and send them into a different space. A space full of melancholia and private stories, told through her music.

Take The Gun, a slow and more silent ballad, was the emotional highlight of her show. During its performance it got pretty clear there’s a painfull stroy behind the song.

Still, one of the most memorable moments was the catchy and loud Cut My Hair. Shouting out the chorus and moving her body to the drums (not to mention playing with her hair all the time), the lead single of her debut represented the anthem in VASTA‘s black and white world.

 

Your music was once described as ‘vintage pop’. How would you describe it by yourself?
(lauhgs) That’s always the hardest question! Yeah, in a way it is ‘vintage pop’, but for me it’s also like a soundtrack of a movie. You have good days, then bad days. Maybe I’m a bit over dramatic sometimes, because I’m italian. I might be a bit too emotional. That’s why I compare my album to an italian black and white movie from the 60’s. Over the top sometimes. It’s super sad and then it’s super funny again.

 

You’ve just mentioned your Italian roots. I’ve heard you listened to artists like LAURA PAUSINI when you were a child, or LAURYN HILL and JONI MITCHELL when you were a bit older. Which artists do inspire you today?
It’s still JONI MITCHELL. Her music is timeless and she has an amazing voice, I love it. I also like modern music, LONDON GRAMMAR or the stuff of LYKKE LI. But I’m still listening to VELVET UNDERGROUND, FLEETWOOD MAC, JONI MITCHELL or MICHAEL JACKSON. It’s great because it’s still modern, even when it was recorded 20 years ago. It’s timeless. That’s what I like about music. During the production of Alba, I didn’t set any boundaries. I never thought something like ‘Oh no, you can’t do that because nobody is doing it right now’. I just wanted to do something I really liked.

 

And is there any artist or album you’re listening to at the moment?
I love SOHN‘s new record. Or LYKKE LI‘s I Never Learn. I like that a lot. Or FUTURE ISLANDS.

 

What do hope and passion mean to you?
(thinking) That’s a great one, because actually those are my favourite words. I wanna be hopeful all the time and I also always hope for the best. It’s really hard starting a career in music, you always have to hope for the best and go on. It can get pretty tough sometimes, you don’t earn a lot of money. I don’t know… I think it’s just really important not to loose hope. And passion is the most important thing. If there is no passion, you don’t have to do it, you know? You have to mean it.

‘A journey of emotional ups and downs’

So after our little chat and seeing LUCA VASTA live on stage, what is her debut Alba all about? Well, it might not be the happiest trip, but it is worth the ride.

If you’ve been a fan of the catchy and addictive sound of Cut My Hair in 2013, you won’t be disappointed in the artist’s other work. Although the album consists of more dark tunes, the singer keeps her sound constantly interesting. Yes, it is melancholic, sad and reminds here and then a bit of LANA DEL REY, but the German singer has a certain coolness in her voice, so it is never overdone. Her songs are telling stories about small happenings in life, which sometimes seem so huge. The bone-crushing and heavy title track, Dear Alba, deals with the missed opportunity of telling ‘Good-bye’ to an important person. In Golden Sea, VASTA drowns due to a relationship which works quite good, but takes her down at the same time. On Heartbeat, there’s the thing with falling in love with the wrong man.

Besides the hair-song, there are two more faster tracks on Alba: Sometimes Your Right and the over the top cool and glamorous Imperial (I Don’t Wanna Dance), in which the singer slams down her crush, knowing she is doing exactly the opposite thing with the song.

All those little tales are accompanied by dramatic choirs and catchy beats. It is defenetely pop music, but with strong alternative influences. It sounds more serious, classy or retro than pop tunes from other German artists at the oment. You don’t get bored while listening through the album. There will always be a track you can relate to, because VASTA sings straight out about the experiences of a young adult, trying to find her way. And if Alba stands for sunrise, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, so she will find it. Sooner or later.

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LUCA VASTA