NOUKIE On the Making Of “Custom Nightmare”
Is there a person/event that stimulated the creation of "Custom Nightmare?"
I wouldn't say it is one specific person or event, but it definitely links up to a time in my life when I was going down a path of online dating. I kept getting more and more fed up with the interactions I had, the way some of them would just be way too obsessive and sometimes downright creepy. I remember being on the subway home from one date with a very overly clingy guy and I just started writing in my notes. About 25 minutes later I had all the lyrics and I felt a hell of a lot better!
Were there any challenges or obstacles you faced while creating this single?
I think putting the music to the lyrics in this case was much more difficult than normal, as I wrote the two separately. I was really attached to not changing too much about the wording of the song and that made it hard to fit it to music. Luckily my friend Izzy Von Scarecrow really helped me narrow down what I wanted the sound to be, and between us, she might've had to re-do some of my messier moments on the guitar...
Can you describe the emotions or feelings you hope this single evokes in listeners?
While this song obviously comes very much from the feminine perspective on dating in today's world, I really hope that regardless of gender, people connect with the frustration of trying to find a person to call your own and just being let down time after time.
Your lyrics often tell stories. Can you talk about your approach to storytelling through music?
I really wish I had more of an actual approach to it, the truth is I suck at letting go of emotions so they tend to just spin around in my head for hours. Writing is my way of getting it all out, so my songs often come at the end of some provoking period in my life. Before it was pressure in school, this time it's the modern dating scene!
How do you maintain and take care of your voice? Are there any specific vocal techniques you use?
I generally try to be in good physical shape, but I'm not gonna lie I probably should take better care of my voice than I do now. I often just hook up a mic and start singing without much method to it, and sometimes that goes great while other times the results just piss me off. It's actually something I really hope to learn more about and be better at so that I can keep doing this for a long time.
