There are some people who are great at acting, and there are some people that are really good at singing as well… but not many people can claim to be all those things and a fashionable singer/songwriter that gets to travel the world and work with the biggest names in the industry. One person that can stake this claim, however, is Romanian artist Sorana, who you may have heard of if you’re into your David Guetta, Dua Lipa, Little Mix or even Romanian soap operas.
We had a digital sit down with Sorana ahead of her newest release, ‘Happy Birthday Sadness’ (out now) to discuss everything from cowboys to birthday blues, to what really inspires her…
Hi Sorana, where in the world are you today?
Today I’m in London, tomorrow I’m in Portugal and in a few days, I’m going to be in Miami and then back to LA, where I live!
So, you’re from Romania originally, do you feel like that influences your work a lot?
I’m not sure, honestly. I feel like I’ve always loved American pop music and songs in English in general and British bands and all that stuff. I’ve never really related to Romanian music, but I do love Romanian folklore, the actual genuine old Romanian music. I think it’s very beautiful and I feel like some of my melodies might be influenced by that. We have a lot of sad songs, it’s just like really nice and really beautiful melodies, so I feel like from that perspective, yes.
I read you were in a Romanian soap opera (A new life) and part of a band called Lala band, how does being a solo artist compare?
So basically, I was on the last season of this huge soap opera, called A New Life. I wasn’t actually in the band, I was one of the villains. I was a new character in the last season of the show, they actually made a character for me, named Sorana, because they liked my look and the way I’m different. Filming that Soap Opera was one of the best things, it was so nice to act. It was like playing me, but it was like a villain version of me, so it was really fun to do that. People started recognising me on the street, they would like pin me to walls, like all the kids loved me because it was kind of a High School Musical Romanian version. It was really nice. It was completely different to my Solo career, because I actually wasn’t in the band in the show.
You’ve worked in many different roles in the industry: singer, actor, songwriter… is there anything else you want to try out?
I feel like I’m a really good vocal producer and I would love to try production. Basically, that’s how I started doing music. When I started doing music in Romania, I thought production was the easiest thing to start with, something that I could understand more because I came from a visual background. I thought working in a program would be visual and then kind of introduce me to music, so I started doing that, but I wasn’t very supported, so I ended up not doing that. I would say here also, when a girl is trying to be a producer, I feel like guys in the industry should support that. I wasn’t supported and I have a lot of production ideas, in all my productions I sing themes that producers put in. If I was to add another layer to my music, it would be doing more production.
After leaving Romania, you’re mostly based in LA but travel a lot, where has been your favourite place to visit?
I love to go to Lisbon, in Portugal. It’s so nice. My boyfriend lives there, so I go to see him. It’s a bit like LA, but not. It’s more chill and the buildings are beautiful and it’s very relaxing to go there. And I love going to London, which is my second home!
What do you prefer, LA Fashion or London Fashion?
That’s a tough one, it’s so different! I definitely love London fashion. I feel like London has always been a super fashionable city. If we’re talking about actual fashion, if we’re talking about people and how people dress, I would also pick London. But, I love how when you go out in LA, no matter how you are dressed, because I love to dress weird and do crazy makeup, nobody looks at you weird, everyone is very welcoming to anyone’s way of fashion expression. People always tell me ‘Oh My God, I love your hair, I love your makeup, I love your shoes’ and then in different parts of Europe, for example Romania, where I come from, it’s different. I used to be very judged about how I look, because people are not used to people looking different.
We love your style and particularly your cyberpunk hair, what are your fashion influences?
Sailor Moon. For my hair, I swear that watching Sailor Moon as a child really took my breath away. I love her long pigtails and the whole concept of a gang of girls with superpowers, I feel like I modelled all my life after Sailor Moon. Like even my group of friends, we were seven girls, always together, basically like in the cartoon. I feel like that was my first fashion inspiration, perhaps not necessary fashion, but persona inspiration.
You’ve worked with massive artists such as David Guetta, Charlie XCX and Bebe Rexha, who’s been your favourite artist to work with?
David Guetta is my favourite artist that I’ve worked with so far. We’ve been in the studio together a few times and I love the way he gets excited, we both get excited, about good songs. He plays me beats and then I sing something and then he gets excited and then we go to the piano and we sing something. I love that such a big artist as him, who puts out so many great songs still gets so excited about the music making process. He’s actually like a kid in the studio, we kind of vibe in that place. He comes into the booth and we’re like ‘what about this? what about that?’ It’s very inspiring to work with him.
Which artist has influenced your work the most?
I would say Lana Del Rey because I always wanted to be a singer but I never wanted to be a songwriter and when I heard her songs I thought wow, this music sounds like poetry. It has meaning, it has a deeper meaning. So, I was like, okay, if songs can be like that, I want to write some too. So that inspired me a lot.
Wild Girls is such a hit, are you a big fan of Clint Eastwood or cowboy movies?
I mean yes, I love The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which is where I sampled the theme from. It’s so mysterious and cool. I wrote a song called Wild Girls, so I wanted to make it authentic, so I integrated THE western theme in my song and I used it as the first melody, which I’m really happy about cause it just brought the song together.
It’s currently your season libra! How are you enjoying it?
Well, I’m loving it because it was just my birthday, on the 27th September and I just released my song Happy Birthday Sadness. I love that I could match them together because my song is about being sad on my birthday. I wrote it in 2020 during quarantine, I was stuck in LA and I couldn’t see my hometown friends, my boyfriend and my family and I was quite alone in LA and I wrote this song about missing people on your birthday. I had friends in LA already and they threw me a party and I love them and it was really nice to have that as new person in LA. I felt very loved by that party but also felt quite sad inside, the more we laughed the more I felt sad that my core people were missing so I wrote this song, Happy Birthday Sadness, about that.
You talk about how you’re always sad on your birthday, with so much going on, was this still a sad birthday?
This was a really happy birthday actually! I’ve been living in LA for two and a half years now and I had this party on this rooftop with all my friends. The theme was like funeral birthday party, all black, with mascara running down your cheeks, it was kind of like a more punk kind of birthday party, I really love that. So, this was a great birthday. But honestly, I love being a bit sad on your birthday, who doesn’t? It just feels like your birthday is a day where you go over whatever you’ve been through during the whole year and sometimes you cry at midnight just because you want to let out everything you’ve been though, all the drama and then you can hit restart for like a new year, new drama. It’s a great sentiment, birthday melancholy is a thing, I feel like a lot of people go through that.
Your music video for ‘Happy Birthday Sadness’ is sick, what was the coolest part about getting to create visuals for your music?
I love making videos because it’s just such a different thing to creating music. I love visuals, I love everything that you can see. Music is such a different art because you can’t see it, you just hear it and it just feels different but when you do visual stuff it just adds a layer to the story. Then you can choose outfits and a theme and make a story in the story of the song. I love to be the main character. I love to be involved in the process, coming up with the idea. For Happy Birthday Sadness I actually wanted to do a punk, dark, leathery birthday party with neon lights, like you never have a birthday party like that, but I just wanted to suggest a darker vibe, like the sadness around birthdays.
Words by Giuliana Zamudio-Lopez
Header image: @Sorana
