AVRY
AVRY
Artist Of the month
AVRY
Over two years ago, on a layover flight in Minneapolis. ÔRKiD had the pleasure of meeting up with AVRY for a quick breakfast on a frigid Mid-West Sunday morning. We broke it down, ate bacon and chatted about a possible album. Today, on her very own birthday ÔRKiD proudly introduces you to AVRY and her EP-Prefix.
She sinks into the booth massaging her temples. AVRY has been busy with travel. She tousles through her bag and finds her peppermint oil. “I never want to be boxed in and sexualized as a writer or musician” she states, rubbing the oil on her temples.
A perfectionist with a fresh approach she has dabbled in various forms of art. Painting, graphic design, a degree in advertising and yes.. music to name a few. She aspires to add each of these elements of herself into the music she creates. Noticing that AVRY can’t ‘perfectly’ draw, paint, or even play the piano, she has come to terms with that. She has fully embodied this ‘imperfection’ and perfected it as her own which she has skillfully reflected right into her music, saying “I compete with perfection or what I perceive perfection to be”. In full honesty AVRY makes note of that she is an underdog, not a trained musician and apart from her own vocals she doesn't play instruments professionally either. She makes music from her gut and any sound that will make sense to her in that moment. She finds that she doesn't always know what works right off the bat which is part of the beautiful artistic journey of trial and error.
“I love bacon, put that all on me” breakfast arrives and we have finally defrosted from the Minnesotan chill. She smothers half of it in hot sauce and adds salt to everything...rattling off that salt should just be a side dish. AVRY relaxes a bit, taking a bite or three, then ponders out the window of the diner. Violently she looks back and states, “I’m pissed”. She's angry with where the music industry is. As a whole there isn't a lot of realness left. The amount of sexualization female artists endure and the type of branding that everyone needs to do currently is out of control. “I don't see male artists in a lip gloss commercial, do you?”
Self discovery in the music industry is shallow. Most of the big named female artists have taken the image that social media has given them and uses it as some sort of merit or podium to speak upon. Talent shouldn’t be based on attractiveness. “I find that lyrically they are straying away from true self discovery. This is AVRY, this is who I am...you have to deal with it and I will not let you define me. My music should not relate to what I look like.”
As a writer she wants to stand up and write about this issue. AVRY wants it to be less about what people think and more about what people feel.
AVRY goes into detail on instant self-gratification. “I believe that we are thrown.. well, born into a society where we constantly have this obsession to be ‘liked’...looking the best, being the best, post only the best...like a facade of who we really are. There’s a huge divide between the classes as well, where pop singers represent the 1% and sing about their yachts and jewelry which is effective to a very impressionable target audience. But it wasn’t always like that, there were some hit female artists that didn’t rely on this fantasy world, look at Jewel, look at Janis Joplin. It’s sad because so many of these people started from such beautiful spaces with raw energy, fresh approaches, perspectives and their own unique sound. Then the media boxes and dilutes them into a ‘toothtune toothbrushes’.
“I don’t see male artists in a lip gloss commercial, do you?”
The expression, ‘sex sells’ is true and is all around us. I just never thought it’d be in our ears. There’s no room left for self-expression when we’re carbon copies of one another.” Knowing full well of the millennial fast paced world, AVRY wishes we could redirect the focus from who the artists appear to be and instead onto their music itself.
The mood shifts a bit, we hone in on her sound.“I strive for my music to be interchangeable with the listener's mood. They can play it alone, very intimately or they can blast it and let their rage out. I want people to feel comfortable enough to be themselves.” Her music would be best described as alternative maybe.. with depth grunge and a side order of hip hop. That grunge separates her a bit from the pack. Maybe that’s the artist in her wanting to express true vulnerability to her audience and show it’s normal to suffer. “I don't need to sing about my Lambo in 6 different colors” she says stirring her coffee, “All I need is a car that gets me from point A to B...some food, a place to sleep, and good damn company. Why sing about material things when personification is in essence so much greater?”
-Written by Matthew Neele on a freezing cold day in Minneapolis Oct. 24, 2017
