Taken from our Spring 2023 issue, order your copy here.

As a child of the 2000s, ASHWARYA grew up like many others of her generation: idolising Disney stars and escaping through play into imaginative worlds of her own. But, it was dancing to Bollywood tunes with her grandparents at their home in Melbourne, Australia that unleashed her desire to perform as a solo artist. Combined with her obsession with creating hypnotic melodies whilst constantly immersing herself in Melbourne’s tight-knit community of underground artists, ASHWARYA has found herself crafting music that falls effortlessly into a space of its own – somewhere between pop bliss and dance rhythms, ignited by Indian influences and Hindi spoken word. With each of her releases comes an element of surprise, be that the maximalist and hyper-styled art direction of her music videos, or the unapologetically raw lyrics that hold the capacity to evoke a whole host of emotions.

Having recently supported Dua Lipa at her show in Melbourne, ASHWARYA’s trajectory is growing at rates faster than ever before. Following the release of her spellbinding songs “Best Friend” and “Can’t Relate”, each giving commentary to a world rinsed in political upheaval and social media obsessions, Hannah Karpel sits down with the upcoming artist to discuss everything from falling in love with your best friend to the power or being authentically you.

How much has your Indian heritage influenced your music today?
I grew up speaking Hindi and Gujarati which I had learned through watching Bollywood movies and spending time with my grandparents. Bollywood music was introduced to me before Western music. It has a certain soundscape that, when I’m hearing songs like “Toxic” by Britney Spears or early 2000s songs, I notice a Bollywood sample.Especially now, so many rappers are singing over Bollywood samples. It makes me very excited. There’s so much music out there where the two worlds of Bollywood and Western music collide. This has all played a big role in my identity as well.I feel like my background mixed with growing up in Melbourne has been my superpower because I can see through two different perspectives in anything that I approach from art and visuals to writing and fashion.

There seems to be a lot of contrast across your music between the lyrics and its melody, like with your new song, “Best Friend”. The lyrics feel really sad yet the energy is so upbeat. Can you tell me more about that?
I’m glad you said that because I think it’s a subconscious thing. I didn’t intend for the song to feel like this upbeat-ish song but lyrically yes, it’s really sad. To fall in love with your best friend is not the most ideal situation to be in so it is a bittersweet song. Although I tend to focus on the lyrics, I actually create the melodies first. To me, the melody is everything. So, with “Best Friend”, I just say words to the melody and even if my words are there without meaning, I usually end up connecting the dots. My subconscious is always saying words that make sense of the world. The sentence, “And I was your best friend and now I’m just losing all my senses,” was already in there so I just connected the dots and then it was done.

Of all the music that you’ve released to date, is there one song that means the most to you? And if so, why?
I think “FLARE” has probably meant the most to me in terms of songwriting and the approach I had to that song. I have a lot of tempo changes in my music, which is usually upbeat and very in-your-face. But, with “FLARE”, I didn’t think about a tempo change initially. I didn’t realise what it meant to me when I was writing it and finishing it. But, when I come back to that song and think about how much of
myself I put into it, I hold it very close to my heart. So I always come back to that one because it stands right in the middle of songs like “BIRYANI” and “LOVE AGAIN”, which are completely stripped back. It’s kind of like the nucleus of the first EP.

Is that a certain lyric in that song that stands out to you?
It’s a fairly basic lyric but I’d say it is, “Damn, I just want to feel something. Let it go. There’s it all let me fall.”

What has the response been like since introducing your pop audience to elements of South-Asian music?
It’s been great. There’s one side where those from a South Asian background who have grown up hearing something like that are all of a sudden DMing me to let me know what it means to them and it shows when I’m performing live and I can see that the music is really hitting them. It’s a special moment. People say, “Oh my God, I’ve not had that representation on stage, especially in this country.” On the other side of it, I’ve noticed that there is so much more diversity in music in recent years and people have become more open. Most of the time people don’t know some of their favourite songs were inspired by those sounds. So, they’ve been listening to it their entire lives, but when you put a label on it and say this song has Bollywood influences or a song has an Indian folk focus, it’s really cool. I do wish I was going to gigs when I was younger that had that representation because it would have given me so much more confidence that I lacked to showcase what I want to create in
this world. It is really powerful to see people resonate with that side of my artistry.