Pop artist Eva Grace takes music in new direction

click to enlarge Pop artist Eva Grace takes music in new direction
(Trish Kae/submitted)
Eva Grace is best known for her song “Goes Like (Do, Do, Do),” which inspired a TikTok dance.

After her pandemic song “Goes Like (Do, Do, Do)” soared past 8 million streams and inspired the Hisoka TikTok dance, Eva Grace is exploring new sounds.

The Tucson resident is hoping to lure music fans from all genres with melodies that lean toward alt/indie pop.

She recently released her most recent single “still cry sometimes.” The retrospective song looks at a problematic relationship that has brought continuing personal strife. Other recent releases include “all i see is blue” and “take my pain away,” which have a hyperpop sound. Her plan is to release one new song and corresponding music video every month for a year, starting in August.

“I love the idea of creating visual art that represents all of my auditory art. I’m extremely excited to have music videos to go with everything. I think that it brings new life to the songs and really illustrates the kind of feeling that I want people to get from the songs,” Grace said.

Much of her music focuses on relationships, especially troublesome ones.

“I am always obsessed with writing about unrequited love. You are forever longing for the romance that you wish you had. I write about that a lot and write about failed romances. And also, just being afraid of being vulnerable, I write about that as well,” Grace said.

Grace also wrote a new song about her tendency to overanalyze everything called “ over overthinking.”

Hailing from Philadelphia, Grace started playing piano, singing and writing songs at a young age. She began to pursue music more professionally about three to four years ago.

“I was going through a breakup, and I was really sad. I was looking for something to do. So, I just started making more music at home to keep my mind off of it. And then, I ended up going into a studio to record more professionally and fell in love with the entire process of creating a finished product,” Grace said.

“It’s talking about all the little things that you think about and overanalyze,” Grace said.

As a songwriter, Grace comes up with new content all the time from her at-home recording space.

“I’m always writing songs and trying to beat myself and make better songs than I did previously,” Grace said. “It’s really just picking my favorite ones that I’ve done. I only want to put out my best work.”

To help her, Grace has worked with Josh Nabors, an Arizona music producer who goes by JNABS, for the last two and a half years.

She admires singers such as Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, who have longstanding relationships with their collaborators.

“I believe in nourishing a good relationship with your co-creator. You can make the most genuine stuff. There’s something way more raw and genuine when there’s only one or two people who have worked on it,” Grace said.

After having success on TikTok, Grace did a number of dance songs, but she found that it wasn’t where her passions were musically.

“I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ I’m just trying to please the audience, which you should do to an extent, but I also need to stay true to myself so that it is sustainable,” Grace said.

Grace plans to use social media channels to engage with fans and put out content. She said making music is easier for her than putting herself out there on social media, but it is also an important part of being an artist.

“It’s really interesting because it comes so unnaturally to me to put myself on TikTok. It’s definitely easier for teenagers. I have to get over it. It’s definitely something that a lot of artists don’t want to do, but they need do at this point and time,” Grace said.

Grace said that her TikTok success was unexpected, and her song found a life of its own through fans.

“The fact that someone made a video to the song, and it just snowballed into a dance being created was absolutely insane. At the peak, there were almost 30,000 videos on TikTok to my song. People made a dance to an anime show. It was so random. People started associating my music with anime when I don’t even watch anime. This is so weird. People were creating this image of me that they want me to be. I was going with it, but then I was like, ‘Woah, woah, that’s not me,’” Grace said.

Because of the success she had during the height of COVID-19, she has teen fans who love anime. She said she hopes to attract a variety of fans by making music that is easy to listen to and danceable but also explores more complex topics.

“I look forward to meshing the worlds of it being a light-hearted-sounding song sonically but if you really listen to the lyrics, it’s about something deeper. I would like my music in the long-run to appeal to someone if they want to escape into the music and not really listen to the words, or they could listen and discover that it’s about something deeper than they thought,” Grace said.

“The stuff that is to come for me is a lot more vulnerable than I’ve been. I’ve always written extremely vulnerable music, but I never released it because it’s more nerve-racking than releasing other stuff. I would say in the future, people can expect to hear stuff that is extremely meaningful but fun. I hope to make people feel something and jam out in their cars.”

Eva Grace

Eva Grace is on Instagram under @imevagrace. Her music is on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/3zEihtu