Interview with Nikita Lev
Photos and Words by Anna Boylan
Nikita Lev is a New York born-and-raised indie-rock/folk singer known for beautifully crafted songs full of grace, emotion, and her soft haunting vocals. We had the opportunity of chatting with her and learning more about the inspirations behind her songs.
Light Leak: Introduce yourself and tell us more about your background.
Nikita: I'm Nikita. I am from New York born and raised. I have a very musical and artistic family background. It felt very natural to go into music, like a very natural extension of my upbringing and everything.
Light Leak: What was it that made you get into music and made you really want to start working towards your career?
Nikita: I don’t know, I saw Taylor Swift performing on TV at some point. My dad turned on the TV and I just thought, “Oh my god, this is amazing.” She was a huge catalyst for me wanting to do it. I also grew up with a very musical and artistic family background. My family, like my cousins, play a lot of chamber music together and I was sort of a part of that. I played the flute growing up until middle school. I also play the guitar and the piano. I knew I was always gonna be an artist of some kind, like an actor. My mom was an actor. But, you know, music just felt like the thing that was going to come to fruition, I felt called to it. Artistic expression in general is so exciting to me and I feel like I really understood musical expression the most.
Light Leak: How would you describe your music? How does it make you feel and what do you want others to feel when listening to it?
Nikita: Describing what genre my music is is difficult because there's so many sub genres that sound so different from each other so I don't really know how I can categorize it in a specific genre. My parents have pointed out a theme in my music where I have a lot of longing and sort of wistfulness about wanting something or wanting to understand something or someone. I feel like that’s something that I think about a lot, especially when I’m having interpersonal relationships that are confusing. It’s like I want to understand why someone isn’t acting the way that I want them to. I feel that every day. I started writing music for myself just as an artistic expression so I’ve never really thought about other people perceiving it; I’ve never thought of having a message to send. It’s interesting when people ask me that because I don’t really know. It’s interesting if artists are creating for an audience versus when they’re just creating because they’re inspired.
Light Leak: I love your debut single “Elegance.” What was the inspiration behind it?
Nikita: Thank you! It came from a place of growing up out of being an innocent kid who wanted things, wanted to play, and have fun all the time. It came from when I was younger and I wanted to play with my older cousins who would be more occupied with other things. And I’d be like, “I’m never gonna do that when I’m older.” And then my younger cousins would come to me but then I’d be too occupied with other things to play with them. Like, it’s kind of unavoidable. It’s just kind of like a weird in-limbo stage when you’re out of high school and you’re in college or you're out of college and you’re trying to figure out your life. And you’re trying to figure out how to navigate not having a set schedule or a system like you’ve had your entire life. You find yourself very swept up in it and you’re like, “What is happening?” There’s so many different interpretations of the song. Even if I listen to it now it’ll hit something that I didn’t even mean to hit. I think when I was writing the song, I was thinking about how I don’t like being at cocktail parties with adults, trying to talk to them and trying to relate to them. But at the same time, I also don’t like being at a kid’s birthday party and trying to play with them. It’s like you’re on a different wavelength; it’s so hard to be with people that aren’t on your same wavelength. And that’s not to say that you can only hang out with people your own age; I think that it’s good to hang out with people that are older than you because you learn a lot and get interesting perspectives. Even when hanging out with people younger than you, you get to learn different perspectives.
Light Leak: How do you create your songs? What’s your songwriting process like?
Nikita: It's sort of different every time, but for the most part it starts off when I have a lot of feelings about a subject. I write phrases or words or other things down in my notes app or in a notebook. Then I sit down and flesh it out with the guitar or piano basically. It can either take two months or an hour, it depends.
Light Leak: I watched your music video for “Nowhere Bar” and loved it. How important do you think visuals are when it comes to songwriting? For example, when you are writing a song, do you visually see the idea?
Nikita: Thank you! I think visuals are really important because it’s another art form, you know? You want to give context to the situation. I know music videos are mostly for promotional purposes for your music but I think it’s so much fun to create and make them. Sometimes your ideas shift as you’re creating the song and then when you make the music video it adds context to the song or it adds to the whole atmosphere of the song.
Light Leak: What is your favorite song that you've released or have written that hasn't been released to date?
Nikita: There’s a song that I wrote that hasn’t been released yet but it’ll be out before the end of the year. It’s called “Now I Think of You Unspeakably.” I played it the other night at Pianos. I love that song. It doesn’t have any repeating phrases and it’s so unconventional in that way. The song feels really real to how I was feeling and it’s not a happy song, but it’s not a sad song. It feels hopeful, innocent and satisfying to me because it’s like a story to me. It’s about having feelings for one of your closest friends and it’s a hard situation that feels so relatable. It’s embarrassing and it makes you wonder “what if I tell them?” or “what’s going to happen?” You get to infer what happens after the fact and you get to wonder if it went well or maybe it didn’t. The thing I like about the song is that it’s sort of a capsule of the feeling of having a crush. Rather than the over complications of telling them and it didn’t go well or I told them and now we’re in a relationship.
Light Leak: If you could tell your younger self anything, what would it be?
Nikita: I don’t know. I think I made the mistakes that my younger self should have made. I don't think there’s any warning that I can give. If I met my younger self I wouldn’t say to do this or don’t do this. When I was younger I was very stubborn so I feel like younger me probably would not just take my own advice. Younger me would not listen to anything which I feel like is fine. You know, you grow up and you fuck up, and it’s okay.
Light Leak: Who are some of your biggest musical inspirations?
Nikita: I mentioned Taylor Swift, I mean, she’s a classic you know? She’s a force to be reckoned with. Nowadays I’m really into The 1975, St. Vincent, and Caroline Polachek. I love Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen who are amazing songwriters and poets that I deeply admire.
Light Leak: If you could collaborate with any artist on new music, who would it be?
Nikita: There’s this really amazing artist that I found recently. Her name’s Dora Jar and she’s opening for The 1975 on their upcoming tour dates. I love her music and I think she’s really cool and awesome. She has opened for Billie Eilish a couple of years ago and has like three EP’s out or something.
Light Leak: What can we look forward to from you in the future?
Nikita: I have one song coming out next month which I’m really excited about, so a total of two more songs before the end of the year. My next song coming out is called “Nihilistic Baby '' and it comes out on October 10th. I really like that song. It’s one of those songs that just kind of happened accidentally. I was playing around with different tunings on my guitar and I came up with the rift. I had a bunch of random lyrics and feelings about a specific thing that happened a year beforehand and I ended up writing about it. At first I didn’t know if I liked the song but when I brought it into the studio my producer convinced me it was good. It ended up being something I’m really proud of. So that'll be six songs for the whole year which is really exciting. And then hopefully an EP eventually!
Thank you Nikita for taking the time to answer our questions and having a great chat! Make sure to check out her music and listen to her newest song “Nihilistic Baby” when it comes out on October 10th.
