Thavoron Eang is a 20-year-old queer Cambodian artist from Seattle, Washington. Drawing inspiration from the likes of SZA, Frank Ocean, Banks, Fleetwood Mac, the Smiths, and many more, Eang best captures his passion through the usage of words in music. Growing up in a predominantly white suburb of Seattle, Eang resonates heavily with being disconnected from his cultural roots. With that, Eang heavily emphasizes feelings of isolation, addressing assimilation, and queer romance through his unique lens.
Eang blends a fusion of indie folk bass, bedroom pop, and soft alternative music, channeling a sultry sound perfect for rainy days. He loves to explore feeling and emotion, mentioning that his past project centers around the five stages of grief. His recent release on April 30th “Bend, OR” is a perfect example of tackling grief, with its minimalistic yet visually soothing music video, and lyrics that tackle identity crisis in correlation with love. Eang released his latest track “I REMEMBER YOU” on June 15th.
Tell us about yourself!
My name is Thavoron. I'm 20 years old. I'm a queer artist from Seattle, Washington. I make indie pop and folk music, and I just started releasing music about two years ago, but I've been involved in and passionate about music since I could remember.
Who inspired you to make music, and what does music mean to you?
I would say that who originally started or inspired me to make music would be SZA, the Weeknd, BANKS, or Frank Ocean. What music means to me is being able to tell a story with words. I make music to have that sense of relation with other people. Not only that, but being able to clearly express how I'm feeling at a certain time, or express a certain emotion that is hard to put into words to collectively make up that meaning.
Would you say it's like a healing mechanism?
Oh, for sure.
How would you describe your music and sound?
I think it's probably with my first project that I released that was very much RMV and production driven. Now, I haven’t necessarily simmered down - I still have the same amount of passion - but I am leaning more towards a new, acoustic folk bass music. Some inspirations for that was when I was younger, I would listen to Fleetwood Mac, the Smiths, and stuff like that. That kind of translates into what I'm working on now.
So would you say your music now is a fusion of Fleetwood Mac and other similar artists?
In a sense. A Maggie Rogers meets Phoebe Bridgers meets Frank Ocean type of realm. A fusion of alternative R&B indie. In terms of production, it's definitely more on the indie side now, but in terms of lyricism, because I grew up listening to R&B music, something that always inspired me was the songwriting that came from R&B, and how much passion there was within that. And I think that kind of translates over now.
For my past project, I wrote it around the five original stages of grief. I had a ski mask as a motif, and using that as a “this project is who I really am in.”
Now, with this new project I'm working on and actually wrote a song recently, with culture and identity. I feel this sense of a lack of connection in different parts of my life. The latest one that I just wrote was a lack of connection with my inner child and knowing that my inner child probably hates me right now. And that's fine, too, because I’ve been neglecting it.
Do you draw any inspiration from any parts of your culture identity, life, or childhood while making music?
I would say- not in the traditional sense. Again, I feel so disconnected not only from my culture identity, but at times, I feel like I'm disconnected from my queer identity, too. I get inspiration from not having that connection, if that makes sense. It's like that yearning, that desire, which is a theme that I've been writing about recently. I feel like I'm slowly starting to get there. But even that acknowledgement of not having that connection with my identity pushes me to want to be more in tune and connected with it.
“I feel so disconnected not only from my culture identity, but at times, I feel like I'm disconnected from my queer identity, too. I get inspiration from not having that connection.”
Did you grow up in an area that caused you to not be in touch with aspects of your identity?
I grew up in the suburbs, and that's something that I talked about in my latest single, “You.” When people are out, there's fireworks going off. People are like, “Oh, is that a gunshot or a firework?” And it’s like, you live in the f-ing suburbs, it’s a firework. I kind of used that as an inspiration as mixed signals in a relationship.
Growing up in a predominantly white area, I felt like it was always really hard to express myself. That's why I keep all of these parts of my identity distant from me in order to assimilate, or I used to, and I'm slowly starting to work my way back into reconnecting with myself.
Would you say a lot of those themes pop up in your music?
It's definitely going in that direction, where I'm slowly starting to write about stuff that's not necessarily love-based or relationship-based, because it's kind of tiring sometimes to just keep writing about the same thing. So I'm super excited to step into this new realm of digesting suburbia, and being queer in suburbia, and being Cambodian in suburbia.
Recently, you released a new song and music video titled “You.” Could you share with us a little more about behind the concept, the song, and the video itself? What was the writing and production process?
For the video, I drew from one of my favorite films by Nelson Sullivan. He was a huge person that documented queer life in the 80s in New York City. I think it was super important to have that exposure. In this specific film that I chose, although it seemed like a good time in the film, but there was actually a part in the video where RuPaul and all the other people that he was with are getting hate crimed and mocked when they were in an art gallery. I didn’t necessarily cut it out - I still showed a snippet of it to act as a super cut, using that as a metaphor for relationships. You can look at the past and it seems like a good time, because in your mind, it was a good time, but there's so many parts that you cut out that are just hard for you to grasp.
I wrote “You” about being in this place with someone… There was a lot of writing that went into it. I wrote that song in two days, and it just flowed out of me easily. I think that's the best song to write because it's really unfiltered and raw and is filled with emotions that you've been holding in for a while.
One of the lyrics is, "For winter, that's never to come because you found July and never came home. " This person found this other person, and I’m just here waiting and using that metaphor earlier I mentioned about a gunshot as a mixed signal, because you don't want to believe the truth. But in the chorus, there’s this kind of sense of realization where I say it's you that I'll lose, but I know you don't really care. That person doesn't really care, and I'm just gonna keep living in my fantasy of us in my mind, and what I wanted it to be.
“You can look at the past and it seems like a good time, because in your mind, it was a good time, but there's so many parts that you cut out that are just hard for you to grasp.”
What message do you hope your music communicates? How do you want your music to impact your audience?
My music has always been there. It's validation, whether that's from other people, or the act of me writing it out. What I want people to feel when they're listening to my music is to feel validated, and to be seen in emotions that aren't necessarily talked about or pushed off.
I've been trying really hard to create music that's relatable and raw and vulnerable, because the theme of my last project was being bold and being unapologetically yourself. I think that will serve me for the rest of my career. It's just “this is how I’m feeling,” and f it. I don't want to have to filter my emotions. I don't want people who are new to my music to do the same, either. I want them to exist with all of those emotions and whatever baggage comes with it.
What is your favorite song or project that you’ve written so far?
My favorite song that I've written - it changes like every two days I swear - right now is "Crush" because that was off of my EP “High School Memoir.” It was really raw for the fact that I was writing it as a 17 year old. But recently, I would obviously have to say “You.”
“ There’s the idea of yearning, which is a huge thing in my music. You want “love” so bad, but there’s nothing you can do to manifest it in the physical sense.”
Would you mind sharing a little bit about “Crush” and the concept behind it?
It was an open letter to all of my crushes in high school. My favorite lyric is the first verse with "Call me / Your everything / Then we’ll return to our bland lives / Come here / Stay with me / And exist beyond the depths of my mind.” I think that’s just so telling of my high school experience and being in “love,” where it never progressed past the mental state. There’s the idea of yearning, which is a huge thing in my music. You want “love” so bad, but there’s nothing you can do to manifest it in the physical sense.
A lot of gay and queer people have a very unique experience in terms of romance and relationships in high school. Would you say that this idea of yearning ties into the experience of many different queer people in terms of validation? In the sense of not experiencing the whole, typical heterosexual high school romance?
In “Crush,” there’s a lyrics where I go, “Natural / You go for her / And I'm left begging on my knees / Better off / I guess / Who could ever even love me?" Going back to my roots and growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, I’m watching all of my peers getting into relationships, and even though it’s not situational, you can't help but put that blame on yourself. You think, “Maybe there's something wrong with me.”
I definitely do resonate with that. I know that a bunch of my friends have gone through the same thing, too. That’s why I write music, so people feel validated and seen through art.
“That’s why I write music, so people feel validated and seen through art.”
If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be?
Probably how hard it is to get into it, and also representation. Not only in the sense of artists, but I had read this article by this artist where she was saying that 90% of being in the music industry is staring at the back of a white man's head. I thought that was so true, because I also saw this infographic where there were 30 directors of labels, and only four of them were people of color. So I just want to see representation and diversity across the board, because it would just make everything so much more equal.
You've mentioned a bit about feeling disconnected from your cultural heritage and implementing that in your music. Could you expand on that?
I definitely want to write a song about it. ‘Cause you know that thing where you feel like you're too ethnic for white people, and then you're too white for ethnic people. I feel like that's just something that I've been wanting to tackle within a song. I've been thinking a lot about sampling traditional Cambodian music, but I haven't been trying to push it. I’ve just been waiting to feel inspired to do so. I think that's just my approach to creating in general - for example, for “You,” I wrote it in two days, because that was what I needed to get out. I hate to say it but I’ve been kind of content with tackling one struggle at a time in my life.
What are your plans for the future? Do you intend to continue staying as an independent artist? What do you see yourself doing in the next five to ten years?
I would love to be independent, but I'm not sure how sufficient that is. I would love to be signed to a label or anything like that. But within the next five years, I would see myself definitely being signed, and just creating more art that's even more heart wrenching and resonates with a lot of people. I think that's just something that's always gonna keep pushing me to create, not only for my end, but other people, too.
Anything else?
I think I'm going to release another song at the end of this month. The one that I was talking about, being out of touch with your inner child. I might release it with another song too, so be on the lookout for that.
