Rising Music Star Cindy Sterling On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Music Industry

An Interview With Ming Zhao

There is no correct age or time that’s too late to release music or be an artist. You can create art at any age, and you have no idea how that can affect or relate to people. With every year of your beautiful life you learn and experience more and there is so much music to be put out into the world. There is no expiration date on music that should be shared with the world.

As a part of our interview series with leaders, stars, and rising stars in the music industry, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Cindy Sterling.

Born and Raised in Los Angeles, CA, to divorced parents, Cindy Sterling found comfort in listening to music and discovering new artists as a way to cope with feelings she did not know how to speak about. Through this comfort she began song-writing, playing guitar, piano and singing. While Cindy Sterling also grew up acting, her biggest passion has always been to create & distribute music. With influence from artists such as Taylor Swift, Clairo, and Girl in Red, Sterling is creating an indie pop sound for herself like nothing ever heard before.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit about your “origin story”. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

Opening up about how I grew up is a very vulnerable thing and scary thing for me. It’s almost why I lose myself in music so that I can express my feelings without having to talk about it but I’ll delve into it just a little bit more than I usually would like to. I grew up in a very unstable household where my parents were mentally abusive and toxic with each other… and me and my brother. I never really felt like I had a home and moved out very early in life because I’ve mainly always had to learn to take care of myself and made my own presence a home of its own.

Music & acting led to being a form of escape for me. Through acting I got to delve into emotions I hid deep down from others. Acting allowed me to connect and release my feelings through the method of connecting with characters I portrayed when in that role. I got into acting in high school and acted since elementary school in a lot of plays. It’s something that’s always been remarkable to me.
Through music I got to connect to a deeper sense of feelings through words and sounds I actually curated myself, through singing and writing, as opposed to words someone else wrote for me (via acting off a script). That was a different kind of release than acting. Both are powerful.

My mom is from Indonesia. Her parents passed when she was extremely young, like age 1 & age 13. So I’ve always kind of been a mom, a little to my mother. My dad is from Mexico/Spain. His dad passed away very young as well and he doesn’t really have a relationship with his mom therefore I don’t really have one with her either. I’ve felt I grew up with my parents because they had me so young. There are alot of terrible things I went through very young but I don’t really like to talk about them and forgive my parents for a lot of those things because I think it’s very important to overcome things with love, believe people can change and be better if you show them the way, and grow as people.

I often looked for an escape from my home life through my friends and ex-partners in the past because unfortunately my home life was very hard to be in. Partially, my friends’ parents raised me as well and my significant other’s parents. That’s how I in a sense, learned to be a parent to my parents sometimes. I also really love my parents no matter what and I’m grateful for a lot of the messed up things that happened because it prepared me for the future and being a stronger, wiser person, as odd as that seems now.

My friends grew up really wealthy mostly and I had to work really hard throughout every aspect of my life to get anything I wanted. It was a bit polarizing at times because it created this drastic emphasis of loss I felt regarding things with my family life I didn’t get to have, such as a whole, harmonious, happy, family. That used to tear me apart almost everyday of my life until I began working hard to achieve my dreams. I’ve heard some “friends” call me lucky without knowing the deeper details of my life & don’t know how hard I’ve worked for what I’ve had or that my motivation has always been to create a life for myself where I could work on music full time and have a life that I love.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

My whole life I always felt a strong magnetic pull towards writing & making music. I grew up writing fictional books (non-published) just for fun and that hobby carried itself well into my adulthood. When I got my dog, Happy, I wrote a whole book about him and I as royals in a Spanish Castle during medieval times; kind of like the Princess in the Disney Movie “Tangled” with her chameleon pet type of vibes. As far as writing music, I started writing songs in middle-school. Music has always been an escape for me during painful times in my life growing up, when I felt I couldn’t talk to friends or anyone about darker things happening in my life. I’ve always felt that it was something I needed to create and do with my life.
I think being an artist is more of a calling than a choice. If I didn’t make music I would physically and mentally not feel well. The times in my life I was partying too much or distracted by other things in life including being successful at other things such as acting or finance work, social media, marketing or etc. I felt I wasn’t living my lifes true purpose. I truly feel I am meant to write, record, release music, and share my life stories or be a moment of escape for people during a period of time where they feel they can relate through my music.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I would say my music career is just beginning. This is going to be my first Single I’ve ever released, I’m ready to release my next Single by November & drop my Debut Album “Roxbury Romance” by December.
I have definitely sat in studio sessions, co-wrote songs, and sang over produced tracks in the past but until this Single “Kids Back Then”, along with the “Roxbury Romance” Album I hadn’t yet created anything I felt a strong tie to that I really wanted to release that meant alot to me. This album means alot to me because it links back to my past then connects it with my future and goes to show a lot of my long journey I’ve had up until this point and how they’ve shaped my life and the things I’ve learned and how I’ve grown as a person through them.

I would say one of the really mind-boggling things that’s happened within these past 2 weeks is that David Avalos, who has shot Travis Barker from Blink 182, Sydney Sweeney from “Euphoria”, Machine Gun Kelly, Blackbear & Nessa Barrett shot my album cover and PR photos for this album. It was really amazing to have someone who’s shot iconic people whose careers I really respect shoot me for my album.

I’ve also connected with a lot of extremely talented musicians who I am excited to release music with that I am already in the works with.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I believe that mistakes definitely only let you learn. I’m sure I will make many mistakes in my life but I view it as failing upwards. We have to be willing to accept that by putting ourselves out there we will make mistakes but can only learn and grow from them. Right now I would say I was at a point once before where I was trying to learn to do and be everything: produce, guitar, piano, sing, songwrite, engineer and such and what I’ve learned is to find those people that are REALLY talented at what they do and stick to what you do best, and build a team around you of those talented people.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Right now I have my next Single “Can Anyone Tell” off the Album coming out next, about how your life can look perfect on the outside but you’re really depressed that we’re making final touches on.

I am also working with a really talented musician/engineer on a House/EDM type track feature we’ve been cowriting together & I am excited to feature on more house music style singles since I really want to see my music performed in more festival dance type settings and I’m excited to see those remixed as well.

Aside from my more Indie-Pop, Pop, Pop RnB style music that I make when it’s mainly just me working with a producer who understands my style I’m excited to dip into different genres of music since I love all styles of music and can’t wait to feature and collaborate with more talented musicians and producers.

After this album “Roxbury Romance” I do have my next EP “333” that is more of a Pop/RnB Style EP that I’ve already begun writing songs for that are based on my 3 Situationships of Spring & Summer that I had after leaving my last relationship. They all taught me about different sides of myself, evoked different feelings that led to music that I know will deeply resonate with alot of people that are young and in the dating scene as well as anyone really.

I’m excited to get in the studio and work on those tracks as I feel my writing has improved SO SO SO much more since then and I have a stronger ability to express myself artistically than when I first started this debut album.

We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in music, film, and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?

Extremely. I am glad to see more roles featuring more diversity and one of my favorite directors right now is Jordan Peele from ‘Key & Peele’. I love seeing his style for filming expressed as well as seeing him feature more lead roles to people of color. ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ was a beautiful movie my family and I watched together too that I really loved because we got to see so many gorgeous asain actors/actresses as the lead roles. I really hope to see more of that in the industry and it’s lovely to see it happen more. I really love also seeing more Alt/Punk artists break out each and every day that aren’t the stereotypical white male trope, as much as they’re iconic too, it’s really nice to see people putting themselves out there. Good examples of what artists I’m talking about are EKKSTACY, Ian Dior, H.E.R. & etc.

One thing I hope to see less of is the stereotyping of hispanic actors/actresses under this gang-banger/drug-dealer/angry latina trope in movies and shows. It seems a lot of the time there is a classy, stereotypically good looking hispanic person in film they tend to cast them under a white family instead of with a hispanic family and it’s just something I’ve noticed that bothers me as a hispanic person. I think there are a lot of great things happening for diversity but a lot of room to grow still.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. It’s ok to put out music even if you aren’t sure if it’s 100% your best work because it’s a great thing to let your audience grow with you.
2. You don’t need to put such high pressure on yourself. Take a deep breath and realize it’s totally ok to not be already extremely successful at music by the age of 16. Everyone is on their own timeline & journey. Everything happens for a reason, maybe there’s things you still need to experience or endure before being ready for that chapter of your life. Be kind and patient with yourself.
3. Everyone is going to say something good or bad about your music, don’t listen to those people or thoughts because you’re holding yourself back from what you’re meant to do. People will have their opinions and some people won’t like what you make but there will be thousands of people that do and are glad that you did.
4. Just do and you shall be. My acting teacher John Ruskin at the Ruskin School of Acting and I had a breakthrough where I was having an internal crisis about everything I was afraid I wouldn’t have time to accomplish and he told me ..if you want to act, act.. If you want to make music.. make music. Just do and you shall be. That was a very simple sentence that created such a breakthrough for me and cleared a lot of confusion for me and I’m looking to possibly get that tattooed somewhere on me next.
5. There is no correct age or time that’s too late to release music or be an artist. You can create art at any age, and you have no idea how that can affect or relate to people. With every year of your beautiful life you learn and experience more and there is so much music to be put out into the world. There is no expiration date on music that should be shared with the world.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Go into the studio and record when you’re extremely excited about it. Sometimes people put a lot of pressure on themselves to do something by a certain time, which I’ve done, but remember to keep it fun and bring a positive energy with you into the session so that you’re actually enjoying making music and the process of it instead of falling into the mindset of panic and being too hard on yourself.

Reward yourself for little things too. Each small step towards finishing and recording a song is a huge accomplishment, as music is something that will be around forever and touch so many people’s lives. Any small progress is big progress and you’re doing amazing things that will live on forever.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

That’s a nice way to put things. Everyone on this planet is a forsure person of influence.

I think loneliness is a painful killer a lot of people don’t do enough to look through the lenses of others and think about. I think if everyone just took time out of their usual habits or routines and tried to give a little bit of their time to those who look or seem lonely at school or in life or that they know but sometimes forget to check in on, that creates something huge. That creates a ripple effect of huge change in millions of people and the lives around us. If you see someone sitting alone at lunch I think it’s really kind to just randomly sit by them and talk to them for a bit. If your mom or dad seems a bit lonely lately make plans with them. If a homeless person looks sad buy their food. I have interviewed homeless people for a project before and they’re very similar to us in what their lives were like before they were homeless and they are people too with emotions just like us. The view people have on them sometimes is upsetting instead of understanding. Your sibling you wouldn’t regularly hang out with, invite them to your plans even if you think it would be weird at first. Your old friend you fell out of touch with because you’re not so similar to them anymore, make plans with. Your neighbor might need a friend. Say something nice to the cashier or grocery store person and just be nice to people and think about what they’re going through. That pretty girl you think is intimidating, be nice to her not petty, mean for no reason to and tear down because you think she must not struggle with anything, just be extremely nice to everyone as much as you can and try to connect with all people. This world would be so much better if everyone thought more about others and their mental health & well being. I live my life like this everyday. I don’t think I have friends through the lense of “I’m super cool and you can’t hang out with us” but in the perspective of wanting everyone to feel less alone and more connected. I think it’s a beautiful thing to just spend time with many different kinds of people.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I think definitely all of my friends who were ever there for me through my depression, suicidal tendencies I used to heavily struggle with in the past, they forsure saved my life.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Shoot for the moon even if you fail, you’ll fall amongst the stars”

This is a powerful quote and one of my favorite quotes because, you should absolutely believe in your ability to achieve your dreams even if they sound other worldly or absurd to people, and I believe if you shoot for your dreams no matter what you will fall into the places that you are meant to be in and closer to your dreams. Rather than if you didn’t even try. If you shoot for your goals you will still get closer to what you want to actually do with your life & with the people around you that have a similar mindset as you. It’s such a powerful quote I even thought about painting it somewhere near or above my shower so I see it when I start my day or rinse myself off of the day.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Halsey or Taylor Swift.

I think they’ve both done a really good job of breaking out as artists who can delve into many different styles and I absolutely love their songwriting. I think I have the personality styles of kind of the both of them mixed together. Halsey is kind of more of that badass punk chic that has a deep and loving heart but is like a little bit more that mix between pop mixed with a r&b bounce in her & some edginess that gives off that vibe like I will wreck your life if you try and & f with me. Taylor Swift is like this silly, goofy, homebody queen who also has these amazing lyrics and stories but more of a let’s bake cookies while I give you older sister advice and we put pjs on and I tell you how to navigate this industry, but also like bury them into the ground legally if they mess with you energy.

I absolutely adore both of their writing styles and just feel like they both would just give me such good advice on how to prepare for the music industry and what to watch out for. I also think both of their dating histories are iconic and feel like I could relate to them but learn from them & would love to hear how they’ve grown from that. There’s obviously more to them their dating history though and real sh*t they’ve gone through that I would love to know and learn from too. Aside from that though I just feel like we would totally accidentally make some musical bangers just hanging out and talking and making a collab just for fun, that would just be amazing for us to make & others to listen to.

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram: @cindyesterling: https://www.instagram.com/cindyesterling/
Youtube: Cindy Sterling | link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe5J-x0NJHGLfp-E34BE3_w
Spotify: Cindy Sterling
Soundcloud: Cindy Sterling

TikTok: @Cindyesterling: https://www.tiktok.com/@cindyesterling

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!