How Could You Sleep on Foster James?
She’s pulled her entire library off the internet in preparation for her 2018 comeback. The wait is going to be so worth it!
We’re back with another Member Spotlight, because our members are FRIGGIN’ AWESOME and always worth bragging about!
A few weeks ago, I had a lovely conversation with up-and-coming musician Foster James (Allie Concannon) and her partner and husband, Sid Simons. When interviewing musicians, I obviously try and listen to as much of their work as possible beforehand, and found myself immensely frustrated at the fact that there was nothing on her Soundcloud page, the only thing I could listen to was her single, Mr. Candy, a song I really enjoyed and that only left me wanting more.
Following our conversation — spanning from her childhood as the daughter of a foster mom, and her early career in the fashion industry — and in spite of the dearth of available material, I now find myself eagerly awaiting the release of her upcoming work. I think you’ll find yourself equally as anticipatory. So to tide you over until the 2018 release of her new music and videos, check out our conversation below:
How did you decide on the name Foster James?
That wasn’t actually a simple decision, I went through so many names before. But my mom was a foster mom, so I grew up in a foster home with kids around all the time. And I knew that I wanted to bring attention to that, and I wanted something that was androgynous, something that wasn’t too girly, one where you couldn’t tell if that was a person or a brand.
And ‘James’ is a family name, my brother’s name is James, same with my dad and grandpa.
Tell us a little bit more about your life before music.
I was just so lost as a teenager, I graduated high school and then obviously had to go to college, my parents kind of expected that. So I went to college in California for social work. My mom was a foster mom, and I thought, “Yeah, OK, I’ll do that.”
I did four years and came back and started managing a second-hand clothing store. I was scouted for modeling my first week there, so I started doing that. I left the job and was modeling and kind of got sucked into that world. I realized that I’m an artist, I’m a creative. I didn’t grow up knowing I wanted to do this.
Was there a catalytic moment?
I had a really clear moment actually. In college I started to suffer from panic and anxiety disorders. I got really, really sick from them. I was hospitalized, it was awful. I fought it for five years on my own, seeing therapists and taking medicine, and I just hit this point where I moved home with two bags of clothes — that was it — and I felt like the biggest failure as an adult.
I started writing music just to get me through that and I remember I had this moment in my room where I was like, “I’m going to do music and I’ll do whatever I have to to make it happen.” It was a really powerful moment, and from then, life has been really clear.
Can you tell us a little more about how your background, as a foster child, as a social worker, and in fashion influences your music?
As a kid we grew up in a relatively wealthy town, but I was always shown that life is really hard for some people. I was shown from such a young age that I was incredibly privileged, that most people don’t have an easy life. I think that perspective influences you so much as a young kid, because you’re so impressionable. I was nine when my mom started foster care, and we fostered some babies who had been abused, and that affected me deeply. It made me want to do something that helps people.
I’ve always wanted to make the world bright, because I felt like there was so much wrong with it. And then going into fashion, I almost felt a sense of guilt for a while, because I felt so self-absorbed; was what I was doing to help people? But channeling my creativity into music and taking my experience with mental illness and my experience as a kid, combining all of that was a “click” moment, “It all makes sense now, this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”
How has that evolved over the years and where do you see it going from here?
When I started out, I made my first EP, and was working with a producer and was so anxious about my choice to pursue music, and so afraid of not being able to make it, that I chose to go totally pop. That was my first foray into music; I put that out, worked on it a little bit. It was received pretty well, but it didn’t feel like me.
Pretty soon after I put it out, Sid and I met and we started working on stuff together, and he has such a natural approach; he’s calm, collected, and sure of himself, and so it really calmed me down enough that I can create stuff that I love that feels so real. But I couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t met him, because I couldn’t slow down enough to realize that everything’s going to be OK, and think to myself, “I’m just going to work on stuff that I love. If it does well, great, if it doesn’t, fuck it.”
Can you tell us more about how you two collaborate together?
Sid: It usually starts with me having a riff, and she’ll sing over the top. We don’t even know if we’re making a real song until it’s completely done.
Foster: It usually happens really quickly. It’s just a feeling that you get, this magnetic feeling, which sounds so cliche, but it’s true — we’ll come up with something, and realize, “OK this needs to be made.”
Sid: It’s hard to get that feeling, but when we do, it’s amazing.
Foster: We pretty much always know when a song’s going to be good from the start, we just feel it. Sid helps produce my music, so he does a lot of the instrumental work. We have a studio in our bedroom. I used to record in this huge professional studio, and what we make in our room I like so much more. It’s really organic. We just wake up in the morning, our studio is right there, and we just start screwing around and seeing what we get.
What are you currently working on?
We actually just got back Super 8 film today for one of our videos, and we’re so freaking excited. It’s so expensive. We thought we were starving artists before, but it’s so worth it. We did the long way and the hard way, and everybody warned us against it, telling us we could digitize footage after the fact to look like Super 8. We’re coming out with a bunch of stuff real soon. We’ve been holding onto stuff for six months, going crazy, because you just want to release it. We’ve got a big campaign coming up and we’re really excited. I think we’ll release more music at the beginning of next year, and when we do, it’s going to be one after the other, after the other.
I used to have so much music on Soundcloud, but my sound has changed so much since Sid and I met, that I deleted everything. It’s all gone and I just want to keep the mystery about it until we release the new material. It’s frustrating, but such a lesson in patience, because in today’s world, especially with Instagram, you’re so used to immediate gratification. You do a shoot, you get it back a week later, and you post it. It’s such a lesson, holding onto something for this long, because you just don’t do that anymore.
That’s it for this week’s Member Spotlight, make sure you obsessively follow Foster James’ Instagram account and Soundcloud page so you can be the first to listen to her new music.
