Q&A: A Kefi Occasion With Frisson and Chloe Southern
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SYDNEY TATE ☆
LIKE FINDING A LIGHTHOUSE IN THE FOG — the Kefi Occasion, hosted by Chloe Southern and presented by Frisson and Luna, provided an immediate sense of comfort and knowing in the room.
When I arrived on a rainy Brooklyn evening, I was met with welcome arms despite not having met anyone in person before then. I was coming from an eight-hour drive from a friend’s home in Durham, North Carolina, and could not have asked for a better welcome back — tender, kind, and curious at once. Ten guests united with a shared passion for music, humanity, and open hearts alike, in tandem with Chloe’s latest EP release and birthday celebration.
We shared hellos and any latest gossip with Greek wine in hand. I sat briefly with Chloe by candlelight to discuss the motivation to bring creative souls together, and what it means to be vulnerable day to day.
Chloe Southern
LUNA: What is your Kefi? Was there one particular moment when you found out about that concept or connected with it?
CHLOE: It's something that I’ve grown up with, the idea of finding your Kefi, because it really is fully ingrained in the Greek culture. It's such a well-known saying, I feel like it would be the equivalent of “Do what makes you happy,” right? It's kind of the English equivalent of that Greek phrase. The full Greek saying is “που είναι το κέφι σου” — where is your Kefi, or what is your Kefi? and I’ve grown up hearing that.
I never understood how much depth and importance there was to it until I became an adult. I experienced very low points, and I actually felt like a human being. There is that very pivotal moment where you go from adolescence to adulthood or start merging into that realm, and that comes from so many different things. My catapult into that was a heartbreak [and for] some people it’s graduating from college. For some people, it’s a job.
Sometimes [Kefi isn’t] a given, it's something you have to work for, and that was scary for me. It was a tough adjustment and my mom, who’s Greek, would remind me that I have to find the joy. You have to find the spirit and excitement still in the low points.
LUNA: It feels grounding.
CHLOE: We all have different canon events, big things that make us realize…I guess my joy today is gonna be this cup of coffee.
LUNA: How do you feel Kefi is represented for you today and here in this room?
CHLOE: I was just talking to Juliet about this. Making music is something that I know I'm lucky to do. I'm in the small percentage of people who have known since the day I was born what I wanted to do, and it's become a reality. I'm doing the thing, I'm living the dream.
There are 10 seats and 10 people who are going to be in here who all took their night off to come and connect. Tonight is very centered in human to human connection, face-to-face. That's also how I feel about playing live shows!
The joy, the Kefi, is represented in every conversation, every other connection that’s real, and you know you’re not alone. That’s the biggest thing—we’re all here together.
The reality fully set in for me when I graduated college and went through my last heartbreak. It became an event that I was describing before—I was focused on the wrong things and felt maybe surrounded by the wrong people, and the root of it, the North Star is human experience and human connection.
I've carried that with me for a long time, and I still carry that with me sometimes today. So doing things like this and making purposeful spaces for communities to gather around, it’s the one central thing that we all love and care about the most, and that's represented here.
LUNA: I was going to ask what excites you about hosting an event like this, which I feel like you very naturally covered.
CHLOE: Yeah, I love people and I love the human experience. I realized how I went through really hard times, kind of isolated and by myself because I didn't know and I didn't feel confident that other people experienced the same anxieties and scary moments that I did.
To know that makes me go out of my way to connect with people more because I don't feel like this different, sore thumb that can stick out.
LUNA: Absolutely not. How do you feel that these themes affect your songwriting? From what I've gathered, you're putting it all on the table and probably to connect with other people through that as well.
CHLOE: The words come first, really. That's my North Star, which sometimes can keep me hung up if a word isn't right, I can't move on from it. My golden rule now is if I write something and I feel really excited, or very nervous, or I think, “Oh sh*t, I can't say that,” I have to.
One of the first lines on The Cure and the Cause is — “I still think of you when I finish” — I was like, I have to say it. I am an open book. It's a little tough with things that I've gone through because I have my guard very up, but for better or for worse, I walk around believing the best in people and with my heart on my sleeve. I want to connect, it’s all I want to do.
If I feel like I maybe can’t say certain things, I know I have to because then I can say it for someone who never in 1000 years would say that.
Someone else can't take the photos and capture the moments the way that you can, but they feel there, they feel seen, they feel understood. They see that human emotion and they feel that. If I can give that to someone, if I can make them feel like they’re not alone, whether it’s in a positive way or an uncomfortable or negative thing they’re feeling, that’s all I care about.
LUNA: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
CHLOE: This last week has been the most emotionally complicated, raw, and vulnerable that I've felt in a very long time. Releasing The Cure and the Cause and doing this one week after it's out…it makes me feel [so much].
Your North Star is the people around you and the people who make you feel seen, loved, and understood. That's the most important thing, and I'm so grateful to have that.
A Kefi Occasion was hosted by Chloe Southern on Thursday, November 21, and co-presented by Frisson Projects with The Luna Collective. Chloe Southern’s EP, The Cure and the Cause is out now.
