Q&A: Sarah Goldstone’s Debut Album ‘Waving’ is a Dreamy Soundscape
FRESH OFF A YEAR OF TOURING WITH BOYGENIUS — Sarah Goldstone released her new single, “Athens 1975,” which precedes her debut album, Waving.
The making of the record was highly collaborative. As Goldstone listens back, she hears the sounds of the friends who left their fingerprints on each layer of each track.
Accompanying “Athens 1975” is an ever-twinkling music video. The entrancing visuals depict dream-like scenes that were inspired by the dreams of Goldstone herself.
Over the past year, Goldstone found herself experiencing a new wave of nerves as she was met with challenging songs and new venues. A seasoned touring musician, she transformed these nerves into a renewing experience.
Read below to learn more about Goldstone, how “Athens 1975” and Waving came to be, and what touring with Boygenius was like.
LUNA: “Athens 1975” is so beautiful and dreamy. Can you tell me about why you chose the singles you did?
GOLDSTONE: Yeah, great question. I did “Athens 1975” first because that’s probably my favorite song [off the album]. I had a little bit of a hard time breaking into the creative flow of this one. And that one, for me, somehow was when it opened up. And I started having a good time instead of feeling like I was crunching my way through, if that makes any sense. So I sort of have a personal association with that song where that was, like, the opening of the rest of it. I also just like the production on that one a lot.
There's a lot of fun and kind of silly sounds happening on there. I really like serious songs with silly sounds … and I feel like that one is a good mix of that. That's also a song that I wrote the lyrics [for]. I have another completely different version — same lyrics, with [a] different melody, different chords, different production. It's a song that I completely rewrote. And I remember talking to someone at the time and they were like, “Oh, don't bother with that. Just write a new song.” And I was like, “I can't.” I can't do it until this one is right, you know?
“Waving” is probably the most personal song [on the album]. That was the next single, and I kind of wanted to do one more up-tempo one; more intimate, maybe. I just like that song because it’s a very personal, kind of raw song — and the recording, too. It's basically like a doctored voice memo, you know? The vocals and the piano are just a voice memo that we recorded some other stuff [for] too. I kind of like that it’s not “done.”
LUNA: Yeah, I can definitely see what you’re saying. As I was listening, I felt like I could imagine some of the more raw songs starting as just you recording a voice memo at the piano, just starting to put things together.
GOLDSTONE: Totally, yeah — they all kind of start like that. I write a lot of songs on a really shitty Casio, like little keyboards. These things are basically glorified toys. I write a lot on there, and that kind of takes the pressure away. That one was kind of a piano ballad, and then we kept the voice memo because other versions of it just weren't working … like, correct versions that were done with a band and stuff. It just wasn't working right. So we just get the voice memo.
And I liked that one, too, because it's a reminder that you don't have to do anything a certain way, you know? “I Know My Way Around” … I really love the guitar solo on it. My friend Ryan played that. I think a lot of my songs are sort of grappling with feeling split or feeling two ways at the same time, but that one is probably the only lyrically confident song on the record — that's just saying one thing. So I kind of like that one for that reason.
LUNA: The music video for “Athens 1975” is so dreamy, and the song itself is so twinkly. The music and visuals pair so perfectly. Can you tell me what it was like to plan and film that?
GOLDSTONE: Yeah, we had a great day. We filmed the whole thing in and around my apartment in one day. Yeah, so like the sink, everything — even the little courtyard outdoor parts are in the kind of shitty courtyard of my apartment building that we got kicked out of actually. So we had to do it really fast. We definitely were trying to do it low-budget. So … we did it at my house, and my house was destroyed the next day.
I mean, some of the cool parts about planning it is we didn't really plan too much of it. We had some ideas, we had some props, we had the sponges. A friend of ours works at a prop rental place, so we got the plants and we got some mirrors. The rest of it was just kind of playing, which is fun. You don't always get to do that as an adult. The planning was minimal, honestly, but what I will say is that a lot of those scenes are based on weird dreams that I've had, you know? That was kind of the impetus for a lot of the settings.
Sarah Pedinotti directed it. We met up a couple months before we made it to talk about it. She sat down and she was like, “I don't know why, I'm just feeling some kind of twin imagery.” And I was like, “Wow, that's so crazy because that was what I was gonna say to you.” So that was a little bit of an impetus of different selves, me walking in and out of the building at the end that we did. And the cat kind of went awry because I borrowed these cats, and it was supposed to be two cats. They were gonna be all these twins, like a lot of twin imagery. One of the cats just hid under the couch and wouldn’t come out. It kind of ruined the theme, but we were like, “Well, we got one cute cat here.” So we might as well (laughs).
LUNA: That sounds like what a cat would do, so I guess it’s fitting.
GOLDSTONE: I know — obviously a cat in a strange environment is not going to behave, but it was kind of funny because the whole thing was a mess. The guy that shot it, Haoyan, has such an eye and Sarah, who directed it, has such an eye, so it was just some free props and your own apartment. You know, you can make something incredible when you're working with people that really have that magical eye. That's what I love about it.
LUNA: I saw that you teach music lessons as well. How long have you been doing that?
GOLDSTONE: I've been doing that since I was [around] 18 years old. My piano teacher in high school used to go away for the summer, and I used to teach her kids when I was in college. It started as a way to support myself while trying to play music too. But then I was just liking it so much that I just never gave it up. I love doing that. It's like you get to have this one-on-one time [to] connect with people. You watch people struggle and … get better at stuff, and I love doing that.
LUNA: Do you ever feel inspired by your students?
GOLDSTONE: Totally, yeah. I have this one student who doesn’t read music so well, which is totally fine, but she has amazing ears and she really wanted to play [Beethoven’s] “Moonlight Sonata.” She learned the whole thing over the course of two years, two measures at a time, by ear. Just every week [she] was plodding along, and I think that's so cool. But also the kids write songs that I think are good, you know? Like, I’m not even pretending to like them. So yeah, it's really cool. There’s nothing like it, to see someone do stuff like that long term.
LUNA: What was your relationship with music growing up? Were you taking piano lessons and going to concerts in your hometown, or was music an interest you discovered later on?
GOLDSTONE: Yeah, I started taking piano lessons when I was [around] seven. I really wanted to play before that, but no one in my family actually played music and we didn't have a piano. So I was asking for a piano, and my parents were like, “Yeah, we're not buying a piano for a five-year-old.” They bought one when I was seven and I just never stopped.
When I was a kid, I mostly just played classical all the time, and I love that. I went to school for that. But in high school, I started playing with my friend’s band and discovered another world. We went to shows. I grew up in Poughkeepsie, [New York]. There's a famous venue called The Chance there. It was big. They let my high school band play, so that was nice of them.
LUNA: Before this album, you released a single in 2020 called “Love & Loneliness,” which is also on this album. How have your style and inspirations evolved since then?
GOLDSTONE: I think probably the main difference is that I got more confident with writing in general. I think that was sort of what this record was for me — to really sit in my own aesthetic. I think when you do what I do — which is play keys for a lot of different projects — you hopefully get really good at being reliable and giving people what they want, what their style is, what they've made, and all of that.
This record for me was like, “Okay, let's take a beat to get back in touch with what I want to hear.” I love that song from 2020. I mean, it's on the record too. And I don't recommend putting out music on March 13, 2020 (laughs). Yeah, that was a cool idea. Yeah, do that in the next pandemic. I really like that song a lot. but I can still hear being a little unsure. I don't know whether that translates to other people. If it does, it's fine. but I think I just got more confident about what I wanted to make.
In terms of influences, I definitely listened to a ton of different music during that time, but I think probably the primary influences didn't change super hard in three years.
LUNA: You were touring with Boygenius last year and got to play some of the most aspirational venues. How did you see yourself grow as a musician over that tour, working alongside them and the rest of the band?
GOLDSTONE: It was a great year. I wish we were doing it again, you know? This year was awesome in a lot of ways. I think some of the songs are genuinely hard to play. I've played, like, one trillion shows, and have definitely played in all kinds of harsh conditions. You're tired, you're sick, the venue is awful, the gear isn't working, you name it. At this point, I don't get super nervous a whole lot anymore because I feel pretty good about a lot of that stuff.
But I will say that this year, the crowds were so big, and some of the songs were genuinely hard to play. I really had to work on nerves again, which I wasn't really expecting to happen. It's been kind of a long time since I've felt genuinely nervous. Before we played some of the first shows, I was up in the middle of the night worrying about it, fighting those inner voices of you're gonna mess it up. I feel like I'm coming through the end of that. I feel renewed in that you can learn stuff and be reliable playing it. There's a lot of really cool and beautiful sounds on their records, and [it’s great] just having the time and space to get to explore using some different gear to make them. I got to have a Mellotron, which I'd never had before, some new pedals, and all the stuff that you carry with you into more music that you make. Just learning how to get over nerves again was kind of a crazy feeling, actually.
LUNA: That’s so cool to hear, and so interesting because when I’m at big shows like that I have to wonder, do they get nervous up there? Because they definitely don’t seem so.
GOLDSTONE: I mean, I've definitely had people be like, “Oh my god, you must be so nervous.” In the past, not really. You practice and then you're just having a good time. But this year, I was nervous every show because there was a song that Phoebe [Bridgers] sings and the piano part is very exposed and it's very specific. Every time we would get there, I'd be like, “Okay, here we go. It's time. Pray for me, everyone.” The whole band is watching you, the whole crew is watching you, the whole audience is watching you. So, like, pray for me (laughs).
LUNA: Can you tell me more about the team of musicians who worked on this project with you? How did they help shape the album?
GOLDSTONE: I'm so glad you asked. The real reason I love this record is because it just sounds like all of my favorite people, you know? It was sort of recorded like so piecemeal over the course of a couple years. A ton of people that I play music with in New York are on it. It isn’t just the same band for everything. My really good friend Adam Schatz produced it. He plays with Japanese Breakfast, Neko Case, and he plays with a ton of people. He also has an amazing band called Landlady that you should check out.
About half the songs were recorded with three of my friends. Jason Burger played drums, Christian Carpenter played bass, and Ryan Weiner played guitar. They're just all so good at music. It's so cool to just feed them something and watch it turn into real shit, you know? My friend Brian Bisordi played drums on one song. My friend Robbie Sinclair played drums on another song. There's a ton of people on there, which I love.
My friend Felicia Douglass, who sings with Dirty Projectors, sang background vocals on one song. Adam and I did all the keyboards. Phil Weinrobe mixed it, and he's so good at mixing that it's like a whole other instrument. Like a whole other creative input. It's so cool to watch him work. There are just so many people on it. They're all hired again! Yeah, they're all the best.
LUNA: What are you most excited for in the year to come? Do you think you’ll play shows with this album?
GOLDSTONE: I want to write another album. Actually, I haven't really been super inclined to play my own shows with it. Because to me, it's mostly a recording project. Making a live version is a whole other thing. I want to make another record. I've started writing it already. I want to do more film scoring this year. I've done a little of that so far, but I'm excited about doing more.
And I'll say this as intention setting. My long term creative goal that I'm really excited about — and I think about every day — is that I want to write a TV show or a comedy about touring. I think about it all the time because I don't think there is a really good representation, honestly, of what it's like. Every time I see touring represented in TV shows, I'm like, that's not what it is. That’s my long-term project, and I’m really excited to make any progress on it this year.
