Indie Midlands: How would you describe the PENNY X branding and vibe to new listeners?
PENNY X: Alt-Pop with a straight forward attitude. ‘back to your dad’s’ is definitely more on the sassy and dark side of the spectrum of my music but I’m all about capturing honest feelings and relatable stories and so in this story I’m the angry ex. In another story I’m the sad girl but it’s all me. That’s what the X in my name stands for. I got many faces and I’m ever-evolving.
Indie Midlands: ‘back to your dad’s’ is an earworm of a song – how did the melody and lyrics come together?
PENNY X: I don’t remember exactly how it happened because the creativity was just flowing that day. But I think when Freddy was jamming chords on the guitar we came up with the idea of writing an angry revenge song, something I really felt in that moment after I had just seen my ex with his new girlfriend. So we came up with the first part of the chorus/A-chorus. Then I started writing the verse lyrics, really just talking about what had happened and sang them while listening to the chords my co-writer Freddy was playing on the guitar. But something was still missing to connect the verse and the chorus both melodically and lyrically and Freddy came up with the pre-chorus melody.
We were listening back to what we had written so far and intentionally I felt like the pre-chorus melody needed to repeat after the chorus. Kinda unusual but when we did that and it finally felt like the song was complete.
Indie Midlands: What’s the backstory to the track?
PENNY X: My ex had just posted some cute pictures with his new girlfriend on social media and I also had heard that they were even living together now. It made me so mad because he would’ve never done all that couple stuff with me. Our relationship had been really toxic in general and suddenly it looked like he could be an amazing boyfriend. I just needed to let out all the anger I felt and that’s why I wrote ‘back to your dad’s’.
Indie Midlands: The music video is set to release soon, could you give us a sneaky insider on what to expect?
PENNY X: There’s a story part in there that kinda makes me come across as the crazy ex-girlfriend but that’s exactly what I wanted and it was so much fun to play that role. I’m just really happy with how the whole music video turned out and I had amazing people help me bring my vision to life.
Indie Midlands: What are your opinions on what the music industry could do to help emerging artists?
PENNY X: Honestly just listen to the music instead of looking at numbers and followers.
‘back to your dad’s’ is out now.