If Towa Bird could ask Joan Jett one thing, she’d ask why the legendary guitarist plays the guitar so low. “Surely that [hand placement] would hurt your wrists,” she tells Beyond The Pines, half-joking. As a rising rockstar herself, Towa finds herself being likened to the iconic ex-The Runaways member in a recent Vogue feature, feeling equal parts gratitude and pressure to live up to the household name. And with the release of her long-awaited debut album, “American Hero,” which introduces a one-of-a-kind new voice in the world of alt-rock/pop, Towa is still finetuning her craft beyond the guitar. “I would ask Joan, ‘How did you make your career so lengthy?” She says, stewing on the question. “‘How did you find success in so many ways throughout so many different periods of your life? How do you pick yourself up after those extreme lows?’”
From her pandemic-era singing TikToks, which caught the attention of the likes of Olivia Rodrigo’s [who subsequently enlisted the “Boomerang” artist for her Disney+ documentary, “Driving Home 2 U (A Sour Film)],” to opening for Reneé Rapp’s “Snow Hard Feelings” tour alongside Alexander 23, Towa’s career continued to skyrocket at full throttle for quite some time. In contrast, the 25-year-old’s latest album “American Hero” slowly formed over a two-year period, Towa says — between shows, during vacation — anywhere. “Start to finish, the album took about two and a half years [to finish],” she says. “It was a long process, because I was figuring out how I wanted to sing, what I wanted to sound like.” She went on to break down the various clippings of inspiration she’d pieced together to conjure up the track — the end result being 35 minutes of high-energy, Y2K nostalgia reminiscent of classic garage-punk, ’90s Britpop, and nostalgic indie-rock, primarily informed by rock classics such as The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” (1969) and Prince’s “Purple Rain” (1984).
However, if Towa’s process is any indication, kicking off a new project often means going pen-first to the notepad to take down an ungodly amount of material in hopes that inspiration strikes. “The first year was me throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck — Nothing was solidified yet,” Towa recalls, rubbing her chin in thought. “I probably wrote around 100, maybe 110, songs for [“American Hero”]. From there, I filed it down to the tracklist you see today.”
Bound between 13 tracks featuring previous singles such as her indie-pop golden child debut single “Wild Heart,” the thrilling guitar of “American Hero” fits perfectly into any early 2000s rom-com soundtrack. Upon a closer look, though, the 25-year-old is presenting a new kind of hero to the younger generation.“The name [of this album] is supposed to be entirely satirical. I have no American in me — I’m not from here. I’m actually [in the United States] on a visa,” the Hong Kong-born artist clarifies. Towa split most of her childhood years between Thailand and London, referring to the latter as more of her hometown. “When I think of an American hero, I think of a very white, cis male. Someone very macho and strong, like Captain America, and, clearly, that’s nothing I embody.”
Towa’s “American Hero” brings much-needed vibrancy and spice to a rather repetitive portrait of straight “male gaze-y” romance that oversaturated mainstream music, or at least, the better part of it in recent decades. “In a way, I’m creating a new American hero: someone who’s not from here, who’s queer, biracial, and very proud of my identity.” Through this re-defined superhero mentality, Towa is able to live her truth as a lesbian, navigating queer love in all its confusing emotions, from falling in love with a friend on “Sorry Sorry,” to experiencing imposter syndrome during Paris Fashion Week on “This Isn’t Me.”
However, Towa says for others to inherently delegate her music to a queer audience only simply skims over the need for more mainstream lesbian representation. “I’m just writing about my life. I’m not trying to make queer music. I’m just writing about the people who I’ve fallen in love with, my friends, and my community. There’s not really an agenda,” she states. “There is the flip side to that — I never really had that much lesbian representation growing up. It’s really important that lesbian artists are in the spotlight right now. That makes 14-year-old me really excited and proud to be a part of something bigger.” Towa goes on to express that the shout-along-ready love song album track “Drain Me” is about lesbian sex. Taking a step back, the artist revisits the record’s theme of queer vulnerability, which, she says, was also born out of response to international anti-marriage legislation against homosexuals that made a young Towa feel unseen. “It is important to be that representation for someone, maybe for someone who had a similar upbringing to me, where society doesn’t accept you. But this body of music does.”
“The people who listen to this record, I just want them to be proud of who they are. It’s okay to feel angry, sad, happy, sassy – all the emotions,” she concludes on the album’s main takeaways. “I want people to feel their feels as though their thoughts have been articulated by someone else.”
All familiar hands were on deck for this record’s making, with producers like Luke Niccoli (Carly Rae Jepsen, Gwen Stefani), Thomas Powers of The Naked and Famous, and, most importantly, tour pal Alexander 23 (Rodrigo, Tate McRae). “We shared the same bathroom with each other for two months,” Towa said about life on the road with Alexander during Rapp’s tour. “I could put my arm out, and we would be touching, so we were definitely close and still are close friend. We hang out all the time.”
As no stranger to tour life, which can be as exciting to see a crowd as it is monotonous to ride a bus to the next city every day, Towa makes an effort to soak in the present moment. “Waking up in a new city every day is wildly disorienting, so I try to go on a run every morning and actually see the city to help me acclimate,” she recalls her favorite touring remedies. “After a show, me and the band would also get so drunk. We were on such a rock-and-roll tour.” For Towa Bird, it can only be assumed that as far as tours go, these are only the early days of a long road of opportunity ahead. “It was so much fun trying to fit in Joan Jett’s boots.”
Towa Bird’s debut album, “American Hero”, is out in stores and available on all streaming platforms. For more tour information, visit https://www.towabirdofficial.com/tour.
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