Out From The Cold - Delenn Jadzia’s ‘Winter’
For those in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s that time of year again. Winter has been around for a while, Christmas is a distant memory and the concept of short days, cold days and dark days is starting to wear thin. Seasonal depression is something many of us experience as we eagerly await the coming of Spring. On the surface, this is what Delenn Jadzia’s new single ‘Winter’ is about, but perhaps there is more to it…
Image Credit: Nataschia.
Californian Delenn Jadzia is a multi-disciplinary artist who released their debut album ‘A Mad Experiment In Living’ last September. Prior to the pandemic, they co-wrote and starred in a musical with Preston Towers entitled ‘Homebrewed: A Musical Quest’, of which some of the songs feature on Jadzia’s YouTube account.
Outside of music, Delenn penned three novels in their teen years, ‘To Survive The Labyrinth’ (2014), ‘Chaos Squad’ (2016) and ‘Read This and Run’ (2018). More recently, Delenn released their single ‘Bittersweet’ in December, a collaboration with singer/songwriter Piper Wildwood. ‘Winter’ is Delenn Jadzia’s first new music in 2023, and definitely fits the mood of the season.
‘When the days are short and harder to bear, the wind cuts through my coat so I steal yours to wear. I probably would have noticed if one day I woke up sane, so there must still be monsters hidden somewhere in my brain.’
The guitar playing of Eric Hart is the anchor in ‘Winter’, a style akin to the soundtracks of the ‘Life Is Strange’ video game series, Jadzia’s chord progression fitting the mood of their lyrics. Delenn’s voice is perfectly paired with Hart’s acoustic playing, close-mic’ed and intimate as if the song is wrapped up to keep warm.
‘Leave your body in the doorway when you step outside for air, there’s so much I was made for but I just cannot seem to care.’
However, Delenn’s storytelling and wordplay in ‘Winter’ is most certainly the star, with their metaphoric writing going beyond the influence of seasonal depression. The lyric reads like a traditional folk song with a wisdom beyond its years, as if it has already passed from generation to generation. With lines like, ‘It’s a rainy sort of season and I’m feeling old, but nothing much has changed so winter must have always been this cold,’ Jadzia conveys the feeling of timelessness. ‘Winter’ is the perfect example of a track that revels in its simplicity. It has everything from mood, melody and storytelling, needing nothing more, except maybe a hug.
Delenn Jadzia has much planned for 2023, including three more singles taking them up to the middle of March, which can be pre-saved on streaming services here. They’ve also teased the writing of a brand-new musical and much more besides, an artist that clearly thrives on the act of creation.
Continue reading for our Q&A with Delenn Jadzia. We ask about the topic of seasonal depression, plus the status of their ‘Homebrewed’ musical, their developing works, and other creative outlets. All this and more below!
Image Credit: Nataschia.
1. A huge lyrical topic in your latest single 'Winter' is seasonal depression. Was there a specific moment that inspired the lyric to this song?
I wrote ‘Winter’ about two and a half years ago, so I unfortunately have less than vivid recollection of the writing process. What I do remember is the first line of the song I nailed down, which is from the final verse: “nothing much has changed so winter must have always been this cold”. This line specifically is about losing track of what it feels like to be upset or sad or depressed when you’re in the good times, so the dark times hit a bit harder when they come back. I was in a very tumultuous and volatile relationship when I wrote the song and a lot of it is metaphoric introspection about what it means to be happy in a relationship.
2. The cyclic nature of seasonal depression can bring forth dread to those who anticipate its coming, do you have any tips for fending off this annual nightmare?
My go-to is maybe not viable for everyone, but I just try to spend as much of my time as possible with friends and partners. As an extrovert, being around other people has a way of making me feel a lot better about myself and more energized during months where I’d rather just stay in bed all day. I also journal pretty regularly, which helps me keep track of time when days start to blur together during the winter time.
3. The guitar part here is played by Eric Hart, is this one take all the way through? What was the recording set-up like for this song?
Funny, we recorded the guitar for this in the spare bedroom at my parents’ house in Oregon. Eric is their neighbor and he came over and we plugged his guitar into my laptop and laid down the song. The guitar was all one take for this one. We did maybe three or four run-throughs and I chose this one for its melodic steps during the changes from the G to C chords in the beginning of the verses. The first instance is about 0:08 on the track, between “when the days are short” and “and harder to bear”. I rarely orchestrate my own picking patterns so I was really happy to have come up with that transition.
4. Closing out 2022, you put out the single 'Bittersweet' with Piper Wildwood, how did this collaboration begin? Who approached who?
Oh, Piper! So Piper and I have been friends online since summer of 2020 when they covered a song of mine from my musical, Homebrewed: A Musical Quest. It was the first time someone had covered one of the songs I wrote and they did such a beautiful job with it. When I wrote the lyrics to ‘Bittersweet’, I knew I wanted to collaborate with one of my friends on it and I thought Piper was the definite choice for her gorgeous and sometimes melancholic guitar compositions. I think it was completely the right move, because the song turned out beautifully. Piper and I are also planning on re-recording my song ‘Strawberries’ as a duet. I currently have a demo on my YouTube channel, but I want to make a better and more polished version for streaming.
5. You released your album 'A Mad Experiment In Living' in September, what was the best part of making this album last summer?
A Mad Experiment was such a whirlwind. I started really writing it in winter of 2022 and by September it was streaming! My favorite part was definitely getting into the studio to lay down my vocal tracks. I love singing and it felt so productive to finally be getting music ready to stream. The first track that G. Pletschet and I wrote together during her time at the College of Creative Studies’ Music Composition program was ’Stealing Horses’ and that remains my favorite on the album. It’s fun to sing and has the only line I’ve written that I considered getting as a tattoo for myself: “I’m not getting better just because someone is worse / I don’t want to lose another year”.
Image Credit: Nataschia.
6. A few years ago, you participated in the creation of 'Homebrewed: A Musical Quest', of which some of the scenes are available on YouTube with a couple of the tracks due on streaming services soon. Is the rest of it going to be released? What's the status of that?
Homebrewed was my earliest collaborative project, the music co-written by myself and Preston Towers, who also played guitar for A Mad Experiment. It’s the first musical I have written, and the process of creating it was so fulfilling for me as an artist. Unfortunately, it was all done by our bootstraps and with bubble gum and baling wire. Namely, we had very little money. So while there was originally an entire script and eight songs written recorded, we only polished about five of them for release.
‘Canary’ is out February 1st, a ballad about a girl choosing to stay closeted while her girlfriend is out; ‘What Would You Say?’ is coming February 14th for Valentine’s Day, a duet between the same two girls thinking about entering into a relationship; ‘Found’ is going to be coming March 20th, our finale piano number. The other two released songs are ‘Drink One More’, our drinking song opening number, and ‘Roll Constitution’, our villain’s number. Those I’m not sure what to do with because I am not a main vocalist in either, making it harder to release onto my Delenn Jadzia Spotify and Apple Music streams.
I hope that eventually we will be able to stream the entire 8-song cast album, but I am not experienced with mastering music so it’s out of my hands and in other creators’ control right now. I am just happy that a few of the songs that I had the most involvement in are going to be streaming soon!
7. More recently, you've been writing a new musical, what can you tell us about that? How much of it has been written so far?
So my working title for this new piece is “In the Attic” and it’s a musical coming-out and coming-of-age story about a young trans man from Indiana in the 1990s. I have the lyrics to ten songs penned, and the music composed for one of them, the opening number. It’s called ‘Dawn’ and the demo is available on a couple of the tiers of my Patreon. The script is entirely drafted, as are the songs, I just would like to find composers to collaborate with for the music for the remaining songs. I went to school for creative writing, and I definitely find that lyricism is my strong suit over music composition at this point.
8. Outside the world of music, you've previously released full works of fiction with 'Read This and Run' being the most recent in 2018. Are there more novels to come?
I don’t think so. I enjoyed writing novels as a teenager, releasing my first at age sixteen and my last at age nineteen, but as I entered my Writing program with the College of Creative Studies, I started moving into screenplays and lyricism more heavily. While I had fun with my novels and they definitely stretched my wings of creative writing, I think I’m able to do my best work in the genres I’ve switched to lately. I might always change my mind, but for right now, my last three big projects have all been screenplays for either filmed musicals, dramas, or audio dramas. I actually wrote a new screenplay for a dramatic feature about two weeks ago—not a musical, just a script—with which I’m not sure what I plan to do, but I am pretty proud of how it turned out.
9. With so many creative outlets, is there one you enjoy more than any other?
I think my favorite has to be collaborative music writing. I personally feel a very strong connection with words of all kinds, but my most cathartic experiences are generally found when music meets words. And being self-taught with no music theory background, I really don’t write anything that doesn’t come very intuitively to me when I’m messing around on an instrument.
10. You have more singles scheduled for release in 2023, what can people expect from your forthcoming music?
I hope to continue releasing singles every few months for the foreseeable future, as long as I’m able to continue writing songs I am proud of and want to share with the world. My next two new songs are ‘Medusa’ and ‘Romantic Suicide’, the prior of which is a retelling of the Medusa story from ancient mythology as though she was a lesbian. The latter is a Hozier-inspired love song dealing with toxic passion and obsession. Both have some lyrics I’m very proud of, and I’ll be sure to send them your way a few weeks before they drop.
I also have my fingers crossed that I can fund a new EP of ukulele love songs for 2024, maybe four or five songs. If I’m able to build my Patreon, I plan on using that for the funding for musicians and equipment. Otherwise, I might crowdfund again. Right now, two of the four to five songs are written, so I have some more writing work to do before then.
Really, though, I am just happy to finally be streaming music. I’ve been writing since I was in high school, and seeing how far I’ve come from then in my abilities is an amazing feeling.
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Download and stream ‘Winter’ by Delenn Jadzia on their Bandcamp page, plus their collaboration with Piper Wildwood and their debut album ‘A Mad Experiment In Living’.
Pre-save Delenn Jadzia’s forthcoming music and explore the rest of their career here.
Support Delenn on Patreon to get access to early demos and lyrical ideas during the process of creation.
For more information about Delenn Jadzia, visit their official website.
Follow Delenn Jadzia on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok @delennjadzia.
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