SONIC DEVOTION - WASIA PROJECT - BTB DIGITAL

OLIVIA HARDY AND WILLIAM GAO STARTED WASIA PROJECT IN THEIR LIVING ROOM AS MOST SIBLINGS DO, NEVER EXPECTING THAT SEVEN YEARS LATER THEY’D BE RELEASING EPS, TOURING WITH ARTISTS LIKE LAUFEY, AND HEADLINING THEIR OWN RUNS ACROSS NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE. MUSIC HAS ALWAYS BEEN CENTRAL TO THEIR LIVES; BOTH GREW UP WITH CLASSICAL TRAINING BEFORE EXPANDING THEIR TASTES TO INCLUDE INFLUENCES LIKE BILLIE EILISH, REX ORANGE COUNTY, AND FRANK OCEAN, ALL OF WHICH SHAPED THEIR EARLY SOUND.

NOW, WITH THEIR LATEST SINGLE, 2515, A CRYPTIC TITLE MARKING A NEW CHAPTER, THE DUO ARE FULLY COMMITTING THEMSELVES TO THE PROJECT, EMBRACING A MORE MATURE AND INTENTIONAL APPROACH TO THEIR MUSIC. WE SAT DOWN WITH OLIVIA AND WILLIAM TO BREAK DOWN THE NEW RELEASE, REFLECT ON THEIR CLASSICAL ROOTS (AND THE PRESSURES THAT CAME WITH THEM), AND EXPLORE THEIR DESIRE TO KEEP LISTENERS CONSTANTLY GUESSING.

Left Full look Louis Vuitton
Right Full look **Maison Margiela**

What was your first encounter with music, and how did you create the band?

Olivia: We both went through quite a classical route growing up. My main instrument was the violin, and William’s was the piano, but we played other instruments and were in the choir. Music was around for us in general, but then songwriting came into our early teens, in different ways for each of us. When we had both figured out our own paths, we got together in our mid-teens, basically in our living room, and we thought, “Let's do this together.” Pop was a very separate world (to us) because through classical, you learn other people's compositions, and it's based on technique and appreciating other people's work, but I think pop was where you could create your own thing.

Was music something you enjoyed growing up, or did you feel it to be a chore at times? How did you learn to enjoy the discipline?

William: I didn't like piano for years and years and years. I associated it with almost a negative connotation. I didn't like practising. I didn't like grades, god, I hated grades. But I'm grateful now because I feel like a lot of my friends wish they’d learned an instrument growing up. I'm so grateful that I stuck it out. It's a toolkit for creativity. I think there's an element in music that, in order to unlock your potential creatively, having a basis or a foundation in classical is cool. It's not 100% necessary, but it’s definitely handy.

Left Will: Jacket, shirt and pants Wooyoungmi, shoes **N°21**
Olivia: Jacket, pants **Denzil Patrick**, shoes **Jimmy Choo**
Right Full looks Maison Margiela

Was this why you also felt the need to make pop music as escapism?

Olivia: Pop was always this enticing, fun bit, and I just saw it as a completely different world. After a point where I got especially good with my violin, I felt like I was good enough to genuinely enjoy it, and I appreciated it so much. I still love it. Like, I went and got my violin bow rehaired today. It’s such a specific world and a massive part of my identity. You grow to really love it and appreciate the music that you've been learning. And then it also interweaves. In our job, we get to put it all together, which is just ideal.

Left Full look **Maison Margiela**
Right Jacket, shirt and pants Wooyoungmi

Who were your inspirations growing up, and did you enjoy listening to the same music?

Olivia: We had very different tastes growing up, and still do now, but we also align in a lot of ways. Classically, I always love the more melodic, romantic, soaring and cinematic stuff. We both love Rachmaninoff, which is quite dark.

William: On the one hand, I was going into school and listening to a lot of opera and choral music, which, if it's not cathartic, it's dark. It's very devotional. There's a devotion to a lot of music. But then at the same time we'd go home, and our dad loved Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter, the old show tunes, the golden Hollywood era of musicals. It was cool to have that kind of counter, this dark operatic noir, but then there's lightness in the Sinatra/Porter world.

Olivia: And our mum loved the Bee Gees, Queen and ABBA, a different world, but they weirdly melded together.

Left Will: Jacket, shirt and pants Wooyoungmi
Olivia: Jacket, pants **Denzil Patrick**
Right Full looks **Maison Margiela**

You were influenced by bedroom sounds for your first EP, then you went into pop-rock for your second EP. Now, for your latest single, 2515, things get darker. Can you explain this new sound and why you felt the need to usher in a new era?

Olivia: A lot of the songs we previously released had been made in our early teens; our first songs were written when I was 14 or 15. So there was this constant game of catch-up to our current tastes. We went on this massive world tour, supporting different artists, and it was very booked and busy. Then we came back last year into the studio and thought, “Let's catch everyone up.” Our tastes developed, we became young adults. There is writing and taste and personal growth, and we wanted to really surprise people as well.

Left Full look **Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello**
Right Will: Jacket, shirt and pants Wooyoungmi, shoes **N°21**
Olivia: Jacket, pants **Denzil Patrick**, shoes **Jimmy Choo**

How would you say your orchestral roots influenced this song?

William: I think the orchestral upbringing and everything we’ve experienced, sonically, from the Suzuki method to opera, all of that is really inherent in the work, and we've also been aware to embrace it, the darkness and the chaos of the sound, and embrace who we are.

Olivia: I think cinematic is a good term. It’s how we approached this new era and this song specifically. We've always been quite cinematic with our string arrangements, but with the kind of soaring, we put it through this pedal that was called Big Sky, and it just literally opened the sky for the way the string sounded. Sonically, making an orchestral sound and the cinematic roots just open up into this massive, grand feeling.

Left Full looks **Maison Margiela**
Right Will: Jacket, shirt and pants Wooyoungmi, shoes **N°21**
Olivia: Jacket, pants **Denzil Patrick**, shoes **Jimmy Choo**

This new music is a bit more mature. What have you been up to since your last EP?

Olivia: I feel like I've grown up. It's crazy how long that year has felt. It's been a lot of just being in London, experiencing things and writing about them. We've been working on a lot of music, and really learnt so much about the way we work. Before we went on tour, the way we made music was in a very specific way, and I had been in school, and William had been shooting Heartstopper, and so we had lots of things going on. I felt like, after the tour, it was the first time we were really coming together to devote everything to something very intentional. So that was a massive learning curve. We've been experimenting and figuring out the ways we work and how we want to best get our intuitive ideas out into the world.

Left Full look **Maison Margiela**
Right Full look **Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello**

What inspired you when creating visual storytelling to go along with your music?

William: With the new era and turning a new leaf, we want to represent more of the things aesthetically that we're aligned with at the moment, or have been for the last year. I think this dark, almost hypnotic world feels more current to us than perhaps us wearing autumnal colours, or sweet summer colours.

Olivia: I think specifically with this song, with how sonically euphoric it is and its club energy and dark essence to it. It's quite frustrated, angry. But I see those cooler tones match the music, and it was quite an organic pairing. The shoot we did for the visualizer was awesome. We just loved that whole world, the warehouse, the snow and the darker colours.

Left Dress **Louis Vuitton**, watch **Omega**
Right Will: Full look **Emporio Armani**
Olivia: Full look **Giorgio Armani**

You toured a lot with your previous work. Is there a dream artist that you would love to tour alongside this time around?

Olivia: I'd love to open for The Marías because I love their visual vibe. I think it pairs well with the aesthetic that we're going into. Especially María, who's also done her solo Not for Radio project. I just love the stage design and the world-building they do.

And if you could do the soundtrack to any movie or show, which would it be?

Olivia: We love the idea of doing a score, like that is on our bucket list. I also love Greta Gerwig. I heard she was doing the Narnia movie. I feel like the cinema and the grandeur and the kind of magic and coldness of the era we're about to step into really fit into this massive, magical world of Narnia

William: Sounds cool. Something dark and chaotic. Just something that feels right.