Getting to know Superknova

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! 

Yeah I feel like everything that has been put off for the year is happening now. I feel like everyones doing a billion things. Myself included. It’s good obviously but it’s a lot. 

How was 2020 for you? 

It was a time, obviously. I don’t want to downplay the realness of it, which was we were in the middle of a pandemic, but I had my own struggles for sure and for the most part thankfully I did okay. I was healthy, and  as far as I know didn’t catch covid. It sucks most big artists had big shows that were cancelled and what not but I was able to put out music. Being a self produced musician, I was able to do mostly what I do from home. Cuz you know I write, mix and master my own music. I am very lucky in that sense that I was able to keep doing that. And was able to do more things that I don’t normally do like Tik Tok videos that I was putting off for a long time because I had shows. So that was a silver lining to the year for me. Overall it wasn’t terrible in comparison to a lot of people in the world unfortunately. 

Yeah I do feel like there was that silver lining for a lot of people in the sense of gaining new skills and what not. 

Yeah absolutely and things happened last year but again that silver lining. Even for social justice, how many people were able to stand up and be able to advocate for social justice because they didn’t have to go to a physical workplace anymore or unfortunately because they didn't have work. And then also for a lot of people who are naturally introverted, don’t like to be in big crowds. Or a lot of people where I worked had disability issues who were saying I need these accommodations from home and they kept saying I can’t do that. Well this is proof that you can do that ! it's actually not that hard to do and doesn’t cost that much money actually! 

Definitely. All those fake constructs were kind of just broken down. Okay so.. Let’s backtrack. Tell me about yourself. I know that you are a trans girl who went to med school but decided to leave it behind for music, just go for it. Tell us all about it! 

Absolutely. I ‘ve had a long winding road to get here. I started music when I was very young, played in lots of bands, every genre. I studied music in college : jazz guitar. After music school, I went to medical school and there were a lot of complex reasons for me doing so and I slowly realized it wasn’t for me and that I just really wanted to do music. I graduated medical school, but I didn't do a residency so I'm not a practicing clinician. I just started to get back into music and after working a day job for about two years, is saved up enough and just started doing music full time this month!

Congrats! Tell me about the bridge from med school to here. I know that it’s not an easy thing to go against all societal norms, challenges..etc..

It was a huge hurdle for sure: literal, financial, emotional to get over for so many easone. One obviously medical school is very expensive and time extensive and to drop off of that path seems crazy. Like I have 6 figure loan debt, yanno so it doesn't come without its difficulties. That, plus the fact I came out as trans pretty much when I got to medical school, and I started to transition so I was openly trans for at least half of medical school. I got a lot of praise for being a trans med student/doctor. I felt really guilty because I felt like I was letting down my community because you know there aren’t a lot of trans physicians currently and there isn’t enough representation for trans people in healthcare especially those upper echelons, but at the end it’s my life and I'm not going to help anyone if i'm miserable and there's lot of ways you can help people, so yanno a lot of things went into it. 

I'm also the child of asian immigrants. I don't really have the best relationships with them at baseline, so that was just another staking point. That was the one thing that they were really proud of, so when that was gone there was that in my relationship with them. But at the end of the day life is short, you gotta do what you love and if you get the opportunity, why not take it. 

Why the name Superknova 

When I was a kid, I really loved space. I was a pretty nerdy kid and I always wanted to work for NASA or something or study astronomy. So SuperKnova in astronomy or cosmology is the last final explosion before the death of a star. So I liked that concept for how i lived my life. Like you kind of give it your all, like you have one life and it's like the biggest spectacular thing you can do and I just felt like that was really emblematic and guiding for me and how I live my life. 

Oh that’s dope! Let’s talk about Goals.. Tell me about the meaning of that song and what are your current goals, strides..etc.. 

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's interesting. Like, I feel like, um, that song, I always tell people, like, I almost feel like I don't write the songs. I kind of like, almost like the songs write me. Like I rarely sit down and think I'm going to write a song about this and then write the song. I almost never do that. Not because I don't want to, but almost, I don't think I have that ability. Like, I, I just can't. I write and then things kind of form, almost this magical, like subconscious process, and then later I have to go back and be like oh, that's what that was about. Or, you know, sometimes it's even other people tell me and they're like, oh, I thought the song was about that. And I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that. Maybe it was about that. You know, almost like it's almost like a like psychoanalyst therapist relationship I have with, with my own song. I put it out and they tell me what it needs to be, which I think is a beautiful thing about music and art. But, um, yeah, like I wrote that actually over a year ago and at the time, like, I didn't really know what it meant. It just kind of came out spontaneously, One of the only songs I’ve ever written on guitar and, I shelved and I kind of forgot about it. I thought it wasn't very good. I actually deleted it because I was like, this is not very good. 

Oh really It’s so good! So Catchy! 

Oh good. I'm glad you like it. I deleted it cause I was just like, yeah, this isn't it. I accidentally deleted only the three of the four, so I ended up having a draft of it, which I randomly found later and I was like, oh actually this is pretty good. Maybe we should give this another shot. 

And then later, as like, as a lot of my best songs, in my opinion are...they write themselves very quickly. Like Serotonin Serenade, which is my highest performing song was like that, like it wrote itself in like a day. Splendor Dysphoria was similar and this song [Goals] was the same thing where like I wrote it in like a day.

And so I was like, oh, I think there's something to it.  And then later as I fleshed it out and wrote more of it, I was like oh, that's what this was about: two things, which is both that I obviously love to work hard and it's a beautiful thing to be ambitious and go towards your goals and do things you want to do in life, whether that'd be your career or relationships or social justice, whatever it is. 

But also that, like, there's this dark side to goals that sometimes the things you want aren't necessarily things that are healthy for you or things that are meant for you.

I think that was likable to me with medical school because definitely a big driver of me going to medical school was that I had this deep seated, internalized transphobia growing up... from my family, from the society and that is in the world still currently. The thought that being a trans woman was like the most shameful thing you could be at that. I had to do something really big and respectful just to be treated as humans because I was something subhuman, so I had to do something like being a doctor. There were some other good reasons I went; like I want to do a job to help people and what not. But I realized later on reflecting that that was like a big subconscious driver for me. 

So, there's that element of it in ‘Goals’ of like, you know, like the habits you can wreck upon yourself, if you're not really conscious and thinking thoughtfully about where your motivations come from.

Oh, wow. Thanks for sharing that. I think it's really interesting too, the idea that sometimes people will listen to a song and think that it's about one thing, but it's really about this whole other thing. It gives it layers, and I think that is a beautiful thing about art. 

Being able to do that in your art is something that not everyone does.  A lot of people make things that are very one dimensional, so being able to make things with layers that can be dissected in so many different ways...it's definitely a higher level of creation. Congratulations!

Yeah. No, I appreciate it. I, you know, I think it's, um, I think it's what you said reminded me of like another thing, like another layer on top of that, which is that like, you know, songs and art, any art really, but songs can like have a higher meaning above even the original intention of the artist. You know, like I feel like there's songs that, like, I listened to them. Like I know it's like, I listened to it during the seminar. It's about like this in my childhood. Right. And I don't care what you tell me. I don't care what Bob Dylan tells me or beyond to tell them whoever, like, you know, like that's what it's about for me.

Right. And I think that's a beautiful thing like this, like, public domain element to music, which is like, I could have written goals. And if it meant something totally different to you, like I can't ever take that away from you. Like you get to keep that in that, that does belong to you, even though that's not what it was about for me when I wrote it. That's what it means to you. Like the wonderful, you know?

Right and then the art has grown! So you've been a musician your whole life, um, was guitar your first instrument?

Uh, actually technically I played piano for a couple of years. Hated it. Wasn’t not that good at it. I was forced by my parents to do it for like three years. I quit as soon as they let me. And the guitar came a little bit later in like six grade. And then that I actually liked, and I've been playing it ever since. 

Nice. What were your early musical influences?

A bunch of not very high level of stuff. Music that was popular in the late nineties, early two thousands, you know, like, like pop punk stuff: Weezer, Green day, stuff like that. You know, I mean, I still have some moments with those bands today, but you know, like stuff that was very specific to that era. And then pretty quickly I got into classic rock, which is what, I really started to love the guitar.

Then jazz and stuff like that. And then everything else, pretty much from there. I started listening to everything, you know, like when I was a kid we had back in the day when CDs were a thing. We had a library by us that would let you check out music CDs, like 10 at a time. And I would go and get like 10 CDs of just anything and then listen to them all, bring them back to get 10 more CDs. 

Do you have a dream collab? It doesn't have to be music. 

Yeah, that's a good question. There's like a couple off and on like, I mean like Sophie, God rest her soul. Um, like so many of the up and coming queer artists too. BACKXWASH is doing amazing things. Perfume Genius I really like. Um, who else? There's some random ones that aren't even really my style, but I just love what they do.

Like Lake Street Dive, who does this kind of throwback. I don't even know how to describe their sound. It's kind of like jazzy, R&B, pop. It’s really cool, but yeah, there's a bunch I'm sure. Like, I'll think of a bunch more later I’m sure. 

Dope. I’ll have to check them out! So you play the guitar and the piano and you play any others?

Um, I play a little bit of drums. I also like secrets on my drums. I play every instrument by the power of many, you know, nowadays you can play any instrument, but um, like real world instruments. Yeah. Guitar, obviously baby bass. Um, I sing drums, piano. Like, uh,.

So.. you have perfect pitch?

I don't have perfect pitch. I have pretty good relative pitch. Yeah. I'm glad I don't have perfect pitch. I've had classmates in music school who had perfect pitch and it was more of a curse because a lot of instruments aren’t actually perfectly tuned and with perfect pitch you can hear all that.

Ah, I see. That makes sense! So kind of getting into some random questions that I had. What are some of your favorite things about yourself?

Ooh, that's a good question. I love that I can make my own music, like by myself, that I'm independent. I'm very thankful for that. Especially nowadays, it just makes things a lot easier and honestly cheaper. Like I can afford to do what I do now because I don't have to pay anybody. Right and I always say, you know, I love being trans. I think it's just a beautiful gift to contribute to the unique diversity of human experience of the many ways you can live a joyous meaningful life.

Beautiful. Love it. Um, and then my last question is, well second, last question. If you could have lunch with anyone who's dead or alive, who would it be?

That's a tough one. I feel like these are like deceptively hard questions. Cause it's one of those things where like I have so many, but then when you have a lot, my brain paralyzes and goes blank. And also I don't want to say someone and then regret it and I'd be like, no, I'd rather say this person. 

Okay. Jackie Shane! Jackie is this performer from the fifties who was what we would now call a trans woman doing funk, soul music onstage literally like way before the word trans was even a part of our language...And just openly. She was just amazing. And I just admire people so much for that. Like, you know, it's one thing to be trans today, which, I get tons of hate and whatever for being trans, but like in the fifties... I just can't imagine it just takes so much guts, and it's just so inspiring: people like that. I would love to sit down with Jackie Shane 

What's next for you? Shows or any new music coming out? Like what should we be looking for? 

Hopefully having at least one show in the summer. Okay. TBD. Um, and I'm definitely hoping to put out a full album of songs, probably another couple of singles between now and then. I'm hoping for fall. We'll see how it plays out. I'm also like most people waiting to see what's happening with the world and how things open up and what feels safe for people and whatnot. So, yeah.

Well, that's kind of the extent of my questions. It was so lovely to talk to you!

Catch Superknova at Lincoln Hall on August 28th! Grab your tickets here!