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Looking through Deb Fan’s Instagram, I was pleasantly charmed by her. Her allure came across as picturesque and distant with a Y2K aesthetic behind all posts beckoning you to look at her. When we spoke, she didn’t feel distant. Instead, I got the feeling of familiarity. Fan was engaged and actively participated in our conversation, bonding about constantly oversharing (trauma bonding is out) and how we can’t decide on what ethereal actually means. She stated,

“I didn’t even know what ethereal meant as a word at first. I didn’t know until I got a TikTok and someone commented, ‘Oh my god ethereal queen.’”

Overall, she was laid back and excited to talk about her music.

Deb Fan has described her newly released EP, Gemini Moon, as “dark ethereal,” a phrase I haven’t heard before. I agree with it, though, because it encapsulates what Fan is doing with her sound. Prior to its release, I had a chance to have a Zoom call with her. Fan’s music cascades into each track, synths layered over one another with her vocals glittering over it all. I started the conversation by mentioning the 70’s band, Bread, and from there, we moved the conversation to how our parents have influenced our music. At a young age her parents pushed her to take piano lessons after Chinese professional pianist Lang Lang’s popularity arose.

“They always want their kids to have ambition, or talent, or some sort of hobby on the side, so they really pushed all of us to play piano. I’ve been playing piano since I was five or something, a long time.”

From there, she learned to play the trumpet in college while also pursuing singing. She originally went to the University of Rochester, branching out from her roots in Hong Kong, but then transferred over to Berklee’s College of Music. We had similar backgrounds when it came to studying the music industry; or maybe it’s the result of an industry where we don’t find a lot of women in leading roles. I mentioned how a lot of the time, I felt as if I was an interruption and constantly trying to force my way into this “boy’s club.” Fan was all too familiar with this feeling. Fan said,

“I’d do the bare minimum. It did make me hate my major for a long time because of all these men power tripping over you. It was interesting because towards the end of my major, I received two awards from the department. I was shocked, but all the boys around me were especially shocked too. They would message me, and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, congratulations.’ People I’ve never spoken to. I’m just like, it’s not that deep, you know?” 

Her approach to songwriting can be more a solo journey, but when it comes to the production, it becomes a more collaborative approach. Fan likes to “build the sound world before [she moves] into the lyrics.”

JULIA

So when it comes to songwriting, everyone has their own process. Do you lean towards writing lyrics and then coming up with the sound you want for the song, or is it the other way around?

DEB

Oh, definitely is the other way around. I’m a sound designer for my corporate job right now, so I’m very in touch with the production and stuff like that. I really like to build the whole sound world before I move into the lyrics. Sometimes if I really don’t like what I make in terms of like beats or sounds or whatever, I just scrap it and move on. I can’t force myself to write over something that doesn’t work for me.

JULIA

That makes sense. You need to be fully into the song you’re making. 

DEB

That doesn’t mean that I produce alone, though. I don’t know, for some reason I love producing with friends, and they have their own sounds too that I really enjoy. It’s cool to just collaborate.  

JULIA

Yeah, that’s cool. I know there’s people who have their own way of making music. Sometimes they’d rather just be all by themselves, but sometimes having a new perspective is so important to music, because you don’t want your music to sound repetitive. You want to sparse out and do different things and have different influences.

DEB

Exactly, and that’s why I love working with other people. Also, because my producer friends are a lot faster at producing than I am. My mind is like, all over the place sometimes, so it’s hard for me to be able to translate what I’m thinking every second. Meanwhile, I’ll tell my friend I was thinking about this, and they can get it done. Otherwise, I get too particular about it. Also, having the validation there is nice. (Laughs)

JULIA

That definitely helps. (Laughs)

DEB

I feel like when I actually write, though, it’s half and half. Half the time I write with other people in the room, but the other half is alone. Actually, maybe more than half of the time it’s alone.

JULIA

I want to talk about your new single, “Pull My Hair.” After hearing it, I immediately loved it. I loved how you have all these harmonies going on, and then a little past midway through the song, you have this whole breakdown. What was your thought process? Did you always envision that breakdown happening?

DEB

When I created the song originally, I did it in a writing camp. It was a completely different production, and it didn’t have the breakdown either. But then I got into some hiccup with the producer that I was working with at the time, so I took the song, and I had to recreate it. I was just working on it in my room, and I was just like, you know what? I need to make it different from what it is now. If I just stuck with the original production that he made, I would not have any other ideas. So, I kind of formatted it a little bit, and then I asked my guitarist, Leo, who helped co-produce the song and said, “Why don’t we just slow this section down?”

You know I was like, what if I just took his guitar for this section and just put out the end, just slow it, add a different rhythm to it, and just see how it feels. I feel like I do that a lot with a lot of my songs. All my songs have breakdowns because right now, I feel like people have such short attention span, and I love having two songs in one. Even though as random as it may seem, it’s not random. Then, I brought it to my main producer, Jondren, and he added all the little sparkles and really glued things together. We worked on this song for a long, long time though, which is interesting enough because there’s so many parts to it.

JULIA

So many layers.

DEB

Exactly, we just kept adding until we were like, OK we’re done, you know? Even though it took awhile for us to complete the song, it feels done. It’s definitely a work of art that I really enjoy listening to as well.

I mentioned how a lot of artists are branching out into other forms of music making music for TV shows–Este Haim from HAIM, for example, being the music consultant of season two of The White Lotus. I hinted that since she’s a fan of anime, it would be great to see her one day make an intro for one.

From there, she asked if I watched anime. I sheepishly mentioned I’ve only watched all of Avatar and The Legend of Korra, unsure if it officially counts as anime. She reassured me that it counts, at least to her. If Deb Fan says it counts, it counts.

“I would love to create for an intro for an anime show. I really want to make music for games and for anime one day. Making music for anime is definitely one of my goals for my career. To either score for anime, or even just films in general, but also make a song for Valorant or Riot Games. I really hope to see that, but we’ll see.”

For our emerging artists spotlight, we like to give the artist a chance to highlight any other artists that they want. She was excited to name a bunch of new artists from the likes of Alex Banin, Alé Araya, and LUCA. Fan described LUCA as, “very rock, but also has Stevie Wonders vibe. There’s a lot of rock elements and like that kind of live grungy element of rock injected into it.” In Daybreak Music fashion, we like to end the interview by asking the artists what their coffee or tea order is. Fan laughs and explains how she likes the Mango Dragonfruit Refresher as well as a nice White Mocha Latte from Starbucks. I like to think this was a perfect metaphor for Gemini Moon, a mix of two very different drinks, a blend of hot and cold. In a way, kind of like Deb Fan’s music too. 

You can listen to Deb Fan on all platforms and follow her @debfan_ on Instagram, Twitter, and Twitch.