Whitney Tai is a genre-defying independent artist known for her cinematic, emotionally charged sound and multidisciplinary approach to music. In this interview, she discusses her upcoming album American Wasteland, the meaning behind her latest single “Rhea,” and the balance between intuition and rationality in her creative process. She also opens up about her production work, personal experiences with trauma and healing, the influence of spirituality, and her views on collaboration, technology in music, and the current landscape for independent female artists.

Lizzie

Your new single “Rhea” gives us a glimpse of your upcoming album American Wasteland. What does that title mean to you at this point in your life and career?

Whitney Tai

For an album that is this eclectic yet woven with folk storytelling throughout, Rhea represents (both in title, mood and glimpse) the idea of asking pertinent questions that your trauma may have been masking. It’s honoring your worth and never shrinking yourself to fit in the boxes people build around you. It’s showing up for yourself so to not compromise your peace for the fear of disturbing other’s incapacity to grow. Tom’s approach really captures my state of longing, the introspective nature of endless searching, the acceptance and readiness to move on.

Lizzie

You’ve described your music as “cinematic, celestial, and emotionally honest.” How do you translate such complex emotions into sound?

Whitney Tai

I personally resonate in interdimensional places where I experience the world in complex patterns or structures like the structures of leaves, the conversations between star matter or the vibrations earths soil makes coursing beneath the cold concrete. My body yearns to make sounds that are feral, organic, emotionally abundant and commanding in nature. I want to feel it all, music is a place to do that safely even when I may be coming undone.

Lizzie

In songs like Simulation or Sleepwalking to the Moon, you explore dreamlike worlds and inner fractures. Is your creative process more rational or intuitive?

Whitney Tai

Rationality and intuitiveness feel like an ongoing balancing game in my bandwagon. The universe is both rational and irrational all at once. There is much to wonder or dream about while also making perfect sense in its divine symmetry. At the core, I desire to be fractal, because we are fractal just like the earliest mycelium 460 million years ago. We are very multi-dimensional and rationality is the pre-frontal, fine tooth comb that straightens it out enough to appreciate it (not explode into chaos). Those songs are miniature glimpses or dilated views into the tiny bits of my mind’s eye at certain hours.

Lizzie

Your voice conveys both strength and vulnerability. What role does it play as an emotional channel for you?

Whitney Tai

My voice has become my torch through suffering. I wield it because I have to, because it IS life or death, a form of survival. It’s my biggest advocate for how many times I have silenced my needs. When I sing, I get to rationalize in a creative headspace and release anything that no longer serves as a home inside of me. I am giving allowance or voice to the parts of my heart and soul that deserve my help.

Lizzie

How has the production process been for your latest tracks? I know you’re involved in mixing and producing them yourself.

Whitney Tai

I dabbled in many sides of the production and mixing process over the years. Specifically in 2023-2024, I composed and released some acoustic tracks as a challenge to self-produce and engineer some avante garde songs like Pisces Rising, Lexington and Simulation. I loved the process of writing and creating in a magical bubble where I wrote the pieces in isolation, tracked all the parts, and developed the sound aesthetic. I dabbled in doing everything but the “physical” mixing for those –BUT I am still very much involved in the mixing process since the style of the capture very much dictates the direction of the mix. For my forthcoming, American Wasteland, (a much bigger machine) I brought on TommyHatz to write/produce with me and mix the album. He is a phenom and underground treasure with BIG production chops. I knew he was going to be the perfect musical partner for the type of record we needed to unearth. Songwriting is my first love but production allures and fascinates me– I think it’s a process that I dream into the earliest parts of my writing which helps it to already attract its sonic legs.

Lizzie

Your personal story includes loss and rebirth. What role has art played for you as a refuge or tool for transformation?

Whitney Tai

It is the sole role. Art is why, I feel, man exists. I exist to create. We exist to imagine all the possibilities. Creation is happening on so many planes at every moment. Our evolving planet is always one brushstroke away from making our own elaborate versions of Michelangelo’s David. The fact that we can imagine things from the darkness proves that our transformation is a living breathing organism.

Lizzie

You’ve spoken openly about mental health and trauma. Do you feel that addressing these themes is part of your mission as an artist?

Whitney Tai

I often wonder like the rest of us what our mission or purpose is but music is the only thing that I can honestly keep coming back to. I would be lying if mental and health and trauma were omissed in my stories, if not for them, I would not have had the strength to make it to this moment. I am an amalgamation of my experiences but I get to resculpt them into something beautiful so that the energy can be recycled. Transforming our pain to power is how we get to take the narrative back, pass on a quantum gift to the future and not see ourselves as victims on a planet that will soon forget us when we are gone. Call it a mission but I call it paying it forward, we all need someone to hold us.

Lizzie

How do you define spirituality in your creative life? Does it influence how you write or perform?

Whitney Tai

Spirituality is my relationship with mother earth, her tender sun kiss and the passion she breathes into me to keep fighting for justice. I feel my connection to all things, my unity with flora and fauna, my devotion to the art of sound. Without being deeply spiritual and a servant to her wonder I couldn’t be alive. We are spiritual beings born of star stuff… floating in a bittersweet oblivion.

Lizzie

Has there been a song that changed your life, either when writing it or performing it live?

Whitney Tai

“Slumber Party,” my newest single, legitimately saved my life. Writing it rescued me long before I knew it was doing so. When Tom showed me the music for this, I was instantly drawn into the atmosphere. I imagined the architecture of the melody, movement and lyrics like a comet passing earth, a natural process that felt life-changing. It’s a song that’s gratifying to perform for it has both of the strength and vulnerability you mentioned all rolled into one. Soft but strong, yielding but impenetrable, gossamer in sonic layers yet incredibly clear in its messaging. `

Lizzie

Do you think pain can generate beauty? Or is beauty something we find in spite of pain?

Whitney Tai

This came up recently in a session with Somatic Songwriters. Pain has added a deep layer in my art that allows me to emote as I do but I don’t believe that it’s necessary to generate beauty. One of my favorite physicists, Richard Feynman, says that “beauty is available to everyone.” I think pain can add a wonderful layer to the creation of beauty but not all things must undergo pain to exist. Then again, who’s to say the earth doesn’t hurt when a tree breaks ground or that the formation of dangerous ocean waves doesn’t disrupt a calm ecosystem. Pain is just a natural part of life…maybe beauty doesn’t have to be exclusively dependent on it.

Lizzie

You’re an independent artist who also writes, produces, and designs your work. What are the challenges and freedoms of being in full control of the creative process?

Whitney Tai

I am a creative director at heart, I always have been. I design and manufacture concepts, whether sonic or visual, and then I execute. It’s part of who I am and I love doing it. I get to tell stories with sound, color and emotion. Art has provided a sanctuary to outlet all the beauties that keep me pulsing.

Lizzie

You’ve collaborated with artists like Beauty in Chaos, Ashton Nyte, Chuck Wright, and Julian Beeston. What do you look for in a creative collaboration?

Whitney Tai

Since most of my collaborations come about by choosing to show up unapologetically in my niche, it draws me towards those who have similar philosophies. I’d like to think that how we choose to show up in the world, without selling out or sacrificing vision, dictates the amazing personalities we create with. I just follow my heart and the right souls appear. All of these humans have an innate magic that aligns with my sound and convictions in the arts.

Lizzie

You’ve experimented with formats like KiTalbum, which blends digital and physical media. What interests you about the intersection of technology and art?

Whitney Tai

When KitAlbum approached me to join forces, I was very excited to see a fresh new perspective on collectibles in music that shake up the way we experience tech. Music has not had a company in a while executing innovation like what Kit has done. As someone who is very techy, it was another instance where the alignment felt kismet for the messaging behind that single. Simulation was the perfect single to release on this medium since its very inception revolves around virtual reality and immersive experiences.

Lizzie

How important is visual aesthetic in your music? Do you design your stage and visual universe as well?

Whitney Tai

Visual aesthetics are inherently built into sound. I see colors, textures, atmospheres, dimensions and 3D worlds when I write. Performing is also a place to bring that visual to reality which I enjoy curating through fashion. I am living in multiple simulations at once where melody and lyrics paint themselves inside of it. Being intentional is very important, I lean in to listen to my body’s quantum mechanics when decision making. I never want to be severed from the universe when I transmute, I always seek that divine alignment.

Lizzie

What’s your take on the current state of the music industry for independent female artists?

Whitney Tai

I love that women are very supportive of one another right now… I feel that from many women in my musical circle. We lift each other, empower our strengths and move as a unit towards similar goals. I may have just been fortunate to have surrounded myself with incredibly mature women who honor others without it subtracting from their own journey. There’s enough space for all of us to thrive. I also love to see how women are pushing hard in droves into production and mixing spaces. It’s a very male-dominated space for many reasons but seeing goddesses cut through the construct with high quality recordings on their own is very empowering and so fucking overdue.

Lizzie

You’ve been compared to Annie Lennox, Kate Bush, and Amy Lee. Do you identify with them? Who have been your true artistic references?

Whitney Tai

It’s interesting that you ask this because I truly love, enjoy and honor these incredible artists. However, the long list of women in music who have given me the power and confidence to channel my individuality are Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion, Sade, Sharon den Adel, Lisa Gerrard, Beth Gibbons, Elizabeth Frasier, Etta James, Mariah Carey, Stevie Nicks, Aimee Man, Sia, Billie Holiday and MANY more. There is certain magic and appreciation for all the women I have seen pieces of myself in throughout the years.

Lizzie

Your lyrics often feel like cosmic poetry. Do you read poetry or literature? Has anything left a lasting mark on you?

Whitney Tai

Thank you, sometimes I wonder if my words fall in the way they feel inside. I love the cosmos. I’m fascinated with astronomy and LOVE to write/read poetry. A few years ago I discovered poets, Pablo Neruda and Fernando Pessoa and felt very invigorated by the visual nature of their writing. I’d be remiss if I didn’t attribute my discovery of their artful words to my ongoing growth as a writer who is hungry for the metaphysical prisms of life.

Lizzie

Are there any sounds or textures you’re currently obsessed with in the studio?

Whitney Tai

This past year I have been very obsessed with pedal steel guitar and the mellotron. They are a bonding agent, or glue, with many frequencies weaving jewel tones through a song to fuse it together. I love instruments that sound like Tiffany lamps, glistening with color, warmth, alchemy and light.

Lizzie

What would your dream stage or live show look like?

Whitney Tai

I imagine black volcanic sand beneath my feet, icy glass walkways curling atop, points of light suspended like stalactites, a red river glowing from an angry earthen core, blue fog lulled in the background, the scent of morning rain and amber, long swathes of chiffon projected with abstract, microscopic organisms. I emerge from the darkness, a bioluminescent form with threads crafted of 1000s of tiny glowing threads encrusted with shells and jewels.

Lizzie

What would you like people to feel after listening to your music for the first time?

Whitney Tai

I would love for people to feel safe, indomitable, solaced, empowered and wildly creative. I hope they are inspired to chase every dream or passion that makes them feel alive and choose a life that is their own.