Heartbreak, Growth, and Groovy Baselines

An Interview with Girl Parallel

05.30.24

By Genesi Funston

Photos by May Alejandra Rodriguez

Genesi: What sparked your love for music?  

Girl Parallel: Probably when I first picked up a guitar. I remember when I had my first guitar lesson in sixth grade and I was so excited. Also, growing up, I was a choir kid. I liked having the opportunity to be able to go to school every day and be able to sing, but I wanted a little bit more out of what I was doing. I wanted to make music, compose and write my own songs. That's kind of always been a dream of mine.  

Genesi: How would you define the sound of your music? 

Girl Parallel: It’s the intersection between indie happy-go-lucky music and R&B. I feel like some of the guitar stuff I lay down is indie-influenced.  

Genesi: What’s the story behind your name? 

Girl Parallel:  Growing up I always felt ostracized from my peers. So, I guess you could say I felt parallel to other people. And then I decided to put “girl” in front of it. It's cool to have a name behind the stuff I’m doing. It acts as an alter ego that I can channel my insecurities into and even fake my confidence. Beyonce has the alter ego Sasha Fierce — I was kind of going for that vibe. 

Genesi: What are the main instruments you use? 

Girl parallel: Guitar, piano and a little bit of bass.  

Genesi: Who are some of your inspirations? 

Girl Parallel: Pink Pantheress is a big one and I love Steve Lacey’s groovy baselines. And then Erykah Badu and Tyler, The Creator.  Those are the main four. I also really like Snoh Aalegra’s sound.  

Genesi: What inspires you to sit down and write a song?  

Girl Parallel: A feeling. It's a combination of a feeling or an idea, say for a chord progression. Honestly, it’s a lot of different things. Maybe I’ll have a melody idea and then I'll go into GarageBand and build chords and drums around it, or I'll have the baseline idea and I'll build stuff around that.  

If I’m feeling a really strong emotion that also helps. Those tend to be some of my strongest songs because I feel passionate and the feelings behind that song can be a lot more apparent. Especially my songs like “Heartbreak Highway.” I was pretty heartbroken and sad when I wrote that song and I feel like that’s apparent when you listen to it.  

Genesi: What are some main themes of your music, specifically for your recent album? What do you like to communicate through your music? 

There are a lot of overarching themes in “Future Flowers,” one being growth because it's my first album. I wrote “Castle” around this time last year when the sun was out and I was experiencing good vibes. I wanted to showcase that in a song and that's where it all started from. I just kept writing more songs throughout the year and producing them in GarageBand. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but they sounded pretty fire. There's a lot of themes of growth in there — lots of self-reflection and heartbreaks from throughout the past year that can be heard in the album as well.  

Genesi: Is music an outlet you use to process those deep emotions like heartbreak? Do you hope listeners can listen to your music and do the same? 

Girl Parallel: Yeah, I’m glad that I have this outlet to be able to express my emotions because I think I would lose my mind otherwise. I would have some other way to express the emotions like, I don't know, pick up running or rock climbing or something. It's a great way to get out frustration — to just make a song with a groovy baseline.  

Genesi: What has been a rewarding moment for you? 

My album release show at Wink Wink Boutique. It was really rewarding because I think there were over 50 people in attendance. Beforehand, I went hard on the marketing. I put up flyers and was very active on social media. I got people to start talking about it and it was really rewarding to see people show up after all that hard work. I also had a live band for the event I practiced with a couple times. It was fun to hear them bring the songs I made on my phone to life. It was a surreal moment. That made me feel proud of all this work I did and that people shouldn't be sleeping on me.  

Genesi: What do you think is a good song that acts as an entry point into your music? 

“Love Me Not,” “Disco Dive,” “La La Lies” and “Heartbreak Highway.” 

Genesi: What are your plans for future projects? 

I have lots of plans for my second and third albums. My producer and I have been talking and want the second album to take inspiration from “Planet Her” by Doja Cat. This next album is going to be called “Planet Parallel.” It's going to have those themes of space and metaphors of taking off. We've already laid out a few songs I think could be on the album. I don't think it'll be out for another year or so because I want to really take some time to focus on promoting this album and getting people to listen to it. I'll really be taking my time to cook and develop those themes. 

I've been also working on some comics to integrate my doodling abilities with my music. I want to have a cohesive theme between the two. I've been working on a little zine to put out when I make my website so people can see it and be like, “Oh, hey, look, Future Flowers reference in these comics.”  

Genesi: Anything else you would like to share? 

I’d like to share a little bit about my experience in the Bellingham music scene being a woman of color. I don't want to say I'm paving the way, but I do feel like I have made a path for  other women of color and musicians of color to follow behind. I don’t feel super welcome in the Bellingham music scene. It's dominated by certain people and a certain type of sound. I haven't necessarily felt like I was welcomed to introduce myself.  

But that's why the album release show felt rewarding because it was just a point where I was able to see how hard I've worked to make this thing for myself. None of this would have been possible if I didn't take that initial step to reach out to this producer to help me record my first song. And now we’re here a year later.

Girl Parallel continues to “cook up” her second album and deliver a unique, otherworldly experience for “Planet Parallel.” In the meantime, you can stream “Future Flowers” and her singles, “Get You To” and “Castle” on many major streaming platforms.