Photo Credit: Adrian Nina
[Stalking Gia](https://www.instagram.com/stalkinggia/) is your new favorite alternative pop artist, and we can’t get enough! A proud New York native, the rising star intentionally creates a full 3-D musical experience with all her music and visuals—exuding a fantasy world for listeners all around the world to enter.
The singer-songwriter states, “I’m a creator, I live to create art and turn my life and my stories into music. Every day is a different day.”
Inspired by the likes of David Bowie and Audrey Hepburn, Stalking Gia creates ballads inspired by real-life occurrences, while reeling in her cute and edgy persona. A huge gamer at heart, her stage name stems from the username she made for World of Warcraft, also a play on social media and how daunting it can be. In today’s society, it seems there’s pressure for everyone to constantly be showcasing their life and personal endeavors online, which can lead to a dark place when it comes to your mental state.
Writing her own music, playing piano guitar, and overseeing all musical arrangements, Gia exploded onto the scene with her viral single “Second Nature,” which blackbear samples into his own record “wish u the best.” Consequently, the two paired up and collaborated on [“Miracles.”](https://open.spotify.com/track/1d8ric7942oDFudCTkWuyN?si=pW00nIa0TSWLYx4zjPUfAg) Now, she clocks in at over 20 million streams to date, releasing her newest music video for “Worship.” The song is about self-love and self-discovery, something we all need to ultimately prioritize.
Flaunt caught up with Stalking Gia via Zoom, who was posted in her hometown of New York. Read below as we discuss her roots in the city, biggest influences, her writing process, collaborating with blackbear, new visual for “Worship,” meaning in the cover art, the importance in self-love, her forthcoming project called _SEASON ONE_, studio essentials, and more!
Photo Credit: Adrian Nina
**Being from New York, how does that play into your life and your career?**
I'm a New Yorker through and through. I love New York, there's so much culture, art, and music. It's a very spontaneous city, I love that. On a normal day, I’d go to an art museum or see a show or play on Broadway. There's always a million things to do. It's hard to not be inspired living in New York, I love everything about it.
**Biggest influences coming up? I know you like David Bowie and Audrey Hepburn.**
Yeah, really an eclectic mix. I have a full wall here of all my vinyls. I listen to Bowie. I love The Beatles obviously, it’s hard not to. Led Zeppelin. I have random records that I don't know the artist or anything about them. A lot of French records I really love and summer soundtracks. I have Beethoven up there. \[laughs\] Definitely an eclectic mix. As far as my personal taste, I love French pop. In the 60’s era, I love Brigitte Bardot, all those songs. I love K-pop too. You'll definitely see with my patches of releases this year that I like mixing it into different genres, bringing it back to alternative music.
**At what point did you realize you could do music for a living?**
You know, I don't think it was a conscious decision. If you have music in you, it's always going to be in you. Things just started happening. I started in musical theater, acting, then that led into songwriting. I love telling stories. I feel really lucky to be able to do it for a living, it's really incredible.
**Talk about writing your own music, co-producing your music, playing piano and guitar in your tracks, and how musically-inclined you are.**
It's really been a journey with my creative process, how I do it and who I do it with. I've worked with a lot of people in my life. A lot of different producers, a lot of different co-writers. I lived in LA for a short period of time and ran about the whole circuit out there, really experimenting the ways I write and who I write with. When I came back to New York, I found a really close knit group of people. Found a way of writing that works for me. It's nice when you stick with the same people because you could really grow as an artist and as a writer together, experiment and feel free to jump out of your comfort zone. That's where I'm at right now with a really solid group of people. We're really making something special where I have the confidence to step into the role as a co-producer, to not feel nervous or unsure of myself. We're in a really safe place that we felt together.
**Can you break down your writing process?**
Every song’s different in its own right on how it gets created. I prefer to let the music lead me lyrically and melodically. I sometimes have lists of concepts, ideas, lines in my Notes app, but the best songs for me come in the moment and aren't thought out beforehand. They come to me in the room at the present time I'm writing. That's how I like to write: very instinctually and in the moment, whatever pops in while the music's being created.
**How did you end up collaborating with blackbear on “Miracles”?**
We met over Twitter DMs online. He’d heard my song “Second Nature” that was going viral on Spotify and everywhere. We met up while he’s finishing his album in New York at Quad Studios in Times Square. We instantly connected, he started playing me what he’s working on. It was a sample of my song “Second Nature” in his song “wish u the best.” That was the coolest thing ever to have somebody I look up to, get the inspiration from my song and my music. That was really cool. Really cool for him to pick out an independent artist who’s starting out and take me under his wing.
I got to open up for him on a bunch of his shows. Whenever he’d sing “wish u the best,” he'd put up “Second Nature”'s music video at the show. Didn't expect that to happen, cool. \[laughs\] He didn't tell me. We got to working more together. We started the idea for “Miracles” in LA, I went back to New York and wrote some more. He’d send me like "oh, I added this.” We pieced it together that way bi-coastal. An interesting process, I've never done anything like that. It was pretty cool to hear it all put together.
**What’d you learn from touring with him? His shows are amazing, I've been to a few.**
Amazing! I've had the pleasure of seeing him play so many times. Every time, it’s a new energy and his fans are unbelievable. I got a lot of love from it and a lot of acceptance. Those shows are so special and beautiful, I got to meet so many new people. I still have Twitter, DM groups from all the fans from those shows. I still keep in touch with them because they’re the coolest and so sweet. It was magical, I hope I get more experiences like that in my life.
**“Worship” is out now. How are you feeling?**
It's great. Out of all my songs, it was a scary one to release because it's very vulnerable. Most of the time, you want to put out this confident badass, empowering song. This one is confidently showing that I’m insecure sometimes, and on a journey to self-love. Definitely one of my favorite songs, it was nice to write. I wrote it with Zac Barnett from American Authors, who's a good friend of mine. We’d been wanting to work together for a while and we made that happen. I'm happy it’s finally out.
**How important is self-love?**
It's very important. This year with COVID, everyone's had that extra time with themselves. All outside distractions have been completely blocked out. You're forced to spend time with yourself, dig into your head and overthink a million times. A lot of people will connect to it. Like that RuPaul saying: “if you can't love yourself, how are you gonna love anybody else?” It's the truth.
**What do you do for self-care?**
This year, I got really into yoga. It's a great thing for your body and for your mind. You don't realize it, but you’re meditating as you're doing the moves, working through everything. It's been really an amazing practice to get into, I highly recommend it for anybody out there.
**What was your vision shooting the visual? I love that there's all a lot of Stalking Gia’s in there.**
Yeah, there's a lot of variations of Gia’s on the loose. The meaning behind it is the real Gia is tied up, constrained while the rest of my personalities are running loose. It was a cool video to make, we made it in August of last year. We have all the different personalities: We have the gamer Gia who’s lost in her fantasy realm and is trying to escape reality and the outside world. There's the glamorous Gia who’s feeling herself, super confident, obsessed with herself. \[laughs\] In a Jacquemus dress which I'm so obsessed with. I styled the whole video, too.
**How was that experience?**
I was my own stylist, which was very difficult. I had to bring all the clothes, hang them all up, get everything set. We had to switch in and out of outfits, sometimes the same outfit back again from the living room scene to the kitchen scene. We'd have to get into a different look, then get back into that other look. Out of the next string of videos coming out, it was the hardest to build and the longest. We've had the glamorous Gia, we've had the rockstar Gia. She’s taking her pain and heartbreak and making it into art. This is the performer, sassy Gia. There's the sensitive Gia, who's in the hoodie, the sneakers, a Pharrell adidas collab suit set. I liked all of the rainbow lines in it because it represents all the emotions that Gia is feeling, hypersensitive and so overwhelmed. There's the hostage Gia who's added up by all these Gia personalities, she's the truth.
**What's the meaning in the cover art?**
The cover art is the hostage Gia from the video, she's afraid to cross that line to be herself. The red line on my face represents the figurative point of no return, the red line you cross where safety isn’t guaranteed. The red line painted on my face represents that point of no return. Me being my vulnerable self is opening myself up through pain and hurt. So instead, I’ll remain safe, remain constrained, remain guarded, afraid to cross that line. I thought it was super powerful looking dead on into the camera.
**What is your favorite Gia? I saw you post on your IG. Which you are?**
Gamer Gia is my favorite. I'm her most of the time. I play World of Warcraft the most, but I love all games. I'm on Switch and Xbox all the time. I love escaping, it's a good escape. All games, I get inspired by the background music.
**What can fans expect from your new project _Season One_?**
With every song, you can expect a new story to be told. I’ll have a mini episode for each song filmed, which shows a poem I wrote, inspired by each song. I was writing poetry as well, so I thought that’d be cool to do. Each episode tells a little story within itself, that's paired with every release. Everything's alternative with a sprinkle of pop, then with a sprinkle of something else. Every release will be new, exciting, and different.
**3 things you need in the studio?**
First, my Manley microphone. When you find the right mic, everything makes sense. Like Harry Potter picking out his wand. \[laughs\] Definitely my Stanley microphone captures my voice perfectly. Coffee is #2. Every day at around 3pm, we go out for a coffee walk wherever we're working. It's nice to get outside and get that mental break, get some coffee or matcha. Mainly coffee. #3 would be my iPhone because I write all my lyrics on my iPhone. We do like the shared Notes app, so everyone can see what's going on in real time. I have a notebook that I write in pen to page, but I don't really bring that to the studio. I want everybody to see everything I'm working on. My notebook is for me time.
**How would you describe your fashion sense?**
It’s classic, with a bit of crazy. I do like things that are very color matching and sleek. I love full-on one pieces that are very dancer-esque and a lot of body suits, but mixed with fun elements. I like bright colors with makeup, with a simple outfit. You need that one bold thing to pop out with the rest being super sleek.
**What would you be doing if you weren't doing music?**
I’m a creator in all aspects and an artist, so anything where I'm making art. I also have a really big love for acting. I started out with acting so I’d love to circle back and do more of that one day.
**Any goals you have for yourself?**
Once this whole project is out, one goal is to have a vinyl of my music. That'd be really amazing. That's something I want planned for this year, to have it all on vinyl.
**Anything else you want to let the people know?**
Connect with me online. Stalk me online on all socials, @StalkingGia. Be on the lookout for some new music.
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