“Get used to seeing me be loud”: Interview with Kaiyah Mercedes

Kaiyah Mercedes, Image taken by MOUK. MEDIA

Bold, unapologetic and exciting indie-pop artist Kaiyah Mercedes is journeying into their next louder and grittier rock-influenced work. Since becoming a musician and releasing her first single, “After Summer Ends” 4 years ago (now with over 85,000 streams on Spotify), Kaiyah has already released 2 albums, “Hindsight” (2022) and Trying to Hate You (2024), as well as accompanying singles and music videos. Every piece of her work as an artist really creatively invites listeners into a vulnerable and introspective journey, whether it’s exploring unrequited love, who you are or getting over a first heartbreak. Kaiyah has such a unique style as an artist, frequently sharing very vulnerable sides to her everyday life and using her platform as an indie-pop artist who is part of the queer community and has autism, ADHD, invisible disabilities and chronic illnesses to advocate for those communities. Encouraging others to do what they love no matter what, serving as an inspiration to be unapologetically yourself. Read on to learn from Kaiyah themself about how important music has been in their life, their journey as an artist, as well as the powerful platform artists have to inspire their audiences.

Kaiyah Mercedes performing, Image taken by MOUK. MEDIA

Kaiyah Mercedes performing, Images taken by MOUK. MEDIA

What inspired you to get into creating music? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I found that it was an outlet for me. When I started, I was about 13 and we were in [the] COVID Lockdowns and I was very alone, very isolated, and also [had] undiagnosed autism [and] ADHD. At the time, I didn't know why, [but] I felt I needed some other outlet to get my emotions out, because being undiagnosed neurodivergent, just talking about my feelings didn't work for me. I needed something creative to be able to understand my emotions in a way that only a neurodivergent person could. So, I found that the outlet of writing, and especially writing in a more poetic way, was the only thing that helped. It was almost like dissecting my emotions through words and literature and being able to finally make sense of things. Especially [during COVID lockdowns], not being able to talk to friends and have those social connections. I was able to hone that all into making music and it was so so important for me to be able to do that. And eventually that did lead to my diagnosis. I look back now at all those songs, and I was talking so vividly about my autism and not understanding the world around me. 

Did music already have a big presence in your life and that's kind of why you chose to express through music or was it just something you fell into? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I've loved music since I was a kid. 

I remember [when] I was around four years old and my parents went to a Foo Fighters concert without me, I, like, bawled my eyes out because they didn't take me. My mom has been taking me to Taylor Swift concerts since I was like eight. So, I loved music and I always wanted to do music, but when I started lessons at nine years old, guitar and piano, it didn't work for me. I didn't know why, I hated it. I hated playing guitar and piano; I found it so boring, I just couldn't do it. So, I actually quit music lessons at 10 years old. And so, when we went into lockdown, I think I was finally like, what if I just sat down and did it myself? So I did. I spent all of lockdown teaching myself piano and guitar, and songwriting just naturally came out of that. Learning other people's songs somehow shifted into making my own songs. It felt very natural. I didn't sit down one day and say I'm gonna make music, it just sort of happened. 

I think it's always interesting, sometimes when you're learning instruments, if you're trying to learn certain genres and theory, you can feel a bit restricted and boxed in. 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I hated music theory as well because I felt like I was boxed in. And so I kind of did the opposite. I learned how to be creative with my music, and then I learned music theory, which I found really helped. 

So, we’ve talked about how you got into songwriting, but what inspired you to get into performance? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: Probably one of the main things is the fact that I've always loved concerts. My first concert was Pink when I was like five and, you know, Pink has that incredible showmanship. I literally saw her flying around a stadium, and I was just mesmerised. I'd always adored the type of concert that was just so surprising, like every single act was something entirely different. It kept you waiting, it kept you on the edge of your seat. That's the sort of showmanship that I have always adored. So when I started making music, it just felt right for me to perform. I wanted to be able to do what I'd always seen other artists do. 

So obviously, 'cause of lockdown, I had to wait quite a bit to start performing. But by the time I was finally able to start putting on shows, I immediately knew I wanted to do something unique just like those artists I adored. And it doesn't matter to me that there's less than a hundred people coming to my shows, I can still put on a show that feels like it is from a stadium.  

Kaiyah Mercedes performing

You use your platform a lot to voice political issues and also social issues. I feel like you’re very vulnerable and very authentic on your platform. So I guess you, as an artist, want to be kind of like a role model for other people who also experience similar things to you as well? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: It was unintentional, but I mean, I think it's part of the neurodivergent in me. I don't really care about hiding stuff and I don't feel the need to hide anything. I don't see a problem with being open about things, so I talk about the different things in my life, like my invisible disabilities, chronic illnesses, my political views, and my beliefs. I also feel like if I have a platform that I should speak up for people like me who can’t, or other people who don't have a platform. I don't feel it's an obligation, but I feel like it's something that I, myself, believe in. I've never seen an issue, and I've never felt uncomfortable or like I've had to force myself to be honest. 

That's really interesting 'cause I guess that was one of my other questions as well, which is, do you as an artist feel a duty to use your platform? Or was it kind of one of the reasons you started as an artist, you know, trying to give a platform to the queer community and or the autism and ADHD community? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: Well, I think it's funny because when I started music, I still didn't realise I was gay, I didn't know I was autistic [or had] ADHD. I had not been diagnosed with any chronic illnesses or disabilities. All of this stuff happened as I was doing music, which I think is, um, quite wild to me. So the advocacy, I remember when I got diagnosed, I didn’t want to be that musician who only talks about their neurodivergence, and I didn’t want to be that person. But then I realised, why is that a bad thing? Why is it a bad thing to talk about who you are? And I've also realised that the reason I feel so comfortable with who I am is because of all the other artists who were comfortable talking about who they are, and it's not a bad thing. So, it didn't feel like it was an obligation, but I know how important it was to me growing up. 

Did your music evolve with your life experiences? Or did it in a way, kind of help you to understand who you are, like you were saying before? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I think both. I listened to my first album, and again, I didn't know any of these things about myself and I hear these parts of me that were hidden deep down. That first album, [“Hindsight”], definitely sounds like a 15-year-old who has no idea who she is. And then I move onto my next songs [and album, “Trying to Hate You”], and I hear that growth. I hear me finally becoming the person that I am [now] and I didn't [fully know it yet]. I also know that music is one of the reasons why I was able to accept myself. Why I felt comfortable with who I was and why I was able to dissect and discover who I was. So it’s both, it's evolved with me and it's helped me evolve. 

Kaiyah Mercedes, Screenshot taken from I’m Gonna Be Famous (How Cute!) music video

You also mentioned before about wanting to always shift genres, which I think is great because I think that also comes along with just evolving as a person. You have different life experiences and it's gonna sound different in the music you make. So a lot of your newer songs, like “I'm Gonna Be Famous (How Cute!)”, have a lot more rock influence. Does this come from anywhere in particular, this heavier rock influence? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I think I said at the start I'm obsessed with the Foo Fighters. They're a band that I have been obsessed with since I was literally born. It's the music that I bonded with my parents over since I was a kid, and I'd always wanted to lean a little more into that rock influence, but I didn't know how to. When I was starting out as a musician, I didn't have the tools or the skill to be able to do that. And I also felt like I wasn't in a place with my writing where it was right. I was exploring who I was and that needed to be done in a more soft, indie-pop space.  

But now I feel like I've really solidified who I am as a musician, I've grown a lot and coming into this next part of my music journey, I'm singing a lot about real experiences of heartbreak and anger and these real emotions that I'd never written about before. My last albums were all about unrequited love or stories that I'd made up about love because I'd never experienced it. Now I'm writing about my first real heartbreak and working with other musicians who can really help me bring out this rock influence. For the emotion that I'm talking about, it feels right. But I don't think I'll always stay in this genre, but for this next chapter of my music, I think it's the right way to be able to bring these songs to life. 

As an artist, you have heaps of music videos. What do music videos allow you to communicate to your audience as an artist? Why are they so important to you? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I love music videos. I've told you as a kid, I felt really connected to music and I literally used to sit for hours, just watching music videos. I like to say that when I make an album, I make an album like an author writes a book. There's a bunch of storylines, a start, beginning and an end, and there's symbolism. All the songs connect to each other; they all have a purpose in this story, but that also involves the imagery that I do with the album: my social media, my costuming, and my music videos.  

My best example is the “Trying to Hate You” album and those music videos. The album talks a lot about cinema, movies and film because that was something that really connected me to the person I wrote the album about. So, the four music videos that I did for that album are all in a different genre of film. You have, sci-fi apocalypse, fantasy, analog horror and 1950s Hollywood. They all connect and they all talk about this idea of unrequited love, lost love, and finding something. I really like them being able to bring something more to the music that you can't have with just audio alone.  

With the “I'm Gonna Be Famous (How Cute!)” music video, that was the first time I'd done a funny music video. I wanted to do the Foo Fighter’s music video style and I've literally been picturing this [it] for like the last two years, 'cause I wrote this song two years ago.  

I really put a lot of thought into my music videos because I remember how amazing they were for me to watch as a kid, seeing meaning behind a song that you like. I feel like music videos, to me, have always been a way of getting inside the artist's brain. You get to see what they picture when they see a song [and it’s] such a beautiful way to see an artist's thought process. 

I was watching through the music videos, and I’m interested are they interconnected? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: Yeah, that's what I love to do with my videos as well. My co-star in “Im Gonna Be Famous (How Cute!)” was also the ghost figure in “Digging Graves” and the co-star in “Trying to Hate You”. We like to joke that we have our own cinematic universe. She's my friend Amy, we've been friends since we were like 12 [and] every time I have a music video, I text her and I'm like, Hey, do you wanna be in another one? She's like, Yes!  

Screenshot from Digging Graves ft. L.i.E music video

Screenshot from Trying to Hate You music video

You've also always been very vocal about supporting local indie musicians and I noticed you started a playlist called LOCAL NOISE!!! So I was wondering what inspired this and how you go about discovering these indie artists? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: So my mom is my manager. Anyone who knows me, knows my mom. We work together really closely and she comes from a manager background, and she sees a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and works really, really hard for me. We've always talked about how difficult it is for indie musicians, especially when they don't have a Lauren (Kaiyah’s mum) just like me. So, we'd been trying to figure out a way to sort of add a little bit more of a spotlight on some indie musicians. We’re both always scouring the internet for [these] local musicians and [Lauren] only listens to community radio on her way to and from work. So, we kind of just had been stockpiling all of these musicians and [we thought], why don't we do something called LOCAL NOISE? And I remember when we thought of it, I was so excited. We find four different songs every week from a local Australian artist who's unsigned and independent. We try and find people with the smallest followings who have incredible songs but just aren't being seen by people for some reason. 'Cause its always the people with the most amazing music who don't have people listening to it, which is so unfortunate. Australian Independent music is one of the hardest music scenes, and everyone from around the world always says, we don't know why, but Australia is just such a difficult music scene to crack. And so, anything that we can do to shine a spotlight on indie artists in Australia, I think is so important. 

Click image for playlist !!!

I agree, It's great and I think the local scene is just filled with so many great people, doing so much great stuff, including yourself. What's in the works for Kaiyah Mercedes? 

Kaiyah Mercedes: I've always said this, but every time I release an album, there's usually an album already written in my back pocket. So I have had something in my back pocket for the last two years that I think it's finally time to start working on. I haven't started anything yet, but I've definitely written the next project. I'm very excited for this one. I feel like it's just another step in my growth as an artist and it's gonna be a very collaborative piece of work. For the first time, it's not gonna be majority self-written. A lot of these songs I've written, and then brought to writing spaces with other artists to collaborate on, which I've never done before. I am very proud of this next body of work and just like “Trying to Hate You”, it’s gonna have a whole lot of symbolism and a whole lot of music videos. 

What do you hope listeners take away from you as an artist?  

Kaiyah Mercedes: It can sound kind of cheesy, but I just hope that people feel less afraid to be honest and open. The current person I am is the person that I was terrified of being when I was 13. I never saw anyone or knew anyone like me, who had bright red hair and dressed however they wanted, [with] funky makeup, and who talked honestly about mental health and invisible disabilities. I felt so alone as a kid and I felt like I didn't want to be the centre of attention. So, I just hope that people not only listen to my music and hear my honesty, but they also see me and feel just a little bit less scared of being themselves. When I started becoming myself and the person that I was terrified of being as a kid, the world felt so much happier and so much brighter. 

I don't think that's cheesy at all, that's great! It was great seeing your work and actually it hit me too, I was like, yeah, wait, it's great to remember you just need to be yourself. 

Kaiyah Mercedes: Yeah, my new favourite thing is it's never that serious. Dye your hair bright red, it's never that serious, it's just hair. And to be honest, I wasn't always like this. If you go back and look at my first album, I looked so different, I talked differently. It took hard work but now that I am here, I'm never letting that go. 

Check out Kaiyah Mercedes’ socials and music below to explore her past work and stay up to date with everything exciting to come!

@kaiyahmercedes - YouTube - Bandcamp - Spotify - Website - Crowdfunding for next album!