“Emo Needs More Fucking Girls!” Starting with Matilde Heckler
Despite only being in her sophomore year at Berklee College of Music, singer-songwriter and violinist Matilde Heckler is already taking the Boston music scene by storm.
Music has always been a part of Heckler’s life. She expressed how when she was younger, she felt a career as a musician was unreachable, assuming, “the only way you can make money in the industry is, like, to be a teacher, because that's what everyone shoves down your throat when you’re a kid. So I was like ‘I’m going to do music education.’”
Heckler soon realized that music education was not for her, and that what she truly wanted was to perform. She began songwriting around her junior year of high school, and everything began to fall into place. She decided she wanted to study music and pursue it full time, and nothing was going to stand in her way.
“I so passionately believe in what I do. I always shoot a little too high: like, I applied to two schools and thought, ‘If I don’t get into Berklee, I don’t have a plan.’”
She added, “The best memories I have from being a kid and playing music was performing. The serotonin I feel when I get to just be on stage…I get to be creative in the way that I dress, and I get to talk to people, and it’s just combining all my favorite things that I like about music and life in one thing.”
Heckler plays violin, writes her own songs, leads a band and completely manages and markets herself. She is an artist who is beyond determined and driven, and won’t let anything stand in the way of her dreams. Her music is emotional, powerful and even whimsical.
The artist also commented on her experience growing up with small business owners for parents, and that effect on her interest in the music business, stating, “I think my whole life, I didn’t realize I was literally learning how to run a business, and then I was like, ‘Why am I not doing music business? I know how to run a business!” She elaborated, “I think being a creative individual makes me better at being able to come up with visual marketing and stuff like that, and I find it more fun than anything.”
Heckler’s main goal is to show others, through her music and performances, that anyone can make any kind of music they want. She explains, “It is important to me that no matter who you are, or what you play, you can just make music because it’s fun. My ex-boyfriend told me I couldn’t make emo music with violin because violin doesn’t belong in it, [so] I was like, ‘Well, screw you, I’m gonna do it.’ So I did.” She added, “You should feel like you have a space to create no matter what you look like or who you are.”
This past December, Heckler released her debut single, titled, “I Think I’m Doing Better Alone Again.” Today, the song has around 15,000 streams, which are only continuing to rise, day by day. Her upcoming single, “Emo Needs More Fucking Girls,” is expected to release May 6th.
The Boston music scene should be keeping their eyes on this powerful rising artist, because not only does emo need more fucking girls: music needs more Matilde Heckler.