An Interview With Tiffany Day
Image courtesy of Daphne Bryant
Here’s the logline: 23 year-old Tiffany Day is an artist who makes electronic pop music. I could say that and be done. But, upon sitting down with Day and actually getting to talk with her, I feel it’s important to tell her full story; she’s a complex, nuanced person with many layers to her, a bubbly girl with a playful, infectious personality. She’s an artist whose reclamation and redefining of Asian identity is healing her inner child. She’s an underground DJ, a fashion icon and an instrumentalist. She’s a rising star with big dreams and an even bigger heart.
Early on Day fostered a special love for electronic music. She feels a unique sort of emotional tie to the sound and the chords, in a different way than one might feel when listening to music with a more singer-songwriter vibe. With electronic music, “[the sound] has a more firm, sudden and intense grasp. I feel like when you are listening to guitar and lyrics you are really processing it, with one single tear falling down. But with electronic music, it’s a heart attack — it hits.”
Like many emerging artists on social media, Day started her music career by learning how to play guitar and writing songs on the instrument. In the very beginning, she was discovering her sound, then around three years ago, she met her good friend Jeff Melvin — the first person to have an ‘electronic mindset’ and deeper understanding of the genre. “I think he helped me realize this is what feels most like me, as an artist — and this is what I feel most proud of. Pretty much from that day forward, I wanted to go more electronic pop then singer-songwriter pop,” Day says. Looking to properly execute her vision, the artist focused on finding people who could help her embrace what she fell in love with as a kid. This switch-up is slow but steady; even listening to her current discography shows the evolution from live-instrument pop to the electro-pop atmosphere she’s been going for. By the time you arrive at her third and fourth EPs, the production is more synth-based and experimental becomes quite evident.
Out of all of Day’s currently released projects, she is most proud of THE GRATITUDE PROJECT, her EP released in February of this year. “I like it because I explored different sounds and the songs are pretty electronic. There’s different genres within [THE GRATITUDE PROJECT]; one of them’s a little more like Bouncy House and the other one sounds like Playboi Carti,” says Day. On the EP, “HEART TO HEART IN THE TATTOO PARLOR” is what Day calls a sleeper song. It’s criminally underrated, seemingly because there are other tracks she finds more “playlistable.” However, this track really resonates with Day and is representative of the sounds she wishes to use in future pursuits. “HEART TO HEART IN THE TATTOO PARLOR,” despite being a song in its own right, has the vibe of a remix because it’s dance music, as most clearly shown off when the chorus hits: her vocal chops are both nostalgic and fierce. The artist took a lot of inspiration from record producer Fred Again, wanting to make the track emotional through strategic chord progressions reminiscent of his work, while still maintaining an identifiable Tiffany Day flair at the same time.
The latest single Day released, “APESHIT,” feels like a final closing on her singer-songwriter era. The song is about loving your friends so much, you would do anything for them — to the point where seeing them get hurt makes you livid. “I wrote it in a really cute way that was not intense. I liked the fact that I called it “APESHIT” because you hear the title and expect heavy, dark, metal shit. Then, it’s just a really cute, happy, upbeat little song,” Day says.
The subversive track was crafted back in 2020 — Day had never previously thought about releasing it. “APESHIT” is a great song, finished and affirmed by those of which she showed the song to. But, she never planned on putting it on an EP and by the time her music had moved into a more electronic realm, it no longer made sense to put the song out. All I have to say to this is thank goodness she did! This year, 2023, was approaching its end and Day and her team realized they hadn’t put out anything since February. Even though Day is currently working on an album, she really wants to make this album feel good for her and her audience, and is taking her time with the writing and production process. This leaves an opening for a release, something to give the people to munch on before an official album release. Together, they went through the catalog and Sammy was a strong advocate for “APESHIT.” Iffy, at first, Day checked in with trusted friends on the song, they all loved it and feeling their love and support, she went through with it. Now, after teasing the song so much, “APESHIT” is available to be streamed by the world. “The release is not an end to growing but an end to a younger Tiffany,” Day says. All EPs presently out were made when she was still in university. This coming album will be the first time Day has worked on a project without school in the picture, coming into a different version of adulthood. For this reason, the coming music will feel sacred and separated from her past releases; a new extension of herself.
It doesn’t take very long to see that Day has a joyful spark — exhibited throughout her aesthetic — when she’s performing live. While she’s always had this light inside of her, Day used to be ashamed of it. “I hid it mainly because I was so terrified of being judged and perceived. I think there [were] points where people [would] call me that quiet Asian girl because I wasn’t just home with my family and my best friends. It was terrifying for me to be with anybody else,” she says. At a small school, where she’d grown up with the same kids until she was eighteen, Day felt rather alienated and different in a world that was unnatural to her.
Even when Day arrived in L.A. and started seriously pursuing her artist project, she was scared to show her true self. The people that she’d initially been working with in California were fun in their own way, but the “cool person” demeanor they embodied was incredibly intimidating. “You walk into [the studio] and it’s pretty dark. Everyone’s kind of mellowed out. Some people are smoking a little weed, everybody’s older than me, too — late twenties. So, I just feel like this little kid inside the studio when I’m actually a very bubbly, talkative person,” Day says. As we all do, she simply wished to fit in.
Image courtesy of Andrew Padilla
Her first year in L.A., Day tried really hard to put on makeup to make herself look older. She donned hypebeast clothing and wore it unwaveringly. Eventually, Day came to the realization that she couldn’t pretend to be this dark, mysterious girl for the rest of her life. “I can be a little obnoxious, but that’s what it is. I was struggling a lot with how to craft my artist persona because I feel like people love the music, but they also want to know you as a person,” Day says. Truthfully, she wanted listeners to think she was that cool, mysterious girl she was pretending to be, but faking that any further was no longer an option. She knew her fans would see through that and finally learned to embrace her naturally effervescent personality. “I think the only real reason an artist persona can work is if it’s you times a thousand. The one thing that has freed me from the shackles of society is that not everyone’s gonna like you. There are gonna be people who think you’re annoying, you’re silly, you’re stupid, your dancing or your singing sucks or [that] your songs suck and it doesn’t matter.” Day’s friends, who are just as goofy and outgoing as she is, help make her feel secure enough to be herself on stage and in real life today.
One thing that cannot be underestimated about Day is her duality. For those of you who don’t know, she has an alter ego known as DJ Monolid, a badass disk jockey that slips on slick black shades and rocks whatever venue she’s performing at. How did this all come about? A couple of years ago, Day got very into heavy dubstep. “I used to listen to dubstep and be like, ‘This is a lot, this is overwhelming,’ but something about those violent noises really scratches and itches my brain [now], and I love it,” she says. Day’s also always had a bit of a fascination with the visuals in raves. The artist adores rave-show production and all of the sound design and the optical illusions that go with it: lasers and lights. To her, it’s a work of art. She began going to raves and dissecting the sounds, studying the people on stage and coming home to attempt confidently recreating the magic with turntables.
Image courtesy of @emxriii on Instagram
Day also attributes much of her confidence to her largely Asian fanbase. They are loyal and dedicated to supporting an Asian pop artist in the music scene, which wasn’t always something she understood. Growing up in Kansas, in an overwhelmingly white community with very few Asians, Day often compared herself to her white peers. “I was very envious of the girls with blonde hair, cheekbones, blue eyes and double eyelids,” she says. This internalized racism persisted throughout her music career: “There was a point where I noticed that a lot of my fans were Asian and I’d wished [they] were more diverse: why do they have to be [just] one group of people? Then, I slowly started to realize what had happened to my brain, first of all, but also that the reason why there are so many Asians — or just people of color — that come to my shows: it’s support from one fellow Asian to another fellow Asian.” After moving to L.A. and being surrounded by more diverse faces, people and backgrounds, Day finally discovered just how precious her identity is and fans are. “I would never have it any other way. These people that come to my shows, that support me and listen to my music are family to me. The connection is deeper than just, ‘Oh, you listen to my music and get me through tough times.’ [It’s] also, you know, [us] having the same skin tone and [going] through the same fucking experiences together.” Moments like never being included in certain groups in school, never feeling beautiful enough because the guy they liked would always pick the white girl over them and all sorts of feelings of inferiority that deserved to be validated, but should’ve never been felt in the first place. It is these connections that make Day’s relationship with her listeners so special.
“After moving to L.A. and being surrounded by more diverse faces, people and backgrounds, Day finally discovered just how precious her identity is and fans are.”
All of this being said, Day wishes she could have learned to love her cultural background and features more quickly. Her senior year, she began to embrace her eye shape, as this was around the same time that K-pop became popularized in the United States. “All of a sudden, people were talking about how cool the monolith was, and I was like, well, why didn’t people talk about that when I was like 14 years old — in the primetime of shaping my self-confidence as a young woman?!” Day says, laughingly. As an artist, she hopes to be this role model for fans, especially younger ones who haven’t seen the representation in music they deserve.
Image courtesy of Ally Wei
Another cool aspect of Day’s artist persona is her impeccable fashion. Everything, from her fire shoe game to her barette hairstyles channels her inner popstar. She likes to think of “Tiffany Day,” the artist, as a different person with a distinctive style. When it comes to clothing, Day and her creative director, Ally Wei — who also happens to be her best friend — helps out a lot. They share a joint Pinterest board where the two of them pin fashion inspiration. While her personal style is nothing like what she wears on stage, Day wants to create a unique and powerful image to accompany her music: “We like to keep [the vibe] youthful and energetic to kind of match my personality on stage. Sprinkle a little bit of Asian in there, you know,” she says. A brand she’s been working with for almost a year now called DAWANG is a Chinese fashion line that combines the traditional with streetwear trends. “The owner, Daisy, is so sweet and has helped us a lot with styling her pieces. We’re working together for the album, too, which will be really exciting.” Day lets us in on a little secret: she will be doing custom merch through Dawong, the product of which is sure to be absolutely fire.
In the past year, she’s become more serious about producing and spending way more time with her computer and Ableton, a German music software company. Right after a breakup, Day went to a Guitar Center and bought a VDJ controller. After every breakup, Day has felt a push to invest in herself, and thus, mixing became a new hobby. “If you have an ear for dancing and can stay on beat, it’s pretty simple mixing one song to another. Obviously, every DJ is different and has their own pizzazz. But, it’s really not rocket science, so learning wasn’t hard [for me]. It was more so about finding the time to actually practice.” For Day, production is still new. Monolid is in, what she would call, her “baby phase.” Balancing both of her artist personas is a challenge here — and even with the success and momentum of Tiffany Day, she still has to find time for Monolid. Recently, Day’s played a couple of shows and small house parties, most notably, a warehouse rave in New York last month which ended up being one of her biggest shows as Monolid yet. It was a dream come true, a testament that she can have the best of both worlds — shoutout Hannah Montana. “I really enjoy both sides and I feel cool, in different ways, doing both projects. I think if I was in a full Tiffany Day outfit, people would probably shake my hand or hug me, but in a Monolid outfit, people would dap me up — and I love that.”