Vardaan Arora releases new single "Dance Like You" / Q&A
We had the pleasure of getting to know Vardaan Arora this past summer when he was visiting Los Angeles and we couldn't be more excited to know there is an awesome pop artist that is consistently dropping bops! Arora just released his newest single, Dance Like You — the song is a bit more club dance than we've heard from his previous singles and we love it!
Check out the Q&A we did with Vardaan below about the process of creating his new single!
What was your inspiration when writing "Dance Like You"?
I wanted to explore jealousy as an emotion, because we deny it so often. Everyone feels jealous, and often we want what we don't have. 'Dancing' is a metaphor for that in this song. Just fantasizing about how your life would be if you could have that one thing you want but don't have.
What was the process like working on the song?
I work on all my music in the same way, pretty much. I'll have the bulk of the lyrics written before going into the session, and I'll lay out melody ideas I have for the producer of the song, and we take it from there. A lot of the writing happens on the spot too, when I'm feeling the most inspired. Some of it is waiting for ideas to come to me without putting in a forced effort.
The artwork for "Dance Like You" is very eye-catching! What inspired the artwork and who was the artist?
Thank you! It's done by this artist who I discovered on Instagram. His name is Fernando Monroy - I just randomly reached out to him because I was a fan of his work, and I'm glad he agreed to do the artwork for it! I wanted something minimal for this song, and the hand drawn sketch worked pretty well for that theme.
What was the biggest challenge you had while in production with "Dance Like You"?
My vocals were slightly higher than the range I'm used to, so that was a little challenging. It was also fun and exciting, though, because to me working on music never feels like a chore. I'm never dreading a recording session, I'm always excited for it. So even when it's hard, the supportive environment in the studio makes it feel like fun, you know?
Who was the team involved with "Dance Like You," and do you have any fun stories you all shared while creating the track?
The song was produced by Kevin Leach, he goes by SonicPilot. He's very, very talented. He's previously produced Feel Good Song, Like a Polaroid, What If and some of the other stuff too. We have a great, laid-back working relationship so the studio always feels like a party. Then John Rausch, who I believe has a Grammy, mixed the song. Nathan Dantzler mastered it, and he's mastered most of my music in the past. I love having multiple people work on the same track because you get so many different perspectives on it. It's always fun to play the song for other people and ask what they think, and it's always so different. But I worked on this song in Nashville, which has now become one of my favorite cities in the country for sure. We PostMates ordered fried hot chicken to the studio and it was a blast. Does that count as a fun story? We were also a little drunk, if that makes it more fun.
What can we expect from you next?
Every time anyone asks me that, I always wanna say I'm working on an EP, but I end up releasing songs as singles instead. It's hard when you're an independent artist, especially as a queer independent artist of color. Not a lot of people want to take a chance on you, so you end up doing almost all of the work yourself. There are so many different hats you need to wear. Not to victimize myself, but sometimes it's harder to get the results you want. So the truth is that I don't know what's next for me, and that's okay. I just hope I keep working and keep putting music out there, because I don't know what I would do if that was taken away from me.
Listen to Dance Like You below!
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AMAL FLOWER KAY (@cohibit on instagram)
Vardaan Arora - Dance Like You (Audio)
