“The Real Zine Are The Friends We Made Along The Way”: An Interview with Scrunchie Zine
Scrunchie Zine: Weronika Koleda (left), Sarah Yoerger (right)
A couple of months ago, I reached out to Sarah Yoerger and Weronika Koleda, the creators of Scrunchie Zine! They are two very cool and creative collaborators. We decided to mutually interview each other with a set of ten questions that we worked on.
Sarah and Weronika were two college students, fans of music who then became part of the underground indie/alternative music scene. It started with Sarah in high school, which transferred over to college, but the weight of all of the work became a lot, so in comes Weronika! This dynamic duo has interviewed artists like Lauv and the Beths. Sarah spends her time working on the “language” aspect by spending hours on end transcribing interviews and writing essays about music and the philosophy behind it. Weronika does the visual aspect, creating a beautiful site to look at and amazing graphics. They are both incredibly hard workers and super dedicated to their craft.
They currently live together, which makes it 100 times easier to collaborate and decipher what’s next for Scrunchie! This duo is incredible and has big things in the works, so get ready!
Interview with Scrunchie Zine:
Has being involved with the zine changed your perspective on how you consume/view music and art?
Sarah: I think I notice what goes into it a lot more. Like, now that I’ve done so many interviews and stuff, I’ll be listening to a podcast and it’ll seem like a really natural conversation where they’re just talking. But now that I do stuff like this, I notice they’re bringing up things they want to talk about to promote the album or whatever. I think it can be more subtle than people sometimes realize, because that’s the point, it’s supposed to flow. Or, like, now that we do this stuff and we have managers supervising interviews or whatever, I’ll notice if everyone in a band goes and looks at their manager when I’m watching stuff on YouTube.
Weronika: I think the perspective that we gained was, like, the background of what happens in the industry. I guess we work to publicize artists’ work, so [we see] a lot of what happens in the background of things publicity wise, or, you know, maybe directions the artists’ team wants to go in, and seeing how much work and time and effort is spent in putting something together before it even reaches the public eye. It definitely is a lot more complex and a lot more difficult to put everything together, and there’s so much more work that goes into the background that the general public can really realize. And I think having that perspective is really important, because I think that made me value our work and our time and our effort even more, because we understand it’s valuable, and there’s a lot more that goes into it. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing.
How did it start? What was the inspiration?
Sarah: When I was early in college, like older teenager, this band I really liked said they were doing as many interviews as possible on their next tour. I didn’t have a zine, and I didn’t really go to a school where those options were even available to me. I went to school out in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, so there wasn’t really anything I could join. So, I just made something up, and no one checked. I just got to interview them, and I really liked it, so I decided to start a zine of my own. And that was four years ago now.
Weronika: And after that, it started out as a paper zine.
Sarah: Yeah, I put it around my school.
Weronika: And then you moved on to college radio. Sarah and I have been friends for six years now, so we obviously became friends through our mutual love of music and the same bands. Even though we lived in different states—I grew up in the Chicagoland area and she’s from Iowa—we had this long distance friendship going for a while. Once Sarah started putting out some of her interviews on college radio, I would tune in and listen to it, and I thought it was super cool. I shot Sarah a message, and I was kind of like, “Why don’t you make an Instagram page or a social media [account] for your interviews and stuff to kind of promote it? And if there’s anything I can do to help and be involved, I’m more than happy to do it, I think it’s super cool. Anything to help me be involved in the music community, I’m all for it.” So from that, the ball started rolling from there, where Sarah was like, “I think you’re right, I think it could be a really good idea to make a site for it and make an Instagram.” We’ve been at this for like a year and a half now.
How did you meet?
Sarah: A really long time ago, a mutual friend of ours won a contest to have a concert at her house and we met at that concert at her house.
Weronika: Then we kept in touch, and now we live together.
How do you find people to interview? What are you looking for?
Sarah: We mostly look for music that we like and would listen to on our own. We used to email bands that we listen to, but lately we’ve been getting so many opportunities presented to us that it’s kind of flipped to that. But we hope to pivot back to reaching out to bands that we like. Not that we don’t like the bands that we interview, they’re just not people we’d heard of before. Stuff like that.
Weronika: It’s also a balance of making use of the opportunities that people come to us for, and then also going back to sending out cold emails to people, and getting in touch with artists that we’re a little more familiar with. And what we’re looking for in an artist when we go to interview them, apart from enjoying the music…
Sarah: Probably having a good conversation and connecting.
Weronika: We want to have as much of a natural conversation via Zoom as we can, and [talk with] someone that’s gonna be really eager to have a conversation with us and tell their story and be excited to talk about their projects and their music.
What do you believe are the key ingredients to a great interview, and how do you try to implement them in yours?
Sarah: I feel like the most important thing is to ask an icebreaker question first, because you don’t want to start off with someone you barely know talking about the meaning of a very vulnerable song. But, if you’ve been having a good conversation that started with something small, like, “What kind of food do you like to get on tour?” or “Do you feel like your star sign reflects your music?”, then that’s small talk so people are more likely to open up to you after that.
Weronika: People get really stoked about those questions. You’ll ask them, “What’s your go-to gas station order?” and some people have very impassioned answers, they’re like, “I’m so glad you asked.” It gets people excited, and it’s a good way to break into the conversation. I think me and Sarah have a really good dynamic when we ask questions because Sarah’s really good at those icebreaker questions and making the artists feel comfortable, whereas I think I’m prone to jumping into the deep end sometimes. So I think we really balance each other out in that sense, and it’s important to have both sides to it for the comfort of the artist and the quality of the conversation.
How has being in a collaborative space helped the zine’s success? And you guys live together, so it's a very collaborative space.
Sarah: When I was doing everything on my own, I wasn’t getting very much done because I had to do everything on my own. And when I started doing it, it was pre-Covid, so Zoom wasn’t even really a thing. Most of the interviews I did were in person, and I had to drive all the way there, and it was just a lot. I didn’t really have the resources to dedicate to social media and a website. But now that there’s two people, we can work together and play to our strengths. Like, I’m not very good at visual stuff at all, but Weronika is, and then I am more leaning towards words and transcription and stuff like that.
Weronika: Like Sarah said, playing to our strengths is really important. We both dabble in writing and both studied English and Writing in college. Sarah is a super talented writer, she writes really intriguing and amazing essays that are always such an entertaining read. So she does spend a lot of time on those. I also minored in graphic design in college, and that was a learning opportunity for me to expand my visual design skills. I’ve always been a very visual person as well, and I always wanted to make something more artistic, but I never really found an outlet to do that until the zine. So Sarah does a lot of transcription, because she has lightning fast typing skills, and I do all of the graphic design stuff. If you go on our website, unless stated otherwise, [the graphic] is probably [designed] by me. So playing to our strengths, super important.
The collaboration that we have and working together and managing our schedules and getting across what we both want, that communication is so important. We’re always growing to improve our communication skills, and talking to each other like adults. That’s a total game changer, that’s going to be a dealbreaker, like, if you aren’t on the same page––even though we live together––people are going to get flustered and get frustrated. People are not going to know what's going on, and there’s going to be miscommunications. So, being on that same page, especially now that we’ve taken on more work to do––it’s a lot of work for two people to do––and having that organization and collaboration is a total game changer.
What have been some teaching moments for you since starting the zine, did you learn anything about yourself or the process of maintaining your platform?
Sarah: I feel like we learned a lot about communication and just lots of little things that you don’t really know when you’re starting out. Like, I didn’t know you had to email people and ask for press pics because they might only want a newer picture rather than an old picture you found on the internet. And emailing artists the interview so they can repost it if they don’t check their tagged photos or whatever. Stuff like that, I think.
Weronika: I learned that you shouldn’t take anything too personally, because everyone’s a human and this is a difficult industry to navigate. There’s not a blueprint and nobody’s gonna lay everything out in front of you, like Sarah started explaining. You might get your feelings hurt a couple times but you have to grow from that and move on because if you let that stop you you’re not going to be able to move forward with it at all. You have to put your good intentions first, and take them as a learning opportunity. Understand that you’re probably going to be disappointed a lot of times, and it’s mostly not gonna go the way that you planned or the way that you intended, and those are just obstacles that you’re going to have to get around. But at the end of the day, I think we know a lot more than when we started, and that’s what matters. You gotta thicken up your skin a little bit.
What experiences have you gotten from creating the zine? What is your favorite experience?
Sarah: I think we’ve gotten to meet so many people. I think in total, not all of them are available online, but I think in total we’ve interviewed over a hundred and fifty bands now. And that’s a lot of people, and I’m really proud of that. Really recently, we got asked to write about a project that someone we’ve both really liked since we were really young teenagers has been heavily involved with. So it’s been really exciting, and that was a moment where we were like, “We’re getting to write about really cool stuff.” And it’s not like smaller bands aren’t also cool, but it’s different when it’s your favorite celebrity ever.
Weronika: I think those kinds of experiences, while we do enjoy the every day, you know, once you get to those little peaks where “This feels extra special,” you’re always kind of chasing that moment. Because I think it means a lot to us, when we get to be in touch with in some form, or be vaguely in someone’s circle that we really admired or continue to admire. But my favorite experience, I don’t know if I can pin it down to one, but me and Sarah have gotten closer doing this, and I’m really glad that I have someone doing this with me, and we can just talk about all the things we did together.
Sarah: The real zine is the friends we made along the way.
Weronika: I’ve also really been enjoying opportunities to go shoot shows. I don’t consider myself a photographer by any means, but I thought it was really fun as a hobby, so whenever I have an opportunity to shoot a show and be in the photo pit, I always thought that was super awesome and I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to do that otherwise.
Even though the pandemic really sucked, and there’s a lot of ways we’re trying to bounce back from that, personally and overall as a society, I think that we’re really privileged and really lucky that we got to speak to as many artists as we have at this point, and gotten to have both serious and silly conversations. Sometimes we’ll remember this really specific moment that happened when we were talking to an artist months ago, and forget about it, and then be like, “Remember when this person said this?”. And it makes our whole day, it’s so funny. But I think there’s always a good story to tell, coming out of all these experiences. It’s fun to recall them even after they’ve happened.
How do you feel your platform has grown since its conception into the present day?
Sarah: It started as just me putting booklets around the college [campus] that no one really read except for like three of my friends. And now it’s really cool, because we have reviews that over a thousand people have read, or the artist has put it on their website, or posted it on their Instagram. I feel like we connect with artists a lot more than when we started out. I feel like stuff like that is really cool.
Weronika: I feel like we’ve expanded a bit. We’ve been to a couple press conferences that have been really cool opportunities we didn’t get to start doing until recently. I feel like the way we try and structure our interviews and format them to the public is still changing. Like, we’re trying to see what works best and what reaches people and what looks most presentable and decent quality. We tried video, we tried transcription, we tried audio-only, we tried all of those things. So it’s kind of like, testing the waters and see what does best for us––both how people react to it and from our end, what the most efficient way to put it out is. And those things can change depending on our lives and how much time we have and how much our audience changes. I think the biggest changes come from what our audience latches onto and what they don’t, and learning how to navigate that but still staying true to our “brand.” [We’re] learning how to be professional and how to navigate… we don’t make any money off of this, so I don’t want to call it a “business”, but … Finding the balance between those two things is what’s taken us from point A to point B and it’s what’s going to continue to allow us to grow.
What direction do you hope the zine is headed in the future?
Sarah: I hope we get to work with more artists. Bigger artists. I hope to do more essays in the future, because I really enjoy doing those and I think they got more positive reception than I was anticipating. There are a few people I want to interview that I feel like we’re close to interviewing. And I want to get into more live shows. We want to get to 1,000 Instagram followers, but it’s a slow chugging along.
Weronika: I’m with Sarah on that. It’s hard to map out a very specific direction of “We’re gonna be here at this point by this time,” because there’s so many factors that go into play with this and you don’t know what’s going to happen, or if something’s going to completely derail you, or if the greatest opportunity you’ve ever had is going to come tomorrow. Like, you don’t know. But, yeah, [we’re] definitely always looking for bigger and better opportunities, and manifesting, opening ourselves up to that. More live shows too, [I’m] looking to practice my photography when I can. And connect with more people; I want to make friends, I want to have cool experiences, that’s the whole thing for me. Music and the community is such an experiential and relationship based thing, where it is about the people and all those different relationships at the end of the day. Where we’re going, I don’t know, but I’m really proud of us for sticking to it as long as we have and we haven’t given up, even though sometimes––at least I have had a feeling–– where I’m like, “What are we doing this for?”. But, you just gotta keep chugging along, and hopefully we’re gonna do some really cool shit, and other people will want to see us do some really cool shit.
Photo by Dahlia Kim-Levy
Interview by Scrunchie about Desperately Seeking Serious:
How did it start? What was the inspiration?
When I was in eighth grade, one of my oldest friends, Sadie, and I wanted to start a zine called “That’s Interesting”, and we made a few interviews with people like Kim Gordon and Angel Olsen. We have a Courtney Barnett interview. But during Covid, since we couldn’t see each other, and both of our mental health was getting iffy, it sort of fell off. But I still had this really intense craving to write about music.
During the pandemic, I would go on walks and listen to albums that I hadn’t before and really tried to educate myself on music a lot more. So I had all this knowledge now, and was, like, “What can I do with it?” So I just started writing, and I made a basic little site that was… I kind of thought it would be a portfolio for college and I’d be like, “This is how my writing has grown over the past two years”, because I was a sophomore [in high school] at the time. But instead, I would send it to my family and close friends for music recommendations or whatever. And they were, like, “You should make this a thing, you should post this publicly and try to build a website because it's a really cool perspective.” At the time, I was sixteen, and they were, like, “It’s cool that you’re a young girl and you know so much about all different kinds of music. Why not make that public knowledge? That’s pretty original.”
So then I was talking to one of my closest friends, and they were, like, “Can I contribute in some way?”. And I was, like, “Yeah, an advice column would be cool.” So, I have a friend that does an anonymous advice column. And then, I talked to a lot of my friends who are really talented visual artists and was, like, “Do you want to upload some of your art and have a gallery page on my site?”. So, it kind of just grew into that. And I DJ as well, I like making playlists. When there’s a playlist and I’m like, “This might be something people like,” I post that.
It’s my website and I write about music mostly. But I also have written about Roe v. Wade and things like that that I want to talk about, and if I have people reading it, why not?
How do you find people to interview? What are you looking for?
For the website specifically, I’ve gotten to interview Arrow de Wilde of Starcrawler and Staz Lindes of The Paranoyds. I have some other interviews of, like, The Linda Lindas, which I interviewed for the zine, and then they sort of blew up. I interviewed them a while before anything really happened, and now they’re huge, and I’m like, “I’ll post this, and people will read it, and that’ll be cool.” And, like, Heidi Bivens, who is the head of styling on Euphoria. I use a lot of people I know, and Heidi is one of my mom’s best friends and I’ve known her my whole life. It’s pretty easy, making those little connections. My mom manages Sadgirl, and the lead of Sadgirl is Misha Lindes (his sister is Staz), and I was like, “Hey!”. I’m just trying to network; even when I go to shows, it’s like, “Oh, I know you, can I do this?”. Whenever I meet people, I try to give them a quick spiel and a quick rundown, so maybe I could do something.
I even work for this thing called It’s a School Night, which is by Chris Douridas and KCRW in Los Angeles, and Tom Windish, who’s a big tour manager. At those shows, they find the next big artist. All these people like Lizzo and Dua Lipa [were featured], who then blew up, but weren’t [big] at the time. It’s pretty cool. But now, it’s like, if these people are predicted to be something, I try to go around and be like, “Hi, I’m Lana, and can I ask you five questions?”. And a lot of the time, they always say “Yeah of course.” So I have a couple interviews stowed away, just to have. I just try to do as much as I can, like networking, or when I go to shows and kind of know people I can say “Hi I’m Lana,” and [mention] the zine or for the website. And it kind of just works.
Funny story, my mom manages Karen O, and she had this album Lux Prima with Danger Mouse a few years ago. There was this big show for it, and we stayed after, and it was this nice party, and a bunch of cool people were there. I talked to Britt Daniel of Spoon, and I said “Can I ask you five questions?” His was probably the best quick interview I’ve gotten, because he just gave one word answers, and he was really funny. But I also met Mac DeMarco, and I was like, “Hey, can I ask you five questions?” but his friends were like, “No, you should do a full interview” and, like, gave me his email. But he was blackout drunk, and so were all of them. So, I got his email and emailed him, but I was, like, a freshman in high school and never got a response. Even though I talked to him, he didn’t remember me. So that was, like, actually really funny. There’s some power in being a student in high school and being like, “I have this,” and people will be like, “Oh!”. There’s definitely power to that.
Sadie (right) and Lana (me, left) with Angel Olsen (middle) after an interview for That’s Interesting Zine
What do I look for? I like to find a story or something funny. I feel like with Britt Daniel, his was so short, like, I asked him what attracts you to music and he was like, “Well, it turns me on.” I was like, “Okay.” He was talking like a fourteen year old, but I just thought he was so straightforward. Whereas talking to Angel Olsen, she told a whole story about her life and how music impacted it and where she came from and the things she’s experienced that led her to this very moment, and all of the shows she went to leading up to it, and how she wanted to be a cheerleader and popular girl and decided not to, and then she became emo, or whatever, or “alt”, and then became Angel Olsen. It’s a whole story. So, I think looking for the thing that makes them different, makes them stand out. I think different artists all have that.
What do you believe are the key ingredients to a great interview?
Well, I definitely think good questions are important. And that’s something I still need to work on. It’s like, as an interviewer, you want to research and find something you wanna ask. But there’s also, like, is this too much of a rabbit hole? Is this too weird to ask? It’s balancing it being a question where they can’t say just yes or no––like an open-ended question––and finding things that aren’t already out there. Like, you could look something up, and there’s probably so much information. Especially if it’s someone like Kim Gordon, or someone like that. It’s like, there’s so much information for them, what do you ask? I’ve found that asking the simplest questions, like, “Who inspires you?” can be so…like, I always use that one because I think it’s something you can’t just look up. They probably mention it here or there, but she talked about this whole thing about Andy Warhol and this whole story about how she was actually a visual artist and went to art school for visual art and really intense painting. And then she was like, “Actually, I’m gonna learn guitar.” Never went to school for it. And then: Sonic Youth. Just a little question like “Who inspires you?” can lead you through such a thing. But also, I think it’s important to balance it out with questions that are detailed and personal to the people you’re interviewing, because you want it to seem like you did your work and you’re putting as much effort into the interview as they are––which can be difficult when there’s already a lot of information out there.
How has being in a collaborative space helped the zine’s success?
I think being in a collaborative space with the zine… I mean, it helped me a lot because I already wanted to start a zine. A lot of my mom’s friends gave me stuff since I was like, twelve. I was always really into Bikini Kill and Riot Grrrl and all this inspirational stuff. But, I was always at a loss for how to do it, because I’m not visually artistic. I just don’t… I think visually, but I can’t do that. My work does not work that way, I don’t think visually and artistically, I think in words and music and noise. That’s how my brain works.
Getting to work with Sadie, I’ve known her since I was in kindergarten, so I guess I’ve known her for thirteen years now, and we were always very close. She’s someone I trust, and through it we got to become a lot closer, like, “What do I like? What do we collaborate on? How can we divvy up the work so it’s even?”. It was really teaching me to budget each of our creativity. Kind of evening it out. She has always been one of the most talented visual artists I’ve ever met. I remember the first day I met her, she drew a portrait of me in kindergarten, and I remember, for a five year old, it was really good. I remember being like, “She can draw. This girl’s cool.” She’s always been like that, she’s always been really good at stuff like that. So I was like, “Oh, this works.” Because she’s not a writer. I remember we went and saw Bikini Kill when we were in eighth grade and we were like, “Wait, this could be cool. I do this, and you do that, and let’s do this together together.” And it just kind of worked because it also made it more enjoyable to spend time with someone and talk it through. Like, we’d watch Gilmore Girls or listen to music and just create stuff, and it made it way more fun and less like, “Oh we need to get this done!.” It took a lot of the pressure off, because we were just having fun.
Has being involved with the zine changed your perspective on how you consume/view music and art?
Yes. I think it was because I’ve been learning a lot and thinking about this a lot recently. I wrote an article for Desperately Seeking Serious about the power and the future in self made things, or handmade things. I think, growing up, especially living in Los Angeles in a pretty privileged place, you always want to get the nicest quality things. If you can, like, why not? And, I mean, as a twelve year old, you’re just like, “Sure!” There’s a weird mindset, like, you want to get a “nice” magazine.
I was talking about and writing about this album that was self-produced by an incoming sophomore at another school that reached out to me and asked me to give their music a listen. And I was talking to my friends about what the future of music is. We have a bunch of these conversations, and they were like, “There’s something very special about being able to create on your own and do it all yourself.” It has this very intimate craftiness to it. To me, it’s like hearing an acoustic version of a song, because it’s so intimate, you know, there’s not… there’s a lot going into it, but they’re not sitting in a big thing and having all of this stuff happening.
So, I think with the zine, and with the website and everything, I have so much more of an appreciation for things that are handmade. I feel like you learn that as you get older, like a gift that someone makes for me is way more personal. But when you’re younger, you don’t really understand the value in things that are crafty and maybe not perfect, because there’s so much pressure to have perfection. And I was always like, “Why would someone buy this? These two girls?”. Like, maybe our friends would buy it. I was just kind of confused. But we get a lot of orders, because people value our opinion and our point of view and our perspective. But also, it’s the fact that this is really cool, and this kind of art is coming back, but it’s not the most common thing, and people value something that’s been put together and is special.
What have been some teaching moments for you since starting the zine, did you learn anything about yourself or the process of maintaining your platform?
I think I’m constantly in limbo, I’m constantly learning about everything. I think I’m constantly making mistakes and constantly learning from them. With the zine specifically, I was a lot younger when I started it with Sadie, and I think it was like… okay, we had to figure out what we wanted our version of the zine to be, because we didn’t want it to be black and white, we wanted it to be decently high quality. So we went out and bought paper, and from that we had to learn. We were thirteen, fourteen. We had to learn about budgeting and how much we actually price these so we can make a profit and afford good ink that won’t bleed through the paper. It’s just a whole thing. That’s something I remember having to learn that was really annoying, because you don’t want to think about money when you’re creating, and stuff’s expensive, and that’s a big thing.
With the website, I’m not making anything off of it, I’m just doing it for fun. I did it a lot during the pandemic, and I was doing it every weekend, because I had time to do everything. I got to listen to as much music as I wanted, I didn’t really have anything else going on. It was really nice to be able to just write as much as possible. Whereas now, I’m going to be a senior [in high school], I’m doing college stuff, I’m working a lot more for a lot of different other projects. It’s hard. I’m working for Flood Magazine, which is a magazine here [in Los Angeles], and It’s a School Night, and those are things that are actually moving. Like, I have a boss, I have to do all this stuff. In my mind, I always put that more as a priority instead of prioritizing what I created, even though that’s not like, “the biggest thing.” But to me, it’s like my baby. I started it. Same thing with the zine, we put it off for two years and then we were like, “Okay, we actually have to do this. Why not? We have to push ourselves a little bit and keep it going.” It’s satisfying when you do it, but it’s hard to get started.
But, at the same time, you have to manage how to take care of yourself. Like with writing every week, I started getting burned out because I had been doing it for a year and a half. I started maybe not forcing myself to write about something that I might not be super genuine about, and really focusing on and spending more time with an album if I feel like I’m gonna get more out of it, and writing when I feel like I have something I actually need to say, instead of “I need to keep this schedule up.” Because, at a certain point, the writing wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
What experiences have you gotten from creating the zine? What is your favorite experience?
My favorite memory overall was just getting to hang out with Sadie in her room and talking about music. She’d be sitting at her desk making collages and I’d be writing. We had this thing called Plain Jane, which was supposed to be this teenage girl’s diary, and like, you’re looking at her recent experiences. It’s kind of a concert review, but also this character pseudonym we made up late one night. It’s fun because I get to do creative writing and she’s sitting there like kind of doing whatever, or throughout the night it would get later and later and we’d be sitting on the floor on pillows. I’d be working on the playlist or cutting stuff out for her and handing it over. It was this constant… It was just so relaxing at a certain point because it was such a fun experience and we hadn’t gotten to do it in a while. That was honestly my favorite experience, and getting to print them and sell them and being like, “Oh my god!”, and writing all the names on the envelopes and writing little happy faces and stars and trying to make it personal. Honestly, the best part is getting to have fun with it and having a good time making it and not having too much pressure and making it fun.
How do you feel your platform has grown since its conception into the present day?
I think they’ve definitely grown, and I’d like them to keep growing. I know it’s not huge, but I’d like it to be something because I put a lot of time and effort into it. Ideally, I’d like to have my own media empire and be a boss and get to create everything. I want to have the time and resources to do so. That would be great, because I don’t want to get burned out. I would like to be able to live my life and do what I want and still be excited every day to come and create stuff. I feel like that’s what I’m learning. Resources are necessary, and being able to take time for yourself is super necessary, because having to force myself makes it kind of hard, and I’d like to be able to have a good time constantly, because I think that’s the best part. That’s why I like being creative, because I’m enjoying it. That’s the gift we get, and I’m grateful for that.
Has it grown? Yeah. Enough. I’ve gotten people to read it, I’ve gotten good feedback. Sometimes I’ll go through the Instagram for Desperately Seeking Serious and I’ll see someone I’ve never met be like, “Someone tagged you in their story,” and it’ll be like, “Thank you to Desperately Seeking Serious for introducing me to this artist because I’ve never heard of them and now they’re my favorite.” That happened with Joy Crookes, who now is blowing up, but, like, a year ago I had just started listening to her and someone I never met was like, “Hey, this is really cool. Thank you.” It’s really rewarding to have that and know I’ve grown enough that some people I don’t know are seeing it and are excited about it. Like, yesterday I made merch with my friend and everyone was like, “Oh my god, where can I buy it?”. It’s so exciting. Even that was fun, like, we got to go screen print and I’ve never done that before. Just constantly finding ways to be creative and build up something for myself is kind of the most rewarding thing. And being able to write and publish something, it’s just the best. It’s really fun, and I’m very excited and happy that I have the time and am able to do this.
What direction do you hope the zine is headed in the future?
I hope that we can keep doing it. That’s the biggest thing right now, because we took so much time off just because of both of our lives, and we don’t go to the same school, and it’s hard to see each other. We both have very difficult schedules. I think that makes it a little hard, especially, like, we’re working on the fourth one, which I’m really excited about, and we’re gonna go to college, and do all this stuff. The zine is like the beginning of all of it for me, and it’s so special to me. I hope we can keep doing it and it’s not… I think at a certain point, for us it became stressful, because we were like, “Oh, we did not make any money, we have no money to buy any more materials.” And it fully came out of the money we were making. Like, I was babysitting trying to make money to support it. That became kind of stressful, because we had to do school and we had to do this and we had to make money to create something. And that does make it kind of difficult because you want to just be able to do it. Especially when you’re like, fourteen, fifteen, you’re like, “Why do I have to make money to just do creative stuff?”. But you do. Now, I think we’re older, and I have a couple of jobs. Figuring out what to do to keep it going so we can afford materials would be ideal.
Hopefully, no matter where we go, we can keep working on it. I value even just sharing time with someone who’s now one of my best friends, and actually getting to work on stuff and getting to be like, “Oh my god guys, look what we did, it’s so fun!”––[in addition to] getting to interview people, and getting to transcribe interviews. It’s really awesome, but it’s a commitment––I think that’s the only thing, it’s the only downside. Like, [discovering] how you organize your time to do work together can be difficult. I didn’t have a car, either. Now, I have a license and can drive, but I didn’t always. Now that we’re older, things are better, but it used to be like, “Mom, can you drive me to her house so we can work on the zine?”. Hopefully we can keep going, that’s what we hope for the zine.