Hi, everyone! This week, I got to sit down and speak with LA singer-songwriter Ramona Gonzalez, aka Nite Jewel. Though Gonzalez originally graduated from Occidental College with a degree in philosophy, she has changed career paths towards music after moving to LA back in 2008. She released her debut, Good Evening that year, and started her own mySpace page for music a year later. Her music ended up being discovered by filmmaker Noah Baumbach, and he featured her song “Suburbia” it in his film Greenberg. Gonzalez continued releasing music for a few more years, but her most well-known song, “Nowhere to Go” ended up being featured in the world famous video game Grand Theft Auto 5. Since then, she has kept a strong profile of releases, many that I have been fond of. I was very excited to reach out to Ramona and hear about her journey through the LA music scene.
bazzreviews: Which artists or albums inspired you to start a music career?
Ramona Gonzalez: I’ve had music in my life from a very young age. I come from a very musical family, I collect records, and I have my PhD in musicology. When I first moved to LA, everybody was making music DIY. I was immersed in that scene very early on. People like Ariel Pink, Julia Holter and John Maus were very important influences of mine. They made me feel like I could do music on a somewhat low budget- and still create amazing universes.
br: Going back to degrees for a second- you received your degree in philosophy from Occidental College back in 2008. Do you think you would be doing something in that field if you weren’t involved with music?
R.G.: Yeah, I do. If I hadn’t gone into a music career, I definitely would have gone to graduate school for philosophy. I ended up going straight into touring right after I finished my undergrad. Because that took up so much of my time, I lost interest in studying philosophy and shifted that towards the study of music.
br: You had your song Noah Baumbach’s film Greenberg back in 2009, how did that help get your career going?
R.G.: It didn’t do all that much for my career. It was a small payday that gave me the opportunity to create some merchandise. There was a tiny bit of exposure for me, sure. But, the movie wasn’t super big at the box office, and the soundtrack wasn’t widely acclaimed either. It was still a great experience nonetheless.
br: Another song of yours, “Nowhere to Go” has been featured on the Grand Theft Auto 5 in-game radio. What was that experience like?
R.G.: I was really pleased that they asked me to do it. I had cultivated a strong relationship with Rockstar Games because I kept sending them demos and songs I had been working on for a little over two years. They chose that song at the last minute right before everything was pressed and sent out to distributors. Not only was it a huge payday, but it’s a lot of exposure too. I was also the only woman on the soundtrack!
br: I know you were signed to Secretly Canadian for a while, but you left to release music your own record label, Gloriette. What have been the benefits of having your own label?
R.G.: I’ve had my own label since 2008. I released my first two records on there, and my EP Am I Real? as well. I then had a little foray with a bunch of other labels like Secretly Canadian, Mexican Summer and Italians Do It Better. I was on each label for one album cycle. They were all very interesting experiences for different reasons, but I could never find my exact “fit” on any of them. Whether it was with stylistic choices or marketing choices, we could never fully see eye-to-eye on certain decisions. There are situations where the ethos of both artist and corporation are the same, but it’s pretty rare. I went back to my label and have released my two most recent LPs, which has been a better choice for me financially and spiritually.
br: Can you describe your process for how you typically make a song?
R.G.: It really varies, there is no pre-prescribed way. I have a lot of different ways in which I make music. Because music is a matter of harmony, rhythm, lyrics and poetry, it’s not typical to see an artist make a song the same way over and over again. With this new record and past records I’ve worked on, it’ll revolve around having a limited number of tools to use. Whether it’s a certain software or hardware I’m recording on, an instrument I’m using, I’ll set those limits beforehand. I don’t want to deviate away from them and lose a sense of cohesion.
br: You mentioned having a new record, can you tell me a little bit more about what it has in store?
R.G.: Yeah, I’m finishing it up right now. However, I don’t think now is the right time to say anything about what’s happening with it.
br: What’s more important to you- lyricism or production value and instrumentation?
R.G.: Nothing is more important, there is no hierarchy with music. Production is a very technical art, and it’s really hard to make things sound “good”. There’s some illusion around that, and I think that producers don’t get enough respect in today’s industry. People don’t understand how hard their really is. When a producer and a singer-songwriter work together, they assume the producer does things like write melodies and harmonies. They don’t do much other than carve the sound by picking samples, mixing, and other design choices. It’s very difficult and requires a lot of skill. You need both the technician and the creator to make things sound amazing, and that’s how we’ve gotten so many of the classic records we have today.
br: What music goals would you say you have for the future?
R.G.: I tend not to have goals, because I want to just focus on making the music itself and have the career aspect attached to it. That sort of posions the well, in a sense. However, I do currently want to finish this record, and make it as good as it needs to be. I want to follow those limits and vision that I have for it, 100%. I don’t want to let anything get in my way. That’s as far as I’m thinking right now.
Thanks so much again to Ramona for giving me her time to interview. For those of you who haven’t listened to her music, I suggest you do so now. I wish Ramona the best of luck in creating the newest Nite Jewel project. Bye for now, everyone. More amazing stuff from bazzreviews is coming your way soon!
To hear some of Ramona’s music, head over to https://nitejewel.bandcamp.com/
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