Everyone has a story to tell. No matter how insignificant or minuscule they may feel, they matter—not only to you but to someone out there too. And that’s what Nina Nelson has always wanted to say with her music.
The Filipino-American singer-songwriter recently made headlines having co-written TWICE‘s latest hit, ‘MOONLIGHT SUNRISE’ and while that’s been a major milestone in her music career so far, it’s all a stepping stone to something much greater. Wanting nothing more than to share inspiring stories, Nina has always used music to shine a light on the topics that matter to her in hopes of reaching someone who needed to hear them too.
“I’m sure that a lot of the artists [that inspire me] have no idea how influential they’ve been in my life just by being themselves and telling their stories. By having the confidence to be vulnerable, they’ve inspired others to do the same and I hope to pass on that lesson and that confidence,” she tells Bandwagon.
Throughout the last couple of years, Nina has been telling her story in a multitude of ways, from being a singer-songwriter to performing as part of the girl group Citizen Queen to building a community on TikTok. It’s a lot but it’s all in all pursuit of a dream that’s been building since she was a kid.
Recently, Bandwagon sat down with Nina Nelson to talk about her musical beginnings, co-writing ‘MOONLIGHT SUNRISE’, her adventures with Citizen Queen, being Filipino-American, and everything that fuels her.
How did your interest in music first start?
I’ve been singing ever since I can remember. My dad was in a heavy metal band when he was my age and my mom was still living in the Philippines—a lot of our relatives there are classically trained singers so she would tell me stories about how my Auntie Didit would take her to her opera voice lessons as a kid. So, she was my little vocal coach ever since I was little until I went to other vocal coaches as time went on. Thankfully, they’ve been really supportive of my musical dreams since I was really little.
Singing with my dad in the car turned into doing little talent shows which then turned into doing musical theatre all throughout middle school and high school. That’s when I discovered how powerful of a storytelling tool [music] is; it isn’t just feeling good in the car with people you love even though it is definitely that. You can say something bigger with the songs that you write so I tried writing songs of my own.
Then, I joined an acapella group and college that took me into a whirlwind in the music industry, which was the girl group that I auditioned for. I took those acapella chops that I learned in college into this group, Citizen Queen, because it started out as an acapella group. We toured with Pentatonix and now we’re taking that element of harmony into the fully produced originals that we’re writing and releasing now.
Who are some of the artists that you grew up listening to? How do you feel they’ve influenced the music you make now?
Some of my bigger influences were jazz artists, my mom would always put on Michael Bublé first and foremost. I do love him but going deeper into that Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan—those are the ones off the top of my head. They’re maybe the first people to make me realise how powerful of a tool and how much of a release and skill singing is. I mean, you literally are releasing sound, you’re channelling how you feel on a very beautiful frequency but their mastery in commanding an audience is… There’s this one performance of ‘Summertime’ that I’d like to say I watched either Ella or Nina Simone do and everyone in the audience was just—it was pin-drop quiet, they were mesmerised but I think that’s because she made them feel like less alone. There was something unifying in that sound, and I just want to make people feel that with the stuff that I write, in the stuff that I perform.
But then there was Hannah Montana, and I was like, okay, pop star vibes—I love that. I think as middle school started, I found the biggest singers of my time and fell in love with them. Ever since I was little I was a huge Christina Aguilera fan. Whitney Houston, Brandi. Jessie, J. Tori Kelly—I’m definitely missing a lot but you know, the singer singers that made me want to listen to their riffs over and over and over again till I got annoyed but then wanted to master it. It became like a little game to me. And then, Rosalía I literally have a poster of her right here—okay, you can’t see her but she’s there, I promise. She is so unabashedly herself in her artistic choices, in not compromising on bringing her artistic and cultural influences into her mainstream music and she just shows that being authentically who you are, can reach worldwide audiences. And then there’s Beyoncé, I could talk for days and days about her. I love her and adore her.
@ninaannnelson I had to give it a shot and i surprised myself 😗 #beyoncechallenge #dubai #drunkinlove #voiceeffects ♬ original sound – nina ann nelson
It’s a lot of female artists but I also love Justin Timberlake because I love how involved he is in production. I love his career, how he went from boyband to solo artist and to actor to working with Timbaland—I don’t know, I’d love to, one day, maybe be like the female Justin Timberlake.
Recently, you’ve had a hand in writing TWICE’s latest English single, ‘MOONLIGHT SUNRISE’. How did you first get involved in that project?
I was at a writing camp in Spain with one of the girls in Citizen Queen, Kaedi Dalley, and that was the first camp we’d ever been a part of. Depending on the camp, you fly out to a location with a bunch of writers and producers, and you get paired with them. Usually, you don’t know who these people are until you write a song with them—but you know, being a songwriter gets you close to people really, really quickly because you have to be vulnerable so it’s like ‘Oh, nice to meet you. What keeps you up at night and makes you want to cry?’ So I got to know these people really quickly through the beautiful music that we wrote.
@ninaannnelson I co-wrote MOONLIGHT SUNRISE for #TWICE 🥰🫰🏼 #moonlightsunrise #kpop #momo #jeongyeontwice ♬ MOONLIGHT SUNRISE – TWICE
One of the people that I worked with her name is Julia Ross, who is also an incredible writer, was so gracious enough to introduce me to a producer named earattack. He’s a Korean producer that was visiting LA and we find out that he’s a fan of Citizen Queen and our music, and I’m a fan of the stuff that he’s produced. I had no idea about his discography in the K-pop world, I listened to everything. He set up a session with me and Kaedi, separately first but then he found out we both were in CQ so we also did a session together.
We all were like in an Airbnb one day, he played us this beat and we just started writing melodies for fun. I mean, truly for fun—we were just trying to see if musically, we had chemistry and thankfully we did to a great extent. That session kind of bore the song that is now ‘MOONLIGHT SUNRISE’ but it was really just a work of passion. It was just a fun day, kind of worked out in our favour.
What was the creative process like for the song?
earattack doesn’t speak fluent English and obviously, we don’t speak Korean so our communication process is quite literally through sounds and grunts. It’s not like he doesn’t speak any English but the communication is a little bit slower. I love that music kind of transcended that. We started with the melodies first and then sometimes when I’m freestyling, vowel sounds just sound right on a melody so we kind of just found words that fit those vowel sounds. Then, it started to create a picture where we were like ‘oh, this is a flirtation song where someone makes eye contact with someone across the room, and they want to do something about it’ so we decided to write a song where they do something about it. We also like tequila sunrises, like that’s a good drink—sometimes I get nervous about what to order at a bar because no more am I getting a vodka cran, I don’t claim her anymore. So, it went from there to just doing natural melodies and lyrics that came to us.
Kaedi and I write a lot together, arrange a lot together so we have a process and things that feel right for us but earattack has been trained by the K-Pop industry so that he knows exactly what a K-pop fan is looking for and expects even though the fan doesn’t even know what they’re expecting. He’s very versed in that. It was cool for me to learn things from him because it would be a very different track without him, you know?
seeing ONCEs go crazy for the single we wrote has us 🥺🥺🥺 #TWICE #moonlightsunrise @JYPETWICE pic.twitter.com/BQef4mvt9S
— Citizen Queen (@CQOfficial) January 24, 2023
It was a very open collaboration. It was us learning from him, him learning from us, and just being fans of each other’s abilities. It’s cool that that song was born in a day and to see it live on like it has been, that is really really cool. It’s crazy.
You touched on this a little, especially working with Kaedi on this song. But did being in your own girl group help with ‘MOONLIGHT SUNRISE’ in any way?
Absolutely it did. I’ve done K-pop briefs before, like K-pop go looking for certain kinds of sounds and they’ll be very specific about its requirements: we need eight to 16 bars of a rap section, this needs to be cute and flirty, this needs to be hard and low tone, and so on. It’s very specific like that but all that is really another way to say let each member have their own individuality.
So, when Kaedi and I were writing the song we were very sure that we did what we do in our own music, have each line and section shine on their own. It’s cool to see every member have their place to shine because we do that for our own music as well.
Let’s talk a little bit more about Citizen Queen. So how would you guys describe the music you guys make?
It’s badass, individualistic. Like I said, no one in this group is like the other so I like to say that there’s someone for everyone. It’s unique but cohesive as a whole. We have a new song that we’re coming out called ‘So Special’ and our chorus has every single girl in it and it wouldn’t sound the same if not all of us were singing, you know? It’s fun, flirty, badass, impressive—I’d like to say ‘girl group futuristic ‘because this is what I imagined girl groups to sound like when I was little wafter time has passed.
What dreams and goals do you have for Citizen Queen?
A world tour, are you kidding me? Or even just like a headlining tour. We’re coming out with a full project this year so we’ll have the catalogue to do a full tour with. I’ve gone on tour with my girls before but that was before we really knew each other and we were getting to know each other on a bus. I think it would be insane to go on a tour again being the best friends that we are now and performing songs that we’ve written, that’s a huge dream.
YOUR GIRLS ARE BACK! our new single “SO SPECIAL” is out next friday, 3/3! 😚💗💅 🎀 pic.twitter.com/Gqsr8k1fot
— Citizen Queen (@CQOfficial) February 22, 2023
I’d like to see us get placements in a movie. One of my dreams for us was to be the Muses for the new Hercules—I don’t even know if that movie still happening but also another dream of either for me. Or for Citizen Queen is to soundtrack a James Bond movie, like in the way that Adele, Sam Smith, and Billie Eilish did.
We’ve been a group for a minute but there’s just so much more left to go for us. I just want to see us see it through, you know. The album has yet to come out, we have yet to travel with our music and see it affect people in person. We’ve had like one headlining show last year, and that made me cry but I just know, there are people outside of California listening to this music and I’d like to hug them personally.
In the past couple of years, you’ve been sharing a lot of your stories and music on TikTok. What first pushed you to start posting videos?
When Citizen Queen was assigned to our label at the time, they had a whole plan for us. It was November 2019 and they were like ‘Clear your calendars for 2020, you’re not going to have a minute to breathe’. And they were right for like those first three months—it was writing camps, eight-hour dance choreo rehearsals for our debut single, we were set to shoot the video for in March, then there was a Spotify showcase in April, and then possibly Coachella. But, as we all know, that came to a standstill when the pandemic hit, and neither the group nor our label knew what to do with that. So, naturally, the forces that were in power at the time kind of took a backseat and let COVID figure itself out but COVID figured itself out for however long it took and I was tired of waiting so I was going do everything in my power to help get Citizen Queen the recognition it deserves because we’re a very special entity.
@ninaannnelson still shocks me everytime though HAHA #yebba ♬ original sound – nina ann nelson
And also for myself, that was actually one of the bigger beginnings of my songwriting journey. The producer that we work with, Chi of the producer duo Nova Wave, she told me to put all of the songs I kept sending her somewhere. So, I taught myself Logic and all of those ideas, as bad as they used to sound you know, became full songs. I started believing in my writing ability a little bit more and just as a test of putting myself out there, I started putting out these freestyles because I found my favourite songs were written when I wasn’t thinking at all.
I remember I would spend upwards of eight to 10 hours trying to write a song, but that’s because I was overthinking and rewriting, I couldn’t settle on anything. But the thing with music is there is no right answer, what’s natural is what’s right, what feels right is what is right. I needed an exercise in saying f*** it so I started doing freestyles on TikTok and it was crazy to see the recognition that it was getting.
@ninaannnelson even if this only reaches two people, i hope you feel so loved. worlds better w u in it (: #beyonce #blue #fyp ♬ original sound – nina ann nelson
Then, I went back to the girls and said ‘this TikTok thing is crazy, we should tap into that’. And as reluctant as they were at the time, we started doing that and our personalities got to get the spotlight too. It gave us the platform to reach new people and also feel connected to our already existing fans at the time despite the distance and despite the resources getting pulled. When things are out of your control, find the things that are so that’s really what got us and me into TikTok. We just didn’t want to stop doing what we love to do.
One of the many stories you share online is the fact that you’re multiracial and that you come from different cultures. How do your different identities influence you, especially the music that you gravitate towards and the music that you make?
The kind of music that my mom was raised on is extremely different from the stuff that my dad was raised on but I’d like to say being raised on both was a blessing. I think the secret to making good music is to take in all music so I just felt very exposed to that from a young age.
I would like to say that Filipinos are some of the greatest like singers’ singers of all time. A lot of the songs that my mom raised me on taught me how to sing and also taught me how to make someone cry. We’re all very dramatic in the way that we execute our music—like my Lola would always watch Filipino TV shows and the music was always so on the nose and so dramatic. And you know what, I’m a drama queen so that works out.
to my mixed race babies:
“u are the world in a person. it took years of people seeing past each others skin colors, years of people choosing love over hate, of changing history, of pure humanity to make the mixed race person you are today. You are the future.” – my mom, to me
— nina nelson 💕 (@ninaannnelson) January 13, 2019
My dad was actually the one to introduce me to musical theatre but also when he went to pick me up from school was playing like Nine Inch Nails, Van Halen, and Bullet For My Valentine. He was one of the first people to make me realise that music is just about feeling good. On my mom’s side of things, I learned a lot about the technique and the power that you can have in your voice, and the songs that I listened to with my dad, that music taught me about not caring about how I sound, it just felt good. I’d like to say I put the combo of the two into the songs that I write.
IT’S TRUE BABY IT’s MEEE 🇵🇭#MOONLIGHTSUNRISE https://t.co/qoiJgV97nh
— nina nelson 💕 (@ninaannnelson) January 21, 2023
In life in general, being multiracial has given me access to two worlds. I’m blessed to have the food, the culture, the stories, the manners, and the different family experiences with both sides. One day I could be eating pancit with Lola and then the other day, I’m eating cinnamon rolls with Grandma Sandy and the duality is fun. It’s also nice to know that when I fly to the Philippines, I have family there that’s ready to hug me, that’s so cool. Also, just the pride that I have to be a Filipino—also the pride that I saw in other people for me knowing that a Filipino person wrote a song like ‘MOONLIGHT SUNRISE, it’s really cool to see us be there for each other. The Filipino community is family and every time I run into someone who’s Filipino in LA, I just feel immediately accepted. It’s just nice having two families everywhere in the world.
What do you hope to achieve with your music?
A lot. I hope that the people that need to hear what I say hear it. I’m sure that a lot of the artists that I’ve mentioned have no idea how influential they’ve been in my life just by being themselves and telling their stories. By having the confidence to be vulnerable, they’ve inspired others to do the same and I hope to pass on that lesson and that confidence.
And also, for the musician community in general, these dreams seemed very far away for a long time but now, I feel like I’m touching them every day. So, to whoever feels like they want to pursue this as a profession or a career, I’d like to make them feel like they can do it because they really can. I want them to feel like what they have to say is important. I want to make people feel less alone and loved through music, that’s really the big goal.
Citzen Queen’snew single ‘So Special’ drops on 3 March. Listen to more of Citizen Queen here.
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Read original article here: www.bandwagon.asia
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