Free as a Bird

BECOMING THE LESBIAN ROCK GOD YOU DIDN’T HAVE GROWING UP IS NO EASY FEAT. TOWA BIRD STEPS UP TO THE CHALLENGE.

By Frankie Dunn

Towa Bird is hungover. It’s mid-morning in LA and last night the British-Filipino musician was at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party with her collaborator and rumored girlfriend, the Mean Girls star Reneé Rapp. “I’m being so brave right now,” she deadpans over FaceTime. Award show afterparties are not her usual scene: “It was very overstimulating, especially on the carpet. I felt oddly relaxed but also like I shouldn’t be there.” This is hardly surprising—just a few years ago, Towa was studying music at Goldsmiths and posting impressive guitar solos to TikTok in her spare time. When some of them blew the fuck up and found their way onto Olivia Rodrigo’s FYP, the former Disney darling requested Towa join her band for a 2022 documentary following the making of her debut album, Sour. Since then, she’s dropped out of college, moved across the Atlantic, toured with Reneé, and released a series of brilliantly queer rock-leaning pop singles including “Wild Heart,” “B.I.L.L.S.,” and “Drain Me!” Her debut album American Hero is imminent and her star is doing nothing but rising.

Towa is 24 but feels a decade younger, and simultaneously, six decades older. “Those are the two sides of me,” she says, smiling. “My fanbase call themselves grandchildren—they make fun of me for being an old man because I drink whisky and beer and I’m bad at technology. I have an old man in me definitely, but I also feel naïve and excitable like a teenager. They coexist.” Today, seated with one knee against her chest, wearing an oversized Guinness sweater, Towa’s much-admired curls are semi-tamed by a large pair of headphones. She might be feeling rough, but she’s powering through.

FRANKIE DUNN: Towa, your life has changed massively in the past few years. How have you personally changed along the way?

TOWA BIRD: Maybe I’ve got better at hiding my imposter syndrome? I feel really happy. This is not a life I ever dreamed I’d have. I didn’t grow up thinking I’d become a frontperson or a popstar or rockstar, you know? I work really hard, but my goal isn’t to become a massive artist. It’s to connect with people and help them feel represented, to be someone that I’d look up to as a kid. And to write music that slaps.

FD: Seeing you on the red carpet last night in your Gucci suit, I was thinking back to the lyrics of your 2023 single “This Isn’t Me,” about movie stars and flying business class and realizing you hate it all. That’s becoming more and more a part of your world. How does it sit with you now?

TB: I grew up between Hong Kong and Thailand, so I didn’t have exposure to that kind of upper-echelon public luxury. Moving to LA and being exposed to that was fucking jarring. I clearly still haven’t gotten used to it—I had to get a couple of drinks last night just to chill. When I wrote that song, it was the first time I’d experienced that. I felt so disillusioned by it—so disconnected and scared and alone. And to a certain extent, that still happens. I just get better at hiding it.

FD: What did you learn from your time with Olivia and from touring with Reneé?

TB: Olivia has this really impressive attention to detail and she’s such a wonderful person to be around. Seeing somebody who works so hard and really cares was incredibly inspiring. Same thing for Reneé—she’s a powerhouse vocalist with an insane instinct for music. She works her ass off and gives so much of a shit. It makes me feel valid for also caring so hard. I feel like there was this whole thing—especially in the early 2000s with some of the male figures in rock music—where it was cool to not give a shit. But I think my approach, learning from these wonderful women, is that it’s really cool to care, to put time and effort into your craft. And to work on yourself, too! That’s my MO going forward: I just give so much of a fuck.

FD: It shows. Your music does a brilliant job of exploring queer love and identity. Is there an artist who provided that for you growing up or are you writing the music that you didn’t have?

TB: The only person I felt like I had representation in was Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs because she was a woman and Asian and a frontperson and a beautiful performer. But to your point about queerness, I don’t remember having any icons. I don’t remember having, like, a lesbian god growing up—especially in rock or alternative music. So I’m hopeful that that’s something I can do for little Towa. Back then, I was mostly just listening to Oasis, Blur, the Beatles, the Who, and Zeppelin.

FD: I mean, it’s only really in the past decade or so that artists have started being overtly expressive about their queerness in mainstream music, which is wild. We’re in a good place.

TB: We are! Also, I’m so painfully gay that I don’t know what I would do if I had to hide it. What the fuck would I write my music about if not queer love, joy, heartbreak, and angst?

FD: How do you decide how much of yourself to put into your lyrics?

TB: That’s a line I’m trying to figure out as I go, but I think you kind of have to put your whole self into it. There’s something really daunting about that but I also think that’s the point, because if you’re not being honest, then what are we doing here? It’s really scary though! It’s so intimate—there are lyrics that genuinely keep me up at night. But you owe it to yourself and your project, as well as the people consuming your music.

FD: Does songwriting feel like work to you? Or more like therapy or storytelling?

TB: I see it like a puzzle, which I guess is kind of like therapy, too. It’s like, the story’s there—l know I want to write about a specific evening or a particular person or whatever it is. So you have the meat and potatoes, you just have to find the words that properly articulate that sensation.

FD: How much do you consider the live show during that process?

TB: Insanely so. I want this first album to feel as raw and live as possible. I’m also imagining how the crowd would respond and thinking about what I can do onstage to communicate the song.

FD: You have amazing energy onstage. Is there a particular artist you look up to for their stage presence?

TB: Hendrix—obviously massively theatrical, he would light his guitar on fire onstage! Insane.

FD: That’ll be your next tour, right?

TB: Exactly, yeah. When I can afford to light my instruments on fire, maybe I’ll do that. He was my first love; I discovered him through my dad who was always playing ’60s and ’70s rock.

FD: As you finish the puzzle of your debut album American Hero, what movie do you think it would be a good soundtrack for?

TB: A ’90s coming-of-age movie—something young and romantic. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but gay. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off if Ferris was a lesbian.

FD: Somebody remake it! Based on “Drain Me!” I get the impression it’ll be quite a horny album.

TB: Yeah, it’s horny. There are definitely songs about lesbian sex and passion and romance. I can probably name you three existing songs about lesbian sex, maybe four. They just don’t exist. So it’s time for somebody to start writing them. And it’s me and MUNA, we’re doing it! I love having sex and I love writing songs about having sex—why would I not write about that?

FD: Totally. Towa, when do you feel most confident?

TB: Onstage. I feel like I grow an extra limb or something. It’s like I become an extension of who I am. I feel powerful onstage. I feel bigger—like I’m accessing part of my personality that I can’t access here and now. There’s something really special about that—it only exists in this very particular context.

FD: Talk us through the moments leading up to that. Do you get anxious?

TB: I don’t think it’s anxiety. It’s a lot of adrenaline and feelings but I don’t get super nervous. I just get really riled up and excitable. I feel like a little kid.

FD: Have you nailed your pre-show ritual yet?

TB: I enjoy switching it up; sometimes I’ll just doomscroll on TikTok and other times I’m actually dialed in and stretching my body. I’m still experimenting and finding my way. There was this one time on tour where we were vintage shopping and we almost missed stage time. I wasn’t dressed or ready or anything and we got back to the venue literally three minutes before we had to be onstage.

FD: That’s insane. You really don’t need much mental preparation then? You just stroll out there and perform?

TB: Yeah, that’s the cool thing: I don’t have to become someone else. I don’t have to put on a hat and perform and be someone different. I just walk on like, ‘Hey guys!’ It’s really just me.