In conversation with Cassyette

The Essex-born singer- songwriter Cassyette is bringing a refreshing vision to punk – and we are loving it. After debuting her EP Jean in 2019, she has been experimenting with her sounds and visuals, offering different versions of herself throughout her discography. Think RIOT GRRRL meets the new generation of metal. But the punk IT-GIRL is booked and busy, touring across Europe while promoting her newest album, This World Fucking Sucks, officially out August 23rd. Amid her busy tour schedule, Cassyette found time to catch up with us after her concert at Melkweg. What began as a playful chat about Amsterdam’s rainy weather turned into a lovely conversation about her latest single Over It, favourite memories from the upcoming album, and her dog Winnie. 

Hi Cassyette!
Hey Glamcult 🙂

Jumping right into it, do you have any current obsessions?
Oh my god. That’s a big question. I always get obsessed with things. I’d say right now it’s hair masks. I’m trying to grow my hair out, so I literally have been greasing my hair every day ahah. It’s like the best hair growing hack I’ve ever found.

Hey, if it works, it works! It’s a practical obsession.
It’s practical, but I’m also obsessed with M&Ms. Especially now with the new flavour, instead of the peanut, it’s chocolate brownie. So I’ve been buying massive packs of M&M’s. 

OMG no way. Well then I’m gonna need to go buy some oil for my hair and new M&M’s! Backtracking a little bit before we get into your latest single and album, could you tell me a little bit about the journey that’s led you to where you are today?
I feel like I’ve always been doing music, I started off in a band and then I got into DJing, and was also writing for other artists. I’ve written so much different music over the years, and I loved that I was able to write in a way that was so versatile. Then when I started producing I was like, ‘what’s the easiest thing to produce? Dance music.’ No offence, but it’s not that complicated to make ahaha. It is hard to make great dance music, but oh did I make shit dance music – you have to start somewhere! Now I get to have a say in the production of all my music, but I’m more of an old school style producer. I’m not so good at the engineering side of things, but I guess doing so many genres for so long has kind of infused itself in everything I’m doing now, so the album’s very much a manifestation of that.

Amazing! You know, I was listening to the album and each song really felt like its own little vignette in a way. You could tell that there was a story, each song almost felt like it had its own little world.
I’m so happy you say that, I poured my heart into this album, even the subject matter of it is very raw and emotive so I wanted to make sure that I was being my most authentic self on this especially because it’s my debut album. It needs to be very purely me. 

And how are you feeling now that it’s coming out soon?
I feel good, and so overwhelmed with all of this at the same time. It’s a high end of my emotions, like, in a good way for the majority, but also it’s brought out the worst in me, which I’m trying to really work on. And for this reason I get so protective over it, I’m like this weird feral mum, but it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life so it makes sense I guess. I’m really excited for people to have it. I feel this anticipation building now. I’m like, Oh my God. Just hurry up August.

Yeah, it’s just there in the distance! Could you walk me through a bit of the inspiration behind it and what led you to the kind of storytelling that the album puts forth?
Well, I guess I can say that it was just a clusterfuck of so many moments. I wrote through an entire period of my life, so there’s songs that I had been sitting on for a while; stuff I started even all the way back in Covid. Unfortunately, I lost my dad just before we went into lockdown, so I ended up grieving through this really fucking weird period of time. After that I realised my relationship with my partner was bullshit so I ended up going through a breakup with someone I had been with for a really long time. And I also didn’t have a lot of people around me, so all this grieving got terribly overwhelming. I started drinking and struggled with drug addiction, but again it was one of those things no one really knew about. But at the same time I had great moments, with the most amazing people who were helping me get away from these negative emotions. I think life’s always a balance and I am an innately happy person, I crave being happy.

I’m so sorry and I can only imagine the emotions you had to process during such a strange time. In light of using music as a way to express these emotions, do you have a favourite memory from recording the album, despite it being about a lot of very sensitive times?
Oh it was such a rollercoaster! It was very therapeutic, but also very savage at points, the team and I had so many arguments. We are all best friends, and we never argue, but we were just so passionate about getting exactly what we wanted to get across. But my favourite memory is probably being there all together. We had great conversations, actually one was really life changing for me and I think for the others as well. And then I loved the whole production process in terms of the sound. We wanted the sound on the album to feel really expensive even though it was so low budget to make. And that was the only thing we really spent money on. You know, getting these amazing string players to come and play on some of the songs. It was just so beautiful. They’re from the Royal College of Music, so they’re used to playing super classical music. And I just wanted them to play in a completely different way and they did! It was fucking amazing.

Wow, this is so cool! So your latest single Over It just dropped. Can you tell me a little bit more about this song specifically?
Over It is one of the oldest songs that I’ve held onto. I fucking love the song. I kept singing it randomly because I kind of had discarded it, but then I kept singing it. So at one point I had to make it a full song. 

And how do you think it fits in with the overall storytelling, especially because it’s the last song on the album? Why was that the concluding one?
Because of the chorus of the song, I wrote it so that it loops back on itself. I have OCD, which is basically a mental loop. So when my OCD gets worse it manifests itself into a loop, which is fucking so annoying. It’s like ruminating on the wrong things for too long, which I feel a lot of people can relate to. I think that’s probably why they like it so much already. 

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Being your debut album and being such a large project, this album very much feels like a combination of everything you’ve done coming together. How do you think that you’ve perhaps refined your sound through this whole project?
Quite intensely I’d say, because writing an album is such a big project to take on. Now I’ve done it, I’m prepared to do a second one but fucking hell, it’s so much work, sleepless nights, like my brain hasn’t stopped thinking about it. I guess it taught me how to refine things, not in a perfect way, but in a way that suits me. It definitely fills me with a confidence that I didn’t necessarily have before. 

Yeah and having this album being a final point of everything that you’ve done before, it’s almost like you’ve brought it all together. You’ve made this massive symphony of yout life thus far, and now you can move on. You can do new things.
Yeah, it feels very much like an era of time. That’s in the past, but I’ve wrapped it up in a beautiful bow.

And if you weren’t doing music, what do you think you would be doing?
Oh, good question. I used to have an outdoorsy job at this place in Essex, where I’m from, and I would basically do all sorts of things, from ropes instructor and paintball, to building obstacles, which was super fun. So probably an outdoors job, or something in the arts, like graphic design. But I don’t know because I change my mind all the time lol. Something fun, something creative. 

So fun! And what is your most used emoji?
Oh, probably the purple heart, I use it all the time. Purple was my dad’s favourite colour, so I feel like, I don’t know, it’s like… I romanticise everything. 

That’s so sweet. I feel like a lot of dad’s favourite colour is purple haha. Kind of random but how is your handwriting? Messy? Neat? Squiggly?
It’s really weird. My handwriting changes, sometimes I’m having a really neat day and I would spend loads of time writing beautifully and sometimes it’s super messy especially if I’m rushing. I overthink everything as well, so when I look at my handwriting, it gives me a bit of an identity crisis.  

And, what’s a question that nobody’s ever asked you, but you wish they would?
That’s so hard!!! I wish people would ask me more about my dog, she’s just the best dog ever. 

Lastly, I have a really important question to ask you. Can you tell me about your dog?
Omg, she’s called Winnie and she’s got the sweetest personality, but she can be quite sassy. Also she loves humans but only likes two other dogs… 

I love it!