Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Candy Whip. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Candy Whip, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
In the depths of lockdown, we were bubbled together, not seeing anyone else. We didn’t have a lot to do, we didn’t wanna do puzzles, knit sweaters, or start a sourdough. Gabby has a masters of applied science in electrical engineering specializing in music technology, and had always wanted to learn music production.
Our friend Grant let us use his Ableton license, and Gabby began learning the software. After many nights spent at home on her computer, Jane began to feel left out, asking for more time together. Gabby, who was passionate about spending time on her new hobby, sought out advice from a friend who suggested getting Jane involved.
Jane is a certified silly goose who had very little performing experience prior to starting Candy Whip, but was willing to give it the old college try.
One day, on a date at the park, we were chatting and somehow the topic of weddings came up. We discovered that both of us had slept with the best man at the last weddings we’d been to. We started riffing on this concept, and later, back in Gabby’s kitchen over some wine, we came up with the hook “why would I f**k the second best man, when I could be f**king the best man?”. We added a simple drum beat underneath and came up with verses to fill out the song. It was written in under an hour.
We shared it with a few friends as an inside joke, certain it was a fluke and cackling at the absurdity.
Starting a band with released songs on streaming services, music videos, performing with choreography and backup dancers was not on our minds.
Another lockdown day, Jane was lamenting about accidentally posting lewd photos on her instagram story, meaning to send these photos to a long distance lover she hadn’t seen in a while due to Covid. The story button and the DM button are very close together!
Another banger chorus came to her, simply “t*ts on the gram, t*ts on the gram, put ‘em on my story and now I’m saying damn”.
Gabby put a trap beat behind it and another instant classic was born.
The interview question asks about the logic of why we felt this would work, or what problem we were solving.
Well, dear reader, there was no logic.
But the problem we were solving was that the world needs more silliness, more absurdity, more people being their open and authentic selves. With losing spaces for queer art, and the societal landscape becoming increasingly intolerant, we need raunchy, in your face art that pokes fun at the oppressive structures that limit so many of us.
And if we’ve gotta sing songs about our buttholes to do that, well, turn on the mic and crank it up!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We are a candy coated queer femme musical comedy duo.
We produce raunchy bangers that will make you laugh and dance simultaneously.
Our music spans a variety of genres and draws inspiration from pop, hip-hop, jazz and punk music. Our aesthetics and performance style is influenced by comedy, drag, burlesque, and rave culture. Our shows are chaotic and larger than life, incorporating props, backup dancers, live vocals, interaction with the crowd, guest stars, extravagant costumes, ever-changing wigs, custom light shows, and a whole lot of silliness and sass. It’s like The Lonely Island meets the Spice Girls at a musical theatre production.
What sets us apart from others is that there is truly not another act like us. We continuously hear “I’ve never seen anything like that” at our shows. We endeavour to have songs that slap, with high production quality, that also happen to be hilarious and relatable.
One of the works we are most proud of is our recent music video for T*ts on the Gram.
We created this enormous project from the ground up, from writing the music, to producing the track, to creative direction, location scouting, booking extras, creating looks, makeup, and coordination. We worked with Brit Small of Atomic Vaudeville on direction, Luke Connor from Rapt Film co for the videography, and tons of other amazing and talented folks from our community. It’s live on our YouTube channel!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The lesson we have had to unlearn (and are still working to unlearn over and over) is to not let perfectionism get in the way of advancing your art and putting it into the world.
We’ve had tons of delays with putting out our music, getting caught up in the weeds of the tiny details of the piece. It’s about finding the balance between sharing the art when it’s in a good place vs continuing to improve upon it at the expense of furthering the project.
We don’t have the easy answer but feel like lots of artists can relate!
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
We started our Instagram in February of 2021, and our TikTok in May of 2022.
Instagram has always felt like a platform that has pushed our content more than TikTok, although we have had more time to build a following. We’re also millennials, so Instagram feels a bit more like home to us.
It’s very difficult to build a following with the algorithms the way they are today, bots and scams run rampant, and the arbitrary community guidelines flagging the most random things can be very disheartening.
Honestly, it’s about time and consistency, while still maintaining boundaries so you don’t get burnt out and rage delete all the apps.
Some hot tips for Instagram are short reels with long captions, so your reel plays over and over while the audience reads the caption. Posting daily helps, but can also test your sanity.
It can help to set aside some time each month to film a ton of content so you’ve always got something in your back pocket to post. We’ve also noticed people love the behind the scenes content and personal stories.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/candywhipmusic
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candywhipmusic/profilecard/?igsh=ZGU0eGcwZzBnMHVk
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@candywhipmusic?si=KNmF9gb1bo0fh7rH
- Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/Kr5BhGX3XKTLsmMb7
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@candywhipmusic?_t=8rTx86cKXHL&_r=1https://open.spotify.com/artist/1vIEXFUQmpSnllmPLUQ89V?si=dGjrjLjASmiZJe74FeLodw
Image Credits
Grant Harris, Chris Dingo, Trevor Ball, Captured by Quinn, Applecat