We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Genevieve Libien a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Genevieve , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

The very first song I learned on guitar was “Jet Pack Blues” by Fall Out Boy, I was going through a little bit of a phase at the time. That was freshman year of high school but I began writing songs long before learning an instrument. I have loved singing since I can remember, but that may have been greatly influenced by an early love of Disney princess movies. I began making up lyrics and then writing those lyrics down. The first song I wrote down was when I was seven I believe and it was about spring time. I don’t particularly enjoy the season today but evidently it was quite inspiring to me back when. I was also very inspired by my dad’s music taste, which was a lot of Regina Spektor. I absolutely loved her and she’s still someone I love and look up to so much today. My dad very much gave me his face and his music-taste. He is also the person who showed me my very first chords on guitar. I set out to play guitar because I had it in my mind that rockstars played guitar and I wanted to be a rockstar. Literally I wanted to paint my face and shred, that was the original vision I had as a second grader at least. When I took my first of many trips to guitar center, they told me to start off acoustic though. But they were right and I absolutely fell in love with acoustic guitar. I began writing on guitar and finally I had a vessel for all the words I was saying that had previously been just floating.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

For a question like this I have to mention my queerness because it is inextricable from my music because my music is who I am! I like to think that the music I write now is what little, closeted me would have listened to on the bus on the way to school. Now at my big age of 23 I’m out as a gay woman (Surprise! Don’t let the hair fool you). My 14 year-old self was so massively insecure about writing she/her pronouns into my little love songs, even if that’s what was authentic to me. Sometimes I wish I could put my arm around the person that I was and tell her that it’s really going to be okay and that she’s gonna have the prettiest girlfriend one day like seriously just you wait. So who I am now is the person I would’ve looked up to at 14 and 15, and I’m so proud of that. At those ages I was growing up on Blue Neighbourhood by Troye Sivan. Think what you want about that era of time and that album but I was so infatuated with the music. He was also unabashedly writing about queer relationships, using the pronouns, talking about everything from the euphoria to the hardships of being gay. I remember thinking “One day I’ll get there”. I realize I don’t have to talk about every inch of it, I just hope that someone could be inspired by my authenticity in the way I was inspired by Troye. My inspirations now in 2023 are explicitly lesbian artists like King Princess and Julien Baker. I want to give to others what they gave to me. So let it be known that I am honest and I am gay.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think this particular path is often stigmatized or misunderstood. A lot of people ask, “What are you going to do?”. Um, sing ideally. The insinuation behind that question is that I’m not doing anything currently, which is false. The genuine answer to that question is that I will continue to do what I’ve been doing, which is playing live music (which I absolutely love to do), writing, recording, traveling, singing! Continuing to pursue my career. My sarcastic answer to that question is that I don’t know but I’ll be kickin’ it if you need me. I wrote a song recently about a sort of breakdown I had this year after graduating while simultaneously reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (lethal combo by the way). A lot of it was about my frustration with everyone else asking me “What now? What now? What now?” I realized that it was only out of love and genuine curiosity that they were asking me that, but at the time it felt like there was a vague and invisible yet looming expectation being placed over me. I don’t feel that a person who goes into a different line of work is asked those same questions in the same way. They may go through their lives without ever having to hear, “Maybe you should get a teaching job on the side.”

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best way to support artists is to value them higher! That starts with paying artists more, seeking out new and different artists, being genuinely curious about said art, watching Dead Poets Society, seeking justice when artists are paid unfairly ( *cough* streaming *cough*), listening to local musicians, going out of your way to surround yourself with the beauty that artists create. I think it even starts as small as telling a child that their drawing is beautiful, that they have a precocious attention to detail. It’s probably true anyways. I’ve had so many people in my life encourage me in little ways that made all the difference to me in my artistic development.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @genevieve.libien
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDhH5DwEpUg&list=OLAK5uy_kyDD7rX5_fsHhFrKKiWHktH_Nt6m4mv9o
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6kh8gntdhRLcYOvxhUl4BC?si=JyHdZapHS-S1BXwU9RIGyQ

Image Credits
Misha Kline, Ashley Brown, Jesus Rodriguez