Q + A with Singer Katarina Gleicher 

FYOHNA is an electronic pop duo focused on achieving emotional warmth and expansive atmospheres through live performance and powerful, yet tender vocal presence. Since FYOHNA’s inception in the Spring of 2015, vocalist Katarina Gleicher and producer/multi instrumentalist Elliot Glasser maintain a mind towards absolute collaboration. We had the chance to chat with Katarina before their upcoming performance on Tuesday at Chop Suey. 

Seattleite: We love your new song Ghost Heart. Can you tell us where you got the inspiration for the song and what it means?

Katarina Gleicher: Thank you! I don’t love talking about what my songs are about in detail, because my favorite part about writing songs is getting to see how people interpret them.  I think that’s the most beautiful thing about music.  Once it’s out in the world people connect to it in ways that are outside of the writer’s control.  People make it their song and I don’t want to get in the way of that.  

S: How did you and Elliott come together to become a duo?

K: We sort of met at school…we definitely met each other as artists at school. We both went to CalArts and were in a songwriting class together with a teacher named Marc Lowenstein.  I was doing my own thing, and so was he.  My background is folk music but I started writing music that was different from what I had been doing and I started sharing it with my class.  I had never written electronic music before and for me it was a little bit of an experiment.   I wasn’t actively in search of a partner, but it just sort of happened.  I started writing this song called “Misjudged” that’s on our upcoming EP that comes out on April 28th, and I knew that I needed someone who makes beats to help with the song. I showed Elliot and luckily he liked what I had started and he was really the missing link to the song.  We just naturally started writing together after that and became FYOHNA.   

S: How did you come up with the band name FYOHNA? 

K: We wanted a name that represents both of us. FYOHNA is sort of an alter-ego. Someone to take responsibility for everything I say. When I write songs, I often have to go down a deep and dark rabbit hole of something I’m feeling. I have to embrace a dark side that’s not always pretty and also is not how I am as a person all the time. And beside all that, we just love how it sounds.  

S: What can Seattleites expect or your upcoming show at Chop Suey on 4/18?

K: You can expect a good time. There’s gonna be live vocal looping and vocal effecting, there’s gonna be some finger drumming and keyboard playing. And generally just some sick beats and sweet sounds.   

S: What adjectives best describe your overall sound?

K: The first words that come to mind are haunting, rhythmic, dark and poetic

S: Who are your greatest influences (and your favorite comparison ever received about your own sound)? 

K: St. Vincent, Fiona Apple, Tune-Yards, Imogen Heap, Sylvan Esso, Little Dragon, Purity Ring, Joni Mitchell soooooo many influences. My favorite comparison is Sylvan Esso, mostly because Amelia Meath has a folk background and I love her melodic choices lyrics. I immediately connected to their music from the moment I first heard their record.  Definitely a dream to get to share a bill with them one day.  

Chop Suey
1325 E Madison Street
Seattle, WA 98122