Zoe Tan On Her Folk Heroes, Malaysian Music Influence and Her Debut Single: ‘Walk Out The Door’
Pop music is in an odd place. The stardom and flashiness of the oughts and tens is fading. The popular audience today craves something more than catchy lyrics and faux-feminism. Authenticity reigns supreme with a story close in tow, and Zoe Tan is one of the emerging voices tapping into this cultural shift. You’re probably tired of hearing about it, but brat by Charli XCX is a perfect example of how new-age club beats mixed with personal interludes engage listeners to a fanatical degree, creating a cultural brat tsunami.
Another genre in an odd place: folk music. The events of mass technological advancements and the advent of streaming seems so anti-folk. The genre rooted in togetherness and community is at odds with the increasing loneliness we all face today. When the average listener thinks of the genre, they picture the wailing of Bob Dylan or the scruffiness of Willie Nelson; twentieth-century Americana artists. I feel this is an incomplete picture.
Here in the twenty-first century: Adrienne Lenker is in many ways folk’s answer to the of Charli and the brat aesthetic. The enigmatic front-woman of Big Thief, Lenker leads the premier indie folk band of the last decade. On her solo records, the instrumentation takes a backseat. This allows her eloquent writing to take center stage, along with her peculiar singing style, grabbing the listeners ear and feigning to let go.
Enter Zoe: She’s a twenty-three year old Malaysian-Chinese artist, trying to meet both these genres in the middle. Don’t be mistaken, this has yet to be fully realized. Yet Walk Out The Door, her debut single, is a catchy fusion of both Charli AND Adrienne. It sounds as the music video looks: a longing stroll through the park with someone you’re not quite sure about. I was lucky enough to catch up with Zoe about her new music video, and to find out what’s next for the young singer-songwriter.
What Malaysian music do I need to know about?
First artist that comes to mind is Lunadira. She is awesome, she’s like pop/r&b/rock. She’s done some singer-songwriter folk stuff too. Another is Zee Avi. She’s one of the more popular folk singers in Malaysia. I’ve met her randomly on Clubhouse, it’s like a social media app that blew up in Asia; really popular. You can create your own chat rooms to talk to people and Zee Avi joined! She heard my song and said she loved my voice, so we connected on Instagram. She was a real mentor figure to me, especially throughout the pandemic.
Who did the coloring for the music video? It gives me
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibes.”
My friend Adrian, he’s really into the TV and film world, so I trusted him with everything. Of course I had my comments here and there but he shot, directed, edited, colored; everything.
Who is on your folk pop Mount Rushmore?
Ooh, I don't know. I feel like there's so many incredible people, especially nowadays [with] folk coming back into the mainstream.
Tracy Chapman! Definitely put her up there. Phoebe Bridgers was one of the people that introduced me into that world. Who else would I put up there? I’ll put Bread. I know they’re a band, not a solo artist, but I love them so much. It’s also a nostalgic thing for me, my dad really tried to put me onto them. They have a song called Aubrey that I would say is my dad and I’s song. It reminds me of him. We did a father-daughter recital once and he played the guitar while I sang. It’s definitely been in the heart strings for awhile. Nowadays I listen to so much Lizzy McAlpine so I’ll say her for my last spot.
Have you seen the movie Inside Out?
Yes, only the first one though.
Do you remember the orbs that pop out of the center?
The core memories? What are some of those for you?
Oh, wow, that's such a good question. I love how you set that up!
A core memory for me: I used to do competitive figure skating when I was younger, like seven years old. And it was a intense! I remember I would wake up at like five in the morning on the weekends to go train with my coach, Sergei. But then I found musical theater and then that year! I remember sitting in the car asking my Dad what to do. I had to decide whether I wanted to do musical theater or continue figure skating. And I ended up choosing the musical. I was in most of the school plays up until like junior year, which led me into songwriting and then that was basically it. I think the storytelling aspect of music for me came a lot from musical theater, before I discovered folk music.
So if not for theater, you’d still be skating?
Yeah I’d be in the Olympics or something for sure.
(She jokes but Zoe also played rugby in high school, she could’ve been in the Summer AND Winter games.)
Do you think it’s easier now or easier twenty years ago to break into the music industry?
I feel like there are aspects today that make it so much easier to break in, stuff like TikTok. Which is what everybody says, but it's true. The accessibility to technology is huge. At the same time, I feel it was easier in the sense that there were less artists. It was really about who could perform in live sound. Nowadays, you have people with millions and millions of streams and they never perform. … My final answer is that it’s harder now. Even though there's accessibility to technology, you're fighting with SO many more people, then if you were giving out your CD’s and bring CD’s back! I love CD’s.
What’s next for Zoe Tan?
I’ll be putting out my next single in December and I’ll be releasing more music in 2025 along with something I’m incredibly excited to announce!
