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Photo by Summer Schantz

Andrea Bejar is standing in a literal cornfield in Utah when we hop on a call. She tells me that on the way to Salt Lake City where she will be opening for the legendary Juanes, she and her team stopped to film some videos. The setting is more than appropriate, because her debut album, which came out last week, is called In Bloom. 

The Miami-raised, Mexican-American singer-songwriter has spent the last few years building a devoted audience across two languages. Last year, her single “Marigolds” went massively viral, which led fans to naturally ask when an album was coming. As the pressure to capitalize mounted, she decided to listen to her gut and wait until she felt she truly had something to say - needless to say, it paid off. “I’m really happy that I listened to myself,” she tells me. “I feel like I’ve made an album that feels really representative of me.”

In that pocket of time between deciding that it was officially “album time” and actually making it, she had the chance to ask some of those hard-hitting life questions and emerged knowing herself better than ever before - with "Marigold"'s legacy not forgotten, as every song on the album ended up being inspired by a specific flower. The album itself touches upon themes of womanhood, time and love, with the women in Andrea's family serving as one of the biggest inspirations for the music. "I've always been very very connected to the women in my life like my grandmother, my mom and my sister. I feel like I was able to take their stories and bring them to life.” Music for her is storytelling, and she hopes that in her lyrics, anyone who listens may be able to find the words to describe the feelings that aren't easy to describe.

Sonically, In Bloom is a soft and bright album that showcases Andrea's stunning vocal ability, which I would even dare to compare to that of Silvana Estrada's. Alongside her collaborators Jake Fine and Philip Etherington, Andrea tells me that the “less is more” mentality reigned in the studio, with the goal being to make every sound very intentional. Anchored by Mexican bolero-inspired arrangements and centered around the piano in a way none of her previous work has been, it moves gently between elegant Americana and the warmth of Mexican folk. “I want Mexico to be present somewhere in the song whether it's the visuals, a lyric, a melody or the instrumentation” she says. 

We sat down with Andrea to talk about her relationship with grief, flowers and an album that shows the artist she already is, but sets everything up for the artist she is blooming into.

OnesToWatch: Your debut album is called In Bloom and you've mentioned that every kind of song in the album has a flower that is related to it. I was wondering if there's one that you feel like represents you as an artist?

Andrea Bejar: The dahlia, because it's the national flower of Mexico and my favorite flower. I feel super represented by the song "Tell Me I'm Beautiful," which I wrote with this flower in mind.

Why do you think it's the song that represents you the most?

I feel like I was the most honest I've been when I was writing that song. I was thinking about aging and because I was making all of this music for the album, I was just like, "my god, I'm 24 and I still haven't made my first album. I'm getting so old and nobody's going to care in a couple of years." There's so many artists who are already doing so great even though they are much younger than me and I just was psyching myself out so much just because I felt like I was too old to do this, which is insane because I was 24 when I was having these thoughts. Not that I don't have them anymore, but I do really think that that song made me process my feelings in a way that I didn't know was necessary at the time. So, I definitely feel better about that in general now.

We definitely put a lot of pressure on the age thing as a society, but we really shouldn't,

Yeah. I'm just really proud of my music and this project. I really love listening to it and I'm very self-critical - I think it's really difficult for me to listen to something and be like, "Wow, this is really good", especially something that I've done. Maybe if I would have released my first album 3 years ago when I first started making music, it definitely wouldn't be as good as I think it is right now. 

I feel like I've kind of been a little bit more at peace with that feeling since writing the song. It also just reminded me that with the people that I love, I don't see how they age, I see the beauty of how they grow. I don't necessarily look at them and think, "Wow, you look so much older," It's just like "you're beautiful and I love you".

I love that. And that was my next question, because despite some external pressure or requests to release your album, you said that you waited until you felt ready to say something. So when did you know that okay I'm ready to do an album now?

I think it was when I finished my last EP. I wanted to say more and I had finally found a really good balance of the sound that I wanted to have and the sound I wanted to keep exploring. I also had it in my mind that I wanted my first EP to be about my family dynamics, my second EP to be about a romantic relationship and then I want my album to come out. And I feel like because I had that in the back of my head, it was easier for me to be like, "Okay, it's album time." 

Absolutely. 

But I also wouldn't have written it if I didn't feel like I was ready to. I had released a song that I really love called "Marigolds" and at the moment I'm very proud of myself for not having forced an album at that time just because that song was doing well. It's a difficult thing to do when you have people in your ear being like, "This song is doing well. We should take advantage of that and release an album." But in that moment I was just like, "No, that's not what I want to do." and I'm really really happy that I listen to myself and I'm at peace with that.

That's amazing. You just had to feel ready for yourself.

Yeah. I feel like I've made an album that feels really representative of me and I feel like I needed to go through all of those other songs to feel good about writing all of these new ones, and for me to know this is how I want to present myself as an artist.

What are things that you were able to write about now that you weren't maybe to write about back then?

I think definitely the song "The Shadow of a Killer," I would have never written that song before. "Tell Me I'm Beautiful" probably wouldn't have happened because I had never really written a song with piano. The piano is actually a big part of this album, whereas it wasn't really a big part of any of my other projects. I feel like a lot of these songs would not have come to fruition if I hadn't waited. I always knew that I wanted people to listen to it and be like, "Okay, this is Andrea", but I didn't know what I wanted to be about. I had so much more freedom to kind of just say this is what I want to write about because this is what I'm feeling in this moment. 

Yeah, you didn't have a set theme like for your EPs.

Exactly. It ends up being a coming of age album and I feel like it all kind of came together really well because I've been able to express the way that I see the world with this album. When I first started writing it, I was asking myself questions like, Why are you the way that you are? What are your biggest fears? What are your biggest regrets? What are you the most excited about? What is eating away at your brain right now? And I think that those questions I probably wouldn't have felt super comfortable writing about until maybe the beginning of this year when I really started when I really started writing for the album.

A kind of overarching theme as well is how you tackle the experience of womanhood in different layers whether it's in relationship, physical beauty, generational trauma, etc. So I was wondering what's something you learned about womanhood in this process?

I feel like I was able to connect with parts of my womanhood that maybe I hadn't explored before. I've always been very very connected to the women in my life like my grandmother, my mom and my sister. I feel like I was able to take their stories and bring them to life. Because that's what songwriting is essentially- you're just telling stories and making them exciting to listen to. I feel like with ¨Wild Woman" in particular, I just learned a lot about truly how amazing it is to be a woman, especially in a society where there are a lot of downsides to being one. I think that being a woman is so special because I love the way that we're connected to the world around us, how we connect with other people and how empathetic we naturally are. Through that, I feel really connected to nature and I feel like I've learned to really love a lot of parts of myself that maybe growing up I didn't super love - that also kind of goes into the song "Delicately."

If I may say so, there is something about the chorus in "Delicately" that scratches my brain just right (laughs). I feel like another big topic was sort of grief or anti anticipatory grief. You have songs like "Angel," which you said you wrote for your grandma, but I spotted the theme again in other songs like ¨Sharpen the Knife" especially in the Spanish part of it. So, I was wondering kind of what your relationship to grief or anticipatory grief was during the making of the album?

I really love my family and I am the way that I am because of them. I feel like I've always just had a really special connection especially to my grandma. Since I was 5 years old she would come visit us in Miami for months at a time and then we would go to Mexico for months at a time. I would always sob for days before she left, especially because I love sleeping next to her. I just feel really really safe and whenever she would leave I would panic because I don't know when the next time I'm going to see her is. One time as a kid I told her "Grandma, if you die, I will grab onto your leg to climb up with you." And now I'm like "Wow, Andrea, you were five years old, you are too young to think about that (laughs)." I'm always scared when I say goodbye to people that it may be the last time I see them.

That's so valid, I have that too.

So I wrote the song "Quedate Un Ratito Más" (Stay A Little Longer) to sound like one of the lullabies my grandma sings to me sometimes. I was inspired by this one lullaby called "Muñequita Linda" [laughs], and I just talk about how a world without her just isn't the same.

Then "Angel" is celebrating how much I love her and I want her to know how much I think about her every single day. Then "Sharpen the Knife", is a song that's more I put myself in a place where it's like, "she's gone already." And then the part in Spanish is what I imagine she would be saying to me from afar. 

I love that. Knowing that, the song and the mix of languages takes on a whole other meaning. I feel like the whole album puts me at peace in a way. It has such a smooth and mellow vibe. So I was wondering if more on the technical end, what are some of the kind of intentions you put into the sound?

I wanted all of the songs to very much be centered around boleros, because I want Mexico to be present somewhere in the song whether it's the visuals, a lyric, a melody or the instrumentation. I think we were very intentional about not overdoing it. I think a lot of times to make a song feel bigger, you feel like you need to add more things, but I didn't want that this time. For "Entiérrame en Él" my producer Jake and I spent an hour and a half figuring out the beginning, which is just the guitar solo. I've always been pretty intentional with what I want in my songs, but this album in particular, I didn't want to overdo it. 

What would you hope this album can accomplish either for you as an artist or for the person listening to it?

As an artist I want it to be a representation of who I am now and the artist that I'm going to be in the future. Then, for other people I always have said that I hope my song can voice what another person has been thinking but hasn't been able to really say. Sometimes I feel like you think or feel things, but it isn't until you hear a song, you read a book or see something in nature that you finally can put words to the feeling.

Is there any way you recommend people listen to this album?

The whole "you need to listen to the album top to bottom" thing. The first half of the album is split into one vibe and the second one is a complete other, so I really hope that by listening across people will catch that. One thing I would really hope that people do is listen to "Entiérrame en Él¨ and ¨Wild Woman" back to back, because there is a very cool transition.

Oh, I need to relisten with that in mind. What artists are you watching out for?

Kate Stevenson is so amazing, I'm obsessed. Also Silvana Estrada, I feel, is part of a really awesome new wave of Mexican folk music. Another person that I actually wrote "Te Vas A Arrepentir" with is Arath Herce. He is kind of like Bob Dylan and just so special. I hope he does really really well because he has a lot of really cool things to say and a cool artist proposition.

Oh I love these recommendations. Thank you so much Andrea and congrats on your debut album.

Thanks so much.

Listen to In Bloom below: