On the verge of her first tour, and opening up for Reneé Rapp, Towa Bird talks musical influences, ’70s rocker style, and getting hyped before going onstage in this FRONTPAGE interview.
In Towa Bird’s first TikTok, posted in April 2020, she’s standing — well, performing — in her bedroom, eyes closed, riffing on an electric guitar to Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know the Better.” Bird, centered, is framed by a bed and a few plants. She’s got on an oversized Metallica T-shirt, brown jeans secured with an eyelet belt, and around her neck, heavy silver chains. The background could pass for a green-screen; between her outsized presence, polished performance, and controlled movements, she could as easily be onstage. Right from the beginning, she was that good.
Off the back of that initial video came countless others, and with them, nearly a million followers on TikTok. In addition to calling attention to (and joking about) her identity as a 24-year-old queer, Filipino-British woman based in Los Angeles with a following built on pure talent. For Bird, who started performing at age 14 in Hong Kong, posting became an alternative to playing shows. “My love for music initially came from playing live and being a performer,” she says. “To have access to that, but in a smaller, contained form, was the social media TikTok videos. I am that person onstage,” she explains.
Now, three years later, and with plenty of actual stage time behind her, Bird is gearing up for her first tour. She’ll open for reigning king of queer TikTok, Reneé Rapp. Going on tour — days of back-to-back travel; big crowds; no small amount of pressure — is intense, but Bird isn’t fazed. “Everything seems to be just falling into place. I feel strong. I feel ready. I’m honestly calm.”
As we speak, she only has three songs out, but she’s clear on who she is as an artist. And though they may be few, Bird’s upbeat alt-rock singles virtually demand the body to get up and dance. “I try to hype myself up as much as I can before I go onstage, so that as soon as I’m out [there], I keep that energy up.”
On the upcoming tour, Bird will perform tracks off her unreleased album American Hero. She’ll get feedback in real-time, seeing which bodies are compelled to get up and dance and which ones aren’t. Bird hopes the audience on Rapp’s “Snow Hard Feelings Tour” are the ones that’ll dance, but otherwise she seems pretty excited about the whole national tour thing. It’ll be an informative experience no matter what.
Debuting her new album on her first tour seems fitting. Bird describes the work as “an introduction” to who she is. Throughout American Hero, Bird’s lyrics deliver the story of her experiences and offer insight into an identity that audiences might relate to. Most importantly, the lyrics are honest, which makes them impactful and hard to forget. “I mean, all I’m trying to do is wear my heart on my sleeve and be genuine,” she says with a slight laugh. “Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to: be as open and vulnerable as possible.”
It’s not the most common attitude for an indie alternative-rock artist. A hard façade of uncanny nonchalance is essentially requisite for success in the genre. However, with the rise of TikTok in recent years, Bird’s generation — Gen-Z, the same as mine — has carved out a space to be radically honest online about their experiences growing up, a product of being softened by Covid-19 early in their lives. Like so many, what that disruption and softening meant for Bird was the space to express herself authentically, and the latest album reflects it.
Authenticity is the general vibe she’s giving off, from her excitement to perform to her lyricism to her personal style. As we talk, Bird is wearing a white button-down and a couple of silver necklaces (she apologizes for forgetting a set of gold and silver signet rings that usually cover nearly every finger). This is her current uniform, and it’s got a clear ’70s rocker lineage. For Bird, it’s all about “tight little trousers and shirt,” like that of her style inspirations: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix. It’s rocker, but with her own spin. “I base my style a lot on androgyny, which feels less like a style and more like what I feel comfortable expressing myself through. I try to make myself feel good. I think that that brings me [my] sense of identity; it makes me feel solid in my own person.”
