Interview: Carlos Vara Declares His Ground In the Industry with "Confident"
We're such a fan of your newest single, "Confident"! Could you tell us the story behind your latest release? Thank you so much!!! So happy y’all like it! Confident was inspired by a night out in West Hollywood. I live in Nashville, but I was writing and recording in LA for a couple months. This was my first time being 21 and being able to party and go to the clubs. I had never really experienced that scene before, and I was already feeling very very insecure that week. Being in LA surrounded by beautiful people in beautiful outfits can be pretty terrifying… so I tried my best to live it up and be fun. I walked around like I owned the place, and my friend came up to me and said, “I love you how walk into the room so confident.” In my head I was thinking, “If only you knew how much of an emotional wreck I am right now.”
I left shortly after and cried in my Uber on the way back to my Airbnb. I wrote a little sad verse that night that I recorded on voice memos. I brought it in my session the next day with my cowriters, and we created what is now “Confident.”
At what point did you know you wanted to be a musician? Writing was actually the first thing I fell in love with. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with writing poems and stories; my main goal in life was actually to grow up and be an author. I come from a very musical family, and some of my earliest memories are of me singing with my mom in the car. Though I’ve always had a deep connection with music, I never thought that it would be something I could pursue. As I got older and entered my teens, I became more and more fascinated my music and singing. I was such a shy kid, so singing was just something I did when no one was around.
I have Tourettes Syndrome, and when I turned 15, my tics started to get pretty severe and painful, so I had to leave school and have a teacher come see me once a week at home. I spent pretty much every day in my room alone doing nothing buy listening to music and singing karaoke on YouTube. One day, my mom brought me home a little electric piano and I started to learn the basic chords and write songs to them. Music really allowed me to express myself and figure out my own emotions during such a hard time. Turning a bad situation into music and making something beautiful out of it was really fascinating to me. And I knew I wanted to do it forever.
Who are your biggest influences? Ohhhh there are tons…. My mom, Matt Corby, Freddie Mercury, The Beach Boys, Rihanna, Adele, Janis Joplin, George Michael, My Chemical Romance, Sia… I could go on and on.
What was the inspiration behind the "Confident" music video? Visually, I wanted it to be very Andy Warhol meets Studio 54 meets 2019. Visuals really inspire me, and I really wanted the music video to be very captivating, eclectic, emotional, and full of people who I felt express that. If you watch closely, the music video flips between 2 different versions of me… the “confident” version, and the “just got to the party and insecure” version. I feel these are very accurate representations of the two sides of me. I wanted to show the contrast of the song and the emotions through the video, and I think the director, Jean-Michael Triana, did an amazing job at bringing it all to life.
What can fans look forward to from you in the upcoming months? Moooreee musicccc!!! I have so many songs ready to go and I CANNOT wait to share them with everyone! I’m so excited for this year and all of the new songs, shows, and art that’s going to come out of it. :)
Where can our readers keep up with you? You can find me on all of the socials @IAmCarlosVara and almost every dating app as well.