Interview: Veronica Bianqui, on self-help, loss and finally letting go of her debut album

Kevin Bronson on December 3rd, 2020

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* We’ve updated this post with the full album stream, below.

It’s been five years since Veronica Bianqui released her first solo single, the punchy retro-rocker “If Love’s a Gun, I’m Better Off Dead” — and even longer since the singer-songwriter-guitarist began writing the songs on her debut album.

That album, “Veronica Bianqui,” finally arrives Friday as a collection of garage-pop/classic soul songs that she says mark the close of a “long, long chapter” of her life, putting to rest “past struggles and pain, and old belief systems.” Indeed, despite the album’s largely high-spirited demeanor, the Los Angeles native delves into some intensely personal territory.

The album, recorded by Grammy-winning engineer Mark Rains and Matt Adams of the Blank Tapes, will be released digitally and on pink vinyl.

Here, we premiere the new single “I Want to Tell You,” a tender rocker about that certain three-word sentence you sometimes can’t bring yourself to say. “Originally, ‘I Want To Tell You’ was named ‘Bound for Glory,’ named after the Woody Guthrie autobiography,” Bianqui explains. “I wrote the song when I was a student in London, about 22 years old, and I was very into Bob Dylan at the time (well, I still am …), as well as Woody Guthrie. While I don’t want to give away too much of the story behind it, the song is essentially about channeling love into yourself and into your art. Sometimes love is forbidden, or it’s not the right time, or not the right circumstances; sometimes you can’t say ‘I love you,’ even when you want to, and it can be tragic. But you can take that pain, and make something great, make yourself great. And sometimes that love comes back around, too. You just never know in life.”

||| Stream: “I Want to Tell You”

Buzz Bands LA caught up with Bianqui to talk about the album, and its long incubation:

Buzz Bands LA: This has been a long process, right?

Veronica Bianqui: This album evolved over the course of many years, and it’s really a culmination of finding my voice. Because of various external circumstances and life experiences that have transpired since the beginning of the album’s creation, I consider it also the culmination of a former version of myself. It’s like the closing of a very long chapter. Or Act I, so to speak. Some of these songs I started writing in college, some more recently. But many of them lyrically speak of heartbreak — a state I perpetually found myself in for many years. It has taken years of self-work and therapy to get to where I am today and to begin to let go of limiting beliefs such as “I’m not good enough” and “I’m not lovable.”

Back in 2017, you released the song “Victim,” which also spoke to some personal loss.

Veronica Bianqui: “Victim” probably marks the beginning of my deep self-work journey. While I still struggle with such limiting beliefs, this album was written before I really knew how to heal. It was written in my 20s, and I’m 32 now. There’s a lot that goes on in that time period, to say the least!

When I began this album, I still had my sister, my uncle and my dad. All of these people have passed away tragically since I began the album’s journey. My Uncle Ernie passed unexpectedly at the age of 59 in December 2016, my sister Marlene passed from an accidental drug overdose at the age of 35 in July 2017, and my father Hugo just passed away this April 2020 from lung cancer. On top of that, I lost a profound, romantic connection with someone who is no longer in my life. Many of the songs on this album are inspired by that certain muse.

In the tease for the album, you mention that it is inspired by “profound external and internal changes.”

Veronica Bianqui: Besides all that, I have gotten sober. I spent years trying to fill a void with partying and chasing love. I feel like a truly different person than who wrote this album. And I’m grateful to be able to look back at it as a culmination of my former self. Before I felt like an 80-year-old in a 32-year-old’s body. I’ve lived and lost a lot. If only my loved ones I’ve lost could still be here to finally see my album come to fruition.

That must be a huge regret.

That’s why I inscribed “Free as a Bird” on the inside of the vinyl. I held onto this album for so many years, battling perfectionism and just plain self-sabotage. But I’ve lost so much the past few years, that I’m ready to just let things go. Go on … be free now … you were never mine to be had in the first place. We all return to dust, no need to be so precious. Life is too short to hold onto things for too long.