Belinda Conducts A “Pretty Awkward” Interview

Posted on September 27, 2023 in Interviews // 0 Comments

Austin Held from “Pretty Awkward sits down to discuss the new song, video and his giant cup of coffee.

I am always down to interview a band, but it’s just been recently that I have been working on doing more zoom interviews. I’ve noticed, it is a bit easier to connect with each other if you can actually see faces. Zoom isn’t my preference to in person, but certainly far above the traditional phone call. With the exception, of course, of failures with technology.

I’m not going to lie, I have been dragged kicking and screaming into many different levels of technology over the years. I didn’t grow up with much of it, so there is definitely a learning curve. However, this one eluded my. For the first three minutes Austin and I spent trying to figure out why I could see him, but not hear him. He could certainly see and hear me, but I didn’t know he could. So, there I am, trying to signal him, message him, whatever I could do to let him know I couldn’t hear him, and him wondering why I was doing all that as he listened to me curse technology. This is how I found out he has a sense of humor. He found all of it pretty funny. I mentioned to him “We started off the Pretty Awkward interview pretty awkward”.

He’s been “hangin’ out, doing stuff, writing stuff”. Writing stuff ,that’s a given. By doing stuff, releasing “Get Weird”, the debut full length, Pretty Awkward album, and hangin’ out with me and many more via interviews.

I mentioned I had been out until two AM and wasn’t exactly my best. He made me feel better by saying ” I get tired about nine” while taking a huge sip of coffee from his festive red and flower adorned mug. I couldn’t help but take notice and he commented on “his sixteen ounces of caffeinated bliss”.

I asked if he was a morning person. “I feel like Nick (Wiggins, his band mate) would say that I am. I’m up pretty early. Even if I go to sleep at like three, I’m up by like six or eight. If I get like six hours of sleep I’m like down. We agreed, though, we HAVE to do our morning coffee ritual. “That’s the me time”.

I mentioned really creative people just don’t do the corporate thing. His tone when he replied with the long drawn out “Ye….ah”, said everything I needed. He, like many art-centric folks, just don’t fit into the nine to five mode. “It just makes it hard to be creative.” His creative process is self described as “sporadic, hectic, random. I guess it never really turns off. I’ll just be driving around and find something I see and just like write it down. My brain is constantly going. It took me a minute to figure out that thing, but it just constantly chats. So, for me, there really isn’t a stop time. I wondered if it ever exhausts him. “There have been times where I thought, man there are so many songs to write, so many scenarios in life, and to break into twelve lines, four lines that repeat three times. No, I find it very ( LONG PAUSE) that”. He laughs. Maybe he was looking for the word cathartic?

If he gets to that moment of feeling uninspired, he will pull out some older music and just listen. However, for relaxing, he prefers silence, “that psycopahthic silence alone with your thoughts”. Lately he has also gotten into the binary beats.

Like many his first instrument was the recorder, a plastic cross between a kazoo and a flute with an odd clarinet shape, in fourth grade. It’s something that is a staple in every elementary school music program in the United States. He’s progressed since then. First from cymbals in marching band, a brief stint with the snare drum, to larger sets. With a bit of Motherly advice to”‘find your sound'”, he got better at writing. He’s now playing guitar multiple instruments along side Nick who handles, bass and piano. This duo has their hands full. Tour dates are pending for the Northwest, we will keep you posted.

Listen to “Get Weird”