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Francesca Fuentes has taken life by the horns and has no intention of letting go anytime soon. An artist who writes about her real life experiences and relationships in her music, she’s a very interesting and complex character, so naturally we are over the moon that she took time out to speak with us.
You have been playing guitar and writing since 12—talk to us a little bit about your artistic journey thus far.
I first got started with music in middle school at age 10, singing in the talent shows and chorus, and then taking guitar lessons outside of school. By age 12, I was writing songs. In ninth grade, they picked me as the first-place winner of the talent show and I won a Bubbakoos gift card! Throughout the rest of high school though, I started to experience the first signs of “artist angst.” I would think to myself “well this is never going to become a career or anything so I’ll just stop,” which is so ridiculous to me because I was only a teenager. Some of my peers in school told me to start a music YouTube channel and I didn’t do it because I didn’t believe in myself. If I could go back and tell my younger self to just believe, I would have been capable of a lot more. It wasn’t until I started college at Monmouth University, that my songwriting started to flourish and I took things seriously. I recorded a demo EP called “For You,” with Matt Dubrow and Gabriel Sanderson. Then when I met my college partner, Max Wolf, we worked on turning that EP into a full-length debut album and retitled it “Diary of Dreams.” Unfortunately, it never came to fruition because we parted ways before finishing it, but both of us took measures to preserve what we made on hard drives and such, so it is one of my goals to release it in the future!
What motivates you to explore relationships and romance in your music? What is your creative process like when crafting a new song?
I have always really loved romance. From the time I was a child, I romanticized everything. Some stories I loved at a young age were Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid and as a teen, Twilight! My real-life relationships have always been a muse because I feel very deeply and writing is the way I express myself. The creative process can never be the same every time, but I like starting with a main idea or title and the rest will build itself up from there.
How does “I Just Wanna Be Your Lover Again” fit into the narrative of your EP and upcoming album?
The album is about losing my artistic identity, which the “Can’t Hide – EP,” cover tells the story of (Insert Cover Art if you’d like). Despite the EP and the full-length having different sounds, both still feel like Francesca Fuentes and that’s what is important. If I had to pick a set and play one song from each of my projects live, they would all still flow together because all of them are just representative of different versions of me at different times in my life.
What motivated you to embrace a pop style for this track? Do you plan to continue in this musical direction in the future?
While many of my songs in the past have had pop elements, this one, along with the other songs on the Can’t Hide – EP was more of an experiment; a break from my singer/songwriter vibe. The producer, Russell Hayden, was the one who pushed me to try more of a commercial pop sound. While I am happy I did, I won’t be doing it again for a while. What I have next is still pop, but incorporates rock elements.
The music video is pop culture-inspired—showcasing looks across many decades—how did you come up with this concept and how did you bring it to life?
I love pop culture and music history. I also have an astronomical passion for music videos. I wanted to combine all those ideas and the “I Just Wanna Be Your Lover Again,” Music Video is what we got. For me, something that is challenging about what I do is handling the pressure of turning myself into a “brand.” They say to build a brand is to stick to one thing, one look, one vibe. But that’s not me. I like to experiment with different looks and sounds and I got to do that with this music video because we borrowed looks from every decade (60’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s) which was fulfilling for me. Now it’s on MTV Spankin’ New!
What is your favorite scene or visual element from the music video?
Oh, my favorite scene is definitely at the end of the bridge when I go to apply my lip gloss and instead of seeing my reflection, I see my partner’s. It was so fun to shoot and to see my videographer work on the trick. I love this scene for its trippy, bold surprise, but also because it summarizes the whole video and the recurring theme of being afraid to dive back into love. It’s always scary to love someone so much and then one day you look in the mirror and you don’t even know who you are. You don’t see yourself. You see them because everything has become about them.
The music video features some of your real-life relationships—was it special for you to film alongside your loved ones?
I certainly enjoyed shooting alongside my boyfriend. While he’s not an artist, he’s in touch with music and I thought it was cool for him to see me in action since I am talking about it all the time. I also really respected him for getting in front of a camera despite feeling shy. It was also fun to shoot alongside my friends and sister in the bowling alley and my mom also assisted me with styling, so like most of my projects, it was a great experience where I got to have the people I care about so involved.
What Easter Eggs should viewers keep an eye out for in the music video?
There is the blonde angel in the bowling alley, future song titles hidden in the video, lyrical references and more. Thematic elements are there that many people obviously won’t get, but it’s cool to make people wonder like “Hm, I wonder why she put that there. I wonder what that means,” because that’s the point of art. Everyone can have their perception of it.
What should fans be on the lookout for next from Francesca Fuentes?
I have begun to prepare the plans for my full-length album. January focused on social media content, February was all video release stuff and March was press month. So now that we’re moving into April, I am starting to think about how we are going to execute this album release while looking for live shows to play!
You can watch the music video for ‘I Just Wanna Be Your Lover Again’ below, and find out more about Francesca Fuentes and her music online via her Linktree, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Spotify.
