Avery Liu '25
Oct 4, 2024
Addie Heldman ‘25 recently dropped her long-anticipated EP (extended play). The drop included 4 original songs with full lyrics.
Heldman’s style of music blends pop and folk to create a unique sound. She counts among her influences Lorde and Billie Eilish as well as music from her childhood. She said, “I draw a lot of inspiration from the music I listened to growing up, like Fleetwood Mac, The Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones. A lot of Bluegrass, because my dad is super into that. So that sort of Bluegrass feel with my teenage girl pop self.”
Heldman described her creative process. “Sometimes I write songs about a feeling. Sometimes I write songs about an experience. Other times it's more like a vision I have, like an image that I can see in my head,” she said, “or it’s dreams, like I’ll wake up in the middle of the night all the time with a song lyric in my head.”
Only recently has she moved to make her music public. “I decided I wanted to take it to the next level because my songs were getting more serious.”
Heldman’s musical family members helped her take her compositions to a more professional place. “I’m really lucky to have such great support, like my sisters,” she said. “So luckily, I have a pretty creative family so my sister, who’s a director, helped me figure out how to find a producer, and we went from there.”
She also described how they assisted her during her endeavor. “Both my sisters are really talented musicians, my sister Lillith really helped me with the harmonies. She didn’t sing in any of the songs with me but she would stand in the booth pointing up or down for how high or low I should go which was super helpful.”
The grueling process of recording the songs involved dedication and hard work. “It was tough,” Heldman said, “It was a four-day recording process, at least 10 hours a day in the studio, singing, and singing, and singing, and playing guitar until my fingers were almost bleeding.”
The physical process wasn’t the only hurdle Heldman encountered. “I mean being vulnerable with people is tough.” She said, “I don’t want people to be, you know, worried about me if they perceive a song in a way that makes me seem a certain way. But I think being vulnerable is good and bad for me.”
To those listening to her songs, Heldman has a message. “I want my listeners to know that it's for them,” Heldman said. “It’s for people to feel seen because we're living in sort of a tough time right now where the world is feeling pretty complicated. I want to express my unique experiences and then have people feel seen and validated and that's my goal for my songs.”
Emphasizing the support system around her, Heldman said, “My parents have always been big inspirations for me, and given me such good [a] good taste in music, and my friends for streaming the songs over and over again. So that’s great and I’m lucky to have them all.”
Heldman’s full songs are currently released on Bandcamp and she plans to release the songs in the near future once a week on other streaming platforms including Spotify.