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Leilani Patao on Their Upcoming EP daisy, DIY Production and Making Music Outside the Algorithm

A conversation with Leilani Patao about her upcoming EP, her love for found sounds, the decision to leave streaming behind, and the ways memory, community, and independence shape her music.

By Chris RoditisMusicngear Lead Editor

Hawaiian-American artist Leilani Patao has never been one to play it safe. After self-releasing music as a teenager, putting out three full-length albums, and even performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, they now step into their label debut: the deeply personal EP daisy (out November 7 via Audio Antihero), a record named after their childhood dog.

In this interview, Leilani opens up about being an "Ableton stock warrior", what they learned from leaving musical theatre behind, how Daisy continues to echo through the EP, and why holding a CD or cassette might matter more than streaming numbers. We also talk about the biggest challenges they've faced as an artist, the importance of music blogs and local scenes, the fantastical dream lineup they'd put together if anything were possible, the directions they hope to explore next, and more.

Chris Roditis, Musicngear: "Cut" is out now on Bandcamp, with your own production and Nat Yew on guitar. Can you walk us through the specific gear or tools you used to shape that track, and was there one piece of gear that felt essential to its sound? 

I did a whole deep dive into the production of this song on my YouTube, but it truly is an Ableton song. A lot of the samples I used were Ableton stock samples that I warped and changed; all the plug-ins are Ableton stock, and I just feel most creative in Ableton. All of the guitars were recorded clean through a DI, and their effects are Ableton stock. I’ve become an Ableton stock warrior, truly.

I think the specific tool I used that really made the song come together is Ableton 12’s Slice to New Midi Track and Seed generation tools. With this tool, you can take a piece of audio and have Ableton slice it up into a MIDI track, and from there, chopping becomes infinitely easier. Then, in the piano roll view, you can select Generate, and then Seed, and Ableton generates a bare bones chop of the audio you just sliced up. From there, I tweak the chop to sound exactly like I want it, and then I Freeze and Flatten it, and it becomes audio again.

On “Cut,” I used this tool to make the guitar solo and the vocal chops in the dance break between the first chorus and verse 2!

Musicngear: You’ve described daisy as "a pure experiment" where your voice is buried, chopped, and reshaped. What unusual effects chains, plugins, or hardware tricks did you discover while making the EP? 

I’ve been a vocalist my whole life; my vocal style has felt like the one constant between all my projects, but while working on this EP, I wanted to see what it would be like if I wasn’t myself. What if my vocal wasn’t always our main focus? What if I was one step detached from myself?

And first I started messing with the pitch and tambre of my voice. I played a lot with the formant and attack speed of my auto-tune, so that I sounded lower and fuller, and that I was perfectly on pitch, almost to an unnerving degree. Then I messed with running my vocals through my guitar pedal. I play on an HX Stomp, and I ran my vocal through an overdrive into a chorus.

But using my pedal made the signal super noisy, so to make it cleaner in Ableton, I started using the Roar overdrive and then ran that into a really wide and moderately fast chorus. I found that the overdrive brought a warmth in my vocal I like to highlight, and the chorus tamed the harshness of the overdrive and brought some human-ness back into the vocal. And this chain really found its way into the whole EP!

And the chopping is just done by hand. I wish I had a plug-in that did it for me! A lot of the vocal chops I have on my EP are done by me deleting tiny bits of audio from the lead vocal track. So I’m open to recommendations here!

I already chose to not interact with a system and an industry that made me unhappy, and I could do it again.
 

Musicngear: Since your first self-release in 2021, you’ve put out three full-length albums and even performed on national television before arriving at this label debut. What were the biggest problems you had to overcome as an artist on that path, and what advice would you give to young artists facing the same walls today? 

I would tell a young artist to really listen to what you want. For a long time, as a performer and as a person, I didn’t even think to ask myself what I wanted. I was convinced that the only way to succeed was to do the things others told me I was good at.

A quick Google will show that I used to pursue a career in musical theatre. I was put in theatre from a very young age, and I think I never thought to ask myself if that was what I wanted to be doing; I just thought that, because I was pretty good at it, I should go for it. I’d been doing it for so long, and I liked performing, so I stayed.

Writing music was my little escape from performing other people’s songs. My first album, The Lovers Reversed, was something I did in between preparing for college auditions and a couple of high school productions I was in. And when I got to New York, and I realized that I wasn’t in the major that was right for me, I left the theatre world. And I think this transition made me realize that I’m in the driver’s seat. I could go out and get what I wanted, and I could listen to myself. And I think changing career paths after doing theatre for so long made the decision to take my music off of streaming more obvious to me.

I already chose to not interact with a system and an industry that made me unhappy, and I could do it again.

I want to be known, and I want to trust people with the things I have to say.

Musicngear: You’ve said you don’t want your story to live only on streaming services or social media. What are your practical goals for promoting this new era of your music (streams, press coverage, paid sales on Bandcamp, booking live shows, something else), and what strategies will you use to actually reach them? 

When I first decided to keep this release off of streaming, I wanted to test the industry I’d been learning and working in. I wanted to see if it was possible to cut out the systems that weren’t paying me, I wanted to stop making work for companies that didn’t align with my values, and I wanted to see if it was possible to get out of streaming before I’d even really properly entered. And I really sat down and thought about what I wanted from the music industry as a listener that I wasn’t getting. Like, I don’t even have a streaming subscription myself, I use a refurbished iPod from 2008, and I buy my music either in physical form, as CDs, or from Bandcamp. And I didn’t come up with this idea to ditch streaming, I found an entire online community who were doing the same, or were asking “what else is out there?” So I know there’s people who feel the same way I do. 

So I really asked myself what I would want as a listener, and what I want to do as an artist. And I realized that I liked experiencing my music. With my new collection of CDs and my already large collection of vinyl and cassettes, I knew that I love holding my music. I love reading the liner notes, learning what an artist puts into their releases. And I knew that I love live music. I love the small scene of artists in my life that I’ve grown close to, who I look up to and am growing alongside. So I plan to do a small run of physical copies of this EP. I’m burning my own CDs and assembling them all myself. I’m saving up to do a small run of cassettes, too. I’m putting together a zine of my writing to talk even more about what went into this release. I want people to be able to hold my work in their hands.

And I’ve got some shows in the works. There are so many people I want to work with, that I want to play on a bill with, that I want to keep performing. I want people to be able to hear this music in person. 

And I love doing interviews. I love talking about everything that goes on in my head. I want to do press, and I want people to get to know me. I want to be known, and I want to trust people with the things I have to say. I hope it all finds the people who want to listen. I know there’s people out there who would like this. So I guess my goal is to find those people and hope they see me. 

Musicngear: The EP is named after your childhood dog, Daisy. What’s a vivid memory of her that found its way into the making of this record, whether in a lyric, a vocal take, or even the way you approached recording? 

Daisy is in so much of the music, since a good portion of it was written after she passed. She was on my mind a lot. I mourned her in “branded.” The whole song is about going back to my childhood home for the first time after she’d passed. My parents kept all of her stuff. Her treats were still in the corner of the kitchen; they were just next to the last of her meds. Her leash was still on its hook by the door. And my father had gathered her favorite toys, her cement keepsake pawprint, and her ashes, and put them in a beautiful arrangement in our living room. It’s a beautiful tribute; she’s always gonna be in our living room with us, but the image haunted me. And so “branded” came out. And I wondered what it would be like to swap places, where she could be wrapped up in her life in New York, and I could hold the pain she had in her last days. This song opens the EP, and I think it’s the most experimental of the songs. I’m almost unintelligible saying these lyrics.

But she’s also in my music in sweet ways. Before she passed, I had my mom record her barking so I could sample it. And soon I wanted to put it in every song. And it is on this EP. Her low grumble is in the bridge of “BIRD WHISTLE”, her cheery bark is sprinkled throughout “Cut”, and my mother’s sweet voice she puts on when she spoke to Daisy, is in the build-up of “Red Hair Dye.” She’s always going to be in this music, and that feels really lovely to think about.

Musicngear: If you could headline one show anywhere in the world, on any stage, with any lineup, even fictional or from another era, what would it look like? No rules. 

That’s so hard, wow. I do think I’d have to make a lineup of artists that I’d just want to hang out with.

First off, I’d want to book the band Kalapana circa their 1975 era. I’d also try to get Elton John during either his Blue Moves era or his Bitch Is Back era. I’d also really love to be on a bill with Great Grandpa. There’s also an artist named Eli out in LA who I would kill to be on a bill with. I think she’s the future.

And I’m a MUNA superfan, so any imaginary show I have in my mind, they’re there. That’s kind of a lot of people, so I guess I’d put us all in a music festival. I’m a loyal All Things Go attendee; I’ve gone to that fest for the last three years, so it would be a dream to play it one day. So I’d put us all in a day at All Things Go, I think that’d be a crazy lineup. 

Musicngear: When you’re writing, have you ever used a totally non-musical sound or ritual that ended up becoming a core part of a song? Maybe even how “BIRD WHISTLE” got its shape? 

I’m really into found sounds. On my last album, But What If? I was really interested in how using natural sounds could create an atmosphere for a song. A friend of mine said it made my songs feel like memories. But with this project, I knew I wanted to use found sounds again, but to try sounds that weren’t so identifiable. Mostly because they sounded cool out of context, but also to bend the world around me in a bit that was a lot of fun to play around with.

And with “BIRD WHISTLE”, I knew I wanted unconventional percussion, and that I wanted the high texture of the song to feel almost bizarre. And I used to live with someone who would vape Geek Bars, and if you’ve ever been around a Geek Bar, you’ll know they make pretty wild, tiny mechanical sounds when you inhale. It’s like when electric cars back up and a beautiful synth chord rings out, but in the form of a vape. Or on the Indiana Jones ride, when you go through the tunnel where you’re driving through spears flying through the air. It’s a pretty crazy sound.

And so I got this roommate hitting their vape recorded, and I sampled the sounds into the percussion track of “BIRD WHISTLE.” It comes out sort of like the higher hi-hat sounds in the mix. Out of context, these samples sound at times like tape noise or like a shaker, but they just sound a little off, which worked out exactly like how I wanted. 

Musicngear: What are your thoughts on the value of music blog coverage today and where it's heading, especially with platforms that connect artists with bloggers and curators, like SubmitHub, Groover, Musosoup, and Wallstream?

I think blogs, zines, and independent music outlets are really cool ways to get your story out there, to talk about the things you’ve got going on, and to get to know new people who love music like you do. I work at my college’s radio station, WNYU, and from doing interviews and live sessions there, I know that it’s a great marketing tool and is a great way to get new people listening to your music, but I've also made some real friends through just talking about music with people.

I think music blogs will always have a place; people will always want to talk about the music they like. And while these tools do exist to get you in front of more curators and writers, I say you should go out and meet people who are writing about your scene. Get to know the writers in your circles, buy their zines, go to the shows they host! Join your local scene! You might find friends, collaborators, cool artists, anything. I’m always advocating for people to be friends with the people they’re in community with. 

Musicngear: Looking ahead after daisy, what directions do you hope to explore next, whether that’s new sounds, collaborations, or experiences outside the studio?

I think I'm excited to explore what ‘daisy’ has opened up for me. Through this EP, I really pushed my writing and my producing, and it’s already made me feel so much more confident in how I advocate for myself. I’m looking forward to getting to collaborate with some of the cool people I’ve met since making this EP. And I do think I’ll spend some time with my Hawaiian heritage, and maybe it’ll finally be the time I made a Hawaiian album!

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I’d like to make it real soon. But other than those thoughts, I don’t have much planned. But that’s exciting, I think. I’m letting life happen for a bit.

Connect with Leilani Patao
Instagram / TikTok / YouTube / Bandcamp / Spotify

About Chris Roditis

Chris Roditis has been an active musician since 1995 in various bands and projects across a variety of genres ranging from acoustic, electronic to nu metal, british rock and trip hop. He has extensive experience as a mixing engineer and producer and has built recording studios for most of the projects he has been involved with. His passion for music steered his entrepreneurial skills into founding MusicNGear in 2012.

Contact Chris Roditis at chrisroditis@musicngear.com

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