Ewy (they/them) is a queer, punk musician from North Yorkshire, writing Midwest Emo/Folk-punk music ‘for sad youths’. Their music often highlights themes of politics, love, gender & mental health.
Ewy first started writing music in 2018 and claims that the decision was spurred by their fixation on listening to Kurt Cobain’s demo recordings. Starting out by sending recordings to friends, Ewy eventually released their first EP ‘A Compilation of Songs I Wrote Late At Night’ on Bandcamp in October 2018. Today, Ewy has 50k monthly listeners on Spotify and growing each day. In Ewy’s words, music is their driving force; they believe that even if they had not found success as a musician, they’d still be writing songs regardless.
“Just as much as I do laundry, I make music” the young artist claimed, epitomising a true passion for their craft. However, being a Northern artist has its obstacles, as Ewy went on to describe. They observed how living in the South, particularly in London, lends you huge opportunistic advantages, and how this disadvantage is broadened by the limited funding for the arts in the North. Ewy’s response to this and their advice to other Northern artists is to use the internet to create your own opportunities for success, whether that be through posting a YouTube video of an original song or joining a Discord server to meet other artists.
Ewy’s most recent release, titled ‘r/g/b’, was a collaboration with two other small, queer artists – Sunny Day & Andie Schoen. Ewy’s single, titled ‘g’, featured two singles, ‘woollen mittens’ and ‘an ode to the bunny i killed near the a19’ and has amassed a staggering 190k streams since its release in December 2022. When asked about their motivations for the collaboration, Ewy stated that they had been wanting to work with both artists for some time, especially as they are usually very independent in their music creation. Like many other small musicians, Ewy is mostly a DIY artist, meaning they produce, mix and promote their music all by themselves. For this release, they mentioned that they enlisted the help of producer and friend Scott Clarke for the production of ‘woollen mittens’, but ‘an ode to the bunny’ was produced entirely by Ewy.
Since its release, the single has skyrocketed Ewy’s monthly listeners and ‘woollen mittens’ is currently at 174k streams on Spotify. Ewy describes that it was only through writing the confessional song they realised they are non-binary, with the viral lyric “No matter my identity I’ll always be viewed as a man” conveying a feeling that trans people all over the world have connected to and felt represented by.
Even before coming out, Ewy has always been involved in protecting and advocating for LGBTQ+ rights especially through their music; in February 2022, they released a highly anticipated single titled ‘terfs can suck my dick’ as a response to the transphobic tweets from JK Rowling. However, amongst this success, ‘woollen mittens’ has also faced discourse on the same platform it skyrocketed on; TikTok users are divided on who can use the song and whether it should be gatekept by transfeminine people. When addressing this, Ewy claimed that they believe any queer person should be able to listen to their music and relate to it in their own way. They don’t agree with gatekeeping music, however did note that the phenomenon reflects on a lack of transfeminine representation in music and similar media. “There aren’t many truly transfem songs out there, at least not as well known” Ewy explained, “I think a lot of the transfem people in my comments sections just wanted to hold onto something”.
On the topic of TikTok, we discussed the journey that Ewy has taken since joining the app to promote their music in 2021, leading them to accrue 81k followers on the platform. Ewy explained that before joining TikTok, they belonged to a small community of roughly 100 monthly listeners of which they were mostly acquainted with. After witnessing fellow indie band Bears In Trees’ success on the app, Ewy decided to give it a go and almost immediately skyrocketed to 1k monthly listeners after sharing their most recent album, World is Mine, with the app’s users. When asked if they would recommend the app as a marketing tool, Ewy stated that whilst they consider it to be worth the boost, especially for smaller artists struggling to gain recognition, but it’s not essential in building a loyal following.
When questioned about current projects, Ewy revealed that they are currently being commissioned to write a song for an upcoming PS1 style horror game, ‘10 Dead Doves’. Ewy explained that as the song is in the new metal genre, it’s proven to be a welcome challenge for them and inspired them to explore new ways of making music.
They will also be performing at the Santiago Bar in Leeds on the 26th February, for which tickets can be purchased through their Linktree.
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Keep up to date with what Ewy’s getting up to by following them on Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube, or listening to them on Bandcamp, Spotify or Apple Music.
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