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Still Woozy at Coachella
Choosing songs that “get us there”
Planning a festival set, Still Woozy thinks like a fan. For Coachella he sifted through his catalog looking for tracks that feel instantaneous: “I know festival crowds and I know what I want to get out of the festival… they just want to have fun. I just want to have fun. We’re aligned in our goals.” That’s why the buoyant “Lava”—old to him, new to plenty in the crowd—earned a slot. The track, he says,
“feels immediate… like a summer day, which is kind of, you know, what—there’s perpetually summer in the desert.”
Walking the optimism tightrope
Woozy’s music lands breezy, but the feelings inside it are messier. “There’s always a lot of conflict in the songs themselves because the lyrics are darker and the songs are lighter,” he explains. Writing is “my therapy,” yet he refuses to leave listeners in a slump: “I don’t want to drain people of their energy… I want them to feel more replenished.”
That balance—heavy words, bright sonics—takes intention. He likens the process to laundering emotions:
“Everything gets mushed in and then pushed out.”
The goal is catharsis without the “net negative vibe-suck.”
Friction makes the art
Asked whether juxtaposition benefits creativity, he points to conflict as raw material.
“Friction creates interesting scenes and ideas… it’s almost unnatural to not have friction.”
Even a blank canvas can provoke tension; the point is having something to push against. For Woozy, threading real sadness through buoyant grooves supplies that spark.
DIY visuals, family style
If you’ve caught a tour poster or single sleeve, you’ve already seen Woozy’s closest collaborator: his wife.
“She just sits down and shits out amazing pieces of art,”
he laughs. The partnership started pre-record-deal, when he needed cover art for tracks he uploaded through DistroKid. Her work fit so naturally that it became the project’s visual backbone.
Music, parenthood, and finite energy
Life offstage is equal parts joy and logistics. Woozy’s 16-month-old son turned 1.5 “today,” and the singer calls fatherhood “by far the best thing I’ve ever done” even as it shrinks studio hours. Being self-employed means setting his own schedule—and wrestling with it: “Finding that balance… I’ve still not got it.” When the stress hits, one smile from his kid resets everything: “It’s heaven… the absolute remedy to existential feelings of self-hatred.”
Festival wanderings
Between sets Woozy caught a few acts—Arca’s stage presence stood out (“She looks awesome”). If he could hop on someone else’s stage unannounced, it would be The Marías: “I’m friends with those guys.”
The takeaway
Still Woozy doesn’t chase chart crowns or wall-to-wall hype; he’s chasing a feeling. Every track tries to bottle optimism without denying the darker thoughts that sparked it, turning personal therapy into a communal top-up. You leave lighter, but not empty. That’s the tightrope—and on a blazing desert afternoon, “Lava” proved he can run across it barefoot.
