Following a string of viral singles, independent artist Anna Thompson has released her highly anticipated debut EP ‘Centerpiece.’
The 7 track pop project highlights Thompson’s signature confessional storytelling as she recounts first discovering lingering feelings for an ex and the subsequent reconnection.
We talked with the Seattle artist about how she got started in music, creating her EP, and more!
Excerpt from the podcast:
How does it feel to have your debut EP, ‘Centerpiece’ out in the world?
It is kind of a relief to finally have a project that’s completely mine because I wrote every single song on it myself. It just feels nice to have something with cohesion that people can listen to and hear it front to back, like a through line.
You released this all independently. What was that like?
It took a lot of research. I just really wanted to make sure that I was perfectly equipped to do this the way that I wanted to and iron out all of the kinks.
The initial problem was, who do I work with? I’m in Seattle and there’s not a whole lot of pop in Seattle. So it took me a while to really network and connect with the right people. Luckily I did, and I met an amazing team of producers and instrumentalists, and they were able to take the songs that are on my bedroom and turn them into amazing pop records that I loved.
Then the next step was the business side of things. Me and my dad spent a lot of time doing research on how we should distribute everything effectively and promote it effectively, and get it in the right people’s ears.
The lead single off this EP is your song “Dreams About Him.” What I’ve heard is that that song was the catalyst for the EP. Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you to write that song?
Yeah, absolutely! “Dreams About Him” is really the reason that all of this happened, it’s a huge catalyst to the way that my life is now, and that’s why that record means a lot to me.
I wrote it almost a year ago now. I was in a relationship with somebody and I wasn’t crazy happy with it. And you know, it kind of started to fizzle out and I started having dreams about my ex-boyfriend. I was really at a point of conflict because part of me kind of enjoyed these dreams and they were like an escape from my reality and to cope with the guilt that I felt, because obviously, you know, when you’re with somebody, you don’t want your subconscious mind to be showing you somebody else. I wrote “Dreams About Him” to kind of just like cope with the guilt that I was feeling.
A few days after I wrote that song, the person that I hadn’t spoken to in years, that I was having dreams about DM’d me on Instagram. I was absolutely floored and shook. I was like, ‘This is not happening. This is not real. Get out of my head. Like, what is this?’ And I, I deleted the DM. I was like, this is not helping my feelings.
Anyway, I continued to try and be as adults and communicative as possible, trying to make my relationship work, but it didn’t work out. And the dreams continued so I replied and then we met up and, you know, started off casual and then a bunch of events occurred and I wrote a song about a bunch of them. And then I was like, wow, this is a project here.
Hear the rest of our interview with Anna Thompson on our podcast!