Q&A: Songdew Music Competition Winner – SAANVI – 1984

For those people who haven’t heard of you before, could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hi, I’m SAANVI. I’m an independent artist and songwriter. I’m always creating and always learning.

Who inspired you to get on stage and perform?

I think it was Niall Horan. I’d been to a few concerts before, but his was the first where I had a visceral feeling of wanting to be on the other side of the stage. He was just having so much fun up there, and I found it incredibly inspiring. I vividly remember calling my dad afterwards and telling him I wanted to do that one day.

I’d already spent years performing through gymnastics, and Nadia Comăneci and Shawn Johnson were huge inspirations of mine growing up. I used to memorize their floor routines, and everything, so performing had always been somewhere in my life.

What are some of the artists/albums that have stuck with you and inspired your sound?

Haha, everyone who asks me this has to hear the same answer: Radiohead. I’ve been deep in their music for the past few years, and I think it’s found its way into my songwriting in small ways. My music doesn’t necessarily sound like theirs, though. I don’t think I’ve really even found my sound yet. I’m still listening to a lot of different things and trying things out. I’m also very fond of albums and the artistic worlds they create. There are way too many albums I love to name them all, but Two Star & the Dream Police is a modern generational album to me. A Moon Shaped Pool, Hail to the Thief, Kid A, Melodrama, The White Album…I could keep going. And lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of trip-hop. Lol.

Where do you write your music? Are you someone who is always coming up with song ideas?

I’m always coming up with ideas in general. My mind is pretty much always running: I’ll hear someone say a certain word or phrase and suddenly I’ll have a whole song concept in my head. I’m constantly making voice memos, too. When I actually write music, though, I mostly just sit with an instrument and play. I follow whatever I’m feeling and see what happens. Maybe one time in a hundred, something really good comes out of it. And then, very rarely, I’ll reach some kind of flow state where the whole song is created at once. My songs This Way and 1984 were both like that. I wrote each of them in only like fifteen minutes. The songwriter’s dream.

Please tell us about the Songdew Music winning track, “1984”?

Honestly, the idea for 1984 came from a very silly school English assignment. In sophomore year, we had to read and analyze the first chapter of 1984 and come back to discuss its themes. While doing the homework, I couldn’t stop thinking about what an amazing song concept it would make: surveillance, authoritarian control, dystopia, all of it. I stored the idea away and didn’t think much of it for a while.

About six months later, some life event triggered a very dramatic SAANVI crying session, and I ended up sitting on my bathroom floor with my guitar, feeling like I was living in 1984. Lol. I remembered the song idea, and somehow, through the tears and anger and me mentally channelling Orwell, the entire song came out in about fifteen minutes. It was also my first song with a key change (yay). 

I was really set on making the production feel Orwellian, too. The novel famously begins with a clock striking thirteen, so I wanted a ticking clock at the beginning of the song. Factory sounds, helicopters, screams, screeches, and all these little details were woven into the production. Shoutout to Muheet (best producer ever) for bringing that world to life. When I wrote it, I was thinking about rebellion in my own life. When I released it this July, though, the song took on another meaning with the student protests happening in India. It’s a very meaningful song to me, and definitely my favorite one to perform live.

What has been your favourite experience as a musician?

I think my favorite part of being a musician is probably finding myself in the songs I write. A lot of the time, I’ll write something without really thinking about what I’m saying, and I won’t even understand it at first. Then days or months later, I’ll hear those lyrics again and suddenly realize they’re describing something I’ve been feeling or thinking about in my own life. And I’ll just sit there like, oh my god, I really wrote that without even knowing what I was talking about. 

I don’t think I process everything in my life consciously, so sometimes my subconscious gets there first and hands me the answer in a song. It’s a very strange way of getting to know yourself, but I don’t really get that experience anywhere else. I think that’s by far the most beautiful part of writing music for me.

Do you have any plans to release an EP or an album?

Yes lol. There is an album underway. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.

What is the most memorable place you have performed?

There are so many. One very memorable place is the Blue Lion Pub in Houston, where I used to play quite often. The people there and the whole environment were so encouraging, and it’s where a lot of really memorable moments happened for me. But last month I played a show in my parents’ hometown in Odisha, and that one was especially special because it was my first headline show in India. There was something really surreal about performing there, especially because everyone was so incredibly warm and supportive.

Here at Artistic Echoes, we are always on the lookout for new artists. Do you have any to recommend?

Oh God, there are too many. I really love Aliana White. Her songwriting is so good. I also recently discovered an artist called doggone, who I’ve been enjoying a lot. And I know he’s not exactly “new,” but Chaar Diwaari is just so cool. He’s doing so much of what I wish I could do creatively.

What plans do you have for the rest of the year?

Make that album, play more shows (very important), perform more. I need to do a backflip on stage before 2026 ends, so I’m getting there. Just get out there, gain experience, meet people, etc. Keep myself creatively busy, that’s a big one, always. I’m currently creating a website that I’m planning out by myself, and it’s a fairly large project, so I’m planning to launch that this year. Very excited. ◡̈︎

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