BIBI XIA: How many instruments do you play and how do you determine what instrument goes with what song?
SOPHIA JAMES: Good question. I mean, I like to think of my voice as my first instrument, because it does require many hours of practice and learning and growing just like any other instrument. And I play piano and guitar. Though I’m always hesitant to say I’m a “guitarist” because there’s a certain caliber of expertise with it that I don’t feel I’ve reached. But I play just enough to communicate musically what I want to say with my own songs. So three, I guess. I used to play violin in elementary and middle school, but if I tried to touch a violin these days, it’d probably sound like a dying cat. 

As far as determining what instrument goes with what song…I wish it were more intentional, but it typically depends on what’s accessible to me at the moment. Lately, I’ve been writing a lot of guitar-centric songs because I’ve been traveling more and the guitar is simply the more portable instrument of the two I play. But when I’m home and have access to my keyboard, I’m often more inclined to write piano-driven songs because I’m more fluent on the keys. It really depends.

BX: Can you tell us how you selected the theme of this album?
SJ: I began this project in 2021 during my senior year of college when time seemed to be moving so quickly and nothing really made sense. The world was creeping its way out of a quarantine that felt like a time warp, I had just turned 22 and was coming to terms with what it means to be an adult, and I was still reckoning with fresh feelings of grief from the loss of my mother during my teenage years. I found myself writing more and more about time and how it works and what it means because it gave me some semblance of grounding during that hectic period. It was a topic that really fed my curiosity, so I chose to follow it. Before I knew it, I had a collection of songs that all revolved around time in one way or another, so it made sense to present them all together in one project.

BX: What was the inspiration behind “First Time Around”?
SJ: So there’s this quote by Thomas Edison that’s like, “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work”, in regard to his inventing the lightbulb. I often think about that quote with a lot of disdain and frustration because I feel like I don’t possess that kind of innate persistence. I have a lot of inconsistency when it comes to completing tasks and I have this general habit of giving up if I don’t succeed at something immediately. It affects everything in my life, down to the relationship that I reference at the end of the song. It was something I couldn’t bring myself to try and fix because I felt too ashamed that I wasn’t able to make it work the “First Time Around”. 

BX: Why did you choose “Clockwork” as the EP title and what is the song about?  
SJ: The EP title “Clockwork” is kind of a cheeky little double entendre: the word itself alludes to the repetitiveness of life, which is a common theme in the project, and the project itself is a work made up of stories about time. Lol. The title track “Clockwork” is a lesson on how to predict the future by paying close attention to life’s repetitive cycles. It applies to fashion trends, politics, emotional habits, and more.

BX: Speaking of time, what’s your favorite time of day? 
SJ: My favorite time of day is that fleeting moment between day and night right before it gets completely dark. All the strangest things happen during that time.