Today we’d like to introduce you to Sahara Grim.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in San Diego where I began learning guitar at eight years old and attended performing arts school from middle school until I graduated high school where I was also consistently involved in visual art, dance, and theatre. Outside of school, I was very active in the local jazz community and was writing a lot of my own music, performing at venues with my band. Naturally, I applied to various music programs for college and was fortunate to be admitted to my top choice school at UCLA for their Ethnomusicology and Jazz studies program where I focused on vocal jazz. During my time at UCLA, I began to develop my love and interest for world music. I began learning the Indian classical instrument called the sitar while I was there and was able to further connect with a side of myself culturally as well.
Simultaneously I was strengthening my abilities with jazz theory/technique and furthering my understanding of Jazz history. Having the jazz training and learning many non-western approaches to creating music significantly helped me in creating my own sound. While I am lucky to have a rich background in arts and culture, I have always been most passionate about writing my original music. During my time in college, I was regularly performing my music outside of school with my bandmates in various venues around LA where I was able to meet more people in the city to collaborate and work with. I was also living in a very funky space in Westwood known as the Tree House built by the famous architect John Lautner during those four years. This space was right in the center of frat row and anything went. While this was not an ideal living environment, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. I began curating house shows in my apartment where various amazing jazz fusion bands from all over LA came to play. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was cultivating a creative community and meeting a lot of new musicians who have become great friends.
During my wild years at the Tree House, I released my first album “Current of Being” in 2018 and at the end of 2019, I released my latest EP “Abstracted” which are both available to listen to on all streaming platforms. I recently graduated from UCLA and soon went to spend time in India and Japan where I stayed with family in both places for two months working on my projects from overseas. I was lucky to perform solo at some venues in Tokyo during my stay in Asia. And that brings us back to more recently when I moved back to LA to resume my current projects/collaborations, performing, teaching music to children, and practicing music therapy for the elderly. And boom the quarantine began changing all of our daily lives!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I would say a significant and important struggle for me along the way was finding my place in the vast world of music. It took me some time to discover what types of music were out there and what I was truly drawn to. I had a lot of exposure to music at a young age singing classical music in choirs, learning classic rock repertoire in my guitar lessons, and musical theatre at school, but I never had found a genre that best suited me. And popular culture was no help either. When we hear a pop song on the radio or watch a tv show like “American Idol” or “The Voice”, the voices we hear all tend to have this common “big” or “impressive” quality about them, I was not born with this type of voice and this was discouraging since that was my impression of what I had to be in order to be a singer. I really did try to fit into this mold, but it never sounded the way I wanted to nor did I really love it either. I struggled with feeling incapable and hopeless since it really came down to what I was able to do physically. This was confusing for me being passionate about music, but not understanding where I fit into it all.
However, I stuck with it because something deeper in me knew this is what I came here to do. I was blessed to take private music lessons consistently since a young age and by the time I was around fourteen, my teachers took notice that there was something different sprouting that needed to be nurtured, and magically, they followed their intuition and gave me exactly what I needed next in my musical journey. Being so young, I had never realized my vocal teacher and guitar teacher were both primarily jazz musicians with a great background in the genre. The moment I was introduced to Bossa Nova, everything made sense, my life in music had completely changed in the most positive way. Bossa Nova was the beginning of a beautiful exploration into all of other genres within jazz. And the introduction to more complex chords provided a whole new way of exploring songwriting as well and from there, I was able to start creating a sound for myself that felt completely right and unique to my experience. I was finally free to sound like me and this was very exciting.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
My original music is a sonic representation of my life experiences often pertaining to topics of personal challenges & growth, spirituality, and nature. I would say my music is best known for having an ethereal, whimsical quality that is skillfully brought to life through many influences such as jazz, neo-soul, folk, and even rock, becoming one new genre entirely of its own. I also draw from my roots in India and Japan that make me who I am and are also a big influence in my world music inspired sound and visual aesthetic. I like to think of my music as an extension of my mixed identity, bringing many elements together as one. I often perform both solo and with a six-piece band depending on the setting of the gig. The most special show I have had the opportunity to play with my band was last Spring at UCLA’s Royce Hall where I opened for the indie rock band The Marías.
Something I love about my band’s sound is that we are at the coming together of many influences that are unique to each of our musical backgrounds and we are simultaneously moving forward with a common understanding of this new sound we have created together. It’s proven to be a very special journey as we continue in this vision, learning more with each project and show we play. I recently have begun branching out and have been experimenting with unique instrumentation for my compositions. I was lucky to film a video of my new song “Sea Foam” with just Harp, Alto Saxophone, and myself right before the quarantine began, the video is available to watch on YouTube. And on my latest EP, violin is featured on my song “Replenished”, played by the wonderful Anna Kouchnerov who has a strong background in middle eastern music and classical. This resulted in a beautiful, worldly, oceanic type of quality that I was very happy with and hope to incorporate more of in the future.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
You know, I do consider myself very lucky and I am very very grateful for the course my life has taken. It’s crazy to me that I was born in California when so much of my family is across the world and yet it’s also very assuring for me that I am exactly where I need to be. I do think it is something deeper than luck and more of a spiritual destiny. I say this because I have known I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was a little girl, there was something within me that began on this journey early on leading to everything that has happened for me now. When I began guitar lessons at eight years old, I met other young music students from my teacher, who eventually became my band members in high school, who are still my band members to this day also pursuing their own professional careers in music. Not to mention going to arts school where I was able to creatively nourish myself and focus on art everyday at school.
All of these blessings have worked together, leading up to this exact moment as I type this. It’s that feeling of deep knowing that all has flown the way it was intended to by something greater. It’s also crazy how small this specific music world I’m in actually is the more I’m in it and how everything begins to connect, I realized this especially once becoming a young adult. However, I also believe that none of this is linear. All my “luck” comes down to my participation with my own life. Things don’t just happen out of thin air. And definitely not without practice, passion, patience, putting in the work, discovery, you name it, the list goes on and there’s no one way to do it either… oh and it never ends as well, I’m always going to be learning. To put it short, I’ve received what I have put into it all. Ultimately, I have been blessed to have many guardian angels along the way and a strong sense of intuition I’ve been able to follow. I have been open and receptive to change and opportunities big and small.
Any challenges I have faced that may seem like bad luck in the moment have been necessary and transformative in bringing me to where I need to be and put my energy into next. When I have experienced “bad luck” I have let myself feel into it completely, crying a lot, watering, doing the work beneath the soil that no one sees so that the flower received the proper care to bloom in the end. I realize there is an initial luck I have and that is being born where I was. Especially after traveling so much I realize how truly lucky I am to be in my shoes at all, I often ask “why me?” That is why I feel this greater sense of responsibility to give back to all that has been given to me, to send love and strength to anyone I could have been. I do so by creating and sharing in hopes of providing sanctuary through sound. If I can help anyone to gain some understanding or spark joy, inspiration, nostalgia, etc. I have done my job. All I want is to take part in further creating the beauty that exists in this reality.
Contact Info:
- Website: saharagrimmusic.com
- Phone: 619-301-4667
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saharagrim/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saharagrimm/
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/43peMZ1PYsWPTG3baIFOx5?si=0KwPiHmzQhiVR3NCmEcruA
Image Credit:
Margaret Leyva, Mia Kayser, Cameron Lui, and Jimba Takumi
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