“I’m good at feeling and feeling deep,” Becca Caffyn laments on her new song ‘Replacement Blonde.’ The sorrowful ballad is also the title track of her debut EP. We caught up with Becca to talk about her latest music, change and processing these feelings through songwriting.
Becca Caffyn is a singer-songwriter. Originally from Hamilton, she moved down to Ōtepoti in July to study here at Otago. She is currently majoring in music and minoring in criminology. The decision to become a musician occurred in Becca’s formative years. “I always knew I would do it at some point,” she shared. It was throughout high school that Becca started performing, first singing then picking up guitar, then writing her own material, all before she turned sixteen. “But,” she admitted, “I didn’t play anything to anyone until my last year of high school.” She spent her first year out of high school in the Parachute Music artist development programme, which only intakes around four musicians per year, honing her songwriting and studio skills.
“[It’s a] bit of a downer at times,” confessed Becca of her own music. “I tend to gravitate towards the sadder side of things.” Taking after the folk and indie genres, she primarily writes for guitar and occasionally keys. At just nineteen, Becca’s ability for keen and wise lyricism really does justice to the musicians who inspire her. “Right now, there’s a really great collection of female singer-songwriters who are just killing it. I love it,” she said, citing Phoebe Bridgers, Julia Jacklin, Lizzy McAlpine and Holly Humberstone as key influences.
‘The Replacement Blonde’ is Becca’s first EP and came out on September 23. Across the four tracks, Becca paints detailed vignettes of people and places, dipping into others’ perspectives as often as she lays out her own feelings. Her tender lyrics are set to intricate melodies on backdrops ranging from mellow to haunting. The songs were all written within a short period post high-school, when Becca had to simultaneously deal with a breakup while moving out of her family home. “I was figuring out how to do life in a different city and not living at home. Then, without a specific person,” she shares. Becca’s songwriting was an outlet that helped her cope with the transition. Jokingly but honestly she added that her friends were tired of hearing about the same person. “You just [have to] keep writing songs about it, get it out of your system.”
It was early in the breakup that Becca penned the title track ‘Replacement Blonde.’ She was alone in her room on a Friday night, observing the nightlife through the lens of Instagram. “I was thinking about him going out. Thinking ‘who is this person who’s going to take up the spot that I used to take up, in his life?’” Becca was blonde at the time, and knowing her ex had a thing for blondes led her to the idea of her replacement. “Who’s gonna be the new blonde?”
You can listen to Becca Caffyn’s EP, ’The Replacement Blonde,’ on major music streaming platforms. She has some release gigs in the works for when Uni kicks off next year and you can keep up with these by following her on socials (Insta: @beccacaffyn).