renforshort: Writing Process & Latest Single "We’ll Make This Ok" with Travis Barker

Interview & Photos by: Orchee Sorker | June 6, 2022

Originally from Toronto, renforshort is a pop-indie vibe artist. At the Hangout Music Festival, she sits down to talk to Hazze Media about her songwriting process and collaboration with Travis Barker on latest single "We'll Make It Ok". She released her debut EP Teenage Angst in March 2020.

I had no idea you wrote “Moshpit”. I love that song. Do you usually begin with lyrics or melody for the song?

R: I definitely am a melody person first,. Then, I go to the lyrics. I kind of like to make fake words in my brain to the melody and then kind of fill in the blanks. For “Moshpit”, in the session, I was like, “this is what we have to write about because I'm really feeling this heavy today; so, let's get on this”.

Your latest single is “We’ll Make This Ok” with Travis Barker. What was it like working with him? What was the creative process behind the music video?

R: It was great. I got the song idea from a friend of mine, who's also an artist who I love very much. I was like, this is sick. It was more hyper poppy at the time. I just rewrote it to my style. I was in a session with Travis, and we were just like making a song. My producer, Jeff was like, “Yo, Travis can't play live drums on this. It needs to be ratified a little bit. He did a great job.”

For the music video, I definitely wanted it to be more like art. I feel like a lot of my music videos just tend to be very conceptual, and I wanted to try doing something with a little bit less story-based. It’s one of my favorites. It was so quick and easy to do. It ended up being great. Very, just like chill, easy, fun.