Name: Ariana Delawari
Occupation: Musician, director, actress, photographer
Nationality: Afghan-American
Recent release: Ariana Delawari's new album I Will Remember featuring Devendra Banhart, Farmer Dave Sher, and Miguel Attwood-Ferguson, is out via Manimal.

If you enjoyed this Ariana Delawari interview and would like to find out more about her work and current projects, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, twitter, Soundcloud, and TikTok.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Everything I create comes from my heart. I feel it first. If I have feelings about something it either comes to me through experiences I’ve had, images, music, or dreams. Sometimes these visions are personal, sometimes political, but often I mix the two. Actually, producing this album came from a dream I had. I was told in a dream that I was meant to produce the album myself.

Sometimes I’ll be writing a song about a particular person or situation and then I’ll connect it to something larger in the world. “Beyond the wall” is like that.



Part of the song was about loving someone and seeing myself in that person, the freedom that emerges from this, and then I connected breaking through my own personal fears to a world without walls and borders.

Other songs on the album are partly about mother earth in addition to being about my mom, like “Another Day.” I wrote that song the day before my mom had a heart attack.



It started as a song about Mother Earth and unconditional love of the earth’s offering to us all, then my mom died, so it morphed into a song about my mom ascending to heaven.

She died during a meteor shower and her name “Setara” means “star”, so the second half of that song is how I imagined her voyage through the meteor shower to a celestial dance party of ancestors and dead musicians she once loved to listen to. She was saying on her death bed, “They’re ready for me, the ceremony will begin soon,” so that’s where that comes from.

“Blood and the Fame” is about racism and colonialism in America, but it’s also about environmentalism and the earth. Because the two are so interwoven - colonization and imperialism have destroyed not only people and cultures, but also the land and wildlife.



“With You” is a love story in the middle of all of these massive changes we face on the planet.



“Voices” is about how shadow is as important as light is for us to grow. Waking up in the morning to my own personal doubts or the collective doubts of our shared societies, and having to work through them to create, or to love more, or to risk more each day.

Most of the songs are like this, moving between personal to political, moving between mother and mother earth, moving between personal and collective, and moving between dreams and reality.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a “visualisation” of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I start with an impulse or the beginning of an idea and I just flow with it. In terms of music, I always hear the music before I write the lyrics. Either through playing the music on an instrument or singing a capella first. Then the words start to come. Once I start to have a part or parts I can see what’s missing and keep building.

“Each Step” was like that, I wrote it a capella one morning, then I added a guitar part.



The "Intro" and "Outro" of my new album I Will Remember were recorded in one take on a synth. I woke up that day and knew my mom wouldn’t be here for very long. I recorded as I wrote that part.

When we took it into the studio I felt that the demo was best to use because I was in that real moment of loss, so we just layered bass, percussion, and vocals on the demo’d synth parts.



Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do “research” or create “early versions”?

Not really. I do cultivate my living/ working space to be very vibrant and colorful. It’s important that I have lots of windows and light, a breeze, nice mugs for my matcha and coffee, and nice work space or sitting space with my guitar. My physical environment really affects me psychologically and emotionally.

But sometimes I just wake up humming a tune or I’m driving and using voice memo to record a melody.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Not really. But on a perfect day I wake up, make celery juice, meditate, make matcha or coffee, write my gratitude list, work, then end of day I workout, burn incense, chant, and write.

Lighting during the day preferably bright natural light, lighting at night preferably dim lights and candles.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

To be honest with you, creating is very easy for me. It flows quickly, constantly, and effortlessly. The hardest part is that I have so many ideas and so many projects at once that I sometimes become anti social and avoid seeing people. I would rather be creating.

Another challenge for me is the business aspect of things. I am ok at it out of necessity, but I don’t enjoy it very much. I try to make it fun by getting nice stationary and stickers and nice organizing apps that look pretty lol.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

For me I wanna say what’s in my heart in a raw way that is as honest and as concise as possible.

From your experience, are there things you're doing differently than most or many other artists when it comes to writing music?

I just want to find the pure expression in each moment. I don’t think about it very much, I just make it as it flows.

Then I examine later in production. But even there I go with feelings and intuition not thinking.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I like to flow, I have no need to control. Then when I bring in musicians I communicate what it’s about and the vibe, then let them flow freely. Then I might give a note or two once we’re flowing.

I have specific visions, but I also love the way things emerge cosmically. I like mystery, probably too much. I could use more grounding practicality.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Yes all the time and I love it. I live for this. It’s exciting to me.

Everything is spiritual to me. I’m not a religious person, but I do live life with the intention of my spirit being at the helm more than my logic. My spirit and my heart.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Once it’s finished I get very detail oriented and I take my time to perfect everything. Like throughout editing, mixing and mastering. That’s when my more logical side comes in, though mixing is very intuitive to me, too.

I was part of the entire process as producer of this album, so I oversaw each detail of the edits and mixes. My talented friend Ben Hussey at Comp-ny (now Catwater Recording Studio) engineered the record - he recorded, edited, and mixed it. Be and I are almost always on the same page with what we like sound wise, so that was awesome.

In terms of mastering, I really just handed it over to Joe Bozzi at Bernie Grundman Mastering with full faith in his work. He is very good at what he does, and I was super happy with his take on everything.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Honestly, I went through so many losses as I was making this record. I recorded most of it before the big blow of Afghanistan falling, so you won’t hear much of that reaction in the album, but the fall of the country to the Taliban hit me really really hard as I was mixing and mastering.

Afghanistan is literally the cause of my entire life, and for the last 20 years I’ve been very vocal in standing against the Taliban’s brutal oppression of my people. Knowing that 40 million of my people are now under their control has been almost impossible to bear.

We finished mastering and I kind of fell apart. I spent some months healing from it all, and I thankfully literally just started feeling like myself again. I’m so happy to put this music out into the world and celebrate with people.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more “mundane” tasks?

I do drink coffee. But for me making chai or matcha is a very ritualistic and creative process.  

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time :

“Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist, to make living itself an art, that is the goal.” - Henry Miller