Moy Cohen on "Overgrown," his Musical Journey, and Music Taste

Moy Cohen’s music is emotional, delicate, and wonderfully moving. The rising alt-pop artist recently released his debut EP Overgrown, which takes listeners on an emotional journey through poetic lyrics and heartbreaking compositions.

Last month, I had the pleasure of talking with him about his debut EP, his musical journey, and the songs he’s listening to; keep reading for more! Scroll to the bottom to watch the full interview and check out Cohen’s music!

Moy Cohen | photo by Ayla Jennings

The original interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Emma Zoe Polyak: Moy, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me!

Moy Cohen: Thank you for having me!

EZP: If I'm not mistaken, you're joining all the way from Australia. What has that been like – you grew up in Mexico and the UK, right?

MC: Yes, I was born in Mexico and lived there until I was around seven years old when I moved to England with my mom. I would go visit my dad for holidays and stuff in Mexico because he lived there so I kind of grew up between the two. And now I’m out in Australia because my girlfriend always wanted to live out here. After doing a bit of long distance, we decided to move together to see what it had to offer, and so far, so good! It's a great country, and I live 5 min from the beach, so I can't complain!

EZP: I want to talk about your debut EP Overgrown, which came out in August, that's a really big Milestone on a musical level but also on a personal level, what have some of your

feelings been surrounding that?

MC: Oh, it's a feeling of absolute relief and excitement! But at the same time, I really have been holding on to these songs for the longest time. It’s been around seven years since I first entered the studio to record them, so now that they're out it feels great but it's also a huge weight off my chest because the songs are about things which are really personal to me, and I draw a lot from personal experiences. Just the act of releasing them into the world is also an act of letting go that's been really cathartic.

EZP: I can imagine! You mentioned that they've been in the works for seven years – how much have they changed since their inception, if at all, or has it just been a matter of adding more songs to the collection over time?

MC: They’ve been in the works recording-wise for the last seven years, although I wrote some of them before that, but we tried to keep them as close to their original feeling as possible. It’s my introduction to the world as an artist so we didn't want to overproduce anything, because the songs talk about really raw emotions of an adolescent growing up and making sense of the world, so it made sense to kind of keep the production along that same vein.

One of the reasons that they took so long to record was because I was recording them when I went to Mexico on holidays. I'd go back to England and live with the songs for a bit but naturally at that age, my voice would completely change, and I'd go back and I wouldn't be able to sing in the key that it was recorded before. But overall we did try to keep them as close to the originals as possible.

EZP: The rawness and honesty really come across in the songs! Were they all recorded in Mexico?

MC: Yes, they were mostly recorded in Panoram Studios in Mexico. During the pandemic I bought a microphone and did some of the vocals and final touches in my bedroom in Manchester during lockdown in the freezing cold. This project has spanned across many years and many locations, so it's great that it's finally out there and I have so much stuff that I'm excited to work on now as well, but I'm also just excited that these songs are out for everyone to listen to.

EZP: What the writing process like? You mentioned that it did span a while, but what was it like taking certain moments in your life – maybe not the best moments in your life – and putting them into songs. Was that always your go-to outlet or did it evolve over the years?

MC: I started writing songs as a form of self-therapy; I was kind of making sense of all of the things that had happened in my family life, as well as all the emotions you have flying around when you’re a teenager. I think it’s important to have a creative outlet, so the creative journey of making these songs was a really natural one. I don't think they wrote themselves, but they did just flow out of me naturally, and I think that’s because a lot of my songwriting comes from personal experience.

Sometimes I sit down and try to write songs in different genres and that takes a bit more brain power because it's out of my comfort zone, but with this EP especially it was um it was a very natural process. I’d feel something I'd sit down with a piano or guitar and the lyrics would then come and the songs would flow out of me.

EZP: That definitely comes through in the final product! How long have you been playing the guitar or piano?

MC: My musical journey started when I was around five years old. My grandma is a cello teacher, so my older brother started playing the cello and the competitive younger brother that I was, I wanted to play it as well, so whenever he wasn't playing, I'd sit down and kind of try my best to make a sound come out of the instrument. When I moved to England, I properly started having lessons with my grandma and I went to school with a scholarship for the cello.

I always had an interest in other instruments, and it wasn't really until I was 13 that I fell out of love a little bit with the academic side of music. At the same time, I was listening to a lot of Ed Sheeran and Tom Odell, and I really enjoyed writing poetry, so writing songs and learning the piano seemed like the logical next step.

I began teaching myself the piano, and there was always a piano in my house because I have quite a musical family. So, it wasn’t like I suddenly sat down and decided to learn how to play the piano – I could do block chords – but I started writing songs when I was around 13.

At first, I was writing about what I thought songs should be about, and those songs, while necessary, they weren't great. As soon as I started channeling my personal experience in my writing, I think that’s when my songwriting took off and jumped to another level.

I didn't really start playing the guitar until I was 15 years old, and “Childhood Photographs” is actually the first song I ever wrote on the guitar. There's a personal story behind that song – the reason why it's so close to me is that when I was 15, I moved in with my grandparents

and my granddad got me a guitar as a present. Despite never having played before, I wrote childhood photographs in a couple of days just using two strings on the guitar, and it's one of my favorite songs still. I think it's still very simple you can hear the guitar part, but that's one of the things that makes it special.

EZP: Speaking of “Childhood Photographs,” I watched the garden session for that song and was wondering if playing it acoustically brought up any flashbacks to when you first wrote it. Do those memories creep into your performance at all, or is it kind of like you're in the now, you're playing it with the emotions you have in this moment?

MC: For sure! I think especially when I did that video, it was at a time when I was very raw emotionally, partly because I'd gone back home, and I recorded it in the garden which is outside the bedroom where I wrote that song when I was 15 years old. My room at my grandma's house was right at the back of the house near the garden, so I kind of always felt like I was living in the garden which was nice.

But sadly, one of the reasons I went back was because my granddad passed away, so I went back to say goodbye and to help my grandma organize stuff. I was going through a lot of emotions at the time, and I called my mate up who had a camera, and we decided to just record it in the garden. It was a very simple video, and all the audio is recorded on my phone, so it wasn’t anything crazy as far as videos go, but I think that's the thing that makes it so special: it's real and it came naturally just like the song.

EZP: I'm sorry to hear that. What a powerful moment in that song and in that story around the garden session.

You mentioned earlier that Tom Odell and Ed Sheeran were some of your Inspirations early on and they're both artists that I can definitely hear through your music, so I'm wondering what other musical or just creative influences you've had.

MC: I used to listen to a lot of Coldplay growing up, so that's one. My dad always used to put Coldplay on in the car, especially “Green Eyes.” I love Chris Martin's songwriting. I also listen to a lot of James Blake and Ben Howard and Nick Mulvey, I think those are some of my favorite artists.

EZP: That's actually the perfect segue into this next part. I'm always curious what the artists I listen to listen to, so I like to ask questions about your music taste.

First one is: What is the last song you listened to?

MC: The last song I listen to is “Flume” by Bon Iver.

EZP: If you could take three albums with you to a deserted island, what would those three albums be?

MC: That’s a difficult question, but I would take Blonde by Frank Ocean because it's a

great album. I'd also take of one the early Coldplay albums for nostalgia. And I’d also take a Beatles album – but one of the compilation albums that has all of their songs on it.

EZP: What is a controversial song pick that you have? It can be a song that you like but others tend to dislike or that you dislike but others tend to like.

MC: That's a tricky one [laughs]. I think my music taste is very much influenced by the people I’m around, so I like the same stuff as all of my mates. One thing that I listen to that some of my mates don’t is classical music – not that that’s necessarily controversial, but I do think that in many ways modern music can’t quite replicate the emotion that you can get from a full orchestra. I’d say that in particular, I’ve been listening to the Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E minor – I’ve got it here on my phone.

I kind of fell back in love with classical music when I went back to England. My grandad was a piano tuner and he’d often just sit in his workshop listening to some amazing pieces of music, so when planning his funeral with my grandma, we went on a journey of discovering what his favorite pieces were – his favorite pianists and singers.

EZP: I’ve also got a soft spot classical music, there’s something so timeless and soothing about it that other types of music can’t replicate.

MC: For sure. It has an ability to pull on my heartstrings in a way that other music can’t, and I’m always blown away that someone came up with it and arranged all of the instruments, it’s so intricate. Film scores are also amazing in their ability to tell stories without lyrics.

EZP: What is your favorite song of all time?

MC: “Famous Blue Raincoat” by Leonard Cohen. It’s a song that reminds me of my dad because he plays it a lot, and I used to not like it when I was a teenager, but then it grew on me and it’s an amazing song.