By Emily von Buttlar
Features Editor
Junior Gigi Panzarella releases her first song, ‘Bad,’ to express the importance of knowing your worth and an outlet for past friendships and relationships.
Panzarella has been singing since she was born since her mother, Tamara Walker is a recording artist. Her sister, Natalia Panzarella, is a recording artist, and she is in a band, Bahari, with Ruby Rosecarr.
“I was in a relationship for three years, but I always depended on him, and now that I know I don’t have to all the time, I think that’s powerful, especially for young women to understand that you don’t need to depend on someone,” Panzarella said. “We are more powerful than we think we are.”
Panzarella says that she started writing this song a year ago with the main message that you don’t need a boy to tell you you’re worth it. Although she didn’t expect to release it, she felt that her song has a powerful message that she wanted to sing about, according to Panzarella.
“I knew I wanted to [release] it once I finished it, and I realized that I liked the message it sent,” Panzarella said. “I decided [it] was going to be my first song since it was powerful to me.”
Panzarella wrote the song by herself, but she worked with musician Ashton Abram to create a rough draft of the song. Three months later, Panzarella met producer Andre Paxton through her sister, who helped her record the song. According to Panzarella, starting to work with Paxton was one of the best days of her life.
“I am always motivated by music, but I think when you write a song, you never finish it,” Panzarella said. “That was tricky for me, but [it] meant so much to me, and I think I was attracted to the lyrics too much. I never gave up on it, and that’s probably why it was my first song.”
Panzarella is currently writing her next song and hopes it is released soon. Her songs fall into the Indie/Pop genres, which are very different from what she was raised on as her mom sings Country music. She looks up to her sister for inspiration and Selena Gomez since their band, Bahari, went on tour with Gomez. According to Panzarella, her biggest songwriting inspiration is Phineas O’Connell.
“Selena Gomez was probably an artist I’ve looked up to forever,” Panzarella said. “Seeing her on stage was incredible, like the way she performs.”
Her music video is coming out this week. Videographer Jack Serkin has been helping Panzarella make and record her music video. Senior Madison Bonenfant helped Panzarella bring her ideas to life to represent her song by aiding Jack. Panzarella began shooting the video at the beginning of March along with her album cover.
“Meeting people through people is kind of how the business works, I think,” Panzarella said. “It’s a tough thing, but it’s also a really fun thing. It’s all about connections.”
The majority of the people she works with are her childhood friends or friends of them. Panzarella is also designing merchandise with her favorite lyric, ‘I needed you more than I needed myself.’ Although, she does not know if she is going to release it for people to purchase.
“It all happens so fast, and it was so fun, and they all always believed in me, which was really cool [that] I had my friends by my side,” Panzarella said.
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