Avery Cochrane’s Key To Success: “Shapeshifting on a Saturday Night”
Image via Instagram
Budding singer-songwriter Avery Cochrane recently gained heaps of attention on TikTok with her song “Shapeshifting On A Saturday Night”. Since then, her life has changed drastically, and she has made the move from her hometown Seattle to Los Angeles, California as opportunities have opened up. Her bright, energetic beats and contrasting introspective lyrics caught the attention of many, including labels and managers, and gave her the final push to pursue her dreams of becoming a pop star. Below she discusses her viral song and her transition from being a DIY indie artist to a signed artist.
Shapeshifting On A Saturday Night has been out for only a few months and is the most streamed of your songs. Was this something you anticipated?
Yes, it was, because it was one of the only songs I've ever posted that went viral for purely the Sonic content. I had a song go semi viral before it, but it was largely due to a lot of fabricated lies, or fabricated stories I would tell about the songs content. But yes, I was anticipating that because of how well it did on social media before I released it. And because of the pre-saves, which, like some people would argue that it's kind of a useless metric when determining a record success, but I had so many pre-saves that I was like, hell yeah, this is going to go triple platinum in somebody's house.
Can you tell us the story behind Shapeshifting?
I wrote it about so many different things. Like, there's not one story where I was like, yes. This is who I'm writing it about, this is what happened, and this is the story behind the songs. There's not one story, I feel like, is the concept of shape shifting, whether or not it's on a Saturday night, it's just something that I've been very prone to my entire life, pretending to be something or somebody that I'm not in all different kinds of situations, like going to a large party school, state school as kind of a on the fence semi-closeted queer woman and putting myself in a lot of heteronormative spaces, like frat parties. And just kind of having to shape-shift into what I assumed that assumed the correct way to behave and to show up in the world is, catering to the male gaze, I think that's a lot of ways I've neglected my own personality and shapeshifted in something. The song is mostly about myself, but it's also about my friends and how I watch them shapeshift over the years growing up or in early adulthood. And, yeah, it can start as early as, like, on the playground, you know, doing something contrary to your actual values, which, who even has values at six years old, but like, because you wanted to fit in. And the story is I have like a big notes app in my phone and I was just walking down the street once. I think I was walking to class and the sentence shapeshifting on a Saturday night came to me. I wrote it down, and then I turned it into a song a couple days or weeks later.
What has it been like working with a label for this past release?
It has been awesome to have a budget, and it's been awesome to be able to not have to work my grueling customer service jobs at all or as much. I haven't had to work for a month, which has been so helpful in just re-centering creatively. I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for a budget. I'm so grateful to have a small team that believes in me. I think a lot of people have different opinions when it comes to labels, but I truly think that's just, like, based on who you're assigned to. And what other projects the labels happen to be working on. Luckily for me, I am one of two signings on a joint venture label that started this year. I was the first release with the label, so my A&R is very focused on me in the project and really believes in the song and is dying on the hill of the song being a hit, whether or not that happens this year or in five years. So I feel really lucky to be at the label that I'm at beyond just financially. It's been really cool to get on some Spotify playlists too. That's never happened to me. And that one's definitely because we have a great person connected to the DSPs and playlist editors. Yeah, and I got to make the music video of my dreams, which I wouldn't have been able to do without the label.
So you've performed a couple of shows in LA. This past month. Are you hoping to do more of that or tour soon?
I would love to play more LA shows, especially a headline, all ages show. Because I feel like I've got a lot of listenership and I think my listeners range from 16 to 30 years old, and I've got a lot of listeners in L.A. And I think that's like the general age range, just 16 to 30 years old. And so I would love to play an all ages show. I think that would probably likely coincide with whatever I release next, whether that's my single or EP or album. It would be super fun to plan a release show in LA.
Tour wise, I've been like, I don't have any plans to tour yet. I think I'm holding out for a big opportunity to go on a support tour, opening for a bigger artist, rather than trying to plan a headline tour, because I'm just not in the space where I can afford a headline tour. And I want to make sure I have a bigger fanbase before I put so much investment into a headline tour, but I would love to be taken on tour by a bigger artist. I think that's kind of what I'm holding out for.
How has your life changed for you in the past year in your pursuit of a music career?
It's changed a lot, and I am so busy right now and I'm always freaking out on a daily basis, especially for the last week, because I'm just running around from session to session or meeting meeting to meeting or show to show. And I'm having a very hard time managing everything and responding to everyone and getting back to my comments or DMs or emails and I get really stressed out, but then I always have to remind myself that these are all really good problems to have and problems that myself a year ago with less than a thousand monthly listeners would have died to have.
A year ago, I was living at home and working really 40 plus hour work weeks at multiple jobs and trying to pursue music on the side posting on TikTok, how my hands were going to fall off and I still am doing that, I'm still posting on the internet everyday. But I feel like if I could have told myself a year ago that in a year I would have 200,000 listeners on Spotify and a label backing me and I would be basically moved to LA, I think I would tell you to shut up. And I would say, stop hurting my feelings. So it's actually really cool. I think it's changed a lot, and I'm excited for it to keep changing.
What can we expect from you in the future, what are you working on right now?
Right now, I'm currently working on writing as much as I can. I'm very new to the sessions and cowriting. I'm used to just writing all the songs by myself and then taking them to the studio , which was always a lengthy and expensive process for me. So now that I have access to these sessions down here in LA where I can co-write and make demos every day. I'm just kind of making as much music as I possibly can. And by the end of the year, I'll have like the 10 to 15 songs that I know I want to release on my first album or, you know, the next couple singles before the album comes out, but I'm just like trying to stockpile on as much music and like really develop as I can and like really develop the artist message and the artist project and the branding of it all too. I think I'm just like, in my winter arc right now. I'm about to, like, just lock in for the next few months so I can hit 2026 really hard with releases.
