Miya Folick Discusses Her Honest Indie Pop Ahead of Bluebird Concert

Miya Folick, who is more comfortable than most wearing her heart on her sleeve lyrically and musically, has some secrets, particularly when it comes to new material and her current creative process. Work on her next project has been underway since May, after the release of her sophomore album, Roach, but she's keeping details close to the chest.

“There’s something extremely exciting about secrets,” the L.A. indie-pop star says. “I’ve been extremely private about my creative process right now, so I’m going to continue to be private.

“I just noticed in the past when I’d include too many people in the creative process, it just deflated," she explains. "It’s like you poke all these holes in a balloon and it’s just not as exciting anymore.”

As an “oversharer by nature,” Folick says she’s discovering that there’s “something really precious and exciting about letting something be a little bit mysterious” — something that only those in her inner circle know about.

“Right now, what I’m investigating is, why do I share, and who does it serve? I think, obviously, I don’t exist as an island, so there are people I work with as a team, and there’s a certain amount of information that does need to be shared,” she adds. “But in terms of my ideas for what I want the next record to sound like and what I want it to be about, I’d like to give those ideas a gestation period. Part of what’s essential to that is a bit of isolation.”

She’s still figuring out exactly what needs to be done in order to let such ideas “grow into what they want to be before they’re exposed to other people’s input,” as she sees it. But maybe being a little tight-lipped runs in the family, as one of Folick’s new songs, “Mommy,” explains how her mother “keeps secrets like a ghost” when asked about her ancestry (Folick is half-Japanese and half-Russian).

While Folick is coy about what’s ahead, she’s more than clear about why she's private nowadays, explaining her thought process in such detail that it’d be hard for anyone to misunderstand. It's obvious that Folick doesn't mince words: She took a similar approach on Roach, which she previously told Westword is “more honest” and “straightforward.”

“I strangely don’t think about it that much,” she says of being so brutally honest, especially on Roach. “I think for me, the most engaging part of the music process is making music and making new music and making music with my friends and rehearsing. Then once I release it, I’m kind of like, ‘Okay, bye.’ I don’t really think about it that much.”

Playing the songs live is how she prefers to gauge how well they’re really doing. Folick will bring her act to Denver on Wednesday, September 27, at the Bluebird Theater, with opener Babebee.

“I love hearing from people who’ve connected with the music. It’s especially fun to play the songs live and to see people singing along and knowing the lyrics,” she says, adding that whenever someone has a song request at a concert, she does her best to incorporate it into the set.

While she won't discuss her next big project, Folick shares that she has been working on some acoustic versions of Roach songs that will come out this month, while the “live versions of all these songs are a bit more rock.”

“They get pretty loud. I love reimagining music for the live realm,” she says. “It’s just the way that my brain works.

“I’m a little bit like a product of this age or something,” Folick continues. “I’m constantly needing new stimulation, so I think playing the songs very differently than what’s on the album is partially just me needing new stimulation in order to remain interested.”

Folick and her band allow for fluidity at their concerts, not constraining their set lists. Part of that has to do with “paying attention to the vibe of the crowd,” she says.

“Sometimes I feel like in the set list we have a certain order that we decided upon, but it seems like the crowd is really digging these quieter songs that we’re doing, so it’s like, ‘Let’s maybe play one more quiet song, because it seems like people are liking this. Let’s stay here.’”

Sometimes, Folick might play a solo tune or add a couple of verses into a song, as she did with “Shortstop” during the L.A. Roach record-release show.

“I think that the looseness of it has to do more with letting the show be what that particular city on that particular night wants,” Folick concludes. “Intimacy is something that I’m interested in, especially in venues of these sizes.”

Miya Folick, 8 p.m. Wednesday, September 27, Bluebird Theater, 3317 East Colfax Avenue. Tickets are $20.