From Instagram: @eraste_
A country song plays over a small radio echoing sounds of soft instrumentals and laid-back crooner voices. The song is carried throughout a resting household filling up the quiet spaces in each room. Before it can make its way to all the rooms to awaken the sleeping household, the song fades out and another plays. Lively instruments introduce a new song that finally makes its way to the last room to awaken Ariha Nava-Hernandez. She immediately registers the distinct and rich Selena Quintanilla voice.
“Uno…Dos… Tres…Quatro…” the song bellows at Ariha further stirring her from a deep slumber. There is no drifting back to sleep as the honks in the song become harder to ignore.
La Carcacha continues playing as she finally gets up. It’s an easily recognizable song even at 7 in the morning for Ariha. She also recognizes that it is indeed Saturday morning. Selena Quintanilla being played loudly at 7 am on a Saturday could only mean one thing – her mom was already starting the weekend morning cleaning and everyone else who was sleeping would soon be helping out.
Although this was a routine part of Ariha’s life, it was not the only consistent activity that she participated in. Aside from leading a life of being a student, athlete, and devoted daughter who upheld her responsibilities regardless of losing sleep, Ariha had her own world in which she would be awakened by another kind of music more near and dear. Music that would awaken her emotional and personal journey, it was music that she created, wrote, and believed in. In this world, she was not Ariha rather she was Eraste.
Ariha – or commonly known for her stage name Eraste – was born in Spearmen, Texas, and is the youngest of 5. Although her first single, “break my own heart,” was released on October 2nd, 2020, Eraste had been writing, creating, and playing music before then.
“I feel like from a really young age [playing music] was something that I had a natural ability toward,” she says. “I started taking piano lessons when I was young and I hated it. I hated music in a formal sense. I found out I could play the piano by ear and I taught myself to play the guitar.”
At the same time that she learned how to play the guitar, she was leading the worship at her Christian church. This is how she got her start in interacting with music. She realized she could accompany herself and while she did like Christian music, in the back of her mind she always knew she wanted to be a pop star.
Back at home, she says there wasn’t much music in her household. Her parents didn’t “center” around music and would play whatever songs were on the Top 40 or Country Music Television – essentially the country version of MTV. Even when country music or any kind of music was playing, it wasn’t something that they experienced together. It functioned more as background music for cleaning on Saturdays or to fill the silence in car rides unless they were conversing. Music was something that Eraste had to “find on [her] own.”
“It was interesting to have this ability and passion and have it be misunderstood by all of them,” she says. “They were somewhat encouraging, there were two summers where I went to a songwriting camp. They would come to my piano recitals and they were other things in my life that they supported more like academics or sports. So it was supported but not understood. “
The country music played throughout the house was more traditional or was Tejano like the music of Selena Quintanilla. Both of Eraste’s parents are fluently bilingual and she is the only one in the house who does not speak Spanish. Any country artists that she listened to were mainly English-speaking women such as Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, and Taylor Swift whom she “loved from the very first CD.” However, country music has taken a back seat in regards to what styles she picked up along the way, it has become an indirect influence on her songwriting skills.
“What I was hearing over and over was the storytelling and vernacular of country music…
Eraste
“What I was hearing over and over was the storytelling and vernacular of country music,” she says. “Whenever I write now, I unintentionally structure my songs in the way country music is written. From the early time in my childhood where I couldn’t look up my own music on the computer, I was listening to country music. But I never was like ‘I’m going to be a country star.’ And [now] I can let those things bleed in if I want to.”
Eraste was never expected to lean towards Latino country music or be a Latina artist. She didn’t feel any pressure to follow in the footsteps of Texan artists. There was also no expectation that she would be in the Christian genre despite being from a bible-belt state where some music was littered with what she describes as a “jesus-y type beat.”
“I was on the outskirts all the time with where I grew up.” she says.” I was ostracized in more ways than one, for example, being a woman, a person of color, and being queer are not necessarily what you would [label] as a Texas artist. I think all these expectations for country musicians in Texas have made me rebel against [the norms]. I think people in Texas find great community in my music because I make it a safe space.”
While country music would only impact her songwriting abilities, the pop sounds she heard as a child served as direct influences to her music.
“I was listening to what my sisters were listening to at the time,” she says, “I have three older sisters, so on the radio, it was Teenage Dream [playing], Kesha, and Rihanna. I feel like that really got me excited to do pop music.”
Despite these sounds being heard by way of her sisters, in her teenage years – formative years where one begins to develop their own tastes and styles – her last older sister went off to college. No longer were the echoes of her sister’s music heard throughout the hallway. Instead, she had to find music by herself, a rather “isolating” experience but common for her as she was always independent from a young age. She even notes how she didn’t grow up with parents who listened to classic rock. She had to discover her musical tastes and learn to know what she liked.
As a teenager, she began listening to electro-pop and alternative pop music. At the same time, she consumed the 2014 Tumblr culture which at the time focused on coming-of-age content filled with teen-angst posts and a general sense of longing – an absent feeling that this internet culture could fill. Artists like Troye Sivan, Lana Del Rey, and Lorde were championed darlings of this virtual space and their sounds reflected what users felt.
After graduating high school she went to a Christian university in Dallas, Texas on a scholarship. But similar to the feelings she had when she was leading worship at church, she wanted to stray away from the Christian genre and make pop music.
Her EP, Crashing Every Party, was her first work in the pop genre where she tried her hand at different types of pop styles to see where she would “fit as an artist” and to make herself “as marketable as possible.” Before this EP, her music was more “singer-songwriter.” She transitioned back to this style after realizing that a full-blown pop genre is not where she saw herself as an authentic artist. She emphasizes that by singer-songwriter she means a style in which “you can say a lot of stuff without having to sift it down to be digestible.”
In her song WTGTDWM, it is a “super pop” song where she sings about missing her friends but also being okay without them. In comparison, “Habits,” while also having a pop sound has this Lorde-esque” quality as she uses multiple similies and hyperboles to describe the same theme.
Eraste now defines her sound as alternative pop as she combines country-like composition and pop sounds. She continues to follow the structure of country songwriting with storytelling in her songs but simply takes it one step further as she adds to the complexities of lyrics citing Lorde as a major influence. She is currently working on new music while also being recruited to write songs for others who are noticing her writing abilities and star-quality lyrics.
Eraste’s music will continue to explore themes of self-identity as she continues her musical journey and especially as she navigates her way through Texas, an environment that has not only impacted her song structure but content as well. This theme of self-identity specifically in Texas was deeply discussed in her song, “Forbidden love.”
“’Forbidden love’ is about my experience as a young queer person in Texas and how it was frowned upon. The expectation for Texan pride is this conservative and close-minded thing.”
She currently lives in Austin, a place she considers more open-minded and liberal. Although she has only lived there for six months, it has been a more liberating space for her to write her music and inspire others.
“I don’t identify with the Texan conservative mindset. [In my small town,] I couldn’t even have my first love and relationship with how forbidden it was. I didn’t fit in with that mindset. But finding music, making it a safe space for other people, and telling my own story is important. I feel a lot better about where I am now. I have the ability to be myself.”
Additional musical content:
(The first two tracks note her heavy Pop songs off her EP while the third track draws on her shift away from Pop.)
Linktree:
