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Indy Yelich's new single 'East Coast' is out now. Photo: Supplied / Indy Yelich
Indy Yelich is no stranger to heartbreak - in fact that's what has inspired her new single 'East Coast'.
"The song's really an ode to saying goodbye to something that no longer serves you," she tells Music 101.
The 25-year-old Kiwi is currently living in New York but goes to LA for studio sessions. And it's on the Pacific Coast Highway, sitting in the backseat of her friend's car that she realised that a on-and-off relationship was not healthy.
"I was just looking at my phone and I was having this text essay argument ... and I just at that moment - the sun was beautiful and the ocean - and I wasn't present there.
"I wanted to get my phone and throw it out the window and just never think of it again."
Yelich went to the studio the next day with half the song written.
"[The song] was just begging to come out."
When asked if she is now at peace with the relationship, she replies, "Absolutely not."
Indy Yelich Photo: Elinor Kry
Yelich believes sometimes there isn't peace at the end of a relationship especially if you spend years with someone you love deeply. Peace has to come from within yourself and the only thing that really helps is time, she says. It took at least six months before she realised that she actually loves waking up alone and sleeping in her own bed.
"Once the tragedy and the loss simmers down a bit, then there's space for positive feelings, but sadly you've just got to feel it.
"It's agony until one day it's not."
Sending songs to her sister Lorde
Yelich says she always loved performing, even as a young child. Her claim to fame in her primary school play was Ursula the sea witch in The Little Mermaid.
"I was a very loud child, I was definitely the loudest, very cheeky."
Yelich says that hasn't changed much, except that maybe she's a little more refined.
"As they said in my family group chat today, Indy is, as a kid, bouncing off the walls, bouncing off the chairs."
As to whether she ever collaborates with her sister Lorde, Yelich says they are pretty separate but she always sent her songs to her sister.
"Her opinion's really important to me."
Yelich also used Lorde's piano to teach herself how to play during Covid, by putting sticky tape with letters of the keys to familiarise herself.
Indy Yelich says her sister Lorde's opinions on her songs are "really important" to her. Photo: Supplied / Indy Yelich
She credits growing up in New Zealand as how she developed her voice. There was creativity "flowing out of the walls" in the environment where she was raised and still travels back to New Zealand once or twice a year for a few weeks at a time.
But home is New York, for now, where Yelich feels "a strong sense of self".
"It's a very walkable city, it's got a lot of character in ways I don't feel like a lot of cities do. I love the spontaneity, the change of seasons ... and honestly a lot of my Kiwi best friends live in New York as well."
And as for this weekend, you'll find her at a '70s dive bar, drinking a gin gimlet on the rocks, dancing with her girlfriends.
"I'm going to put on some really cute heels and honestly just relax, because I've worked really hard," she laughs.
Indy's break-up book list
* Ann Patchett - Tom Lake
* Caroline O'Donoghue - The Rachel Incident
* Dolly Alderton - Everything I Know About Love
* Madeline Lucas - Thirst for Salt (Indy says: Truly a stunning book)
* Nora Ephron - Heartburn (Indy says: Fabulous)
* Eve Babitz - Black Swans (Indy says: Short stories but loooved and so relatable, talks about a writer in her late 30s in LA in the 1980s)