Anna Duboc Tells The Movie Couple Her New EP Feels Like a "Graduation" Into Her Twenties

Anna Duboc says her upcoming EP marks a real turning point in her life and career, arriving about a year after she graduated high school. Speaking with us, she described the project as a kind of graduation of its own, one that captures her growth as she moves out of her teenage years and into adulthood.

Anna Duboc says her upcoming EP feels like a graduation into adulthood

Asked how it has felt to work on the new album as she comes out of her teens, Duboc said, "It's been fun. It's actually one year after I graduated high school, so it kind of is like a graduation." She called the process "definitely just like a growth spurt" and said it has been enjoyable working with new people while figuring out where her artistry is headed.

Duboc described this project as "the launching point of who I am as an artist" and said she is excited to share it with fans. That framing sets the tone for how she talked about everything else in the conversation, from her sound to the themes running through the new songs.

Duboc explains her sound has evolved while her songwriting remains the throughline

When asked whether the EP represents a dramatically different sound or simply more developed songwriting, Duboc said it is the sound that has developed most, with her writing acting as the connective thread across her catalog. "My writing itself has definitely just developed with age and experience," she said, adding that she likes a lot of what she is doing now more than some of her earlier work, though she does not dislike her past material.

She said the production side, the style and what she likes hearing in the instrumental parts and vocal stacks, has changed the most. After some back and forth with the interviewer over the right word, Duboc landed on describing those elements as having been "compressed" or "mishmashed" into her current sound.

Working with new collaborators taught Duboc to adapt her workflow to each artist

Duboc explained that all of her collaborations have gone into her own music, which meant learning how to adapt her process to whatever a given collaborator prefers. She said everyone she works with has their own way of doing things, whether that is a specific way of thinking about a track or a specific way of writing. She mentioned that a recent collaborator nicknamed her habit of writing lyrics separately her "secret note."

She said some people she works with only want to build the track and have no interest in the lyrics beyond bouncing ideas around, while others want a full collaboration where every part of the song is worked on together. Her more typical setup involves working on the track and chords with a collaborator, reacting to what they play on guitar or bass, while she handles the lyrics, the concept of the song, and the melody herself.

Duboc said this range of collaborators has expanded her ability to work with others and has taught her to say when she wants to be more involved in the writing process itself. "It's just been a learning experience as to how to work with people who prefer doing different things," she said.

Duboc's writing process ranges from a stored "titles and song things" note to spontaneous studio inspiration

Asked whether inspiration usually starts with lyrics or melody, Duboc said it depends entirely on the day. She keeps a phone note called "titles and song things" that she has been filling for six years with lyrical ideas, phrases, and even single words that struck her, some of which she can no longer explain the origin of.

She said she usually goes into a session with a reference in mind, such as wanting to write something slow and melancholy or something upbeat and pop rock leaning. From there, if she does not already have a lyrical idea, she will pull one from her long-running note and build outward from it. Sometimes a session starts with a lyric and sometimes with a guitar lick, and she said there is no fixed order because it changes with the song and the day.

"Toxic" hides a confusing, bittersweet breakup story behind a sweet melody

Duboc said "Toxic" came together because she walked into the studio unsure whether she wanted to write something sadder and angrier or something happy, so the song landed in between. She said she is drawn to songs that sound sweet and upbeat on the surface but reveal something unsettling in the lyrics, joking about the reaction she wants: "like, what, like you shouldn't be in that relationship, what are you doing."

The song grew out of the line "Speak of the devil, you walk right in." Duboc was careful to say the relationship behind it was not straightforwardly bad. "The song reflects what I was feeling when I was in this relationship, which was I didn't know whether or not it was good for me," she said, explaining that on paper it looked great, but in reality the two of them simply could not give each other the love they needed.

She said she did not want to paint her former partner as a villain because he is a great person, and the confusion came from crying often without him doing anything wrong. She described the emotional whiplash the lyrics are built around, saying, "You don't speak my love language because you don't speak at all, but you hold and you care and you listen to me," summing up the song as a back and forth between devil and angel, good and bad.

Duboc said relistening to the track ahead of the interview pulled her right back into that relationship, to the point she had to stop and really sit with the lyrics again, asking herself whether the song's narrator had somehow lived her own experience.

Duboc's birthday show will feature new songs and a live music video shoot

Duboc's upcoming show falls two days before her twentieth birthday, a milestone she called "terrifying" while laughing it off. She said she plans to perform new songs for the audience and will actually be filming the music video for one of the new tracks that same day, meaning fans who come to the front of the crowd could end up appearing in the finished video.

She said she is excited to share around four new songs from the upcoming EP at the show, with the project itself expected to arrive sometime after.

Duboc says the EP is for anyone navigating a life transition

Asked what she would want to tell her audience about the EP, Duboc admitted she had not fully worked out an answer on the spot before settling on one. She said the project is aimed at anyone going through change, not just her own obvious transition from teenager to twenty year old heading into her second year of college.

She said the EP touches on transition broadly, including relationships, career worries, and uncertainty about where life is heading, and that she hopes it resonates with listeners going through any of those changes once it is released.

What do you think "Toxic" is really trying to say about a relationship that looks good on paper but does not work?