Yeah, look, let me explain. It’s a play on the classic icebreaker and team-building game, Two Truths & A Lie, where the person in the hot seat shares three sentences – two of which are true, obviously, and one of which is a lie – and the people playing have to figure out which is which. I wasn’t interested in having musicians lie to me, unsurprisingly, but what I was interested in was hearing some stories they’ve never really told journalists before. Stuff that doesn’t normally come up in an interview about their new record, or their upcoming headline run. Like the time they were 20, lost their passport in Belgium and illegally crossed the border. Or were playing their first gig and sharted on stage. You know, that kind of thing. Basically, this column is a safe place to give artists a chance to share stories about themselves, be it about their childhood, their fears, obsessions, life goals, whatever, and a place to share a story about a time a lie got away from them – when it was misconstrued, misunderstood, spun out of control like a yo-yo or became a beast they didn’t even recognise anymore. Don’t worry, everyone has one, or two, or five.
There’s no judgement here, just true stories.
I think I first came across Wafia when I heard Heartburn back in 2015, and absolutely fell in love with it. Its sparse, meditative beat and that voice! That sweet as sugar voice. She had this really vulnerable sound but at the same time, it sounded like a powerful force was driving it – like she had stories to tell. I caught her live at Groovin' The Moo in 2016 and I remember thinking how quiet, almost shy, she was between songs, and being fascinated by the juxtaposition of how her music actually packed a punch. Plus, it was really awesome seeing a fellow brown woman up on stage killing it to a packed tent. Our voices are rarely heard in the music industry so I thought, who better to sit down with for Two Truths & A Lie?
Truth
W: My first truth would be that… I used to be a wedding singer.
U: A wedding singer! Like Adam Sandler.
W: Yeah, like Adam Sandler. But like by myself with a guitar… in a corner at a wedding. And I got into it because, like, it was really good money and I had to pay for my record somehow and it was kind of how I paid for my first EP and I just wanted to be independent? Like, above all… I wanted to retain creative control. So the best way I knew how was to make my own money. But I never held a proper job and I wanted to do SOMETHING that if… I was doing it I didn’t feel completely unproductive towards my goal.
U: Yeah, like you’re honing your craft at the same time.
W: Yeah! So I was like, I’m gonna sing at weddings, because prior to that I was singing at cafés. But the cafés ended up becoming a vehicle for like, ways to get wedding work because they paid so well. And I— I HATED doing weddings though. It required so much driving and I didn’t have a car at the time, so my dad would like, pack up all my stuff and take me places! Set up for me, wait for me there.
U: Best roadie ever!
W: Right? I think sometimes he’s mad that he’s still not a part of it [laughs]. But, yeah! It was really cool, but I ended up overcharging people for performances? Just because I’d be like… ‘well, I really don’t wanna do this but if you pay me this exorbitant amount of money, I will do it!’ THINKING that they’d say no? But I think like, in the wedding business they’re used to things being overpriced?
U: Totally, yeah.
W: So I totally scammed a few. But… it’s okay.
U: But they’re laughing now because you’re like… on things!
W: Yeah! They get to say they like, helped me towards my career!
U: Like, ‘I gave Wafia her start at my wedding!’
W: I remember the first wedding I only got like $200 for – I think it all evened out, because I got $200 but then one wedding I was too shy to talk about prices with the bride? [laughs] So she like… didn’t pay me?
U: Oh my god!
W: And I was like… ‘wellll, screw this, I’m gonna hike up prices now!’
U: You need to send a bill.
W: Well, I was managing myself at the time, so it was really difficult for me to be like, ‘this is what I think my services are worth!’ Which is the struggle that EVERY artist goes through.
U: What kind of stuff would you sing?
W: Oh… you name it. I would take requests. I had to sing Coldplay…
U: A bit of Ed Sheeran?
W: Oh yeah, what you’d imagine a girl with a guitar to sing at a wedding. That was me. I was… doing it. But like, sometimes no one would listen to me so I’d sneak in a new song I’d been working on for myself. I was like, roadtesting original music at these weddings.
U: Cheekiest wedding singer ever.
W: Right? But I would get — like, naturally I’m such an anxious person — and they’d always be like… you can imagine what a bride is like… they’re like, ‘at exactly THIS time, as I’m walking through these doors, I’ll have someone SIGNAL to you, and you start playing this song!’ and I’d just be sitting there SHAKING. And then like… I have to finish the song and what if they haven’t gone to their table yet… it was messy. But it was necessary, I put in the time!
U: When was the last one you did, like when did you stop doing them?
W: Oh god, um… 2013? 2014?
U: So you would’ve been young as well!
W: I was super young. I didn’t even have my license.
U: Of course, your dad drove you.
W: But like, I learnt so much about myself… I learnt to be… background music. [laughs] Which is not a great thing.
U: Well that made you realise, 'I DON’T wanna be background music'!
W: [laughs] Pretty much! I mean, yeah, but I got to learn how people responded to stuff and I could read people’s vibes and all of that. It was a learning curve! I wouldn’t change it for anything.
U: Did you see any really crazy, lush $100,000 weddings?
W: Once you do one, you realise that everyone thinks they’ve got this crazy unique wedding… and they’re not. Maybe it’s like my demographic, but they’ve got a similar style dress, they’ve all booked out this room, somewhere in the countryside. And it’s kinda the same thing? But I’ve never been to a single wedding that I’ve ACTUALLY been invited to. I even had a friend, like an old make-up artist, who reached out and was like, ‘can you sing at my wedding?’ and I was like, really? This could’ve been my chance to be invited! So I just didn’t respond to the message. [laughs]
U: So you sang for like, 4-5 hours?
W: Yeah, until the DJ would take over.
U: And then you’d leave or? Did you get a meal?
W: They’d always offer! I would be like, ‘NO. That is so degrading, I don’t want to eat here!’
U: Not even from the lady that didn’t pay you?! You gotta take something from her!
W: No! But you know what, I met my best friend at that wedding! She was like, the bride’s cousin, and only just last week I was like, ‘you know what, your cousin never paid me!’ It was a good thing in the end. A lot of the brides and husbands still reach out to me occasionally, like, ‘so proud of you!’
Truth
W: Alright… the time I impersonated Lorde.
U: That’s right Lorde!
W: I am… Lorde. No, I’m not.
U: [in extremely South Park voice]….ya ya ya.
W: [laughs] I never saw South Park! But I did see that episode. But essentially, I was in Melbourne for some reason and I was on a very long train ride with a group of friends andddd… I recall that there were a lot of kids on the train because of a Justin Bieber concert that just ended. And at this time… Lorde was poppin’ andddd… my hair was curly. And EVERY single person I met was like, ‘oh my god, you look like Lorde’. And when you’re an artist like, doing your own thing, and someone just comes up and has this one, like… commonality, I guess, in terms of appearance, it’s like, this is not what I wanna be known for. Afterwards, I ended up straightening my hair a lot.
U: I’M NOT LORDE!
W: I’M NOT LORDE!
U: It’s like how every rock band with a female singer, everyone goes, ‘you sound like Hayley Williams from Paramore!’ and it’s like, ‘no I don’t! I’m just also a female?’
W: Exactly! Like, I just HAPPENED to have curly hair. And so I kind of got sick of it. And I was on this train with my friends, and this girl who’d just finished up at the concert turned around and looked at me and was like, ‘OH MY GOD. You look like Lorde.’ And I was like [whispers] ‘…yeah.’ And she was like, ‘ARE YOU LORDE? You must be Lorde!’ and Googled Lorde on her phone and convinced herself there was enough resemblance between us. And she’s like, ‘are you Lorde?’ And at this point, I’m like, ‘fuck it, yes.’ Anddd I ran with it! She was asking me all these questions, ‘can you sing?’
U: NO. I’m Lorde and I can’t sing.
W: [laughs] Yeah, and she’s like ‘prove it!’ Soooo… I started singing Royals. My friends ran with it with me! There was so much camaraderie between us in our group that night. And so they all started clicking and all that.
U: Did you put on, like, a Lorde voice?
W: Yeah, totally!
U: OH MY GOD, can you do it right now?
W: No!!!
U: Please!!!
W: Nooooo! It was so… unlike me. To ever do anything like that before. Even being an artist, I never put myself in the centre of attention but in that situation, I was sick of everyone!
U: Was she satisfied?
W: SHE WAS! She thought I was Lorde.
U: Did she get a photo with you?
W: She did. And for 30 minutes, I played Lorde. The carriage we were in as well, everyone was overhearing and whispering. When we got to the end of our line where our train stop was and… for some reason grab McDonald’s? And these group of girls came and they were like, ‘oh my god, I heard you were Lorde on the train.’ Do you mind if we grab a photo with you? And I’m like, ‘sure.’ They ended up sitting down and she walked away going, ‘I can’t believe I sat down with Lorde at a McDonald’s!’ [laughs] Poor girl.
U: Oh dear. I hope they see this, hearts tearing in two.
W: I hope they go through their photos and go, ‘yeah, this girl is not Lorde.’
U: Yeah, you know, because Lorde’s…
W + U: …white. [laughs]
U: Do you still get it though?
W: No, no. You know how Lorde disappeared for a while to work on her new record? I was like, ‘yes, curly hair.’
U: [laughs] It’s my TIME to shine!
W: Yeah! But it’s like my natural hair, I wanna wear that obviously. I don’t wanna have it straightened all the time. And I have a LOT of hair. I can’t straighten my own hair. If you see me with straightened hair, it’s because my mum did it for me.
U: You have the BEST team of roadies in your family ever! Does your sister do anything?
W: No, no, my younger sister plays violin, but she also builds robots?
U: That’s rad!
W: She’s also convinced she’s gonna… play netball professionally. And wants to become a barista. And we’re like, ‘okay, you’re gonna have to pick one.’ But she’s like, she thinks she should be in IT because there needs to be more brown women in IT.
U: She’s… not wrong!
W: The other one wants to be like, a museum curator.
U: I love that, I love how young people are like, ‘I wanna be an astronaut! And a singer! And also…’
W: It was cute when she was 8 but now she’s like, 13 and needs to buckle down and work.
U: [laughs] Like, get a grip, kid!
W: Yeah! Time to face the real world!
Lie
W: So… my mum always told me I was born in the Netherlands, like I was born in Groningen, and it’s true! I was! But my PASSPORT always said I was born in Damascus and I was convinced my mum lied to me. I could never figure out what her intentions were. But my passport— I was like, ‘this is a government issued document. It can’t be wrong.’
U: Otherwise we have bigger problems, MUM. [laughs]
W: So I went through my whole life telling people I was born in the Netherlands, then I’d have to pull out my passport and it’d say Damascus on it. Then one day, I sat my parents down, I was like, ‘Mum. You need to tell me the story.’ And apparently – and I felt really bad after this – our family was living in the Netherlands at the time and my mum wanted to visit her family and I was like only a couple months old? And she wanted to take me to Syria. At the time, I don’t know if it’s still the case… and my mum couldn’t travel with me. Like, my dad was from Iraq, so my birthright is an Iraqi nationality, not a Syrian nationality.
U: Right.
W: So my parents said on my passport that I was a Syrian so I could go in with mum and leave the country. As a child, you’re more likely to be nurtured over by your mum at that time, when you’re a couple months old, and so mum needed to do that to get me in. I didn’t realise that, so I was always really conflicted about where I was from and what my parents’ intentions were, but after they told me that I guess it made a lot more sense. I remember wanting to make sure, so I decided to call the Dutch embassy. OKAY, so, the other part of it is, when you’re born in the Netherlands you’re not given a birth certificate. It’s just logged into the system.
U: What! Really? They’re miles ahead.
W: Right? So this is in 1993, they didn’t give my parents a piece of paper. And that also made me skeptical, I was like, ‘...was I even born? Is everything alive?’ [laughs] So my mum was like, ‘no, no, you should contact them,’ so I had to go through alll these things, calling the Netherlands embassy and grabbing their details and sending over my stuff. But my passport is New Zealand-issued…
U: Me too!
W: Oh yay!
U: Kiwi sisters!
W: Yeah! So my citizenship is Kiwi so I had to go to the New Zealand embassy and be like, ‘listen, it sounds crazy, but hear me out. I waited six months and here’s my birth certificate from the Netherlands and can you please swap it over and give me a new passport that says my birthplace.’ ALSO, Trump was beginning to look a lot like a president.
U: Oh, so this is like, last year!
W: Yeah yeah yeah! Trump was talking about it and there were weird hostilities and I knew I was going to America for the first time and Syria was dealing with a lot of stuff and I just didn’t want to have it on my passport. Even though it’s something I’m proud of, it’s just something I didn’t want to be pulled aside, questioned over, for something I have no knowledge of. My parents just had to do what they did to survive at the time. I’m really glad I changed it in hindsight with the Muslim ban and everything like that, but yeah.
U: Did they question you about why it was wrong or anything like that?
W: No! New Zealand were super nice, they said they’d heard about this happening a couple times, just send us your birth certificate. And also, you don’t have control over what your parents do! And like, English is like my mum’s fifth language or something.
U: Wow!
W: Yeah, so you can’t like, hold that stuff against them, especially when the countries they come from are super chill. You can do whatever you want, there isn’t much bureaucracy. So I don’t hold that against them.
U: So what citizenships did you hold?
W: Growing up it was Dutch and New Zealand, but because I’ve been out of the Netherlands so long, they don’t give you the nationality anymore. It’s really sketch – like, all my love to the Netherlands and stuff but yeah, it’s not a birthright! I was born there and even still.
U: Weird.
W: I guess TECHNICALLY I’m an Iraqi through my dad, even though I’ve never been there. And New Zealand.
U: And you lived in New Zealand or?
W: Yes! All over the place. We did Wellington one point, Auckland, BUT the last place I remember the most vividly is Glenbrook, 20 minutes down from Auckland, it’s like this country town. They have like the oldest steam train!
U: How quaint!
W: Right? And my parents had a restaurant called Calendula Cottage and everything they fed people was growing on the land.
U: That’s so cool!
W: Yeah, it’s my fondest childhood memory.
Listen to Louis The Child’s Better Not featuring Wafia right here.
If you’re a musician and have some stories to share and some secrets to tell – be it hilarious or heartbreaking, humiliating or honourable – send us an email at twotruthscolumn@gmail.com.
We might be telling the whole world about the time you accidentally killed your brother’s pet snake and replaced it without anyone knowing in no time.
