Yeule on the Music They Want to Soundtrack Their Funeral

Existential Playlist is an interview series where artists tell us about the music they want played at their own memorial service, delving into some of life’s biggest questions along the way. (Note: The following article discusses suicidal ideation and substance use disorder.)

Yeule is sitting in the middle of a dim, blood-splattered corridor, nonchalantly chewing a stick of gum. Their grim virtual background for our video call is sourced from the horror game series Silent Hill, one of many inspirations that inform their wonderfully diabolical creative universe. That elegant hellscape expands in ambitious new directions in the music, artwork, and videos for their new album, Evangelic Girl Is a Gun. Across the record’s visuals, the Singapore-raised, Los Angeles-based artist stars as several gothic, weapon-wielding heroes and villains, all soundtracked by songs that flit between trip-hop, electro-pop, and alt-rock. In an era where every musician seems to be “worldbuilding,” Yeule actually gets the job done, bringing you deep into their anime-addled brain with every eye-exploding look and ear-piercing hook.

Death is always lurking around the corner in Yeule’s work. Sometimes they treat the topic drolly, like a gamer racking up quick kills; sometimes it can feel deeply mournful. The same dynamic plays out in our conversation about the songs they would want played at their imagined funeral. On one hand, they are casual about their inevitable end. “Once I’m dead, I’m just dead,” they shrug. “I won’t be able to see it, so it’s whatever.” But when I ask about the meaning of death as it’s portrayed in their music and videos, they get more philosophical—and more personal.

“I’ve struggled with suicidal ideation and have had a hard time dealing with living,” they explain. “I had major depressive disorders when I was younger and I was unmedicated and didn’t know how to deal with those things, so it was a very sweet thought to have a memento mori. However, the representation of death that you see in all of my videos is not necessarily the common trope of glamorization. It could be something to do with rebirth, or killing a part of yourself, or a darkness that lurks underneath what you are. Metaphors of death and rot are very beautiful, because they signify how we have a time limit to our mortality, and that’s what makes living worthwhile.”

At 27, Yeule has already seen several friends pass away from drug overdoses, and they have struggled with addiction as well. There have been moments when they thought they might die. They recall one particularly dire instance when they were in such a state that they left a voicemail on their manager’s voicemail saying, “This is a password to my laptop. You will find a big hard drive on my table, it contains all of my archive of works, and you will find it on the cloud as well.” The manager was rightfully terrified, and Yeule apologized. “I’m really glad that I’m in a much better place now and that I can talk about it, because I feel like there’s a lot of people struggling with addiction who don’t feel seen enough.” 

When we talk in April, Yeule has been sober for 150 days. “I plan on keeping sober,” they say. “It’s a huge change in my life. Every day it gets easier.”

When considering what to pick for their Existential Playlist, Yeule thought back to when one of their best friends passed away when he was just 18. “He was queer, and his funeral was very much directed by his family, who didn’t really know him the way his friends knew him,” they recall. “We were all subdued, and I just remember thinking, Bitch, he would want this to be a party.” In that celebratory spirit, here are Yeule’s picks.

Hikaru Utada: “Automatic” (1998)

Yeule: I’ve loved Hikaru Utada since I was a kid. I heard her song “First Love”—which was so big in the 2000s—in the car when my mom played it on CD, and I was like, “Who is this? This is such a banger.” Then I heard her music on the soundtrack to this video game called Kingdom Hearts and I checked out her videos on ancient YouTube and MTV Asia. It’s very nostalgic for me. Very talented songwriter, incredible vocalist. She will always be a part of my teenage identity.

I was going to choose “First Love,” because it’s cheesy and romantic but also kind of swaggy. But I chose “Automatic” because of the lyrics. To me, it’s about someone who transforms this dark part of you without any effort—whatever problems you have disappear at the very thought of them. I feel like when you die, you’re no longer there physically, but whatever traces you’ve left on this planet—be it your art or your relationships—will make the history of you. That’s the imprint you leave behind.

Going into my late 20s, it’s weird, because I never thought I’d live over the age of 20. That’s a very morbid thing to say, but I really never expected to come this far. I feel like I’m stuck in my mentality from when I was 16 or 17; I’m still listening to music that was so pivotal to me at that time. Maybe that’s why my music is very inspired by that era, things I was introduced to at that age, or things that were playing on the radio then. That was also when I found out about trip-hop and Bristol culture and dark Britpop, just being exposed to a lot of really cool sounds and genres. I was always trying to look for new music to listen to at that age, like when you try and one-up that one friend in school, like, “Check out this song.”

I feel like playing something at your funeral is the ultimate “check out this song” opportunity.

It really is. I want to have a party and be sexy and mysterious at my funeral—everyone has to look hot and be cunts. [laughs]

What else might go down at a Yeule funeral?

If I were to just make something up right now, it would be an “if you know, you know”-type event at an NBA arena—it’s a Yeule funeral, but it’s also a battleground where people fight to death in the name of art. Or maybe it’s something dumb and reality TV-pilled, like: Two divas fighting to the death with machetes for some guy. Actually, no weapons—I want a fistfight. I want it to be really passionate and brutal, but also like a big party. Also, nobody really dies. Someone just wins or loses the guy. And he’s an anime guy, he’s not even real. He’s like a furry. I love furries. There’ll be a bunch of furries at my funeral. 

There will also be Kavari shirts that say, “I HEART TRANS DYKES,” and other cute little trinkets, like eel bone fragments. There’ll be an introvert corner, where people can just play LAN video games, and my royalties will be paying for the Wi-Fi. And then they will blast my bodily chemical structure into space across the andromeda. If quantum chips are way more advanced by then, maybe they could put my entire soul inside a chip. That would be cool—or it might be nightmarish. I’d be in the chip like, “Let me out!” 

I’m a very theatrical-type person, so I’m always thinking about the craziest thing that could happen. On tour, I wanted to have five dirt bikes suspended in the air and then I would come down on one of them like a princess. My manager’s like, “OK girl, you’re not Dua Lipa!” [laughs]

Abba: “Slipping Through My Fingers (Nightcore Remix)” (2022)

My mom is a huge Abba fan, so she used to bump the classics in the car all the time when I was young. Their songs hit a bit harder when you grow up and understand the lyrics more—especially this one. It reminds me of my mom; I feel like she’s the one singing it to me. If you play this in front of me, I will just start dissociating and crying.

How did you find this version?

I was listening to the original in my room with my friend Vasso, who’s the visual artist behind my album campaign, just editing photos and being cute gays. And then he told me to play this version, and we just sat there listening to it five times in a row. We got so emotional. That’s when it started to mean a lot more to me than the original version. I’m also really into nightcore because I just love things sped-up. And I love it when people give my songs a “slowed + plus reverb” remix. I’m like, “Heck yeah, just go ham.”

Tommy February6: “Lonely in Gorgeous” (2005)

This is the intro song to the anime Paradise Kiss, which is about kids going to fashion school and hanging out in the fashion scene. You don’t see a lot of that alternative representation, so it was pivotal for me. The illustrator [Ai Yazawa] is really cool—she was spearheading Japanese indie sleaze at the time, and her visuals were always so on-point. And I just want my funeral to have an anime opening song.

Brenda Lee: “Emotions” (1961)

Brenda Lee is a perfect throw-in to set the tone. I love the way she’s so emotionally driven in her vocalization, and “Emotions” is one of the most core songs for me as a songwriter. I love oldies. I love the Ronettes, Bernadette Carroll, Lesley Gore, the Mamas and the Papas, Dusty Springfield, Nancy Sinatra. When I’m getting ready or chilling at home, I’m either listening to oldies or really psychotic-sounding bossa nova. It’s like soundtracking my breakdown; it’s really funny to dissociate and see yourself having a psychosis to bossa nova. It just cheers me up.

I used to be the vocalist in a jazz band in high school. That was when I was like, OK, I think I can sing a little bit. I really loved how versatile jazz and blues vocals were. They hit really specific harmonic notes and very hard-to-find resolving notes. Amy Winehouse had a jazz background—R.I.P., love her, legendary. I used to have a big Back to Black poster of her in my room. She would also take a lot of inspiration from all these old-school styles in the way she presented her vocals. I am a big fan of contemporary female vocalists like Caroline Polacheck, who also has an opera background, and you can really hear it. And I love Adrianne Lenker and the way she goes really raw—she’s not afraid to sound ugly, and I think ugliness is a characteristic of really nice vocal styles in jazz music.

Lady Gaga: “Applause” (2013)

It would be really funny to make a lighthearted joke about being dead with this song, to be like, “OK, everybody clap for all of these achievements that they’ve done!” instead of crying. It’s like a play that has ended. Gaga really shaped and auteured the pop sound, and that’s why I really love her. And honestly, she gave me a will to live again with Mayhem. I’m a little monster, straight up.

Listening to this song again made me think about how artists can live—or die—by the applause they receive on stage, how that adoration can be its own addiction. How have you personally dealt with the strange life of a touring musician?

When I did my first real tour in 2022, it was so gut-wrenchingly, decapitatingly, incapacitatingly lonely. When the tour ended, I was still riding the adrenaline rush from the shows, so I would come back home to a major depressive episode. I would just be getting high and not doing shit. I did some research about the psychology behind performance and talked to my peers about it, and it is very normal for that to happen. I learned to always plan what’s gonna happen after the tour: Do I have things lined up? Do I have anyone on tour with me? Do I have a team? 

Now I have band members and a whole team of people I can relate to—people who are also creative instead of industry people. I’m not hating, but business people just think differently. We have to be the people who are on stage doing all these things over and over again, non-stop, like clockwork, like machines. It gets exhausting, but now it is much more bearable. I just make sure I always have my friends around me all the time. Everyone on my guest list is invited to the green room to just hang out. It’s a chill zone. That mentality has made me so much less uptight and serious, because, after all, a show should be fun. It should be doing what you love with people you love.