Zemire fondly remembers growing up in a musical family. Her parents put her and her older sister in the Texas Girls Choir, and she later became a “marching band nerd” throughout high school and college.
During those years, Zemire remembers going to concerts with her sister, which cemented her love of live performance.
“She was really good at finding cool indie rock artists,” says Zemire, “and she took me to Austin City Limits a couple of times, and we went and saw a bunch of bands. We saw Ben Kweller and The Strokes, Keane and Muse and all these people that were big in the early 2000s. She was really the music expert, so she’d find it and then she'd feed it to me.”
Zemire's latest single, “Your Love Is Dangerous (Jeannie’s Song)” was years in the making. On the piano ballad, the singer channels her late friend, Jeannie, breathing new life into her poetry. The song began as an instrumental track, but after attending a Regina Spektor concert, Zemire felt inspired to write lyrics.
Jeannie was a friend of Zemire’s, whom she met through tennis. As she was battling colon cancer, Jeannie gave Zemire a book of her own poems and asked Zemire to turn them into songs.
I really had to do the work and try really hard to get this song out for her,” says Zemire, “and to honor her and to thank her for believing in me, and encouraging me, and giving me the gift of her lyrics. These were really personal, they were about her heartbreak and everything."
Around this time, Zemire had just begun taking voice lessons.
“My singing teacher, Tracey Holland, has been very helpful in taking my music to the next level,” says Zemire. “She was like, ‘OK, next, you need to find a producer so your songs can sound more professional, because you're just doing all your own producing at home.’”
Zemire loves adding elements to her music using Pro Tools, but she remembers using too many instrumental plug-ins in some of her early demos and was unable to hear her own voice.
She connected with New York City-based producer J Chris Griffin, who offered to produce “Your Love Is Dangerous” for her, but Zemire had a different idea.
A Voice That Lives On
“In the end, I said, ‘Well, I would really rather you teach me how to produce,’" Zemire recalls telling Griffin. “We started lessons for an hour every week. He would pull my song up on Pro Tools and tweak it, and then he'd be like, ‘OK, now this weekend, you have to go and re-record these vocals, because they're not going to work. And then you have to re-record this part, and to re-record the piano part,’ and then he re-recorded one of the guitar parts at the end of the song.”During her musical journey, Zemire has learned that it truly takes a village. But with help from friends and family, she’s found the courage to put herself out there.
The accompanying video for “Your Love Is Dangerous” is a homemade effort, shot with help from Zemire’s dad. The video pays tribute to Jeannie, who died in 2022, through scenes shot on the tennis court where she and Zemire used to play.
Zemire had reservations about releasing music, but the people around her have been supportive, especially as she navigates multiple components. Her music pages mark the first time Zemire has ever had social media of any kind — besides a temporary Facebook page she briefly had in college.
“My friends have been poking fun at me,” says Zemire. “They're sending me screenshots of tutorials, like how to make a reel and how to put something in my story, and I'm like, ‘Oh man.' But I'll get there.”
In the meantime, Zemire is taking a slow-burn approach to her production and release strategy. She is currently putting the finishing touches on her upcoming single, “FOMO,” which was inspired by her taking the leap and letting go of the inhibitions that kept her from making music.
“It's a little bit like my life story,” says Zemire, “because it's like, ‘You're too scared to really put yourself out there. You're not really doing much, and you need to finally live your life.’ You need to live before you die.”
