I’m Not A Blonde: "Our music is where our two worlds meet and become one"
- Editorial Staff
- Feb 11
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 12
I’m Not A Blonde is the Italian-American duo redefining electro-art-pop in Milan. Chiara Castello and Camilla Benedini blend ’80s beats and synths with ’90s brit-punk guitars and melodies to create a unique musical universe. Their sound reflects two complementary personalities: Camilla, an architect with a sleek, precise style, and Chiara, a visual artist who loves a touch of creative chaos. Their songs and live shows balance humor and melancholy, minimalism and art-pop, digital and analog, lightness and depth. I’m Not A Blonde is more than music—it’s a journey through sound and vision, seeking harmony between order and disorder, heart and mind.
In your new single "To Fall", how does the balance between your two very different personalities—Camilla’s structured approach and Chiara’s more artistic and chaotic style—come through?
( Camilla )
I think To Fall is a good example of how our two personalities come together.
The song started from an arpeggiator sound that really fascinated me, a digital, synthetic instrument with an almost mathematical, minimalist quality. From that initial idea, the harmonic progression and the overall structure of the track took shape, with the other instruments added later. The arrangement remains emotionally restrained throughout, maintaining a melancholic atmosphere.
Chiara’s voice and songwriting came next, adding a melodic line and an interpretation that brought out the more dramatic side of the song. The choice to process the vocals with a pitch effect, which alters the tonal height of the recorded voice, further emphasizes this dramatic dimension.
Your music blends influences from the ’80s and ’90s with contemporary elements. Which artists or sounds from those decades inspired you the most for this project?
That’s a difficult question, because we are both avid music listeners and we carry many different influences with us. These references have stayed in our ears over time, but we’ve managed to rework them in a very personal way.
During those years, we were listening to very different kinds of music: in the ’80s there was synth-pop alongside American pop rock, while the ’90s saw both the grunge scene and the Bristol scene emerge. That period also brought forward very strong and powerful female figures such as PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Alanis Morissette, and Fiona Apple.
If we had to name a few artists from the ’80s who influenced us the most, we would definitely mention Kate Bush and Talking Heads for their art-pop approach, as well as The Cure for the darker, more melancholic side. As for the ’90s, I would cite Björk and Moloko, but there are certainly many others.
How does your creative process usually start? Do you begin with a melody, lyrics, or a beat, and how do you manage to balance your different artistic visions during songwriting?
There isn’t a fixed rule about how we write and how our songs are born, but the music definitely comes first and the words come later. Usually it can start from a synth, a guitar idea or an arpeggiator. Then, I work on improvisation and write a melody, and the lyrics come as the very last thing. Even though the words play a very important role within our songs, the writing process definitely starts more from the music side.
The balance between us develops gradually and moves back and forth between our personalities and our different views on music. This really reflects the way we write: a song might start from an idea by Camilla, then she passes it to me and I play with it. I usually end up dismantling it a bit, creating some disorder adding my own ideas and my vocal line. Then I give it back to her, and she brings it closer to her own perspective again. That’s how we create this ongoing dialogue between the two of us. And even though in other areas we might sometimes disagree, when it comes to music we always manage to find a balance that represents us both.
Your musical world embraces contrasts like humor vs. melancholy and minimalism vs. art-pop. Which of these opposites excites you the most to explore, and why?
Rather than a contrast between humor and melancholy, we would describe it as a balance between humor and madness. It is one of the aspects we enjoy exploring the most, perhaps because the line between the two can be very thin, like walking a tightrope and trying not to fall. Linking back to the previous question, artists such as Talking Heads and Kate Bush are true masters of this kind of balance.
In an increasingly digital music landscape, how do you maintain the mix between digital and analog sounds, and how important is the "live" aspect of your performances to you?
Our balance between digital and analog comes from the fact that we are musicians first and foremost. We write starting from voice, guitar, and piano. At the same time, we have a deep love for sound itself: the digital side, for us, works like a palette of colors, helping us paint an image by either enhancing it or softening it.
As for the performative aspect, it’s extremely important to us. It’s a unique opportunity to engage with our audience and understand what people see and feel through our music. We really love playing live, and we’ve done it a lot. I don’t think we could ever conceive of creating an album without also imagining it on stage, on tour, and out in the world with an audience. Last but not least, it’s a great opportunity to travel, meet people, and exchange experiences.
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