EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH FLORA CASH
SOUL MATES
MAKING A LIFE AND MUSIC THAT MATTERS From the outside looking in, Flora Cash is a Swedish–American pop duo consisting of Shpresa Lleshaj and Cole Randall. From the inside looking out, Shpresa and Cole believe ‘perspective’ is the duct tape holding sanity together. With their music, perspective is artistically presented in a way that explores our humanity a layer at a time right down to our core. Married with a mission to make a life and make music with authenticity and integrity, they are doing just that.
Allié: From connecting online to meeting in Minneapolis to marrying and living in Sweden, the story of Flora Cash began and continues with connecting through music. It was music that brought you together. When did you know that you wanted not only to make music together but to make a life together as well?
Shpresa: I think it really started to click for us that we wanted to make a life together after a few weeks of exchanging direct messages. It really didn’t take us long to realize we had so much in common and just a really strong connection in terms of how we think and what our values are.
Jack: I remember when I first shared, ‘You’re Somebody Else’ with Allié and she started crying before putting it on repeat for the next few days. That song, your music, is so honest. Is it ever difficult to get so personal? Or is that why you make the music that you do?
“…we’re writing and creating to express ourselves and make something we want to listen to and we try our best not to think too much about whether it’s too personal for someone else to hear or see.”
Shpresa: For us, music is something we do mostly just because we love doing it. And it’s intimately involved in the details of our lives. So it would actually be tough for us not to be so personal in our music. We write and make our projects from the principle that we’re writing and creating to express ourselves and make something we want to listen to and we try our best not to think too much about whether it’s too personal for someone else to hear or see. We do what we do and then at the very end of the process we just make that decision to let it go and let it live out in the world to be either appreciated or not.
15 AWARENOW / THE OUTSIDE EDITION
www.IamAwareNow.com