This live interview was originally broadcast on August 27, 2026 from the KALX studios in Berkeley, CA.
[song played]
DJ Zabardast: That is new music from runaway poet, who I have here with me in the studio. What’s up, runaway poet?
Asha: Hi.
Pippa: Hi.
DJ Zabardast: runaway poet is Asha and Pippa. They are both Berkeley High School students, sophomores at BHS. Is that right?
Asha and Pippa: Yep.
DJ Zabardast: We’re gonna hear a couple more of their songs and hear about their process here in a minute.
I wanna tell you what else you heard in that set real quick. Before that, we had a California artist, Jesca Hoop, with her album Long Way Home. We heard “Designer Citizen.” Before that, we had from Paris, France, Gabi Hartmann with “Mille Rivages.” Right before that, another California artist with new music, Hell Hound, with “Here In The Valley.” They recorded that up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
And then Norah Jones checked in before that with her classic hit, “The Long Day Is Over,” from Come Away With Me, her debut album on UMG Recordings. Started off that set with new music from Gabriella Smart; “Parasymbiosis 8” was the name of the track we heard. The album’s called Parasymbiosis.
And that gets you up to date right here on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. DJ Zabardast hanging out with runaway poet here in Berkeley, California. I was so excited to hear this album. You guys killed it on this. This is your debut album, right?
Asha: Yeah.
DJ Zabardast: Yeah. Okay. Well, I know that you guys didn’t start just with this album, so tell me a little bit about how you guys started making music together.
Asha: Well, we actually met because we were piano duet partners when we were five years old. So we’ve been making music together for 10 years.
DJ Zabardast: Wow, that’s awesome. How did you meet? You were in a piano class together or something?
Asha: Our teachers were friends, and they got us together.
DJ Zabardast: They were like, “Okay, you two need to know each other.” Nice.
Asha: And they were so right.
DJ Zabardast: So it’s been 10 years since you were five years old. When did you start writing music?
Asha: I actually wrote that track you just played, “slo-mo,” when I was 11 years old, and it was the first song I ever wrote.
DJ Zabardast: Wow.
Asha: So, yeah.
DJ Zabardast: So how did it come to you? I have an 11-year-old daughter, and I would love for her to write music. How did you start writing music?
Asha: I remember thinking when I was 11, I would listen to a lot of music and be like, “Everything here is about love, and I’m not sure how much I resonate with that at 11.” And so I was like, “What can I write about?” Because I love music, I love singing, I love playing music, and I need something that’s more relatable for me.
DJ Zabardast: Yeah. So what was the song about?
Asha: The song is really about growing up and kind of looking back and remembering how free of worries and expectations you can be when you’re younger.
DJ Zabardast: Yeah, okay. And then Pippa, have you also been writing music for that long, or…?
Pippa: No, I actually started writing music like nine months ago. My first song I wrote in December—that was “Snake.” Asha really inspired me to put more stuff out and put it on the album.
DJ Zabardast: In the next mic break, we’ll talk a little bit about how you made this album ’cause it’s really impressive for two 15-year-olds. But I’m wondering about your inspirations. What are the artists that inspired you before you started writing music?
Pippa: I was a classical musician, so a lot of my music really started in roots of classical music. But Asha’s a really big inspiration, and also Lucy Dacus.
DJ Zabardast: Okay, all right. Yeah. How about you, Asha?
Asha: I would add on, I think we both love boygenius and have listened to and played so much boygenius. We did so many covers before we started writing our originals. We did a lot of covers of boygenius. There’s this band called Saturn that we really like, and then just a lot of very different vibe songs. We did a really good cover of “Killing Me Softly.” It’s just been all over the place, but I would say we like that kind of indie-ish guitar, pretty simple sound.
DJ Zabardast: Yeah, and that’s kinda how you produced this album too. It’s like a simple, almost bedroom-style lo-fi sound.
Asha: It is, yeah.
DJ Zabardast: Well, it sounds great. Why don’t we hear another track from it? We have queued up here… Well, first, I gotta do a little station business. Let me play a quick promo for the Red Carpet Rollout, which is what we do when all the students come back to campus. We’ll play one of those, and then we’ll play another track from runaway poet’s new album. It’s called Girl in the Blue Dress. It’s out everywhere now. It just came out a few weeks ago from a local artist’s debut album, so check it out. We’ll play a couple more tracks, but first give a listen to this.
[promo break]
All right, back here in the studio with runaway poet. That’s Asha and Pippa, local artists who just put out their first album, Girl in the Blue Dress. We’re gonna hear another track right now, and we got “All the Stars” queued up. This might be my favorite track. I don’t know, it’s hard to pick one, but I like this track a lot. Tell me about it. Why’d you guys write this song?
Asha: I wrote this one because it was meant to be kind of a feature of our different instruments that we play. Pippa is an incredible flutist, and I play a lot of jazz piano, and we wanted to feature our other genres.
DJ Zabardast: Okay, here we go. Here’s a little jazzy tune from their new album, “All the Stars,” right here on KALX Berkeley.
[song played]
DJ Zabardast: That’s Runaway Poet with “All the Stars” off their new album, Girl in the Blue Dress. I’m here in studio with Runaway Poet. What’s up?
Asha: Hello.
Pippa: Hello.
DJ Zabardast: It’s Asha and Pippa. They are Berkeley High School students who just put out this awesome album. We were just talking off mic, and I was asking ’cause they both play multiple instruments. Pippa has a big part on this album because she’s playing three different instruments. So how did you learn all these instruments at 15 years old?
Pippa: It’s kind of a long story, but I started because my parents forced me to play classical piano at age three, and I hated it for years. So I sat down with my parents when I was nine or 10, and I was like, “I am quitting this. I’m done, and I’m moving on to another thing.” They wouldn’t let me not play music, which I’m super grateful for.
I started classical flute when I was nine years old, and six years later, I’m still playing it. Somewhere along that, I had a rebellious phase. I chopped off all my hair, dyed it purple and green, spray-painted my room, and insisted on playing electric bass and drums.
DJ Zabardast: And they were like, “Cool, as long as you’re playing music”?
Pippa: Yeah, but I had to keep playing flute. And then I sort of just started playing whatever interested me. I really started getting into guitar two years ago. I started playing a boygenius song over and over again—hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
DJ Zabardast: That’s how it works. To get it into memory, you just gotta get obsessed.
Pippa: Yeah. So I played guitar and kept playing stuff, and it’s been fun.
DJ Zabardast: Okay. Well, let’s talk a little bit about this album you guys just put out. That’s a pretty big leap to go from playing boygenius songs in your bedroom to putting out an album. So talk me through, Asha: how did this start, how’d you get the idea, and how’d you make it happen?
Asha: It feels like it started so long ago. We had been writing music for a bit, but a lot of the time it was just fun songs. Our producer, Max Cohen, is an incredible person and a great educator and teacher for both me and Pippa. He started off teaching us a little bit about production. We would go to his studio, discuss things, and he would help us write music.
Then it turned into recording demos every time we went over there. He showed us how to use Logic. After that, we had all these demos and asked, “What are we doing with them?”
DJ Zabardast: Yeah.
Asha: For a while, we thought we could release a couple, but then we realized we had 13 songs that we really loved. We asked Max, “Would you wanna help us release this music?” And he was like, “Obviously, I would love to.”
For the first week of summer this year, we went over to his studio and spent all day, every day—like six hours a day—singing, recording, mixing, and laying down tracks. It was the best experience of my life.
Pippa: That week was kind of difficult in general, but being there in the studio was so fun, easy, and amazing.
DJ Zabardast: You hear about this when bands make albums—that it naturally comes out of them because it has to be out in the world. Sounds like that kind of happened to you guys.
Pippa: Yeah, it definitely did.
DJ Zabardast: That’s awesome. Well, we really appreciate you coming in this morning and sharing your music with us. We’re really excited for what happens next for you guys. What do you have planned? You just released this album, and I know you did a record release party this weekend. What else is gonna happen?
Asha: We’re gonna keep making music and definitely release some more soon. In the meantime, we will try to get some little shows around town. We’ll play wherever we can—we go busking, too.
DJ Zabardast: Are there places you guys set up?
Asha: We played The Backroom, and then Fourth Street and Solano. We do a lot of gigs in that scene.
DJ Zabardast: All right. Well, for you local listeners, keep an eye out for runaway poet. They’ll be playing all over town, hopefully. Listen to their album, Girl in the Blue Dress, on Square Bracket Records, now on all streaming services. Support our local artists right here in Berkeley, California.
We’ll play one last track from their album, called “Magnets.” Asha and Pippa, thanks so much for coming in this morning.
Asha: Thank you so much for having us.
Pippa: Thank you for having us.
DJ Zabardast: All right, thank you. That was runaway poet right here on KALX Berkeley.
[song played]
