“The album’s kind of a coming-of-age album. You know, I wrote it when I was 19 and 20, and now I’m 21. It was just my way of coping with what it’s like to be young in life right now. So it’s the first time I fell in love, the first time I was heartbroken, moving into a new city and like, you know, growing up, being young and all those razy emotions that come along with being a kid. So, I think Kid Krow’s kind of about my life, it’s absolutely my diary; I turned it into an album and now everyone’s reading my diary. It’s very embarrassing.”

“My favorite song on the album is Heather. It means so much to me. It breaks my heart every time I listen to it. It’s just my favourite and is about such a specific emotion that I felt my whole life. I’ve always wanted to be the first choice and I’ve always been the second choice when it comes to love, and so it means a lot to me.

Secondly, I would say have a bunch of fun to Wish You Were Sober. It’s just a fun song that you can listen and jam out to in the car.

Number three, would probably be The Story. I talked a lot about my past, growing up and kind of the things I dealt with as a kid. I hope that the song kind of like helps people if they’re going through the same thing and helps them feel like they’re not alone.”

“There are so many pop idols who I’ve worshiped my whole life and I think that the definition of a ‘pop star’ is changing so much these days. But my favorite pop stars who have totally changed music for me forever are probably, Taylor Swift and Lorde. They’re my icons and I say that in every interview because they’re just my queens. I love them. They’ve changed pop music for me forever.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Kacey Musgraves lately and she is someone who I would like to collaborate with. I think it’s because I’m homesick right now and I’m missing Texas.”

“Being mixed-race has always been confusing for me, especially when I was younger because I never really felt like I belonged in any category. I grew up in Texas and was the only Asian kids in my entire school. I definitely didn’t belong with the white kids and I definitely didn’t belong to the Asians either because there were no Asians.

Growing up as a mixed-race kid really made me feel like such an outsider: it made me very quiet and observant. I just kind of watch people and I find people really interesting. As I got older, I was like, ‘I don’t belong anywhere, I’m mixed-race, I’m half-white and half-Japanese, I’m neither and both and that’s how it works.’ I’ve come to just accept the fact that this is who I am and I should stop caring so much about what is expected of me because of the stereotypes about my race. And that’s just what I am, I’m Conan. I’ve actually come to really love and accept what was really confusing for me as a kid: which was not knowing where I belonged.

Because I was just so observant and very quiet and shy, that fostered so much of my songwriting. I’ve been studying people since I was a kid. I found it so interesting to watch people fall in love, out of love, and break up. I just like watching people, and I think that humans are so interesting, and that’s what I write about. All the years of observing and not participating made me a songwriter.”

“Obviously, someone who likes me, I think I tend to fall for people who I know won’t love me back because I’m very scared of intimacy. But I think when I look for a person, I mostly look for someone whom I can just talk to for hours and hours and hours and not get bored.”

“I still write songs the exact same way that I have since I was like 12, which is just me on my guitar in my room. So that hasn’t really changed as much. These days, it involves going on tours and meeting fans and playing shows.

Seeing the way that people react to my music – jumping up and down and doing all these things – changes the way that I write music. Because I’ll be writing a song and would think, “Oh, I should put this little part in there because everyone’s gonna be screaming at these fun lyrics.”

It’s just fun for me and I think I feel a little bit more certain in what I’m saying in the music. But you know, music has no rules and it’s this weird thing that, for some reason, humans like to listen to. I just try my best to follow my heart, as they say.”

“I think all the attention on my music and everything is kind of interesting because I’m very grateful that people care about the music – but it’s also weird. I was not used to having this much attention when I was in high school. Nobody cared that I existed and I was very used to it. I feel like I’m so used to being invisible.

So it’s been interesting and I think, above all, the main thing that keeps me feeling normal and grounded is just talking to my friends from back home and being surrounded by a lot of people who definitely keep me in check all the time. It’s nice to know that the fans are there for me and they know who I am and are just kind of always there to catch me when I fall.”