Known for its charm and country music, Nashville, Tennessee recently welcomed Ivan Theva. A singer-songwriter who studied accounting, Theva had worked on his craft for a decade in New York City before moving to Nashville, without knowing that was exactly where he’d end up. His newest release is an EP, Waiting Here for You, that he’s been putting out over the past few months, with tracks including It Was Always in My Eyes and My Love. In this newer work, Theva plays with sounds we haven’t heard from him before and brings unexpected energy to each track.
His debut album Gardens was released in October, 2023 by Descendant Records, under Sony Music Entertainment. It had been in the making for nearly three years and it carries the fingerprints of multiple collaborators and friends on top of the sound that Theva had been honing during those years. All of his music is characterised by its deep emotional resonance and commitment to faith, offering listeners heartfelt storytelling through contemporary Christian music that diverts in many ways from the expectations of its genre. He’s always been committed to writing about his search for truth and telling honest stories, and his ability to connect with audiences on a spiritual level has endeared him to an increasing number of listeners.
You recently moved from Brooklyn to Nashville. What motivated the relocation?
I can give you two answers. The short one is that I never really got plugged into the music scene in New York, so I was just making music on my own. Since Covid, I was starting to connect with more artists outside of the city, although not specifically Nashville. I recorded my album in Knoxville and had friends in North Carolina, so the southeast was starting to feel more attractive. But the less clear answer is I just felt like it was time to go, and so I got in my car and I just left, and I didn't know that I was gonna end up in Nashville.
By the time I left, I was starting to key in to this feeling of peace, so I knew it was time to leave. I thought I would end up maybe in Greenville and Knoxville, because when I went to both those places, technically I liked them better than Nashville. But I knew I was supposed to move there, like I needed to come here. I didn't know anybody here, but I still hopped in my car and came.
By the time I left, I was starting to key in to this feeling of peace, so I knew it was time to leave. I thought I would end up maybe in Greenville and Knoxville, because when I went to both those places, technically I liked them better than Nashville. But I knew I was supposed to move there, like I needed to come here. I didn't know anybody here, but I still hopped in my car and came.
Your faith comes up a lot in your album Gardens. Is there a lyric that’s particularly meaningful to you?
Not specifically lyrically. Maybe in I Need Somebody—that whole chorus sort of wrote itself. In New York I felt called to music, but I actually studied accounting. I'm a CPA. After a year of doing that out of college, I knew that I had zero passion for it, so I quit and started songwriting. I tried to produce an album and that just didn't go well. Then I moved back to NYC and I would work half a year and sort of just songwrite on my own for the other half. I got involved with various things, from starting a food stand to almost opening a coffee shop, but I knew that if I diverted my attention I’d lose the spark. So I left all those things and kept cultivating my songwriting.
Many successful artists say they’ve thrived when they’ve trusted their gut. What happened next?
I found a small church in downtown Manhattan and started serving there. I thought I heard God tell me to just serve here and not try to do something on my own. So I did that from 2016 to 2019, and after that I felt God said, don't go back to work. In the months I would have gone back to work, this guy shows up at my tiny church and he’s like, man, I really like what you're doing. I want to help you record. He takes me to studios for the first time right at the beginning of 2020, and then Covid hits, and he goes back to LA and I'm just writing and writing nonstop.
Then he gets connected with his producer in Knoxville, Will Reagan, who had just built a studio there. He told me to come down to see what we can do. I brought a couple of the songs I had written. I wrote a couple with him, but then I Need Somebody just came out of this moment when we were in between songs. A drummer and the piano player started messing around, I got on the mic, and almost immediately the entire chorus and the bridge, word for word, came out. And we stuck with it.
Then he gets connected with his producer in Knoxville, Will Reagan, who had just built a studio there. He told me to come down to see what we can do. I brought a couple of the songs I had written. I wrote a couple with him, but then I Need Somebody just came out of this moment when we were in between songs. A drummer and the piano player started messing around, I got on the mic, and almost immediately the entire chorus and the bridge, word for word, came out. And we stuck with it.
Speaking of Reagan, he mixed some of your tracks and joined you for Fall on You. What was that collaboration like?
It was kind of wild because the first time I heard him might have been 2008 or 2009 and I really was listening to him a lot in 2012 to basically when I started working with him. So it was pretty surreal. He elevated my writing and musicianship. He has a really unique approach to how he thinks about music and approaches it. I'm super thankful. I even remember when I first got there, up until then, I had always played an instrument or tried to play an instrument when I sang, especially in a live setting; it was a comfort. And I get there and he's like, ‘hey, what do you think about not playing? If you just lean into your voice, everybody's gonna follow’. I reached a level in my singing because of that.
It was just the beginning; I feel like I've grown so much since then. It was also my first time getting to sing with musicians at that level, and their ability to react to what I was doing just brought something out in the songs that was exciting. I worked with smaller producers that weren't as high level or high budget and I never felt that great about anything that came out, and this was my first time hearing myself in a world that I really believed in. It was kind of unreal.
I didn't think through the lyrics but they were telling of that time because I was beginning to have questions around my faith. Then with the lockdown and feeling like I needed a deeper connection than the one that I had, those lyrics embody this very mystical time of knowing that there's more, wanting more and experiencing God in a way that I just had never before.
It was just the beginning; I feel like I've grown so much since then. It was also my first time getting to sing with musicians at that level, and their ability to react to what I was doing just brought something out in the songs that was exciting. I worked with smaller producers that weren't as high level or high budget and I never felt that great about anything that came out, and this was my first time hearing myself in a world that I really believed in. It was kind of unreal.
I didn't think through the lyrics but they were telling of that time because I was beginning to have questions around my faith. Then with the lockdown and feeling like I needed a deeper connection than the one that I had, those lyrics embody this very mystical time of knowing that there's more, wanting more and experiencing God in a way that I just had never before.
Honey seems to tell a story of love and loss; a relatable narrative in a beautiful and tender packaging. Is there more you can tell us about the story behind this track?
I’ll give you two answers to that. I think sometimes in spiritual music, especially in the Christian world, things are segregated and people think in order for it to be spiritual, or in order for it to be a song about God, it has to be explicit. I don't think that's true. I feel like if you believe and you're embodying belief, then everything you create has an essence that is connected to that. I have this deep faith, so even when I was thinking about love, innately, it's still connected to God.
When I listen to Honey, it still feels like a song about faith and sort of a song about losing what we once had. In some ways, that's the innocence of when you begin a faith journey, but it also is a relationship-ending love song. I wrote it towards the end of a two-year relationship I was in, though I didn't consciously think about it from that lens. A lot of times that happens.
When I listen to Honey, it still feels like a song about faith and sort of a song about losing what we once had. In some ways, that's the innocence of when you begin a faith journey, but it also is a relationship-ending love song. I wrote it towards the end of a two-year relationship I was in, though I didn't consciously think about it from that lens. A lot of times that happens.
The subconscious bubbles up a little bit there.
That definitely was the case because the relationship I was in was coming to an end and it was hard. It was also this point of looking back and I remember, especially in that first year of that relationship, not thinking that it would and I thought I would marry this person. You never know how those things go. And it was kind of looking back and going, how did it end?
One of your recent singles, Waiting Here for You, which will be on your upcoming EP, is grungy and syncopated, diverting sonically from Gardens as well as the other tracks on your EP, like My Love. Would you say it’s an experimental song for you or just part of your style library we hadn’t seen yet?
The background of this new music is that I finished the Gardens album in the spring of 2021. There was a kind of drama behind the scenes and then it cleared in 2022 and that was around the time I knew it was time to leave New York. I had two rules that I felt God spoke to me about. One was don't initiate anything, and the second was don't follow up with anybody. It took a little more than a year to find the right partnership to release Gardens. Six months into being in Nashville, I was starting to get sick of it, and I just didn't feel like I was in the right creative environments. I knew I wanted to push myself musically. I loved what I did with Gardens and it felt very authentic, especially to where I was at that time recording it.
But now it's 2023, a little less than three years since I had started recording that, and I felt like there was so much room to push myself musically, especially the way that I would sing off of the main instrument. I was starting to get drawn to an album by Yebba when she's at the Electric Lady and there are a couple songs on there that really moved me; the piano and the vocal interaction is just unreal. I wanted to do something like that, but I didn't know a musician or songwriter that I could do that with in Nashville. I randomly met this guy called Chris Lippincott at a friend's place.
But now it's 2023, a little less than three years since I had started recording that, and I felt like there was so much room to push myself musically, especially the way that I would sing off of the main instrument. I was starting to get drawn to an album by Yebba when she's at the Electric Lady and there are a couple songs on there that really moved me; the piano and the vocal interaction is just unreal. I wanted to do something like that, but I didn't know a musician or songwriter that I could do that with in Nashville. I randomly met this guy called Chris Lippincott at a friend's place.
And what sparked your collaboration?
He didn't have a big resume or anything. My friend was like, ‘yeah, I think you guys should write’. We set up a time in January 2023 and I went in with zero expectation. By that time I was burnt out and I just went in and he had a little riff that we started messing with, then we got the second single, Always in My Eyes. It was slow; we took the whole day to write it. We were discussing both of our faith journeys and the song came out of that.
Waiting Here for You was the third song we wrote together. I showed up at his place and he started playing that riff the song starts on and initially I hated it, because when you just hear the riff alone, it sounds more like a boogie. But we gave it a try, spent half a day writing the verse and the chorus. I think both of us left feeling like it might not be something we would use but we came back to it a week later and it felt so different. So we finished it, and that bridge specifically, it got pieced together. Then we tried it live and it was the most exciting thing to sing.
Waiting Here for You was the third song we wrote together. I showed up at his place and he started playing that riff the song starts on and initially I hated it, because when you just hear the riff alone, it sounds more like a boogie. But we gave it a try, spent half a day writing the verse and the chorus. I think both of us left feeling like it might not be something we would use but we came back to it a week later and it felt so different. So we finished it, and that bridge specifically, it got pieced together. Then we tried it live and it was the most exciting thing to sing.
So what is really that song about?
That song is about God waiting for us. In a lot of religious traditions, but in Christian traditions specifically, there can be this overt focus on heaven, as in this place in the future that you go after you die. So everybody's living for this point after they die. Where I've kind of come to in my faith is, I believe heaven is now, it's a place that we can go to now. I don't know what happens after we die. I believe that God will bring us into more but I don't know what heaven is outside of some verses in the Bible. This idea of eternal life is not simply this post-death experience, but it's an experience for us to live now. Life can be chaotic. But the chorus is this repeated reprieve of, “I'm waiting here for you.”
Is there a Nashville tradition or quirk that you particularly love—or hate?
You know, it's kind of funny. Part of my hesitation with moving here was the country music scene. In my mind, Nashville was Broadway. And then I get here and I realised Broadway is this very small part of what Nashville actually is. But the thing that surprised me is that country music has definitely grown on me. I didn't realise this until I was sitting at this coffee shop a few weeks ago. This song comes on. I forget the name of it, but it's by Sturgill Simpson. It's so country, but immediately my spirit just comes alive. I’m like, what is the song? Why do I love this so much? And I shazamed it and listened to it like a hundred times. It inspired me — and we'll see if I actually go through this — but I think I kind of want to do a country thing next, which will be wild if I actually do, but we'll see.
Can you explain the symbolism behind the imagery used in your album artwork and music videos?
I don't consider myself a visual person but I've grown to trust my gut, and I need to feel moved. I think visual elements such as an album cover are so important. I'm with a label right now, and both times I was like, okay, give me some options. And they gave me the worst, with zero inspiration. It just felt so cookie cutter, so I almost had a visceral, angry reaction, like how could you even show me that? Obviously this is easier said than done, but I've realised that God allows things to happen, and even in those moments, reacting from a place of anxiety is never helpful. So I just let go.
For Gardens, I remember feeling very angry one day and then letting go and saying, okay, I need an answer. I woke up the next morning with that image, this picture that they actually hated. It was of me playing the piano in my apartment in New York, and I said, use it and then let's put on this overlay. I described it to him and then they came back with various options. I saw this one and was like, this is it.
With the second one, same thing, but this time I didn't have an inner knowing, I just thought, what about something like this? I had this picture of me standing at the ocean. It felt representative of what this new project is going to be. He mocked it up and I immediately saw it.
For Gardens, I remember feeling very angry one day and then letting go and saying, okay, I need an answer. I woke up the next morning with that image, this picture that they actually hated. It was of me playing the piano in my apartment in New York, and I said, use it and then let's put on this overlay. I described it to him and then they came back with various options. I saw this one and was like, this is it.
With the second one, same thing, but this time I didn't have an inner knowing, I just thought, what about something like this? I had this picture of me standing at the ocean. It felt representative of what this new project is going to be. He mocked it up and I immediately saw it.
What’s been the most unexpected thing to happen while recording or working on the new EP?
What was interesting is that it was happening at the same time as releasing the first project (it was my first time releasing anything) and it messed with my head because I saw what people were resonating with Gardens, loving the lyrics. In a lot of ways, it's simpler than what I'm doing now. That scared me, because we're in the middle of recording this new stuff and I realised the things that people love about the first, they're not going to get this time, but the ball was already rolling. We'll see what happens.
It's been funny, and there's this learning curve with this new stuff, and especially in the world that I’m in, the faith-based Christian world, the new stuff is pretty left of centre, but I really believe in it, and especially how it feels when we do it live. It feels like real music. It's always the hope and you'd never know until time actually passes, but to me, it feels timeless.
It's been funny, and there's this learning curve with this new stuff, and especially in the world that I’m in, the faith-based Christian world, the new stuff is pretty left of centre, but I really believe in it, and especially how it feels when we do it live. It feels like real music. It's always the hope and you'd never know until time actually passes, but to me, it feels timeless.
Do you have plans for after your EP is out? What do you hope to work on next, besides your country album, of course?
I'm writing towards that and I would like to start recording something new in the fall. But weirdly enough, I have felt (at least right in this moment) like I'm supposed to just be still and be present. It's easy in this business and in life in general to get very anxious about the future and to want to strategise. But you're never satisfied. You're never taught to be satisfied. You're always looking for the next hit, looking for your breakthrough. And when you get your breakthrough, you're looking for another bigger breakthrough. And it can turn into a living hell, that place of never being satisfied.
So for about a month now, I've taken the internet off my phone, I've taken socials off my phone, I can't download any apps, I had my friend lock it. All with the intention of, let me just be present. I sense that the fall is going to be with the election, and more than that, a very chaotic time. I want to do my best to not feed into that or be fed by that. So the short answer is it's yet to be revealed.
So for about a month now, I've taken the internet off my phone, I've taken socials off my phone, I can't download any apps, I had my friend lock it. All with the intention of, let me just be present. I sense that the fall is going to be with the election, and more than that, a very chaotic time. I want to do my best to not feed into that or be fed by that. So the short answer is it's yet to be revealed.