Vana Liya doesn’t just write songs, she writes lifelines.
Raised between coasts, the San Diego based singer carries a dual identity that mirrors the emotional push and pull in her music. “I’m Vana Liya, and I am from San Diego, California but don’t get it twisted, I’m really from New York,” she says, a statement that lands less like geography and more like ethos. There’s a grounded West Coast ease in her delivery, but underneath it lives an East Coast resilience that defines her songwriting.
That tension sits at the heart of her latest single, “New Light,” a breezy yet introspective collaboration featuring The Movement’s Josh Swain and producer Johnny Cosmic. What started as a porch session in Ocean Beach evolved into something far more personal. “I actually got together with my good buddy Kong a few years ago, and we just sat on his porch in OB and wrote a few tunes. One of them was ‘New Light,’” she explains. “We were actually listening to some Spanish guitar… he grabbed his guitar, jammed some chords, and we made the bone structure of it.”
From there, the song took on a bigger life, both sonically and symbolically. “The song itself is about the duality of life. Life can be day and night. It’s about conquering the dark with the light,” she says. “As long as you have the light, it will take over the dark.”
That balance between shadow and illumination, control and surrender threads through much of her recent work. On “Carry On,” Liya leans even further into vulnerability, pulling from a period where her usual optimism felt out of reach. “At the time I was going through a pretty gnarly breakup. I felt like there was no hope left, and I’ve never really been that person,” she admits. “So these songs are kind of an extension of me hoping that maybe somebody out there feels the same way, and through music we can overcome that.”
The track unfolds like a quiet prayer. “I’m asking, ‘Protect me when I’m wrong. Help me keep my calm. Take me where I need to go.’ It’s about relinquishing the need to control everything and leaving it up to the universe. What will be, will be.”
That sense of surrender mirrors Liya’s own career arc, one shaped as much by fate as intention. A self described “Pepper fan girl,” she went from chasing the band across tour stops in her dad’s minivan to sharing stages with them under the LAW Records banner. “I ended up doing some covers, and next thing you know, I got signed to LAW Records,” she says. “It was pretty full circle… I didn’t even have music written yet, and they took a chance on me.”
What she found wasn’t just a label, but a community. “Before we talk about anything business related, it’s always, ‘Hey, how are you? What’s going on with you? How’s your mom? How’s your brother?’ Then we talk about business,” she says. “It just feels right. It feels like home.”
That family connection came into full focus on tour. “I got to tour with Pepper for the first time last year, and that was wild,” she recalls. “To do that with them and have them pull me up it’s just crazy to be seen by people you never thought you’d be seen by.”
Now, Liya is channeling that momentum into her next chapter. She’s currently working on her second record with Johnny Cosmic, a project that promises to expand the emotional and sonic palette she’s already begun to define. “I’m working on my second record right now… ‘Carry On’ and ‘New Light’ will both be on that record, and we’ve got a few more features coming too,” she says.
If her recent output is any indication, the album won’t just be a collection of songs, it will be a continuation of the conversation she has been having with herself, her listeners, and whatever unseen force she trusts to guide her forward.
Because for Vana Liya, the message is simple, even when the path is not.
“The best thing we can do is keep ourselves right, keep our mentality right,” she says. “And just carry on.”
Watch the full Vana Liya Interview Below!
