Yea-Ming Chen is a San Francisco-based singer-songwriter who delivers a pure and simple indie country sound with heartfelt and sincere meaning. Her low, dusky tones recall ‘60s German singer Nico, although Chen was most inspired as a young adult by pop punk indie bands like Mr. T. Experience, The Queers and Dressy Bessy. “Bands like that,” she says, “made me realize the power of a simple song.” At the same time, the drama-filled pieces on her favourite Fleetwood Mac album, Rumours, taught her that despite life being full of difficult moments, “beautiful songs are created because of its complexity. It makes the hard stuff worth it.” A songwriter for 15 years, Chen has learned from experience that a broken heart is the best for inspiration. Piano was Chen’s first instrument, but as a teenager, she picked up guitar and more recently, the drums. A classically-trained pianist from age seven, she started formal studies in music at UC Berkley, but left the program after finding it to be too academic: “fun and challenging but mostly excruciatingly boring, difficult and useless,” she says. “I craved to be more creative and expressive, which is why I picked up the guitar. I couldn’t be “leftbrained” about it because I didn’t know how to use it. It really opened up me to song writing.” Solo or backed by a band, Chen can be heard along the West Coast as Yea-Ming and The Rumours. The first album from Yea-Ming and The Rumours, So, Bird​.​.​. was out in March 2022 and a new album, I Can’t Have It All will be out on Dandy Boy Records on May 24th.

What she says: In 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger gave a name to something that has been plaguing human beings since they were cave people: Social Comparison Theory. In 2024, Yea-Ming puts it more succinctly when she sings, “I’m weak enough to give a fuck about Ruby.” Who is Ruby? Her curated and cultivated presence is inescapable and unobtainable – Ruby is the illusion of the woman who has it all but doesn’t really exist.

Utilizing raw images, animation and collage in the new promotional clip for The Rumours’ second single Ruby, Yea-Ming visualizes her internal storm and stress of trying to escape the influence of projected perfection. A jangle-banger of a song with a soaring chorus, Ruby paints the portrait of the shining jewel of feminine perfection sold to the masses.  Ruby is the most driving and defiant song on the highly anticipated new album I Can’t Have It All to be released on 5/24/24 via Dandy Boy Records.

The Album:

Frontwoman Yea-Ming Chen has masterfully curated her self-proclaimed “pop record”, weaving melancholy narratives with catchy hooks in a sound that is more full on indie pop leaning than anything the Rumours have done before. The fuller-sounding production is heavily influenced by groups like Yo La Tengo, Camera Obscura and other early 90’s underground college radio favorites. I Can’t Have It All marks the band’s continued evolution past their early days as an outlet for Chen’s sparse and intimate songs.
Alongside her characteristically beautiful imagery, Yea-Ming’s songwriting remains as introspective as ever, but I Can’t Have It All reflects a changing point both creatively and personally in the songwriter’s life. Written during a difficult period in which she struggled to identify and painfully shed a “false-self” imposed by the outside world, the album follows the personal and relatable journey of accepting loss and making changes. “I realized one day that I have spent most of my life pretending to be someone that other people wanted me to be, and that was probably the source of my anxiety and depression,” recalls the songwriter. “So I made changes that were really hard and I experienced a lot of grief in letting go of people and situations that held a lot of power over me emotionally – even if it wasn’t intentional – and I became someone that is closer to who I want to be. In that transition, I discovered that it is completely possible to experience total sadness and extreme happiness simultaneously within the same body.”  These complex feelings are clearly reflected in the new record – especially in Pretending, Somebody’s Daughter, I Can’t Have It All and Ruby.

Produced by Chen, the album was mostly recorded and sculpted in her home studio after basic tracks were recorded with Meric Long (The Dodos) at Tiny Telephone Studios and Mike Walti at Wyldwood Studios. As usual, the record is performed by Yea-Ming with the help of long-time Rumours collaborators Eóin Galvin on lead guitar, lap steel and backing vocals and Sonia Hayden on drums and percussion on several of the tracks. New Rumours members Jen Weisberg (Hits) and Luke Robbins (Latitude) also make their debut and appear on bass and drums throughout the record. I Can’t Have It All is a new album with a new line-up and a new perspective, signifying Yea-Ming and The Rumours’ entry into a new era. 

The tracklist:

1. Pretending
2. I Can’t Have It All
3. Ruby
4. I Tried To Hide
5. Big Blue Sea
6. Can We Meet In The Middle
7. How Can I Leave
8. Before I Make It Home
9. Old Frog
10.Somebody’s Daughter
11.Alice Sings
12.Pretending (Reprise)

Ruby, the second single from I Can’t Have It All, the forthcoming second album by Yea-Ming & The Rumours, will be available from 26^st of April on Dandy Boy Records. Look Here for more information on Yea-Ming & The Rumours.