There’s a particular frustration in knowing exactly what you’d tell a friend about their love life, then being unable to take that advice yourself. pami writes from that uncomfortable position. Across her singles this year, ‘cry jar’, ‘all in’, and ‘loser’, the Thai singer-songwriter’s narrators can recognise when they’re getting too little back. Whether they’re ready to do anything about it is another matter.
Since debuting under Juicey in 2024 and releasing her first album, puffette, the following year, pami has built a songwriting world with room for the indignation, humour, and hope that complicate those decisions. Heartbreak becomes something to bill someone for; devotion becomes a gamble worth taking despite the odds. Behind the playful ideas is a writer willing to admit that understanding your feelings doesn’t necessarily put you in control of them.
That candour carries into her conversation with Bandwagon, where pami is as ready to laugh at herself as she is to explain a difficult emotion. Here, the Phuket-raised artist talks about opening up to collaborators, building a video-game world for feelings she’s too shy to act out, and discovering how far those personal stories have travelled when she meets listeners abroad.
The person in ‘loser’ knows they’re being let down but still chooses to stay. What did you want to capture about that gap between recognising a pattern and feeling ready to leave?
I wanted to capture that feeling of being trapped in a certain kind of love. You can be fully aware of everything that’s happening, yet still choose to keep facing the pain because being in that relationship means you get to stay close to that person. I think it’s something a lot of people have experienced at some point in their lives, and it can be a really difficult feeling to forget. I wanted to put that experience into a song for anyone who has ever found themselves in that position.
‘loser’ is quite a harsh term. How did you arrive at that title, and do you hear it as self-criticism, resignation, or something else?
The word “loser” has been used as a song title quite a lot, but when I think about the songs I’ve heard with that title, many of them are by male artists. I think women can feel like losers in love, too. But when I wrote this song, I didn’t see the word as a way of insulting myself. It was more about understanding how I felt at that moment and accepting that feeling, rather than judging myself for it.
You wrote and produced the demo for ‘loser’ in a single day with Jett Blyton and Maribelle. What did each of them bring out in the song that you might not have arrived at on your own?
Jett really opened up a whole new world of songwriting for me. His approach to writing lyrics is so quick and fun. I usually write by following a story and describing specific moments or events that I’ve experienced, but Jett has this technique he calls “word vomit”, where you just throw out all kinds of words and ideas, whether they’re directly related to the story or not. Somehow, you can find connections between them, and it works surprisingly well!
Maribelle, besides being incredibly talented at producing a song in just one day, is also amazing at creating vocal harmonies. She came up with these harmonies that have an R&B feel while still sounding pop and modern. When everything came together, it made the song feel so much more complete.
Both ‘cry jar’ and ‘loser’ came out of songwriting camps in Australia. What helps you feel comfortable enough to share personal experiences in a room with collaborators, especially when you’re working against the clock?
I think it helps that the people I work with are very easygoing, and everyone understands that what happens in the room stays in the room (except for the songs, of course!). So no matter how deep or personal the stories get, it feels like a safe space where we can share things with one another. We’re all there to create art, and I believe art comes from emotion. That makes it easier to open up, even when we’re working against the clock.
‘cry jar’ turns accumulated hurt into an “emotional compensation” jar. How did you come up with that image, and what could you express through a dark joke that a more straightforward heartbreak song might not have allowed?
‘cry jar’ came out of sharing different experiences from my life during the songwriting process. At one point, I was basically thinking, “If you’re going to make me sad and do nothing about it, you might as well pay me!” But the song is meant to be sarcastic. I’m not actually expecting anyone to pay me for breaking my heart! (Laughs)
I think dark humour can be a way of making fun of your own feelings rather than focusing on the other person. But personally, if I were writing a really heavy, deeply emotional heartbreak song, I probably wouldn’t use that kind of humour. For ‘cry jar’, the sarcasm was part of what made the idea work.
With ‘all in’, you’ve spoken about someone who knows exactly how foolish they might look but chooses love anyway. Where, for you, is the line between being brave enough to love and making too many excuses for someone?
I think it depends on how much the relationship is affecting you. If there’s no violence involved and it hasn’t reached a point where it’s life-threatening, I think there can still be room to fight for it. If the painful part is simply that the other person doesn’t love you or care about you as much as you wish they would, I think it can still feel worth trying for, as long as you still love them.
If you reach a point where you can’t take it anymore, then it’s okay to walk away, too. If your heart is still in it, love them. But if it becomes too much, you can choose to step back. But not for me! I’ll fight till the end!
Across ‘cry jar’, ‘all in’, and ‘loser’, there’s someone demanding accountability, someone willing to risk everything, and someone afraid to leave. Do these feel like different stages of a relationship, or feelings that can all exist at once?
I think they represent different stages or situations. ‘cry jar’ feels like being in a relationship where the other person doesn’t really care, so you end up being sarcastic. ‘loser’ is about being stuck in a relationship where you feel like you’re the one at a disadvantage, like you’re not really on the same team. And ‘all in’ is a love song about giving everything to someone when you have no idea whether they’ll ever love you back.
If there’s one thing they have in common, it’s that none of them really portrays a mature, peaceful kind of love. Love can be good and peaceful, too, but these songs explore the messier side of it.
You developed the concept for the low-poly, game-like world in the ‘all in’ video. Why did that visual language feel right for the song, and which hidden detail would you most like viewers to notice?
There were a few reasons why I wanted to make the music video this way. ‘all in’ is about giving everything to someone in love, and if I had to act that out myself, I’d feel shy! So I wanted to express it through a game-like world instead.
I also wanted the visuals to have a nostalgic feeling, almost like an old video game. I think the low-poly style has this innocent, slightly dreamy quality to it that fits the song really well. And in a way, relationships can sometimes be like games. You try to win, pass different levels, and get closer to winning someone’s heart. But even if you lose, it’s okay. As for the hidden detail, there might be a little hint towards a name I’m thinking of using in the future!
Your writing has an intimate, diary-like quality. How do you decide which details from an experience belong in a song and which you’d rather keep for yourself?
I’ve never really thought about which details I should or shouldn’t write about. In a way, I think the more specific and personal the details are, the better, because the most important thing is that I feel connected to what I’m writing. I don’t think love is something shameful that needs to be hidden away.
That said, when it comes to things that are deeply personal, like my family, I probably wouldn’t go into every single detail. I think there are certain boundaries I’d still want to keep.
You recently embarked on a headline tour across South Korea, Japan, and China. What was it like connecting with listeners in those countries, and which moments from the tour have stayed with you?
Honestly, it feels bigger than anything my younger self could have dreamed of. Even now, I still can’t quite believe that I get to perform in other countries and experience all these things. It makes me feel so fulfilled, happy, and genuinely grateful.
One moment that has stayed with me was meeting a fan during the tour who told me, “Thank you for never giving up and for coming back to do what you love.” That really touched me because it reminded me of one of the reasons I keep doing this. Moments like that give me the strength to keep going. Being able to make music and have someone understand it, even if it’s just one person, is already enough for me.
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