Indie pop princess Chymes shares her brave new world of pursuing a music career with autism

Backed by K-Pop ground BTS, Chymes shares the unique challenges of chasing her music dreams with an adult diagnosis of autism.

Australian pop artist Chymes suddenly went from indie obscurity to global attention two years ago when a member of K-pop superstars BTS gave a social media shoutout to their song Dreaming.

Songwriter Kiersten Nyman and her producer Cameron Taylor were all set to capitalise on that accidental spotlight with a new EP called Hell and Divine.

But instead of speeding up the release, they had to put on the brakes. And it wasn’t just the pandemic that shifted their pace.

HELLO IS THIS REAL??? https://t.co/jcw580RbCc

— Chymes (@iamchymes) December 21, 2018

After years of frustration and confusion trying to figure out why she felt and thought so differently to all her schoolmates and family members, Nyman finally solved the puzzle of her brain when she was diagnosed with autism.

School had always been tough and music was her sanctuary.

Kiersten Nyman aka "Chymes" has to manage her energy levels when recording and touring. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“Playing the guitar and singing was the only important thing. And I begged my parents to let me drop out of school, which obviously didn’t happen,” she said.

“I would come home every day after school and like not do any homework and just go into the study my parents had transformed into a music room.”

Nyman said she couldn’t read music theory – any kind of reading and comprehension was difficult throughout her teen years – so she self-taught herself to play instruments and write songs via YouTube videos.

She lived on the video streaming site – it’s where she indulged her obsessions with Justin Bieber, One Direction and the Twilight movies, the very passions which partially disguised her condition.

Her other symptoms were food related; only wanting to eat white foods such as pasta and bread.

“It’s very common for women to be diagnosed later because the special interests in autism, where you’re very focused on something specific, could be boy bands or other creative things and that’s dismissed as just being a girl,” Nyman said.

“A special interest like maths and science or mechanics is a lot more obvious in boys, so boys get diagnosed significantly more, especially much younger as well.

“Girls typically are better at socialising, understanding social cues – they can see the popular girl and copy her, which goes under masking; it’s a lot more difficult to see autism in a girl.”

Rebuilding her career in music as she learns more about autism requires understanding and patience not only from her producer and team but all those who work with her.

Chymes releases her new EP Hell and Divine this week. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Performing on stage is her safe space, a meditative experience. But getting to that stage can overstimulate her to the point of exhaustion and leave her bedridden for days afterwards.

Chymes is particular about the mics she uses, hypersensitive to particular sounds being louder than others, her taped backing vocals distracting her from singing the main melody.

“I haven’t experienced a full tour yet, but it’s all about energy management, being able to estimate how much of my energy something is going to take up and then how much time I’m going to need to recover,” she said.

“I don’t think anything is impossible. I often find myself really frustrated that I can’t do stuff I’ll see my peers doing, like back to back days on tour. I have to balance everything.”

There is also beauty to balance the frustrations of dealing with her life in an “abled” world, one she says is not made for people with development disabilities like herself.

When she writes songs, she sees them as colours and that fuels her creative vision as evidenced by her two recent singles.

“Deathwish was always red, so the video is red. Feel Better was blue,” she said.

“I know pretty soon if a song is working because I will get so excited about it, it will be

very satisfying for me to listen to – the drums, the stops and starts, yelling ‘Oh yeah!’ when a really good part comes in.

“And then when I start to see the colours and visuals in my head, I can see the full picture of where it’s going to go.”

With K-pop now one of her own obsessions, Chymes is crossing everything her BTS fans will be shouting out the new songs from Hell and Divine when it is released on May 28.