INTERVIEW: Rising Ylona Garcia offering fries with “All That”

Ylona Garcia

Ylona Garcia, courtesy.

What happens if a rising pop star decides to get a job at a fast-food restaurant? In the case of now 19-year-old Filipina-Australian singer-songwriter and actress Ylona Garcia, she got a fans-flooded McDonalds and (an understandably) flustered manager.

Garcia, a new signee to Paradise Rising, the sister label of 88Rising, is just now getting her music in front of American audiences. But in her native Australia and the Philippines, where she first made waves at 13 after her singing landed her a spot on a teen edition of “Big Brother,” she’s not just an artist but a celebrity.



During the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 last fall, Garcia decided she needed some experience in business—her chosen line of studies in college. She immediately knew what she wanted to do, and fans immediately started swarming to the burger joint south of Sydney.

“It was quite funny. I felt bad for my manager because she was very strict about it. She was like, ‘[Talking to fans] has to be after,’” Garcia said. “She was stressed by it, and I was like, ‘I’m really sorry! Do you want me to sweep the floor again?’”

Even before her big break on “Pinoy Big Brother,” Ylona Garcia was singing for family friends and at parties. Her dad is a pathologist and her mom a nurse. Both immigrated from Manila. Her mom supported her singing since she overheard Garcia singing “Rolling in the Deep” in the shower when she was 9. As a child, she also took classes in piano, ballet and guitar. She said she was shy at first but with persistence, the middle child of five siblings grew to enjoy performing in front of people.

Garcia took part in numerous popular singing competitions in Australia, winning a couple of them. Soon, her parents arranged for her to be opening for Filipino artists who visited Sydney, such as musicians, singers and actors. After one of these concerts, she was approached by an executive for Australian TV network ABS-CBN who was looking for contestants to appear on “Pinoy Big Brother.”

“She was just like, ‘How old are you darling?’ And I’m like, ‘Thirteen; where’s my mom?’”



Her mom handled the rest, and Garcia nailed her audition. She would go on to finish second in the competition but became a fan favorite. Since finishing the show, she’s acted on Australian romantic comedy TV show “On the Wings of Love” and drama “Sana Dalawa ang Puso,” and hosted a music variety show. She was also a member of a short-lived pop group. Her debut album, My Name is Ylona, was certified Gold in Australia.

Ylona Garcia

Ylona Garcia, courtesy.

“I was always interested in acting, but singing was always my main goal,” Garcia said. “Acting is quite fun, as long as you know how to come back from all the acting scenes that you do and make sure you know who you are.”

It’s important to not overlook that all of these roles occurred before Ylona Garcia turned 18. She said that while her parents were very nervous for her to go through her teen years under a microscope, they supported her at every step.

Garcia spent the first half of 2020 in the Philippines, where she mostly stayed indoors. Although she identifies as a homebody, under the pandemic’s restrictions she developed a strong case of FOMO. But, she admits, it has helped her realize she had taken various things for granted beforehand.

After six months, she was able to return home to Australia, where by that point, restrictions were a lot laxer because the country had the pandemic under control. She’s been with her parents and siblings since then. Her siblings range in age from 15 to 23 and are all in different parts of their lives, but because everyone’s been forced to pause, it has created more time for them to spend together. Her younger sister also sings, she said, while her older brother raps.

What’s next for Ylona Garcia?

“EP, album—I mean, that’s still in talks. There’s nothing I can really spill yet, but all I can say is that there’s more upcoming projects besides music. Watch out for that, but there’s more music to come.”

Garcia has also spent more time reading during the pandemic, as well as songwriting. She had been planning on studying psychology in college but has since shifted her attention toward business. And that’s where the job at McDonald’s came in.

Looking back, she agrees a global pandemic where quarantining away from others was a peculiar time to work at a fast-food chain. But if it wasn’t for the pandemic, she wouldn’t have had that free time to begin with.

“I just felt like that was a chance for me to do something that I wanted to do, and I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s,” she said. “It my favorite fast-food chain. I grew up eating from there, and there’s a lot to learn.”

Her hopes for remaining anonymous were quickly dashed after a hiring manager Googled her name, as is customary. The news quickly spread up the corporate management chain all the way to Sydney.



More recently, Ylona Garcia signed with Paradise Rising, the Filipino-leaning partner of 88Rising, which itself focuses on Asian and Asian-American artists. If not for a friend who noticed a DM from the label via Instagram, she may have missed the opportunity. She said she’s a huge fan of the Jakarta, Indonesia-born artist NIKI, an 88Rising artist, and hopes to work with her.

She kicked off March by releasing thumping, bass-led single “All That,” a kiss-off to the trash of the prior year. “I left all the shit back in 2020,” she sings on the hook. But she’s not only singing about the pandemics of COVID-19, racism and nationalism. She leaves the “self-sabotaging” version of herself in the rearview mirror, in search of a more refined version of herself.

“I feel like people rarely realize that they drive their own destiny. They’re the ones that really drive themselves to where they want to go,” she said. “If you’re not where you want to be, there’s something you probably don’t know and most likely, you’re the one that’s going to be in your own way if you’re not happy. I just want to leave that person that’s always negative, always pessimistic, always overthinking back in 2020. Bye bye.”



Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.

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