Get to know Anthony Pena
Photo Credit: Ndeye Maguette Doumbia
After leading NYC's "samba shoegaze" band June Pastel, multi-instrumentalist Anthony Pena returned to his hometown of Salt Lake City. Pena shed his former solo alias Toto Peña, and began making music under his birth name. The result is his debut album 4, a dedication to Prince that moves fluidly between R&B, soul, indie pop, and beyond.
Pena wore nearly every hat on the record: songwriter, performer, engineer, producer, and mixer. The album reflects that tone. His almost-whispered vocals don't demand your attention so much as dissolve into the instrumentation, becoming just another thread in the fabric of each song. We connected with Pena to discuss commitment, influences, and stream-of-consciousness writing.
Tell us about 4…
4 is the first self-produced project I mixed myself. This record was all about slowing down and taking my time. I hadn’t quite cracked the code on mixing, and it’s been a goal of mine for a long time. I allowed myself to finally see that process through. As far as the lyrical content, I think it's a record about reckoning.
How do you decide on the sonic direction of a record?
There’s never really a point of decision, but a moment of commitment to whatever is at play. I’m currently working on a new record and I don’t know how I feel about its more earthy sounding tones, but I’m committing to it because it's what's authentic to me now. 4 was definitely a flex of what all I could do and I pulled from all my inspirations. The record felt very 70’s to me.
Are you influenced more by old records or new ones?
Both! I just came out of a Babyface and Jon B binge and am now listening to early Fleetwood Mac and Santana. While making 4, I was in my contemporary bag. I finally had the ear for Future and Playboi Carti.
Do you write from personal experience, observation, or fiction?
Personal experience and observation resonate the most to me. I guess I can see the worlds in which my music exists as fictional tho? Or so abstracted and pieced together in subject matter that it forms its own narrative? I will say, I can’t just sit down to write a song, sometimes I wish I could, most of them just happen within a 15-minute window of stream of consciousness writing. Those are the ones I work on and publish.
How do you define success as an indie artist?
Publishing. Getting the record out. Connecting my music to people in the real world. My definition of success has changed a lot. It's the earnest chasing of “success” and its subsequent “failures” that have helped me grow and confront myself the most. I really appreciate you asking this question because it's been the most top-of-mind concept in my life at the moment, and when I saw this question come up, it felt like a sign. Thank you.
If your music were a color palette, what would it be?
4 is a full color palette. It's the next step from solely working with primary colors. It's when I finally started mixing colors. And I was mixing colors from 2023 to 2024. The next year, 2025, my color palette was blacks, whites, and greys. Very dark. And currently, my tones are warm browns. I'm returning to the earth.
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