What are some of the important music-related relationships in your life, past or present?

My first and most important music-related relationship in my life is with my dad. He is a musician as well and we have always had our love for music as one of the core foundations of our relationship. He bought me my first guitar and has been extremely encouraging throughout my whole life at multiple stages of pursuing music. He never misses a show of mine if he can help it. My mentor in college, Allen Shawn, was and is an extremely important figure for me. He really instilled in me how capable I am of so many different things and opened my creativity up to composing and seeing myself outside of self imposed barriers. I am a gigantic fangirl first and foremost so my relationships to the artists that inspire me and who I love are huge in my life, even if they don’t know who I am haha.

What has the process of finding your sound and voice looked like for you? Where are you in that journey if it’s something that feels ongoing?

It's a process that is forever ongoing and involves so many different things. Reading books, watching movies, journaling, talking to my friends, talking to my parents, talking to my teachers, finding what I like in how other artists present themselves and asking myself why. Wearing bold clothes and putting glitter all over my face. Letting myself love really hard. Seeing my sensitivity as a positive. Accepting my fluidity. It goes beyond just my music but figuring out my identity and self expression. I have always had a very strong sense of self; morally, aesthetically, emotionally, in all of my relationships, and learning to embrace all of my big feelings and not being scared of things I don’t understand yet has been huge. I am the most myself I have ever been and the least myself that I will ever be going forward. And how cool is that! I will be forever evolving and figuring myself out and finding my voice.

Do you collect anything?

Things with horses on them, trinkets, purple things, guitar picks, concert tickets, Also anything that looks like a fairy would have it, I want it.

Does the release of this new song feel like a milestone of sorts? As a turning point, a stepping stone, a focusing, a branching out, etc.?

It absolutely feels like a milestone for me and a turning point. This is the first song of mine where I feel like I am writing about something that holds multiple feelings that would usually contradict each other. Frustration, sadness, care, well wishes, acceptance, longing. Most of my other songs I feel/felt very one way in the aftermath of the situations they are about so it has felt easier to say this is the sound we should go for or these are the words I should use, because there wasn’t really that much to misconstrue in terms of how I was feeling. This time around I had to think more deeply about how different instrumentation would change how the message is coming across, how adding a simple but strong chorus can change the whole song, etc. This process has opened up a lot for me as a writer and as an arranger. This song was also really important in helping me to move on and let go.

What’s your relationship to live performance? Is it a necessity for you, either for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons?

It is absolutely a necessity for me, for intrinsic reasons. I would say for extrinsic reasons if I made any money off of my live shows, which I do not. Lol. One day it will be for extrinsic reasons! My true love for music came from live performance and connecting with the audience. One of the most amazing things for me as an artist has been seeing the way that things I have written resonate with the people I am performing for in real time, and having people sing my lyrics back to me. The songs take on an entirely new life once they are played live for the people who come to my shows. Something that more often than not came from a place of deep hurt or distress, is now something that I associate with extreme joy and genuine connection with a group of people who I feel truly held by, whether I know them personally or not.

What’s the first instrument you learned how to play? Who taught you?

The first instrument I learned to play was the guitar when I was 8 years old, and my teacher was my friend’s dad, Moe Methot.

Can you pinpoint the “seed” for your new song, "King Of The Ashtray", and when/how you found it?

I kind of worked through how I felt after this situation was over in real time as I wrote this song. Leading up to when I started writing it I was going back and forth a lot about how I was feeling and what that meant or what I wanted, and often I don’t understand any of those things until I’ve written about it and heard it back. It started with the chords, which originally I was playing very hard and heavy, and then the first few lines came to me. It started out as angry. I didn’t mean it to, but looking back I think emotionally I had to start there to get through to my true feelings and figure out the rest of the song. Once I brought the song to my producer, Arthur Pingrey, we talked about the song and he suggested adding a chorus that incorporated the softness and care I was also harboring. Once I came up with that and we worked it in, the song took on an entirely new energy and the whole thing finally clicked for me. Such a small addition changed everything about the song and it felt so much more right and true.

Were there any other artists whose work you had in mind while creating this new song? In terms of lyrics, sound, mood, process, etc.?

I like to create companion playlists for all of my songs, especially when bringing them into the studio to help my producer and I get on the same page. Here is what is on the "King of the Ashtray" Companion Playlist currently: "We’ll Never Have Sex" by: Leith Ross, "Can I Believe You" by: Fleet Foxes, "Growing/Dying" by: The Backseat Lovers, "Big Songbirds Don’t Cry" by: Superviolet, "Kyoto" by: Phoebe Bridgers, "The Giver" by: Sarah Kinsley, "would’ve been you" by: sombr, "Not Strong Enough" by: boygenius, and "Honey" by: Robyn.

Which parts of the song were formed in your mind earlier on? Which parts were the most difficult to get “right”?

Getting the tone right was the most difficult. The day that I came into the studio and recorded King of the Ashtray I actually was going to record something else, and was feeling pretty unsure about ever releasing "King of the Ashtray". At that time it didn’t have the chorus, which I feel now is the most important part of the song in terms of delivering the main message and feeling. My producer and I had a long conversation about this particular relationship and how the delicate nature of the subject matter made me nervous that it would be received the wrong way. It felt very confusing to be so frustrated and so empathetic at the same time and I wasn’t really sure what to make of that or how I would attempt to show that. It was really important to me that what came across was care and acceptance, and not anger and resentment. That I was frustrated but not angry, let down but only wishing the best for this person.

Even though this song is about a past relationship and the pain present there, it’s not your typical breakup song. I might even describe it as “optimistic”- does that characterization resonate with you?

That absolutely does resonate with me. Something that was really significant for me in bringing this song to fruition was the realization that even though this particular relationship didn’t work out and was not meant to be, for the first time in a long time I felt genuinely capable of something serious, and that ultimately that is an extremely positive outcome. Even though I was really hurt and disappointed, I have tried to see my willingness and ability to be vulnerable and open as a strength.

I love the line “I knew that we would hit a wall / I just didn’t think it’d be concrete / I thought it’d be from bricks / That we had laid together at least.” There’s a lot of frustration and questions about what elements of a relationship are outside of the control of the people inside it. How has writing and performing this song changed (or not) the ways you think about those kinds of dynamics?

I don’t think it has necessarily changed the ways I think of those kinds of dynamics, but I think it has helped me accept them. If something is meant to be for me, it will be for me, and I won’t have to fight so hard against the reality to make it so. That is one of the biggest things I have been starting to integrate into the way I move through relationships of any kind. This was a situation where we both meant well and I think wanted the same thing but there were circumstances entirely out of our control that made it so that I was never going to be able to get what I needed or wanted or deserved. It just didn’t make sense after a certain point and that is okay. We were both trying our best and that just didn’t line up and that is okay.