How is ACL treating you so far?
It's beautiful. It's my first time ever coming the last two weekends and the crowds have just been so good.
Is there anybody here excited to see at the festival?
Last weekend I was absolutely too dead to do anything. We did a red eye last night from Portland, so I might also be a little too down to see anyone. I would love to see Paramore and Kacey Musgraves. So maybe I will shotgun a cold brew and then go.
How has it being on tour with the panic at the disco?
Oh, it's beautiful. It's been really special. It's just really good crowds and first time playing in arenas. Yeah, so fun.
How did that come about?
Someone in their camp came to my Troubadour show last fall and they asked me to go out and I of course said yes.
Is that usually how it happens in the music industry?
It depends. I mean this one's a little weirder where like, I think the manager heard me because like someone's son found me on TikTok or something. I don't know, it was like old, you never really know how it happens. That's why you just have to keep doing what you're doing and trusting that people are seeing it.
Your song Hindsight is featured in the movie Bros. How has that movie helped the success of the song and your career?
Well it has a ton of shazams, which is cool. So it's cool that like literally people in theaters are like wondering what song it is. That song obviously helps streaming and it's a very historic film so it is cool to be part of it.
How does that work, like getting your song in a film?
So the person who signed me to my record label, Justin Trencher, he's a a very fabulous queer, super successful songwriter. Him and I write a lot of my songs together and we were just writing, I mean we write a lot of songs together and he knows Billy Eichner and literally two days after we wrote that song, Billy texted him cause they hadn't found an end credit song yet. Justin is just a huge advocate and knows so many queer artists. So Billy texted Justin to say, do you know any like young LGBTQ+ artists that have a song that might work for this? And he's like, well I just wrote this two days ago. Billy was like, that is literally perfect. Don't change it. We're putting it up. So that's really good. You don't really know that I didn't write that song for that movie, but it just ended up working.
What is the process when you're writing your songs lyrically?
It's never the same. I journal a lot and then I sit down at the piano and sometimes they just come out, and sometimes they don't.
Who are some of your musical influences?
I have a lot. From songwriting, I love Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Florence, and The Machine. Visually I love Bowie, Elton and Freddy.
If you were to put on headliners for ACL, who would you choose as your main headliners?
Me Stevie Nicks, my friend Joy Oladokun, she's amazing. Maybe Florence and The Machine. Lil Nas X again. I could probably keep going, but that feels good.