20-year-old, Huntsville native, Stef , is the pop queen we donʻt deserve but certainly need. Her dark-pop reinvents itself with each new track she releases and it is no different with her latest project, A Glitch In Our Virtual Reality, which released today! The 8-tack EP has blasted through any expectations, including my own. A Glitch in Our Virtual Reality showcases Stefʻs genre-blending writing skills and pairs perfectly with futuristic production of the project.

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Who are your primary fashion influences?

I love Devon lee Carlson and Bella Hadid; anyone kind of doing the “model off duty”. Vintage designer from the 90s is also right up my alley for sure.

 

How did you curate Things your ears must hear?

A lot of the people on that playlist are my friends/mutuals on social media so it's just music that Iʻve been personally listening to in this part of my life—it could change every week but thatʻs what Iʻve been vibing to every week. In high school, I was listening to a lot of rap and R&B stuff. Now as Iʻve got older, Iʻve started listening to pop and indie pop as well as Americana and country stuff sometimes because my friends are in the country music industry.

 

How has living in Nashville influenced you as a musician?

I actually moved to Nashville to do country music which is crazy! You probably canʻt hear any of those influences in my songwriting now but I was doing more singer-songwriter stuff. At the beginning of 2019, I decided that I wanted to do pop and not country. What I can thank country music for is teaching me the basics of songwriting. I don’t feel like there is any proper way to write a song, but it did help me get my feet under me. I was young, I was learning—I got to learn from some people who had hits in the 90ʻs. I think gave me some more creative freedom in the pop world because I knew how to write a song on a guitar but now, I can write with tracks.

 

Where did you pull musical inspiration from for hereʻs what weʻre not gonna do?

This is actually some TEA! So, hereʻs what we're not gonna do was actually written for one of my friends at the time. I have never had a falling out with a friend in my entire life, Iʻm a libra, like Iʻm friends with everyone I don’t have beef with anyone. This girl and I are not friends anymore because of this guy that she is now seeing. I wrote it for her to help her get over this guy and we were like “This is so good!!! Weʻre gonna bop this! Women empowerment anthem!”.  I was kind of inspired by Caroline Polacheckʻs Youʻre so Hot Youʻre Hurting My Feelings—though it doesnʻt sound like it at all—I wanted a cheeky phrase at the end and here’s what we're not gonna do was really popular in July of 2020; it was the perfect cheeky phrase but also drew from my personal experiences.

How did the lyrics, no staying home reading texts, come about? Typically, you hear songs reference pictures or abandoned clothes, itʻs rare to hear this imagery and I really loved it.

I actually think we wanted to put pictures in it at first, but we also wanted it to be a catchy chorus, so it had to rhyme well. We sat around thinking of things and collectively thought about sitting back reading text and I thought about the times where I did that thinking “was this even real? Youʻre saying that you love me and want to do all these things with me and now weʻre not together” which is not good, that’s very toxic. We did end up, obviously, sticking with texts though not just for rhyme reasons but it also made sense.

 

Where is your favorite place to thrift in Nashville?

Oo! Iʻm exposing myself, my favorite place to thrift in Nashville is…Music City Thrift! It is the best thrift store—I would say. I also like Thriftsmart on Fridays because if youʻre a student, you get 50% off everything. I also usually source for my Depop shop from Goodwill bins. It’s the cheapest option but also, everything that doesnʻt get sold in there goes to the landfill or I wholesale from Atlanta as well.

 

How are your fan interactions through the fashion side of your YouTube different from what youʻve experienced as a musician? Do you see a lot of crossover?

I definitely see a ton of crossover, which I am very thankful for! I think thatʻs been a challenge that I have tried to walk the fine line with, because I don’t want to come off as an influencer; I want people to be like “Oh, sheʻs an artist. Sheʻs a pop artist. Sheʻs a musician and sheʻs into fashion” not vice-versa. I love the cross-over that I have though; I do wish I had more crossover from tik tok to Instagram but it’s a slow build. I think I sit in such a unique, niche group of people because not only will they support my music, but they also come to my shows, they sell out my merch any time I come out with stuff, and they buy stuff from my Depop; I think Iʻve created a cool community and I love them so much, I think itʻs just really great.

 

What juice would you be?

I donʻt want to give a boring answer but I just LOVE apple juice. I think apple juice is good, I love a good orange juice…I don’t know I think I just like apple juice. I know itʻs not like a fun sassy answer but itʻs me. I donʻt know, what juice would you be?

That is an answer, this writer will never reveal ;)

 

What is your favorite live performance memory?

I havenʻt been on an official tour yet but Iʻm hoping something will come up soon once live shows come back. My favorite memory from a show I did was my Nashville show when I released my first project which was just three singles that I dropped all at once in 2019. There were over 300 people, mainly people I know who were just supporting me. There was a crazy light show and my bandʻs amazing, it was a really good first show as a real pop artist. I will never forget that night, it was such a good experience.

 

What was the process of shooting the music for Sour and Sour Reimagined?

Okaaaayyy! So, I got to work with some of my best friends on that music video. They also did the Switch Music video, which is coming out with this EP AND weʻre doing a hi my name is lonely music video this Friday! We rented this house in East Nashville—I don’t know how we got so lucky with this house. This lady was clearly a collector she had insane furniture pieces—Even now, the house has gotten even more insane since we shot the video two years ago. It was really fun, I got to work with all of my friends and have them in it. The Sour Reimagined video is actually just scenes that we didnʻt use for the final cut of Sour. We shot a lot of scenes outside that we didnʻt use and so thankfully we had enough to put this other video together. The original video took 12 hours to shoot which was crazy!! We started at 4pm and ended at 4 am. I felt like I was an ACTRESS it was so fun! I love shooting music videos; it is one of my favorite parts about this—if I could do a music video for every song I would! But, you know, that is expensive so I can’t do that haha. my team was so professional, and they brought a big team to work with them. It was just an overall amazing experience; I was very tired by the end of it though. They put so much prep time into it, they were like “At this time we have to start shooting this scene and be done by this time to start shooting this at this time” it was all very professionally done; theyʻre amazing.

What was the idea behind Sour Reimagined?

I think that the reason I released the reimagined version is because that song actually does have such a deep meaning and is a very emotional song which I think maybe, to some people the emotion couldʻve gotten drowned out with the original version and the heavy pop track that it was originally over. I didnʻt want to call it “Stripped” or “Acoustic” or anything like that, so I came up with reimagined, which I hadn’t seen anyone do before but now I have seen people do it after which I think is so funny.

 

What can we expect from your EP, A Glitch in Our Virtual Reality? How is it different from what has already been released?

So, my EP youʻre getting 8 tracks! Intro track, outro track, five songs—it’s a concept EP—and a reimagined version of I used to build dreams about you. That song was a song I wrote about my boyfriend now! Weʻve been dating for just over a year now but when I first started dating him, I was like “Whatʻs going on??” I saw this cool quote and wanted to turn it into a song and so we got I used to build dreams about you from it. I feel like this EP has a song for everyone on it, whether you want a super hype women empowerment song or you want a chill song about being in love or you want a girlboss song about being heartbroken and lonely but in a girlboss way like anthem-y. It's very experimental and Iʻm very excited about it. 

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~Reagan Thornley