Stupid Lucky is giving the spotlight to their inner child – Interview
By amber bintliff
From childhood bedrooms to Bowery Ballroom, Stupid Lucky intertwines whimsical authenticity with sapphic yearning. The New York City indie-rockers are in the business of liberation, crafting a project that embraces the messiest parts of self-discovery and growth with open arms. The band name stems from frontwoman TayLOR Pearlstein’s dedicated commitment to reconnecting with her inner child, who’s now affectionately adopted the name ‘Lucky.’
Their debut single, “need to know,” first introduced the world to the ECCENTRIC fibers of Stupid Lucky’s EXISTENCE earlier this year. The song grasps the crushing, yet cathartic feeling of coming to terms with your sexuality after years of denial, fittingly opening with Pearlstein stating, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
The band’s second single, “baby teeth,” exists in the space between crashing out and letting go. It’s a loud, emotional reckoning with heartache and self-worth, demonstrating that it’s okay to lose your mind before picking yourself back up again through distorted guitars and an infectious hook. The recently released music video gives a glimpse into the post-situationship insanity, as Pearlstein (rightfully) throws a fit in the comfort of her own apartment, at a karaoke bar surrounded by friends, and even on the Williamsburg bridge in the middle of the night.
In an interview with Televised Magazine ahead of the “baby teeth” music video release, Pearlstein opened up about finding strength in her inner child, the catharsis she unlocks through storytelling, and more.
How would you describe Stupid Lucky to someone who's never heard of you before?
Oh, wow! Great question. I think I’d describe it as “angsty-lesbian-indie-rock.”
What's the biggest thing that you’VE learned about yourself since embarking on this journey as Stupid Lucky, especially since you’ve talked about how this is healing your inner child while being able to express your queer identity?
I think Stupid Lucky was born really this year. January was when I started bringing it into the world fully, and it had been brewing for the past several years as I was trying to figure out what direction I wanted to go with my music.
Stupid Lucky was the convergence of me finally getting to a place where I believed in myself and was ready to put a lot into who I was and what I wanted to be, and give space to my inner child to have fun, tell stories and be seen in the ways that she wasn't seen by other people or even by me growing up.
It was the meeting point of that, and also me longing for collaboration in a new way and entering into the space where my music was more of a project in a world I was building than something that was attached to my identity as Taylor. It just felt so expansive, and I'm collaborating now with an incredible band [of] four other people. We're still figuring out what that looks like because we're so new to this, but it was just instant connection and chemistry.
We feel so magical and silly and fun and playful when we're making this music, so the spirit of it really is all of our inner childs getting to just have fun, express ourselves and find a sound that makes us feel catharsis and joy.
And I'm doing that as a lesbian, as a queer person, with four other queer people. There are lesbians in the band, there are non-binary people, pansexual people, kind of all expressions and experiences – and they're also just dear friends of mine. It's brought me to a place with music where I've been able to relax a little bit more into the belief that we're doing something bigger than us.
If you were able to give your younger self any piece of advice, what would you say to her?
I would tell her that you don't have to worry so much about shaping yourself into something other people want you to be, and your instincts are correct. You can trust your gut and trust your spirit for all the things you want to be and all the things you want in the world. You don't have to be anything anyone tells you to be.
I love how this project is centered in that, so I wanted to touch on that a little bit. Thank you for that!
Thank you! I appreciate that. That's something my therapist asked me for so long and I was like, "I don't know! I don't know how to talk to her!" It's been a long journey to it and the project really feels like I'm giving her the stage in a lot of ways.
Before you were Stupid Lucky to the world, you built a prominent career in musical theater in SIX The Musical, which is so cool, and then you also had a previous solo project that was more indie-folk. How have those experiences shaped you as an artist and then impacted the direction and vision that you had for your current project?
Great question — I'm sitting actually backstage at SIX on Broadway right now! I started working for SIX in August 2022 going out on the tour.
Okay, okay, there are a lot of things here. First of all, being on tour with SIX was the first place that I got to experience, not just queer friendship, but sapphic queer friendship.
I was on tour with all women and non-binary people and became best friends with this really solid group of other actors and band members who were bisexual or gay. Before I came out as a lesbian, I've always been an ally. I was in GSA, the Gay-Straight Alliance, in high school and I'm in musical theater – all of my friends are queer. It's something I've been around my whole life, but on tour was the first time I was in this tight friend group of people.
That was the catalyst for me seeing myself in other people and recognizing that I connect with that and I think I might be gay. It was great too, because there were people who I certainly had crushes on in that friend group, but at the time I was in a long-term relationship with a man who was living in our apartment back in Brooklyn.
It was a really sacred space that I had found on tour where it wasn't romantic or sexual. It was just this beautiful friend group that cracked me open and showed me so much of myself that I didn't know was in there. That was a huge thing that SIX gave to me.
Then also I think getting on stage and having to be a popstar in this show with the handheld mic and getting to express myself in that way, I had never really performed “pop” music. So when I came off tour, I spent the next couple years really trying to figure out what I wanted my music to sound like.
With Stupid Lucky, I ended up bringing in Willie, who is one of our guitarists, because I wanted him to play more of what I had been playing on my guitar so I could get on the handheld mic and perform a little bit. That has been so much fun! SIX was a big inspiration for that. A big play space for me to graduate into this kinda fun popstar/rockstar thing that, again, ties back to what I was doing in my bedroom when I was a kid. Many of us were, with a hairbrush or whatever, lip syncing in the mirror.
I guess that ties into my solo project as well. I've always been a songwriter my whole life. That was the first thing I think I ever did, so I took that for granted for many years, especially as I grew my musical theater career – went to school for it, came to New York. I've been doing the tour thing, the Broadway thing. It's always been a given that I'm always writing music, so this is the first time I think I'm really shaping it into something specific and intentional.
Your latest single, “baby teeth,” is an infectious anthem for anyone who's ever been burned by a situationship. What has it been like watching the response to this song and seeing how people connect with it, both online and then at the live shows, especially because you just played with Daisy Grenade?
It's been so cool. When I wrote this song, it was one of those songs that just came out all at once. I was with Keaton Whitaker from Daisy Grenade and I played it for her, and then she ended up helping me with the hook melody, but instantly she was like, "This song is great." It was just so much fun. It gets stuck in our heads all the time.
It's just been cool to hear from people. People will text me out of the blue and be like, "I woke up in the middle of the night with ‘baby teeth' in my head." It's getting into people's psyches.
At shows too, it was so cool at Bowery Ballroom to hear people singing it back to us. I wrote it in a time where I was so fed up with feeling trapped in my obsession over this specific situation, where I don't think I felt like I got the closure I needed and it had just been eating at me for months. It was one of my first lesbian experiences, so I felt like I was in middle school again [and] having a crush for the first time.
I felt that immature, throwing a tantrum, what's wrong with me, I'm gonna lose my mind kind of thing. That's the energy that this song brings and lets people get out. I also realized through that experience, I think the biggest thing I had to get over was criticizing myself for being in that place and feeling embarrassed about being a mess.
I was like, you know what? You don't have to be perfect all the time. It's okay that you're a mess, and it's okay that you're working this out. You don't have to be put together 24/7. It's okay that you lost your mind. You're gonna get it back and you're gonna learn something from it. “baby teeth” feels like that to me.
I think that's part of the reason why people feel so good singing it, like can you just tell me to fuck off or fuck on? Anyone can resonate with that feeling where it's like just tell me something, give me something so I can either let go of this or we can go at each other. I just need to know. I need you to tell me what's up. But then the other side of that is realizing that you also have that power to decide to fuck off, you know?
Even at the Bowery Ballroom show, hearing how the crowd would yell the "Fuck off or fuck on" part was so fun.
I love watching back videos of that because it's so fun to hear people sing that. I've started backing off the microphone at the very end for the last, "Can you just tell me to fuck off or fuck on?" and it's so cool to hear everyone else singing it.
The music video for “baby teeth” just came out, which is super exciting! Can you talk about the inspiration for the visuals and how that connects back to the song’s story?
I worked with Hannah Klein as a director and creative director on this. I worked with her also on the “need to know” music video from our first single, and she loves this song. I remember sending it to her and she was like, "Can you please send me the chords? 'Cause I wanna learn this song guitar so I can sing it."
I went on Pinterest and I think the first image I saw was this picture of someone with all these groceries dropped on the sidewalk, but they looked fabulous. So, I liked this idea of everything is falling apart, but I look really good while it's happening and making the breakdown look hot.
I described [the music video] once as a series of aesthetic tantrums. There's one scene where I'm in a bedroom and I have a box, the floor is covered in photos and I'm just going through all these photos. I'm eating them at one point. We would roll through the song, and I would do a take and just throw a fit in whatever scene we had set, which was really fun.
There's another one where we took inspiration from the grocery shot where I'm on the sidewalk and I'm pouring out milk. The night that the Knicks won (Knicks in five!), I was out until two o’clock in the morning. I went home and took an hour and a half nap, and then got up and met Hannah at 4:15 AM. We walked like 20 minutes to the [Williamsburg] bridge, and the sun came up and we filmed a tantrum at the bridge.
We got like a little buzzer where I'm screaming at someone through this cool vintage buzzer so it's like a fun music video. Also, we built a karaoke room where we did the karaoke lyrics of the song on the screen and then other people were singing the karaoke, too.
It was just like a really fun, collaborative series of aesthetic tantrums. It was very much the spirit of the song being throwing a fit and kind of going back to your first question about how I would describe Stupid Lucky, I think an addendum to that is making embarrassment hot again. I think that is totally what the ‘baby teeth” music video embodies.
That's such a good way to phrase it, too. It's like reclaiming it.
Yeah! I think it's powerful, you know? People talk a lot about cringe culture and how everyone's tired of that. I think this [music video] is very in line with that feeling that we don't need to be so puritanical about everything. People don't have to be perfect all the time.
I can't wait to watch! With music videos in general, I don't really see as much hype about them anymore compared to in the past. However, I feel like a lot of people in the alternative space are bringing back that sense of storytelling in their music, so what is your favorite part of getting to bring your songs to life visually and why is that important to you as an artist?
I really enjoy it from my theatrical background because at my core, I'm a storyteller. I went to theater school and that's why I do what I do. That's why I write music: telling stories and processing what I see around me and my own life experiences through creating a story. A song is the only way I know how to exist in the world. I'm trying to think about my favorite music videos and how much they mean to me.
Someone whose music videos I'm obsessed with lately, and Hannah as well, we are obsessed with Addison Rae. So, so many beautiful visuals. Aesthetically, her whole team, what they're doing is just hypnotizing, [especially] “High Fashion” and “Headphones On.”
I think taking a song that already gives so much to people and provides them catharsis — for me, “Headphones On” by Addison Rae — I love that song. I put that song on when I'm stressed and I'm like, ‘Everything's gonna be fine. I'm really cute, and everything's gonna be okay." The music video brings that into such a specific world where we're seeing someone working an average day job and processing whatever's going on in their life, but finding the magic around them.
It's like, wow, you've taken this song that already brings me so much peace, and you've now brought me into this world where I'm reminded that I can find beauty in the things around me. I'm talking about Addison Rae's work and not mine, but I think that's why making music videos is so fun to do as an artist and so fun to consume. It builds the worlds that we're already enjoying from these artists.
With “need to know” (the first music video we made), the song is already about reckoning with compulsory heterosexuality and realizing that you've been living a lie and you don't wanna do that anymore. And then the music video I think brings joy to that.
You have another show coming up soon on August 22nd at the iconic Baby's All Right. What are you most looking forward to for this performance and what can people expect to see from Stupid Lucky?
Well, first of all, it’s such a dream to play that venue. It's so iconic, and I've seen shows there. When you're a music artist, it's hard to go to other shows and not picture yourself sometimes. I've gone to shows there and just dreamed of the day that we would get to do a show there, so I'm really excited.
I’m also really excited to play with OK Cowgirl! I've been a huge fan of OK Cowgirl for years now. Their song “Our Love” I think was the first song that I discovered of theirs, and it's one of my favorite songs I've ever heard. I think I listened to that song a lot when I was experiencing the nightmare situationship that led to writing “baby teeth.”
Also, that'll be our first show since Bowery Ballroom or I guess we did play that pop-up show after, but it'll be our first show together in a couple months. I've been here for a little bit on Broadway, and then Morgan, our drummer, has been drumming for CMAT on tour, which is so cool.
I'm excited to get the band back together. That's the lifeblood of the project, so when I'm away from them for too long, I get sad and disjointed. When we get to play music again, I'm like, ‘Okay, good. I know we're doing this. This is really fun. I missed you guys.’
I read this on your website and absolutely adored it: “Taylor is based in and in love with NYC.” What has inspired you the most since coming here, and how has the local scene shaped your artistry and motivated you?
I'm in my 10th year now living in New York. Before I moved here, I visited when I think I was a junior in college. I didn't really know anyone here and I was just here for the summer, so I took myself to some random musical theater cabaret thing and met people there who didn't recognize me.
I remember somebody turning to me, I don't know who they were now looking back, but I remember them being like, "Hi, who are you? I haven't seen you around here." And I told them who I was and that I'm hoping to move to the city, and they were like, "Oh, my gosh! Come with me, I'm going to this audition next week. You should come with me. And then my friend does this piano bar downtown on Tuesday nights."
I went to that piano bar, and then there was someone there who was writing a musical. Someone like me who was young and trying to make it, not some big composer or anything, who was like, "Oh, I really want you to come and sing on my music. Come to my apartment, we're doing a sing-through of this show I'm working on."
And those were my first couple weeks in the city where every single person I met was like, "Who are you? What do you do? How can we be a part of what the other person is making?" It's just so collaborative in a community way here in New York. I've experienced that in the music community as well, so that magic just swept me off my feet when I moved here.
Now looking back over the years I've been here, I see the paths that I've gone down, and how because I went to this dive bar on the Upper West Side, I got this job and I did this show. Just seeing where it all goes is the magic of New York. Community is everything. My friends here are everything to me. They keep everything really tangible and rooted in real connection and joy.
Anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up?
We are doing a really cool live recording session experience on September 9th at this recording studio in Long Island City. It's called For The Fans and it’s a show in the basement of this recording studio that's gonna be recorded live. I think it's gonna be really cool, if people wanna come to that.
The day before we do, we'll be recording some new songs that we're hoping to put out probably on an EP at some point. Maybe before the end of the year. We'll see. We're cooking.
