INTERVIEW: Blondshell on the new deluxe version of her debut album, and adding “the songs that I felt should have been in the same world”

Words: Emma Driver
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Daniel Topete

When LA-based singer and songwriter Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) released her self-titled debut album back in May this year, it blew in as a concise, nine-track breath of fresh air. With its low-key indie-rock guitars offsetting Teitelbaum’s winding melodies and confessional vocals, it is a spacious and honest record that reveals nuggets of lyrical wisdom for every listener. It’s so good that Rolling Stone placed it at number 11 on their 100 Best Albums of 2023 list, ahead of albums by pop big-hitters like Miley Cyrus, Janelle Monáe and Lana Del Ray.

Now Teitelbaum has expanded her debut with a deluxe edition, adding five tracks that complete the world she built for the album. These aren’t just throwaway offcuts – three are new tracks, and two are alternative takes that offer a new angle on the originals. ‘Street Rat’, for instance, is a minimalist reckoning with Teitelbaum’s own substance abuse issues (“There’s a blind spot when it’s around / I don’t feel like myself without a prop”), its simply stated lyric and careful vocal capturing how hard it is to give up any addiction. Teitelbaum has been open about her own struggles and came out the other side in early 2020, and her hard-won sobriety is at the song’s core.

‘Cartoon Earthquake’ has a ’90s indie flavour and a light melodic touch that contrasts with its images of the weightiness in a serious relationship. “You wanna put me in your pocket / And take me around,” she sings, then delivers the kicker: “But I’ll get heavy / You’ll have to put me down.” The alternate takes on album tracks ‘Kiss City’ and ‘Tarmac’ draw the songs in strong outlines, like x-rays, with bare-bones arrangements. “In his arms / Then it hits / That I’m damned,” Teitelbaum tells us, directly, in ‘Tarmac 2’.

This year Teitelbaum toured with ’90s rock icon Liz Phair, who celebrated the thirty-year anniversary of her breakthrough album Exile in Guyville, and played headline shows and festivals across the US and Europe. And the Blondshell momentum isn’t slowing: in 2024 she will play her first ever Australian shows, with headline gigs in Sydney and Melbourne announced, plus dates at the Laneway Festival across Australia (see links below).

Women In Pop caught up with Teitelbaum to talk about her new tracks, her shows with Liz Phair, and what being honest in music really means.

Sabrina, hello! It is super lovely to steal another window of your time. Congratulations on an exceptional version of an already cracking album, because this deluxe edition of Blondshell is really beautiful. How did some of these songs not make the first cut on the original album?

A lot of it was just logistics – which is not a romantic answer! But there were so many deadlines [for the original album] – like, “Now this is getting mixed”, and then “We’re no longer at the studio, so we can’t record any more songs.” But I wrote a song on the day we finished recording, ‘Street Rat’, and it would have been part of the album if I had written it a day earlier. So the deluxe version of the album was sort of like an opportunity to put it in the same world – the songs that I felt should have been in the same world, but I hadn’t had the chance.

I imagine you had just put so much into that world, so of course you’re going to have the aftershock of those feelings. I find that particularly with ‘Cartoon Earthquake’, which is gorgeous. It brought me straight back to being sixteen and listening to this kind of music for the first time. Can you tell me a little bit about that track?

So, all of the songs were like, “I really want to be in love. I really want someone who also wants to be in love.” Rather than to be constantly going on casual dates, I wanted to be falling in love. And then ‘Cartoon Earthquake’, that’s like, “Oh, god, maybe I am falling in love with someone. And that is scary for different reasons.” And so that’s what that song was about. I didn’t realise this was its own can of worms.

I also wanted to talk to you about another new track on the deluxe album, the home demo of ‘Kiss City’. You released it as a single earlier this year, but the home demo version hits really hard. How early did that version come out when you were writing the song?

Instantly. When I wrote the song, that’s what I recorded at home – when I wrote the song that minute, like, that second! So when I wrote it, I was not like, “I’m gonna empower myself and write a really guitar-driven song.” I was sad, and I wished I could say this stuff to somebody. And it was a lot more vulnerable than it was confident. So it changed a lot when we recorded it. We added all these drums and guitars and stuff. I wanted an opportunity to show what the song sounded like – my intention behind the song at first.

The difference between the versions is amazing. I imagine performing it live adds another layer to it as well.

Yeah, it makes me kind of desensitised – in a good way. I’m not embarrassed by it, or anything. And it’s just kind of fun to sing it live.

It’s interesting that you say you’ve been embarrassed by it – there’s that moment in the song where you’re like, “I think my kink is actually affection.” How have people reacted to that? Have you had people saying, “Oh my gosh, yes, I don’t want to be casual either”?

Yeah, and I didn’t really expect that. I didn’t know what to expect. There’s so much culturally that’s like, we’re supposed to be down with whatever, and not needing any sort of emotional anything. But, actually, I have more desires than just what I’m supposed to have! So people were like, “Okay, yeah, same.”

Do you feel like at the moment everyone’s running to feel everything and have a voice so much that there’s a desensitisation? There’s so much shouting, maybe we become desensitised to the noise and the chaos. So then, when you have an intimate moment, like in ‘Kiss City’, it really hits hard.

I think so. My interpretation is that people just always want to hear stuff that feels true. Not in a “universal truth” kind of way, but just being honest. And there’s so much weight put on vulnerability and honesty and self-care, and all these buzzwords – and there’s so much noise about that kind of thing. But I think if you’re not shouting about it, and you’re just kind of doing your thing as honestly as you can, then people can sometimes feel it.

Actually, if I hear someone else say, “I’m living my truth”, I’m going to explode.

I’m like, “Please, I don’t want to know your truth. If you have that to say, I don’t want to know!” [laughs] It’s like when people say, “I’m an empath.” I’m like, if you’re labelling yourself as an empath, I’m sorry, but I’m forced to believe that you have less empathy than the average person. Otherwise, you wouldn’t need to convince yourself and convince me that you have empathy.

Ha! Exactly. So Blondshell – both versions – is really a “sit down and listen all the way through” kind of album. How did you get into that space when you were making it? Because it really feels like an integrated whole, and the deluxe version just seems to extend that universe.

Well, I wasn’t really thinking about the songs as an album when I was making them. I just was going through a lot and writing a lot. And I was needing to talk about stuff. And so I just kept writing and writing and writing. And then at a certain point, I was like, “I want to make an album because I’ve wanted to make an album my whole life, and I feel like I have enough songs.” And I had written enough in a short period of time that they ended up really making sense together. So I wasn’t like, “Okay, I have this idea to write an album. I’m gonna sit down and try to find out what I want to say.” It was that I had written this stuff and thought, “Oh shit, I have an album.”

It’s an album that pulls people to their bedroom floor, in a laying-down state. So what is the one song by someone else that does that for you? Was there a song that made you think, “I need to make this kind of music”, a song that floored you?

‘Country Feedback’ by R.E.M. You know that song?

I do. Beautiful choice.

And you know what? I don’t really know why. Like, I love the Bob Dylan song ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’. I love that song. And I could tell you why I love that song. Because his songs are like essays … and he’s talking about really universal stuff. Everyone has someone who [makes you feel], “I’m going to be lonesome when you go”, and you can feel that way about so many people your whole life. With ‘Country Feedback’, I don’t know why I feel that way. I’m not even really sure what he’s talking about, to be honest. It’s just something in the way he’s singing and something in the song that makes me want to cry.

Well, that’s how I feel about ‘Kiss City’. So … you’ve just done some exceptional live shows with Liz Phair. Talk to me a little bit how that came together.

There wasn’t any real story behind it. We knew she was going on tour, and I wanted to go on the tour, and we pitched for it. But the tour was amazing. And I’m a really big fan of her music and that album [Exile in Guyville] in particular, because it was the thirtieth anniversary of Guyville. I was getting to see that music live every night, and getting to have a new relationship with those songs, and watching how she performs and her band. It was a really special experience.

When you were teaching yourself music, and adapting your own musical style and playing other people’s songs, were you ever playing any of those Liz Phair songs?

Not really at the time – not when I was younger. I mean, I knew the music – I had a poetry teacher in early high school who told our class about her, and that was my introduction to her. And I was kind of shocked, because I had heard men singing explicitly about sex, but I had never heard women doing that … Aside from the songs being really good songs, and her just being a really good artist, there was this conceptual thing, like, “Oh, I didn’t know we were allowed to do that!” And that really stuck with me.

I think that’s great. And you explore that so beautifully on Blondshell. Thank you so much for your time again today, Sabrina.

Thank you!

The deluxe edition of Blondshell is out now via Partisan Records. You can download and stream here.
Follow Blondshell on Instagram, Facebook and X, and at www.blondshellmusic.com

2024 Australian & New Zealand tour dates
www.frontiertouring.com/blondshell
3 February 2024, Laneway Festival, Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane
4 February 2024, Laneway Festival, Sydney Showground, Sydney
6 February 2024, Laneway Festival, Western Springs Stadium, Auckland
9 February 2024, Corner Hotel, Melbourne (w/The Belair Lip Bombs)
10 February 2024, Laneway Festival, The Park, Flemington, Melbourne
11 February 2024, Oxford Art Factory, Sydney (w/The Belair Lip Bombs)