Bedroom pop artist Beauty Queen’s debut EP, Out of Touch, is out today. Featuring six tunes that are reminiscent of holidays spent on the West Coast, Beauty Queen’s music has been described as being best to listen to “while smoking at the back end of the parking lot, while skipping 2nd period AP trig.”
Hot on the heels of Out of Touch’s release, we caught up with Katie Iannitello, the mastermind behind Beauty Queen, to talk about the writing and recording process behind the EP and where she draws her inspiration for her tell-all tracks.
Set to the tune of dreamy bedroom pop melodies that help transcend the listener into a new wave of relaxed and chilled out feelings, Out of Touch features truthful, tell-all lyrics everyone can identify with in some way. Writing and recording the demos for Out of Touch in her bedroom, the personal workings behind the EP feel almost effortlessly put together, an aspect that compliments Iannitello’s songwriting process well.
“My songwriting process happens best when I walk, so I used to walk a lot and just hum stuff in my head and build on that. Sometimes the lyrics would come when I would mumble something and recognize that it was an actual phrase later!”
Teaming up with Henry Nowhere (Day Wave) to produce the EP, the collaboration between Nowhere and Iannitello could be seen as a match made in heaven, the two of them being able to work together to create an EP that presents a new sound in bedroom pop that is both refreshing and blissful.
“I wrote the songs and recorded demos in my bedroom and sent them over to Henry who produced the songs also in his bedroom. I was living in San Francisco at the time so I came down to LA one weekend and we recorded all the rest there together!”
Two stand out tracks on Out of Touch are “Sold You Out” and “Goner”, both featuring psychedelic sounds paired with spunky and playful lyrics we can all apply to aspects in our own lives. The songs, while sonically completely different from one another, both were written about similar feelings and experiences in Iannitello’s life.
“Both tracks are written about oppressive relationships (some romantic / some not) and learning how to find the strength within yourself to move past them. ‘Sold You Out’’s lyrics are a sassy and playful taunt to whoever’s trying to break you while ‘Goner’ is about learning from relationships and accepting yourself when it’s hard to let go of something you know is unhealthy and finding some humor in it.”
While it is always hard to choose one of your songs over the other, Iannitello’s favorite song on the release right now is the title track which she will be releasing a music video for next month. Inspired by her feelings of disconnect from her native town of Maui, “Out of Touch” was written as a way for Iannitello to work out her feelings and emotions of being far from home while living in California.
“It was an easy song to write because it sums me up. I’ve always felt a little out of touch being here on the mainland now, but being raised in Maui. I don’t get a lot of the pop culture references because, well, I guess it’s true, I was raised on a rock! But the song is an anthem just to be yourself and who cares if you’re awkward and different!”
As her debut release as Beauty Queen, Iannitello has managed to present a batch of six songs that are all distinctly different from each other while still standing together to create a cohesive EP. With a mixture of dreamy bedroom pop elements and real-life lyrics that will attract all who listen, Beauty Queen’s end goal for this EP was greatly accomplished, making for one of the best releases to come from the genre in a long time.
“I think being from Maui helped me write pop music that has more of a relaxed vibe. I want it to be easily listened to and fun!”
