- There is a strong sense of emotional honesty throughout your music. Was vulnerability always something that came naturally to you as a songwriter, or was it something you had to learn to embrace?
Vulnerability has always come pretty immediately to me when it comes to pen and paper. I think that’s probably where I’m at my most vulnerable. There’s something about writing that makes me tell the truth before I’ve even had the chance to decide whether I’m comfortable with it yet.
I don’t think I’ve had to learn how to be vulnerable as much as I’ve had to learn how to embrace what comes out of that vulnerability. There are always new layers of the truth that I’m learning to sit with, especially knowing that eventually those words may leave my notebook and belong to other people through a song.
As I’ve grown up, I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve become more vulnerable—I think my vulnerability has developed more depth. Life gives you more to write from. You experience love differently, heartbreak differently, disappointment differently, and even yourself differently. The instinct to tell the truth has always been there; I just have more truth to tell now.
Many of your songs examine moments where people are caught between who they were and who they are becoming. Why is personal growth and self-discovery such an important theme in your work?
It’s actually not intentional. I’ve never sat down and thought, “I’m going to write a song about personal growth today.” Sometimes my piano just poses as a mirror. I sit down to write about someone or something that happened to me, and somewhere along the way, I realize I’m really talking to myself.
I think personal growth is also how you make whatever you’re writing about worth something. What did you learn from it? How did it change you? Who were you before it, and who are you now? If I write about a breakup and all I ever allow myself to be is sulky and bitter, then I’m still standing in exactly the same place where that person left me. And I don’t want to live there forever, even if I can write a good song there.
Writing gives me the chance to sit with what happened long enough to find out what it gave me, not just what it took from me. I think that’s why self-discovery keeps finding its way into my music. I’m usually discovering something about myself at the same time I’m writing the song.
“Designer” came from a moment of looking backward, but the song ultimately feels like it is about moving forward. How do you think your relationship with your past has changed as you have grown as an artist?
I think I have a strange relationship with my past because songwriting almost archives it for me. I tend to keep a lot of emotions bottled up until they find their way onto paper, and once I write them down, they don’t necessarily disappear—they just have somewhere else to live.
I can move forward from something in my actual life, but because I wrote it down so honestly, I can always pick that emotion back up. It’s almost like putting a box away in my mind. I don’t have to carry it around with me anymore, but I know exactly where I left it.
I think that has changed me tremendously as an artist because I’ve learned that moving on doesn’t mean losing access to the person I was when I wrote something. When I’m onstage singing a song years later, I can go right back to the room I wrote it in, what I was feeling, what hurt, even who I thought I was at the time. I get to revisit that version of myself without having to become her again.
Maybe that’s how my relationship with the past has changed most—I used to live in some of those emotions. Now I know how to visit them.
The title “Designer” carries interesting ideas about identity, image, and the things people wear emotionally as well as physically. What does the title represent to you beyond the surface meaning?
Beyond the surface meaning, “Designer” represents the idea that a version of this person will always belong to me, just as a version of myself will always belong to them. I don’t necessarily mean that romantically—I just think that’s what happens when you really know someone. You leave with pieces of each other.
Some of those pieces make you better, some probably make you worse, and some you don’t even realize you’re carrying until years later. They collide with everything else you experience and eventually become part of the person you’re growing into.
I think those are the things we’re really wearing. We’re all walking around with little pieces of the people we’ve loved, lost, forgiven, resented, or simply outgrown. In that sense, we’re all a little “designer.” Not because of what we’re wearing on the outside, but because of who had a hand in shaping what’s underneath it.
Your journey has included years of performing in different rooms and building an audience organically. How have those live experiences influenced the way you write, record, and think about connecting with fans?
Honestly, there’s nothing quite like standing in front of someone and hearing them sing your own lyrics back to you. It makes you realize, “Oh, people are actually listening to what I have to say.” And even more than that, you realize that whatever situation you thought you were going through alone, you weren’t—and neither were they.
I think that has really shaped the connection I have with my fans. I still have to write for myself first. I have to stay personal and ask, “What do I need to say right now?” because I think the second I start writing what I think people want to hear, I lose the honesty that made them listen in the first place. But once a song is finished, it stops being entirely mine.
When someone tells me they’re waiting for the next song, I take that seriously. By the time I hand it to them, there are long nights, studio hours, rehearsals, performances, blood, sweat, tears—and probably an unreasonable amount of overthinking—wrapped up inside of it. But that makes it feel like I’m giving them something that I genuinely poured myself into.
Performing has made me understand that connection is a responsibility as much as it is a privilege. If someone is willing to let my music sit beside them in their own life, I want to be as honest with them, and as good of an influence, as I know how to be.
Your music combines polished pop production with deeply personal storytelling. How involved are you in the creative process beyond writing, from production decisions to vocal choices and the overall artistic direction of each release?
I love this question because I’m incredibly involved, but I’m also incredibly lucky that the people I work with have really become my team. My producer knows me well enough at this point to know my sound, what the song is about, who it’s about, where I want it to go—and honestly, probably what I’m going to say no to before I even say it. The same goes for my bass player, guitarist, keyboardist, and drummer. A lot of them have been with me for years, so there’s a level of trust there that I really value.
Usually, a song starts very privately with me, a piano, and whatever I’m trying to work through. Then it leaves my room, and suddenly all of these incredibly talented people get to put their hands on it. We gather in a room and throw ideas around—production choices, instrumentation, vocal moments, dynamics—and somehow everyone brings a different perspective while still understanding that it has to sound and feel like me.
I’m definitely the person with the final say when it comes to my music and the overall artistic direction, but I don’t want to be the only voice in the room. I love hearing what everyone else hears in a song because sometimes someone will play something I never would have thought of, and suddenly I can’t imagine the song without it.
There’s something really special about watching an idea that existed between me and my piano turn into something an entire room of people has breathed life into. It still feels completely mine, but by the end, it has fingerprints from people I trust all over it.
Looking at the current landscape of pop music, there is a growing appreciation for artists who embrace complexity rather than presenting a perfect image. Do you think audiences are becoming more interested in authenticity, and how does that affect the way you create?
A thousand percent. Especially with everything happening with AI right now, I think people are craving evidence that there’s actually a person on the other side of what they’re consuming. People want imperfection. They want flaws. They want to see you mess up onstage and laugh about it, or hear the story about somebody accidentally hitting something on a guitar that sounded incredible and ended up staying in the record. Those little human moments suddenly carry so much weight.
The funny thing is, that affects the way I create in absolutely no shape or form—and I think it has to stay that way. If I walked into a studio thinking, “Okay, how can I make this feel authentic?” I’ve probably already defeated the purpose. You can’t really manufacture authenticity without eventually contradicting yourself.
I don’t think about any of that while I’m creating. I write what I need to write, we make the record we want to make, and whatever mistakes, quirks, weird little choices, or honest moments happen along the way are allowed to be there.
Where I do think authenticity matters is after the song leaves my hands. It affects how people connect with it and where they take it in their own lives. I can control how honestly I make something, but I can’t control what it means to someone once they hear it. And I think that’s actually the coolest part.
- Every artist has moments that redefine their confidence. Was there a particular performance, song, or experience where you realized music was not just something you loved, but something you truly wanted to pursue professionally?
There have been so many tiny, special moments—at shows, meeting fans, reading comments—that keep redefining this pursuit for me. I don’t think there was ever one moment where I suddenly decided, “Okay, I’m an artist now.” It’s more like I keep getting little reminders that say, “Keep going.”
But there is one story I love.
At the very first show of my very first tour, we charged a $5 cover at the door. Before the show, someone commented, “I’m not paying $5 to see Arabella.” And I’m not going to lie, that crushed me a little bit. I remember thinking, okay… noted.
A couple of months later, toward the end of that same tour, we were playing this huge, packed room with a couple hundred people. I looked out into the crowd and someone was holding up a sign that said, “You were worth the $40 cover.”
I’ll never forget that.
It wasn’t really about the $5 or the $40. It was that those two moments happened within a couple months of each other. I got to physically see the distance between where I started and where I had gotten—not just in the size of the room, but in myself as a performer.
There will probably always be someone who doesn’t think I’m worth the $5. That’s okay. I think part of pursuing this professionally has been learning to keep showing up for the people holding the $40 sign.
If People Pleaser represented a period of learning how to navigate expectations, what lesson do you think “Designer” represents about letting go and trusting yourself?
I think “Designer” represents learning that you don’t need someone else to agree with your version of a story for it to be true to you. “People Pleaser” came from a version of me that was very aware of expectations—what other people wanted from me, how I was being perceived, whether I was doing or saying the “right” thing. “Designer” feels like I’ve loosened my grip on that a little.
There’s a strange freedom in realizing that two people can walk away from the exact same relationship with completely different versions of what happened. I don’t have to convince someone that I was hurt for my hurt to have been real, and I don’t need every unanswered question tied up with a perfect little bow before I’m allowed to move forward.
I think trusting yourself sometimes looks a lot less dramatic than we make it out to be. Sometimes it’s simply saying, “I know what I experienced. I know what it taught me. That’s enough.”
Maybe that’s the lesson of “Designer” for me: closure doesn’t always come from getting the answers. Sometimes closure is finally trusting yourself enough to stop asking the questions.
As you look toward the future, what are the creative risks you are most excited to take, and what kind of artist do you hope Arabella continues to become?
I think I’m actually taking that creative risk right now. I’m stepping into a new genre, and I’m really just praying that my fans take a chance on me and trust my vision, because they’ve never heard anything quite like this from me before. That’s terrifying and exciting at the same time.
The funny thing is, even though the sound is different, it feels incredibly me-coded. When people hear these songs, I think they’ll probably go, “Oh, of course Arabella wrote that.” Maybe they didn’t expect it to sound this way, but the storytelling, the personality, the little quirks—it all still feels very much like me. I think that’s what has given me the confidence to take the risk. I’m not becoming a different artist; I’m just letting people hear a different part of the artist I’ve always been.
And looking even further ahead, I hope “Arabella” doesn’t always feel like it means just me. It’s slowly becoming this collective. There’s me, but there’s also my bass player, my drummer, my producer, my photographer, my videographer, and all of these people who keep putting pieces of themselves into this world we’re building. It’s starting to feel less like “I am Arabella” and a little more like “we are Arabella.”
Eventually, I hope that “we” grows to include the people listening, too. I want the fans to feel like they have a place in this—not just that they’re watching an artist build something from the outside, but that they’re growing alongside us and becoming part of the story.
So I think the artist I hope Arabella becomes is bigger than a genre, and honestly, bigger than just me. I want it to become a world people feel like they belong to.
