stevie invites listeners into the kind of honesty that arrives when life has stripped everything back to its raw foundations. Her EP, I Guess This Is Healing, rose from places where heartbreak, anger and long-buried humour refused to stay quiet, shaped further by studio spaces that gave her the freedom to create without fear. In this interview, she retraces the night Too Good For You snapped into focus, the way certain rooms still echo in her writing, and the moment she realised the part of her that writes songs had survived the darkest weeks. She speaks with clarity, warmth and a grounded sense of self as she reflects on the emotional fault lines that shaped the record and the odd, touching scenes that fed into it, inviting readers into the world behind her music.
‘Too Good For You (Halloween)’ feels like the musical equivalent of finally blocking that nightmare ex and then setting fire to the memory for good; what headspace were you in on the night that song really clicked, and why did Halloween feel like the right backdrop for that moment?
Simply, I was raging, absolutely full of unadulterated anger and heartbreak. It felt more like an unfiltered diary entry than a song. A song that I never dreamt of releasing, its rawness and lyrics felt like too much. I remember writing it, alone in my flat, and the guitar just wasn’t angry or beaten up enough; no amount of distortion or bit crusher could get the sound I wanted at that moment, to convey the hurt I felt. So then entering the studio and recording the track up, new layers, new people and a new not broken voice singing the track was really cathartic – processing in real time. I think that’s when the track really clicked.
The backdrop of Halloween was always going to happen, it’s an unfortunate biographical story that did happen at Halloween! I was in fact dressed as a pretty rubbish scarecrow, very drunk at an awful club. I think the reality of the story is painful, the defeat of feeling not good enough, but rattling off this story and knowing that really you’re too good for this person who is putting you through hell and saying you’re the problem. But let’s be honest there is a kind of almost comical side to this, a bottle of wine, a bad straw hat – a very tragic bittersweet time capsule.
You stepped into rooms like Electric Lady in New York and then The Church, Orinoco and Battery while you were still pretty young; what was the most surreal or formative thing you soaked up in those studios that still echoes in how you write and produce your own records now?
For me i think it’s the environments that these amazing places created. So many artists work in so many different ways, whether it’s their writing process, down time or having items or people with them who allow them to flourish. It’s the warmth and safety that is needed to create without restriction or judgement. Feeling that you are in an environment that nurtures the way youwrite. Down to the tiniest details – the lighting or the rugs!
Whether it is writing for myself or working with other artists, providing a safe haven to feel heard and safe to create is so important. You can make music anywhere, but there is something magical about finding a space that brings that out of you.
You have spoken very honestly about that abusive relationship that drained the colour out of music for a while; can you talk us through the first tiny turning point where you felt yourself reaching back for the piano and realising the creative part of you was not gone for good after all?
I think that turning point was the same time I felt a point of no return. I was going through a really devasting point in time, one thing after the other of loss and tragedy. Then I realised I didn’t know this person anymore, and they didn’t know me. They just didn’t get that this unbelievable trauma happening around me was not about them. I was in a dark place, and they didn’t care. Crying and screaming in therapy sessions after months evolved into taking those emotions and writing them down, singing them around my flat and being able to let them exist without shame. I reached for my guitar and just let loose.
The EP, ‘I Guess This Is Healing’, traces a whole emotional arc from the point of no return in ‘Too Good For You (Halloween)’, through the disorientation in ‘Sell Me A Dream’, to the tentative new love in ‘Sore Loser’; if this record played out as a short film, what would the key scenes be, and where would the credits roll emotionally for you?
Oh, blimey, what a question. You’ve got me thinking! In all honesty, this may sound a tad odd. But in my mind, I view my brain, my psyche, my being, as an island. It is individual and solitary. There are many facets to an island – the deep crevices that you should probably unearth and sort out, the surface level that can take up a bit too much time or even the people you let on to the island.
The idea of a short film and key scenes, would be a figure burning down this island and leaving. Leaving the island owner to put out the fires one by one, tending to each problem area at a time. Rebuilding safe places, planting flowers – but then finally realising that you’ve looked after the island, but it’s only the start. A desire for companionship, new life on the island. The credits would roll at either the island owner leaving or a new boat porting up on the island. Odd island tangent over!
You want listeners to find solace, peace, humour, anger and resilience in this body of work; how do you keep that balance between laughing at the chaos and honouring the really heavy parts without sugar-coating what you went through?
Haha I think that may be something my therapist would say I need to work on!
I feel that it’s the honesty you have for yourself, the people around you and the story you want to tell. Remaining true and resilient. For me, this was a story I needed to tell, before anything else. I have to address that I am not a perfect person, this is what I’ve experienced and I am open to people feeling that. I have listened to so many songs from a young age to now that really made me reflect and be very introspective. I hope these songs do the same – and the image of me rolling down a hill dressed as scarecrow will live on.
You started out playing piano at seven or eight; when you listen back to the EP, where do you hear that childhood version of you the clearest, and where do you hear the grown, battle-scarred London creative who wrote ‘I Guess This Is Healing’?
I feel they are one and the same, actually – in the chorus of ‘I Guess This Is Healing’ I sing ‘I don’t hate myself anymore / I won’t deny myself anymore’. This, for me, is a direct admission from my child self that it is okay to be you, unapologetically! I have struggled throughout my life with my gender expression and fully fitting society’s expectations of femininity or masculinity and that was a real part of my healing process that I am still working through today. I think the London creative can polish it up a bit, but the sentiment was really coming from my inner child. Those moments and those lyrics are the most raw part of this EP.
On Sibling Radio, ‘Stevie’s Rolodex’ lets you champion other artists every week; how has sitting on the other side of the glass as a radio host, curator, and fan changed the way you think about your own songs and the stories you want to push into the world?
Oh I love it! It really takes me back to engineering and just being there for the artist and getting their truth and vision across. I am so grateful that Sibling have allowed me to bring on artists and creatives and to really get into what makes them tick, that being said it goes off the deep end most of the time!
Listening to and talking about music with such genuine love and enjoyment makes me want to share as many stories as I can. Whether it’s a deep personal experience, or a look into outside relationships or even something conceptual. It makes me really proud of the EP I’ve created and I am really excited to keep throwing my creative chaos into the atmosphere!
You have a growing social media community and backing from a Sony Music Publishing subsidiary; how are you keeping the focus on authentic connection and healing rather than chasing numbers, and what would you love fans to feel or do the first time they spin the EP all the way through?
I think I am too anxious to focus on the numbers! I will psyche myself out!! Aha! They are important, don’t get me wrong. But my main goal here is to do this for myself and tell the stories I want to tell – and also that I enjoy myself! I started this project by doing this for myself and hoping that one day if it got released people would find something helpful or healing in it themselves.
On a first spin, I’d love for people to just react however they bloody want to! Whether that’s quiet and reflective or full of defiance and empowerment! It’s the listener’s journey; I am just telling the story.
