In The Park With Blondshell
Images by Elena Saviano
In June of this year, Sabrina Teitelbaum, affectionately known as Blondshell, released her debut self-titled album, featuring nine grungy tracks tracing the veins of love, lust, losing, and leaving.
At its core, the record is a testament to Teitelbaum’s strength as both a writer and performer and to her dedication to chasing radical honesty and vulnerability. Her hometown show at Bowery Ballroom last Wednesday was an hour of pure euphoric release, Teitelbaum’s proclamations unfurling through a crowd of friends and fans. Tangled in the cacophony of glimmering guitars and thundering drums, Teitelbaum is exposed, bruised, and unapologetic.
There is an evident seat at the table for the sharpness of Blondshell amongst the young and talented, her serrated riffs and distinctive hooks broadening rock’s sensitivity and carving a permanent enclave in the heart of the angry and passionate. There’s a richness and sophistication to her lyrics that refuse to play it safe, gnawing on themes like addiction, toxic sex, and self-sabotage.
Evident throughout her set was the importance of anger as a powerful emotion in Teitelbaum’s creation of her music, as well as the anger that brewed unexpressed within her audience, aching to be released through the act of experiencing her music. It was impossible to ignore the hushed comments from within the crowd confessing that songs like “Sepsis” and “Salad” unlocked a kind of unbridled fury and passion that lay previously unexplored but deeply felt. It was a room lined with intensity, and Teitelbaum sang literally every song on the album (and then some) as if they were written to be received by each individual person. Maybe they were?
I met Teitelbaum at her favorite spot in Los Angeles to talk all things Blondshell.
What a beautiful day, I love this place. Why did you pick this specific spot?
I live nearby, and I just love this part of the park. I feel like this part doesn’t get talked about enough. There’s the big meadow in Silver Lake, and this is sort of the quieter part. It just feels really peaceful.
Totally, I really enjoy coming here.
ST: Me too!
Okay, so you grew up in New York, and then you came out to LA. How old were you when you moved?
I was 18, so I came out here for school, and I did about two years of school and just stayed.
And it was USC, right? Do you feel like that experience impacted where your career is now? USC specifically or living in LA in general.
Yeah, both of those things, definitely. It’s kind of scary because it’s like, if I hadn’t met this person I wouldn’t have done this thing which made me feel really good artistically or made this friend who has been my friend for eight years now. So it’s really scary to think about it, but I think yes, if I hadn’t gone to school where I did or just been in LA, I wouldn’t have met a lot of the people I ended up being friends with or some people I ended up working with as well.
Are you the kind of person who is pretty influenced by your physical surroundings?
I don’t know, I don’t think writing wise. I think it’s more like what I’m doing or the people that I’m around. I always think about people who go to really beautiful places on writing retreats and I’m always like, I wouldn’t be productive. I’m not really that inspired by where I am, it’s more what I’m doing there.
That makes sense. I would be too focused on relaxing.
Right?
“It’s this connection that is made because you said something, but you don’t actually have to say it to somebody. ”
But on the topic of writing, all of your lyrics are absolutely laden with emotion and sensitivity, and there’s some really hard truths in there. So I’m curious what your songwriting process looks like. Is it collaborative, is it just you? How did these songs happen for you?
These songs were all just me. The production wasn’t, the production and recording process was really collaborative, and I really leaned on my producer and trusted him. Our relationship was really important. But in terms of the writing, I showed up with the songs, because I think it’s really hard for me personally to be in a room with somebody else, it’s really uncomfortable and kind of embarrassing to try to come up with rhymes in front of somebody. It’s kind of cringe. I’ve tried writing with people in the past, it just doesn’t turn out how I like it. So when I made the album, it was after a period of isolation, Covid, and having just been only writing alone.
Like you said, it can be uncomfortable to say some of these things out loud and to other people, and the songs are all pretty personal and vulnerable, would you say that’s true?
Yeah, definitely.
So how does it feel to perform these songs in front of other people?
It changes. The performing sometimes feel less about the content of the song, depending on the song, and more about what’s going on interpersonally. If I’m feeling self conscious that day, for whatever reason, because that changes day-to-day, maybe it’s harder. It kind of depends on the people there too, because crowds feel really different, or if I know people there. It definitely varies.
What do you do when you’re not feeling as confident? I’m hesitant to use the word “rituals,” but do you have any of those types of routines?
There’s self-care stuff, and I hate that word and think it’s so misused.
Oh yeah, agreed.
It’s so misused! It’s like, you put on a face mask and you’re fine.
You’ve taken care of yourself for the month, you’re good.
Yeah, exactly. I think with tour, I’ve been on tour recently and am going out again in two or three days, it’s really hard on your body. It’s hard to be out of your space and your routine and your people, so I think in terms of ritual stuff, it’s prioritizing sleeping and eating things at the right time and what I want to have. Remembering those really basic things.
That’s so important. And how are you feeling about leaving for tour?
Excited! I have this month of touring and then I’m home for three months, so I’m not so intimidated by the idea of going on this tour, I’m more just excited. And also, it’s my tour! I’ve supported people a lot, with my last project and with this project. So it’s just really nice to know that I don’t have to get there and introduce myself and be like, here’s who I am, please pay attention. It’s more like, these are people who are coming to the show because they like the music. So I’m just excited to meet people in person who listen to and connect with it.
Do people reach out to you expressing that they connected with your songs? What do they say?
Yeah, I think some of the songs can be kind of ambiguous in terms of what they mean. Sometimes stuff I am writing is really literal and sometimes it’s not that clear, so it means a lot to me when I don’t want to talk about what a song means and feel like it’s not the clearest in the world to have people be like, this song made me feel this because I interpreted it as this. I have seen that recently where I’m like, maybe people don’t know what this is about or don’t know what this means because I don’t talk about it, but they interpreted it the way that I meant it.
That’s great, it must feel nice to feel like you’re being heard. From my perspective, also as a woman, I related a lot to this record, often in a lot of hard ways. Was making this record cathartic for you at all? Because it’s definitely cathartic to listen to.
Yeah, yeah. And singing it and performing it is also really healing in a different way.
How so?
I think there was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know that was how I felt until I said it. With “Sepsis,” I was so frustrated with my own behavior and things I was drawn to and kept coming back to, so when I wrote it, I was like, oh, this is what I am so pissed about. This is what I am so upset about. I got clarity by writing it. It wasn’t like, I’m sitting down to write a song about this subject. There were a lot of times that I didn’t know what I was going to write about and something just came out. Also, if you’re a little bit reserved and you don’t tell everybody everything, or if it’s hard to talk about certain subjects, it’s kind of nice to know that people are going to hear that from you anyway. It’s this connection that is made because you said something, but you don’t actually have to say it to somebody.
I come back to Sepsis a lot too, it’s really relatable.
That whole thing sucks. And I was so happy to have something out of it, because it’s so painful to do that whole thing. I’m like, okay, at least I got something, I got a song that feels good for me to say and feels good for me to sing. So I’m kind of relieved to have said the thing.
For sure, it feels good to listen to too.
I’m so glad.
I think you also have a sound that’s really identifiable as yours. Do you have any creative influences, anything that inspires you sonically, thematically, anything like that?
There were a lot of albums that I went back to that I listened to growing up, even in high school. Right now, I’m going back and listening to Sky Ferreira’s whole album, I guess because she’s performing.
Hell yeah she is!
Yeah, I’m seeing it everywhere! So I went back, and there are songs on there that I know that I heard but didn’t really connect with that much, they didn’t hit me. So it feels like listening to it for the first time, and that was happening with a lot of music when I was writing. It was happening with a lot of rock, The Strokes had just put out the New Abnormal, so I went back and listened to their whole discography.
A big feat.
Yeah, it felt like I was hearing that for the first time, it felt like I was hearing a lot of rock from the 2000s and 90s for the first time. A lot of really guitar heavy music, that stuff really came out in the production and in the sound.
You talk about listening to these albums as a kid, is this always what you wanted to do as a kid? Is this where you saw yourself?
It’s absolutely what I wanted to do, you just never know. Statistically, it doesn’t look good if you want to be a singer. I knew I wanted to make music, I didn’t know what it would look like, I didn’t know anything about genres or what it actually means to do it, I just wanted to make music. That never changed, my whole life.
Did you have a musical family?
No, nobody.
So interesting!
I think it’s kind of a blessing, because I’ve talked to people who do have musical families, whose parents were musicians or whatever, and I remember somebody saying to me that she was jealous that I didn’t have family members who were musicians because it doesn’t lose the magic. They’re wowed by it. I always had the problem where if I was practicing, my parents or my siblings… well not my siblings because they were annoyed… but my dad was eavesdropping, because he’s like, oh this is so cool that my kid is making music. I remember my friend that I’m talking about saying that she was jealous of my situation because when her parents walk by, they’re thinking of it in a technical way.
Almost coming at it from the standpoint of critique?
Yeah, and it doesn’t have all of that “how are they doing it?” because they know how you’re doing it. So I think I’m glad that nobody is a musician in my family.
That totally makes sense. Changing gears, and this is a hefty question so I apologize in advance, but if you had to tell yourself something when you were writing these songs, or anyone at this particular stage in their life, what would you tell them? Not sure how long ago you wrote these.
Oh, so many things. So, so, so many things. I don’t know if they would be helpful, because I wouldn’t have listened to anything. And I didn’t write these songs that long ago, a couple years ago, but I think I always felt so much pressure with time, I felt constantly against the clock. Even though I wasn’t. So I think that’s the biggest thing I would tell myself, to take my time and not feel like I had to make the album immediately. But I don’t even know if I would say that, because maybe urgency helped. Just not feeling like I was racing against the clock in terms of my own age, stuff like that.
Feeling like you had to achieve something by a certain point in your life?
Yeah, I kept feeling like I’m getting older, another year, another year, another year where I’m not doing the stuff that I want to be doing. So I would have enjoyed some more patience, but if I told myself that, I wouldn’t have listened anyway.
Patience is hard to come by. At least I feel that way. And this album did just come out in April but looking forward and when you think about making something new, are there feelings of intimidation, excitement, urgency, or are you just enjoying the ride because you’re about to tour it?
’m definitely thinking about it, I think it will be different, because my life looks so different. Not just because of music stuff, but I’m a couple years older, so my life looks different. It will probably look different because I know what the process of making the album entails, and I didn’t know before. So I just showed up with 10 songs that I had, and we ended up cutting one of them, it just didn’t make sense. I just showed up with those songs, they were the 10 songs I had written most recently too.
I’m excited to hear it! And last question, in whatever free time you have, what do you like to do?
Come here. All the time.
Me too!
I’ll probably run into you here then. I like to be here because it’s quiet, I like to bring my dog to the other side. Hang out with my family, my sister lives here. Hang out with my friends. I don’t have any crazy hobbies, I just read at the park, hang out with my dog.
That’s pretty much the absolute best way to spend your time, so thanks for hanging out here with me!