rlyblonde Romanticizes Becoming Her Own Bachelorette in “Fantasy”
Multidisciplinary artist rlyblonde confronts unrealistic displays of femininity that women are expected to perform in hetero dating culture in her debut single “Fantasy.” With feathery vocals and blunt lyricism, rlyblonde embraces the art of reclaiming your dating life on your own terms and cuts the bullshit with fake, regurgitated conversations that occur on dates. Released on Valentine’s Day, “Fantasy” emanates exaggerated feminine motifs and classic Valentine’s aesthetics to convey a performative female.
After healing from a breakup, rlyblonde hit a point in her life where dating was not enjoyable for her due to excessive performance through stereotypical female presentation. “Fantasy” was the final breakthrough needed for rlyblonde to cut the bullshit and cut cords with relationships and energies that have never served her.
“I was going on these dates and regurgitating the same information over and over again. “Fantasy” was my punky response to being fucking sick of this and all these men are all fucking boring and fuck this,” rlyblonde says. “‘Fantasy’ was my final kiss goodbye to the sort of blueprint I thought I had to follow for what my romantic life was going to be like or what dating had to feel like, just this repetitive, boring routine with men.”
The release date came naturally to the songstress as close family and friends nicknamed her to be the Queen of Valentine’s Day, and naturally she had to accept. Working as a photographer, rlyblonde would previously experiment with romantic-themed photoshoots every Valentine’s Day and explore themes of romance, failed relationships and heartbreak in her work, all which translated into the culmination of The Bachelorette themed music video that embraces rlyblonde’s personal perspectives of navigating modern dating scene. In contrast to the unrealistic whirlwind romances depicted on The Bachelorette, the “Fantasy” music video descends into chaos and concludes with the bachelorette becoming a runaway bride. The video serves as a luxurious introduction not only to the audio-visual world of rlyblonde, but also her love for hyper-romance, drama and embracing self-love and independence.
“The Bachelor franchise I think is the most insane thing on television that everyone just accepts as normal. It’s so unreal that it feels like satire. It’s the weirdest psychological cultural phenomenon,” rlyblonde says. “When I was writing ‘Fantasy,’ I was laying in my bed and I could envision how the video would come along. My dream is to be the bachelorette without actually having to be the bachelorette.”
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you so much for talking to Unpublished Magazine. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who are familiar with you, what inspires your creative persona and style?
[RLYBLONDE]: I get creative inspiration from everywhere. I’m a photographer as well, so I feel like I get a lot of different inspiration from all sorts of different mediums of art. In a really broad way with music, my big names are always Liz Phair, Avril Lavigne and all sorts of 90s and 2000s edgy female artists. I just feel like something about having a sense of humor in your music or a sort of a sense of self or making fun of yourself a little bit has been a huge key for me in figuring out what I wanted my music to sound like. I definitely credit a lot to those sorts of artists. I love photographers like Nadia Lee Cohen and David LaChapelle. I feel like my brain works very much in tandem when I'm writing a song, I kind of see the visuals at the same time. I really love the satire of old Hollywood aesthetics and sort of playing into fame, money and glamor, and having sort of a sense of humor or like a sense of sarcasm in the visuals as well. I feel like I'm always just trying to have a little bit of fun with it, like that's kind of the art that I'm drawn to.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I'm so in love with Liz Phair, like so hard. She's one of my all time favorites. I was wondering what your favorite song of hers is?
[RLYBLONDE]: “Red Light Fever” is one of my absolute favorites. “My Favorite Underwear” is such a silly one that I’m just obsessed with. “Fuck and Run,” obviously. “Polyester Bride” is a great one. “Extraordinary” is my absolute favorite song. I could listen to her all day.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your original roots stem from photography. How does your foundation in photography translate to your music?
[RLYBLONDE]: The more I talk about music, the more I’ve realized how much those two connect and a lot of it is just in a very literal way of the community I have in Brooklyn is pretty much all musicians and my clients are all musicians and I’ve been very inspired to pursue other mediums of work and do music myself because of all the amazing people that I’m around and a lot of them have become my really good friends. Everyone said that I should pursue what I want to pursue. It feels very entwined because I don't think I would be here doing this if I hadn't found this pathway through my life over the past five years. But then in more of an artistic way, like I do really see everything visually. With this first song “Fantasy” that just came out last week, when I wrote it, it was that night I sat down with the demo and was like, “Bachelor” music video, like I see it now. The two mediums don't really exist separately for me. I know that I'm onto a good song when I feel like something clicks and suddenly I get this whole flash of how the entire music video would look. I just feel you're creating a world, you're evoking an emotion and there's certain emotions and certain things that you can evoke in music that you can't with visuals and vice versa. I feel like the most powerful forms of art combine all of them. There's just nothing that hits me better than a really well done music video along with a really amazing song. I think that my vision has always been to have it be all encompassing.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your debut single “Fantasy” just released on Valentine’s Day. A huge congratulations is in order! What was the inspiration behind the single?
[RLYBLONDE]: I went through a breakup and I was feeling like shit for a while and writing music about it because what else are you gonna do? I feel like this wasn't even really about a breakup. The song was just more about hitting a point where I was trying to date again and just realizing this is not working for me, like this is not enjoyable. Just getting tired of years of like performative female, stereotypical female presentation, like, going on dates and dressing up and doing the whole thing. I was going on these dates and regurgitating the same information over and over again. “Fantasy” was my punky response to being fucking sick of this and all these men are all fucking boring and fuck this. It makes a lot of sense to me in retrospect because I realized I was queer this year. This song was the turning point of me saying I needed something different. “Fantasy” was my final kiss goodbye to the sort of blueprint I thought I had to follow for what my romantic life was going to be like or what dating had to feel like, just this repetitive, boring routine with men. I think a lot of the music that I wrote following has been informed by this shift in my life that I'm making and experiencing new things for the first time and really thinking about what I actually want out of my life.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I would love to know more about the creative process. How did you go through this experience and how did it affect the process of creating your music? Has “Fantasy” helped you express any feelings or let off steam?
[RLYBLONDE]: This song and everything I've been working with, it goes with this project that will be coming out over the next year. It definitely was like a huge cathartic thing for me. Number one, just dealing with all the feelings that you have after a relationship and the feelings I'm having of trying to figure out my identity in a new way as a 27 year old. Writing this music was necessary for me, whether or not I took it seriously and brought it into a studio or it just existed in my GarageBand demo. I really had to get a lot of this stuff out in a way that I wasn't able to do with just photography or a different medium. I think separately, I've just wanted to make my own music for so long. We had the release party for “Fantasy” over the weekend, and it was crazy to me how many people came up to me saying how they remember me talking about this two years ago. It is nice now to be at a point where I've actually been able to accomplish this, but it really has been something that I've wanted to do for so long. I think even making that step to do a new medium and making that step to take myself seriously with it and trust myself to get better at guitar and learn how to work with a microphone was huge in releasing a creative block that I’ve had for five years. I feel emotionally, it’s been a huge undertaking and it’s been a huge release to even do all this which is amazing and terrifying. I ripped off the band aid and now feel like I can get into more of a groove with it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I love that you also released “Fantasy” on Valentine's Day. I couldn't have pictured a better release date for it since it’s very anti-romance.
[RLYBLONDE]: People have literally called me the queen of Valentine's Day. I can't take that title, but I accept. I've always been huge on Valentine's Day. I love the aesthetics. I am a huge romantic. The first shoot I ever did in Brooklyn was a Valentine’s photoshoot in my living room after I moved from college. I had maybe 15 girls come to my apartment all day and I had managed to pull a bunch of lingerie from different brands and I had a makeup artist and chocolate and champagne and we all hung out all day. It felt beautiful and I have been keeping up Valentine’s shoots every year, so it’s always been my thing. A lot of my photography works separately from my client work. I've done a bunch of self portraits in the past and a lot of them have been about romance, my failed relationships and heartbreak and these themes have been recurring for years. This music project really feels like a culmination of all of that exploration over the past few years along with the general aesthetics of Valentine's Day. It felt very appropriate that the first song in the first music video would all be around Valentine's Day and huge romantic vibes because that's just been my shit for years.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I love it because now you can really reclaim Valentine's Day as your own and you'll just forever know it as “Fantasy” release day, a holiday in itself.
[RLYBLONDE]: Yes, exactly. I love it. I've claimed this date for the rest of my life, but it's always something to celebrate.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Alongside the “Fantasy” single there's an accompanying music video that you directed. What was the inspiration behind the video and how was your experience filming it?
[RLYBLONDE]: My inspiration was absolutely the “Bachelorette.” The Bachelor franchise I think is the most insane thing on television that everyone just accepts as normal. I've been watching it since college. It’s so unreal that it feels like satire. It’s the weirdest psychological cultural phenomenon. When I was writing “Fantasy,” I was laying in my bed and I could envision how the video would come along. My dream is to be the bachelorette without actually having to be the bachelorette. I had the whole thing in my brain pretty quickly and I was just writing little notes on my phone deep in the night with all the little shot transitions that I wanted. It was definitely a huge undertaking. But thankfully, I have a handful of friends that I've produced videos with in the past and I really trust. I produced it myself with my two friends, and then I also had a co-director who was really fantastic. I edited it mostly myself. It was a two day shoot in October and getting all the bachelors there was crazy, like I don’t even know that many men. Bringing boys to set so it was extremely chaotic, but this is my dream and I want to be able to rise to the challenge as a director, as a creative, as someone that is trying to not only do music, but really be a director for other clients. I really wanted this to be a big portfolio piece. I'm really trying to knock out as many birds with one stone as I can with this project. I think it looks amazing and I can die happy having done this video. Someone keeps saying to me, like you have to do at least one vanity project in your life and I was like it's true, like it's definitely my vanity project, but also it was just a really great opportunity to be able to work with so many of my amazing friends. Honestly it was like the best crew I've ever worked with. Everyone was so amazing under crazy circumstances as well. Everyone at the end was telling me how amazing they thought everybody else was. I'm really proud of it. I still can't really believe that we did it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: It’s such a flex to even direct your own first music video.
[RLYBLONDE]: I've been directing projects, like I went to film school and I feel like I've been directing projects here and there for years. This was definitely like the biggest project that we've taken on and what better way to have it then for myself. I'm ready to level up, so I really hope that this will find the right people.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your debut performance happened earlier this week at Heaven Can Wait in New York. I would love to hear about the performance and how the energy of the crowd was.
[RLYBLONDE]: It was really crazy to be performing for the first time. We filled up the venue, which was nuts. Everyone was just having a great time, like it was so funny to see a bunch of my friends singing along to all this music that isn't even out yet. My parents were there which was really charming. I cried so much yesterday because I think I didn't really had the chance to process everything that was happening on Friday. I've accepted this is going to be a big change for me to get used to performing and putting myself out there so aggressively in a very vulnerable way as well. I almost feel like it will be easier in the future when it's a crowd of strangers versus looking out into the audience and seeing all of my best friends staring back, but it was really nice. It was cool to see so many people that came that I know from whatever experience that they're standing with someone else that I knew for a completely different reason. Brooklyn really is just like that small.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is something you absolutely need in your space when you're feeling a creative spark hitting you?
[RLYBLONDE]: I tend to write most of my music just home alone. I'll pick up my guitar and have sort of some idea and I'll just kind of vibe here. My friends and I make mood boards every new moon and I have all my mood boards from the past year up on my wall that have about making this whole project come to fruition. I feel very inspired when I'm just like in this space and my entire apartment. Working here is really inspiring to me so that’s why a lot of stuff happens in my little corner here. Logistically, my voice notes on my phone are much needed.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is some advice you could give to your younger self or wish someone had given you in terms of navigating today's dating culture?
[RLYBLONDE]: I would tell myself to be yourself and it is not going to look the same, like life is just very fluid. I wouldn't take away all of the experiences that I've gone through because I really do feel like everything happens for a reason and every human has to go through certain experiences to learn certain lessons. I don't really even believe in giving a whole lot of dating advice because I truly believe everyone's going to do what they want and then they're going to learn their own shit. I feel like a lot of lessons I've learned about romance and dating and heartbreak have not really come from a logical place. They've more come from a learned emotional lesson. I think that I would just tell myself that there is a light at the end of the tunnel or maybe a rainbow at the end. There is more to it than just all of these shitty experiences that we went through.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What's your biggest pet peeve with how women kind of have to play into gender roles or are portrayed in a hetero dating culture?
[RLYBLONDE]: It’s the things that guys say that are like ‘you’re not like the other girls,’ ‘you’re so much better than this other girl I dated because x, y, z.’ I think maybe my biggest one, because I think this one is almost the most detrimental to women as a group, is how men will make us hate other women. There was a whole self portrait series I did years ago that was about how social media makes it really easy to see who people date after you and how I would sit there and be like, ‘I hate this bitch’ and be like why am I mad at this girl? She didn't do any of the things that this terrible man did to me. Why am I putting my anger on this person? Pitting you against other people or making you feel a way so that you feel a way about other people is degrading and there’s no point to it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with the magazine?
[RLYBLONDE]: It's been so hard for me to even think past this launch show that we had over the weekend and so I feel a little crazy Monday being like, ‘wow, I still have client shoots that have to be planned for the next couple of weeks, and I have another music video that we recorded that I need to start editing,’ so there's not really a break. Over the weekend, there were a bunch of people reaching out to me about booking more shows in the city over the next month, so I’m really hoping I can perform more live shows because I want to grow more comfortable with it. I just think it's almost one of the most fun aspects of music other than music videos. It's a lot of juggling to be a working artist and then also be supporting a separate artistic career.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your wildest dream as an artist? If you can have one thing happen to you, like a milestone or dream collaboration you hope to achieve in your career, what would that look like for you?
[RLYBLONDE]: It's so corny to say like I did this music video and now I feel like I can die happy, so I do feel quite content in a way that no matter what happens after this, I'll always be like just cherishing this one project but of course, the aspirational brain has like a million other things. A tour would be cool. I would love to work with artists like Charli XCX.
