Dark pop artist Fae might really be the biggest Halsey fan on the planet
There’s something special about surprises - notably when you come across a new sound and music so unexpected you have to connect with the person responsible for it. Meet Fae. The West Coast dark pop artist with the proud mix of Jewish and Japanese background and zip-zero interest in religious practices on top of the fact she might have cracked the TikTok cheat code to success. Oh - she also has a must-hear new ‘Devil May Care’ song you just gotta lose your mind to - in a good way.
With a new false memories EP on deck, Fae chops it up with Attack The Culture to dish on everything from her positive obsession with pop superstar Halsey and the motivation behind putting out her new audio gem to keeping certified classic ‘Bob’s Burgers’ puns in her phone and going with pole dancing over Equinox goals.
Kick back for some of the standout moments and keep scrolling to check out more than 30 minutes of Fae in her comfort zone chopping it up.
Super important question. Is it capital ‘F’ or lowercase ‘f’ because I’ve seen your name in so many different varieties and first, and I even saying it right and second, yes I am saying it right?
Fae: Yes! I initially wanted it to be lowercase but then it was literally just a thing for when I submitted my Spotify stuff they were like ‘We don’t allow creative capitalization.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s not true because other people have done it.’ I’ve made it uppercase because of that but now I kind of am glad that it is. So uppercase F.
How in the world did the ‘Devil May Care’ concept come about because I know it’s the last official song leading up to your EP?
Fae: I basically found out about the phrase ‘Devil may care’ which means being reckless and careless and the way that my brain went is, I’m a very non-religious person. I grew up in a super non-religious household so I kind of use mocking religious themes in a lot of my music because I can. So I kind of had the thought that the devil may care is about people not knowing what you’re doing but I kind of had the thought process of I feel like if the devil did care about something, he would make it way worse.
I used to have some anger issues that I had to unlearn but even though I have gotten really good about not reacting to situations, my brain still goes to a really fucked up place. Like when somebody does something to me, I’ve never slashed anyone’s tires but that is where my brain goes every time I get mad. I think, ‘I should actually slash their tires.’ I’ve never followed through but I basically let my brain go to a place where it goes when it’s really fucked up and I’m really angry. Not things that I’ll actually do but basically letting that devil on your shoulder win. Like, ‘You know what? Fuck it, you go and have fun.’ That was kind of the concept behind it.
There’s so much power in this TikTok tool and for you personally, how much of an uplifting source has it been? There’s always been Twitter, Instagram, Facebook - who goes there anymore besides family and friends? How much has TikTok been that big boost for you?
Fae: I am super, super pro TikTok. I feel like it has taken over the music industry in a way that has never really been done before. We saw it a little with MySpace and the blogs that were bigger around 2010 but I feel like TikTok has given so much power to the artists. I remember reading somewhere one of the reasons TikTok is such a powerful mover in music is because it’s one of the few social media apps people are scrolling with the sound on. A lot of things like Instagram and stuff you kind of have your phone on silent and people aren’t really listening to things.
On TikTok, you’re trying to listen to stuff. As musicians, we’re like, ‘Thank god, you’re not just looking at us you’re listening to the actual music.’ On Twitter you actually have to direct someone to a thing away from the platform and on Instagram you’ve got to get someone to turn on their volume.
TikTok really levels the playing field. You’ll see label signed artists that aren’t doing that good on TikTok and then you’ll see independent artists who are absolutely crushing it on TikTok and it’s so cool that artists have so much power like that. I’ve read articles about how it’s actually changing how record deals are happening.
It used to be like a 90-10 split where the artist would get '10 percent’ - which is insane - and now these record deals are getting closer to 50-50 because artists are coming in with so much more leverage and so much of an audience and defined brand that they’re like ‘Fuck you. I can do this without you. You can help if you want but I can do this without you.’
