Singer-songwriter Tessa Violet, who has reached fame with multiple viral songs on social media, is currently on her North American “MY GOD!” tour. She is known best for her songs “Crush” and “YES MOM”, which went viral on TikTok.
Violet began as a YouTuber in 2007, posting popular fan-made music videos and making vlogs while working abroad in Hong Kong and Thailand as a fashion model and under the alias “Meekakitty.”
She debuted her music career with “Maybe Trapped, Mostly Troubled” in March of 2014, going on to create music that bounces around the wide spectrum that is pop music and to collaborate with artists like Cavetown, Lovelytheband and Chloe Moriondo.
Fresh off her performance at her dream venue, Chicago’s House of Blues, The Daily Illini talked to Violet about her expanding journey, her newest album and more.
This interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
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The DI: What have you learned about the music industry since your beginnings as a YouTuber?
Violet: You can’t build a career, a big one, just as one person. It really does take a village. As a YouTuber, you can do it, just you. But music is much more complex, and it requires a village and I gotta say, it’s better that way, because it’s less lonely. I love to be out on the road with my tour group, our buddies.
DI: Who do you think is a part of your village?
Violet: Definitely Dante (Cimadamore), my fiancé. We were working together for five years before we started dating. He’s been a part of the band since when we were playing tiny, tiny clubs to like 50 people. The whole team at Tag (Records). On the road, it’s my TM (tour manager), Walker, my merch person Nikki. Nikki has been on tour with me for years now. I feel very connected to her. She’s gonna be a bridesmaid in my wedding.
DI: Have there been any struggles from that shift from a one person team to it being more collaborative?
Violet: It requires trusting people, but it also requires working with people that you can trust. It definitely took me a while to find a team I felt good about. I didn’t have a music manager for a long time. I was doing it all on my own. I didn’t feel like I was taking meetings with anyone that understood me and where I wanted to go.
DI: Your last album had more of a kind of bedroom-pop vibe to it. This new album is moving onto hyperpop. How is that musical shift?
Violet: For my internal experience, it doesn’t feel like a diversion. To me, it just feels like an expansion. Like on “Bad Ideas,” “Crush.” Definitely a pop song. I just have more elevated pop songs on this record. But then I have “Words Ain’t Enough” which is an acoustic, slow song.
DI: What do you think is next for the expansion?
Violet: Well, what’s true about me is that when I listen to albums, I like them to have a variety of genres on it. I’m not the sort of person that wants to hear the same song 12 times with different lyrics. That’s true for both “Bad Ideas” and “MY GOD!” There are songs that are slammers and moshers and there are sad songs that are acoustic and more organic.
DI: Is there anything that feels new to you about this album?
Violet: Self-love? That’s new. I feel like I did a lot of internal work. “Bad Ideas” was all about getting sober and breaking unhealthy cycles with love relationships. In between that and “MY GOD!” I’ve done a lot of work to be like, “Yeah, I’m rooting for myself.” “MY GOD!” was the first song I wrote in that vein. And then, “YES MOM” came out. It was such a big moment for me. It’s fun to see people reacting to it and being like, “Yeah, this makes me feel good.”
DI: This album spotlights power, sexuality and femininity. Why are these topics important to you?
Violet: I saw these TikToks before I wrote “MY GOD!”, the song. It was a lesbian person talking about how they have this interaction with women who’ve never been with women before, that they are totally disconnected from what it is they desire. Being conditioned as women, they’ve always prioritized the pleasure of men. And that is what that sex act is, the pleasure of man. I’m a straight woman, but even seeing that I’m like, “Oh, my god, me too. What is my desire?” If you don’t know what you want, then you don’t know what direction to lead in and you just wander aimlessly toward your death.
DI: You’ve kind of shifted your visual aesthetic recently. How do you think that that’s reflected your musical growth?
Violet: We finished the album before we did any of the visuals. Athena (Lawton) has definitely been a big influence on, “Oh, what’s the visual story? What are the costumes saying?” The visuals were black because that felt right for “YES MOM.” Then, as I started finishing the record, I was like, “That felt right for that one song, but it doesn’t really feel right for the piece as a whole.” The album is more feminine, more powerful and more joyful and more sad. It’s funny that I ended up coinciding with Barbie. We picked the colors before that was announced. Pink just felt right. It was Athena’s idea to wear armor, my idea to have conical tits.
DI: What are some artists that influenced this album?
Violet: Taylor Swift is always an influence for me. To me, this is my “Red” era. I love Doja Cat though I am less into it now that she’s like, “I don’t like my fans.” But the music slams, you know? Also I love Ashnikko and ABBA.
DI: On both “Bad Ideas” and “MY GOD!”, you have voice memo versions of some of the other songs. What do you think the value is of leaving raw voice memos on the album?
Violet: With “kitchen song,” here is something about that song when it’s just the voice and the acoustic guitar that was really special. Though the full band version is so much fun, I just felt like this version of the song needs to exist. That’s how it was when it started and I love how intimate it is. I love that I got to sing it with two of my dear friends. My fiancé, Dante, is one of the voices on that and my friend dodie is the other voice.
DI: In that song you describe this domestic life, writing kitchen songs for your love. How would you define a kitchen song?
Violet: A kitchen song is definitely something that you wrote on your own. Not a collaboration. It’s something that you write for the joy of writing and the joy of hearing your partner versus thinking about “How will people receive this?”. Anyone can write a kitchen song. My mom writes kitchen songs all the time, she’ll just sing something, observe what’s happening in the kitchen and make it rhyme.
DI: What’s a dream collab of yours?
Violet: I want to do something with dodie someday. We have a song we wrote together (called “Burn”) that people keep asking me for. And I’m like, “Dude, I’m down. I want to do it.” Every time I bring it up with dodie, like, “Are we gonna release this song or what?”, she’s like, “Yeah, I love this song, but I want to do it with my producer.” I’m like, “Do it!” This next year, maybe it’ll become a threat like, “If you don’t do it, I’m doing it! I’ll release it as a solo song!”
DI: What’s next for you?
Violet: I just finished this album. It took me four years. I am currently in the part of the process where I’m trying to get it out there. Because I’m so proud of it. I’m not quite ready to dive back into the writing process.
