Veronica Everheart: “A Lot of the Artists I Love Are Kind of Bad Lyricists”
INTERVIEW
By Serenna Zingg
3/25/26
Courtesy of Spotify
Considering that the newest generation of culture-vultures have found themselves enraptured by the cancer-inducing sonic laserbeams and crushed digibites engineered by The Hellp, supporting act Veronica Everheart has evaded all industry niceties and risen to a new level of sophistication: she might just be your favorite artist’s favorite artist. With experience both within the Phoenix and New York scene, Veronica Everheart takes advantage of the freedoms granted by digital music production, the grain of 2010s indie rock to end up with a Tumblr-core DIY approach to self-led independent music.
With equal frustrations toward the superficiality of growing up in Scottsdale (despite deeply unequal resulting levels of musical talent or esoteric taste in music) Veronica and I had plenty to chew on in a recent interview about her upcoming EP, how moving to New York City has affected her music, and our shared embitterment toward the term ‘indie sleaze.’
As somebody from Scottsdale, I can relate to some of the frustrations you’ve mentioned in past interviews on about the superficiality of the dominant culture. Looking back, though, how might growing up in that environment have influenced your music for the better - if at all?
Yeah, I think Arizona in general is a really interesting place, but you do kind of have to find the scene. Being around people who had really different interests or creative pursuits pushed me to seek out like-minded people. If that feeling hadn’t been so intense, maybe I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to do something about it.
If I had just fit in with all the people wearing Tory Burch sandals or whatever, it probably wouldn’t have benefited me. Because of that experience, I ended up really searching for my community and my people. For a long time I kind of villainized the whole state because of Scottsdale (which is random) but I’ve learned to appreciate it a lot more as an adult. Scottsdale specifically is such a weird place to grow up. Going to the art charter school after freshman year of high school went horribly was really nice, though. I was able to build an actual community there.
Is that when you really started digging into making music, or did you get your start earlier?
I’ve played guitar since I was really young, but I started writing songs when I was about thirteen. At the art school, I actually didn’t focus on music much – they had guitar classes, but I wanted to try every other form of art because I knew I’d be a musician forever. Still, I was definitely more inspired to create there, and I started meeting people who were also trying to make art in some way. So it pushed me to keep going.
You’ve said the term indie sleaze annoys you - which is fair, it kind of annoys me too. But you’ve worked around that sphere a bit, with The Hellp and Noah Dillon, and you’re partly in New York now where there’s a lot of focus on that scene. What are some stereotypes of that genre you try to avoid? And, conversely, what do you think the best parts of that scene are?
I think with any label people put on my music, I just want to push the boundaries of it. I don’t really want to exist strictly inside a scene. You can’t always choose what you’re associated with, but I try to connect with people in other genres too, because scenes can get really small. It’s not exactly cliquey - it’s just the same five people over and over. I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. It’s just kind of annoying sometimes.
I was a big fan of the actual early-2000s stuff - LCD Soundsystem, DFA Records – I love all of that. So seeing people try to revive something that isn’t even that old yet feels a little strange. I just try not to copy what everyone else is doing.
There’s kind of a formula – like the pop star formula in the 2000s, where you picture the headset mic, sequined dress, long blonde hair, backup dancers. I think a similar formula is happening with indie sleaze now. The leather jacket, no instruments on stage, just synths and backing tracks. And that’s cool, but there’s room for other stuff, too. As for the best part of the scene, I’d say the experimentation.
There’s definitely copying out there, but there’s also a lot of people experimenting with sounds we haven’t really heard before. That’s why I don’t think it’s really just a revival. Especially because there aren’t that many rock bands involved – it’s closer to something like Daft Punk or Justice. There’s something else going on.
Yeah, I totally agree. It pulls elements from that era, but the newer stuff feels like its own thing. Speaking of – what’s your favorite DFA record besides anything James Murphy has put out?
The label released a few compilation CDs with random artists from the roster. I bought a couple during COVID because I had a CD player in my car. There’s some really weird stuff on there. It’s basically a sampler of everyone on the label at the time.
If you had unlimited studio time and space to make a record (with no other commitments) what would your dream record look like?
I’d want it to be something that feels really cohesive, like Dark Side of the Moon. It has that intro, the story, the way everything flows into itself. I’d love to spend time making something like that with a clear arc.
Almost like... dare I say... a rock opera.
How dare you.
I know. But something that really flows, where you have to listen to the whole thing. I think that would be really fun.
So, for Lighter in the Morning, what would you say is the riskiest song on the album? Like a sonic risk that ended up paying off the best?
It’s interesting, because I think the whole thing was kind of a risk for me. My earlier projects were very indie rock – sterile and clean. Working with my producer and creative partner, we created a whole different sound world.
So it wasn’t exactly a risk in the sense of trying something random. It was just very different from what I’d done before, which was inherently kind of scary. But the first song like that I put out,
“Microcosm,” felt like proof that what we were doing was special and worth continuing, because people seemed to really respond to it. That made me want to keep going in that direction.
Lyrically, though, “Leadership” is probably the most intense. There are a lot of themes in it that are hard to fully explain without them potentially being taken the wrong way or offending someone. But I felt like it needed to be said – especially for women.
What song in history do you wish you made most?
Oh my god, so many. Probably “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell. The structure is beautiful, her voice is perfect on it, and it’s so strict and simple at the same time...just a really beautiful song.
Would you say she’s amongst your biggest lyrical influences?
I don’t really know where my lyric inspiration comes from, honestly. It’s probably just whatever I’m listening to at the time. But yeah, she’s got incredible lyrics. A lot of the artists I like are actually kind of bad lyricists. Just random men saying nothing. I guess James Murphy is sort of like that, but his lyrics are cheeky.
Very cheeky. Very self-effacing. Have you ever seen LCD Soundsystem live?
Yeah, they’re probably my favorite band ever. I’ve seen them three times. I live in New York now, and James Murphy actually has a venue here called Good Room. One night he was DJing there, and I saw him walking to the bathroom. I just tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I love you.” He was like, “I have to go.”
You actually saw him in the flesh and blood?
Yeah, he was DJing. I just said hi and he was like, “I have to go back.”
James Murphy...was just casually DJing at the venue?
Yeah, it’s his place. He was doing a set there. It was crazy. But I love them so much. If you ever make it to New York, they do a residency every year and it’s amazing. I genuinely don’t think they’ll ever break up. There’s also a really good book that just came out by Disco Pogo, it’s about LCD Soundsystem. I bought it immediately.
If you could choose to experience any historical New York scene in real-time, what would it be?
I see two main options: The ’70s and ’80s, when everything was disgusting and dangerous but everyone was living in places like the Chelsea Hotel and doing drugs and making art. Either that, or twenty years ago when it was basically the same vibe all over again. But the time-travel thing gets complicated for women; you start realizing you couldn’t even buy a house by yourself until the ’80s. So, honestly, the early 2000s still seem really appealing. Although if I could go anywhere, maybe Paris in the 2000s. All those French producers – Daft Punk, Justice, Soulwax – I don’t know what was in the water there, but they were doing the best sampling work.
Which artists in the New York scene are inspiring you right now?
There’s a band called Fish Hunt. She’s a really talented songwriter and still pretty up and coming. And then all of my friends are in bands. My drummer is in a band called The Bones, they’re really good.
All my friends, you say...I appreciate the LCD Soundsystem reference. So Lighter in the Morning is one half of the project, and you’ve been releasing some newer material recently. If you’re able to share, are you about to release the second half of the EP?
Yeah, I’m announcing it pretty soon. I’m not sure exactly when, but in the next couple of weeks. The other half comes out May 1.
That’s exciting. Would you say the whole project is pretty cohesive with the first half that you’ve already released, or did you explore a different set of ideas?
It’s pretty similar in terms of the sounds we used. The first half might actually be a little more polished because it was sort of our second try at building this new sound world. Both parts were recorded in a weird way, though. I’d fly from Arizona to New York to record everything. It was stressful because I only had so many days off work, so it was like, “Okay, we have to get everything done now.” It felt really frantic. I think that frantic energy still carries into the second half, though.
“UNKNOWABLE DISTANCE,” a song born from “feeling like I was at odds with the universe, and that the universe was at odds with me,” just arrived on Spotify in a slow-drip EP reveal. Its cutting flippancy is indicative of Veronica’s continuous conviction in her natural strengths: While sarcastic inflection has become so integral to the post-punk genre that opting out of politically gravitatious spoken-word snark almost becomes countercultural in its own right (it’s funny how such things work), artists such as Veronica sound as though they were simply born with a voice acidic and flippant enough to flip one-liners for a career and turn casual colloquialism into genuine critique.
Listen to "UNKNOWABLE DISTANCE"
