A longtime collaborator with Modest Mouse, The National, and The Decemberists, Lisa Molinaro channels controlled anger into joyous liberation on “Peach Fuzz,” a rip-roaring indie rock reckoning from her debut solo album ‘Blind Trust’ that sends sludgy guitars, bruising drums, gilded harmonies, and wicked humor crashing through entitlement’s grip.

Stream: “Peach Fuzz” – Lisa Molinaro

All the gold that you have wouldn’t offer me the world / I bite the fuzz off a peach and leave the flesh for another fool…

* * *

Freedom sounds like a guitar pushed past its breaking point, buzzing with the thrill of refusal and the release that follows.

On her latest rip-roaring single “Peach Fuzz,” Lisa Molinaro channels fury into a full-body rush: Sludgy guitars churn, drums land with bruising force, and every line pushes back against the entitlement that asks a person to swallow the bitter part and surrender the sweetness. The result is a feverish indie rock reckoning that bites, laughs, and burns its way toward liberation – a song born in controlled anger that rises, gloriously, into joyful release.

So much for taking it slow
And for tying up loose ends
Too soon to know how it goes
Are we too far gone to remain friends

Don’t tell me how I should feel
Loyalty fealty faith
Pretending that this is real
It was never strong enough
to weather this

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Peach Fuzz,” the feverish second single from Lisa Molinaro’s debut solo album Blind Trust, out July 17. Long heard bringing depth, tension, and texture to other artists’ worlds – recording with Modest Mouse, performing with The National, and touring with The Decemberists as a violist and multi-instrumentalist – Molinaro steps fully into her own frame here, fusing the precision of a seasoned collaborator with the raw nerve of an artist claiming the center for herself. Following May’s “We All Get Stuck,” “Peach Fuzz” cracks open another side of Blind Trust: Jagged, playful, furious, and alive with the sound of someone refusing to be minimized.

For Molinaro, that refusal is not just explosive; it’s freeing. “Peach Fuzz” may arrive in a blaze of distortion and release, but beneath its overdriven surface is a hard-won clarity: The moment a person recognizes what they no longer have to endure, and lets that realization become its own kind of joy.

“‘Peach Fuzz’ is about a progression to freedom,” she tells Atwood Magazine. “I wanted to express how we can experience a joyful release when we realize we are no longer subject to oppressive behavior, or when we refuse to submit to it.”

“As a female in the music industry, I have both witnessed and experienced shades of discrimination, alienation, objectification, minimization, and dismissal. And we know that this happens everywhere, in so many professional settings. So this peach, it’s the juicy prize, the reward, and many of us in life – female or otherwise – are persuaded to bite off the bitter skin and leave the sweet flavor for someone else. I am calling out those claim jumpers of sorts who feast on the flesh and move on to the next fruit.”

“But… I wanted to make it a playful song! Although the topic is serious, there is this humorous, prescient quality to the speaker. And when the chorus comes the song opens up with gilded harmonies and this mocking tone. It’s the truth, but in this before-and-after scenario, you can look back and sorta laugh.”

It is about that quiet, controlled anger women may experience when they encounter discrimination, alienation, objectification, minimization, and dismissal throughout life. I drew from my experience in the music industry, but its application is universal.

* * *

That laugh keeps “Peach Fuzz” from collapsing under the weight of its own fury, and gives Molinaro room to sharpen the song’s edges without losing its strange, sunlit sting.

The track struts, snarls, smirks, and lets the release feel earned.

Lyrically – as well as sonically – “Peach Fuzz” opens in the aftermath of a rupture, with Molinaro staring down the mess left behind: “So much for taking it slow and for tying up loose ends,” she sings matter-of-factly over a raging storm of drums and guitars. Her language is plainspoken at first, almost conversational, but the pressure builds fast. What begins as a postmortem on a relationship, dynamic, or broken arrangement soon widens into a larger refusal of emotional debt: “Don’t tell me how I should feel – loyalty, fealty, faith.” Those three words hang heavy in the air, turning devotion into a demand, and making the song’s central break feel both personal and political.

The guitars add to the heat, injecting it into the bloodstream. Molinaro surrounds her voice with thick distortion and hard-charging percussion, giving “Peach Fuzz” the sensation of a room overheating from the inside out. The verses churn with frustration, but the chorus bursts open in color, letting harmony and melody twist the knife with a grin: “All the gold that you have wouldn’t offer me the world / I bite the fuzz off a peach and leave the flesh for another fool,” she sings. It’s a brutal image made strangely gleeful, a rejection of the prize as it’s been defined by anyone else.

And I’m lost and I’m lost and you’re locked to
And I’m lost and I’m lost and you’re locked to
The notion that you were owed
I don’t owe you a goddamn thing

All the gold that you have
wouldn’t offer me the world
I bite the fuzz off a peach and
leave the flesh for another fool so
Take a bite let it drip off your lip
don’t bother to wait
Cause there’s another ripe fruit
waiting just for you any other day

“It’s that entitlement I’m bucking – I owe no one,” Molinaro says of these lines. “For me, the peachy chorus implies, ‘go ahead, eat the best part of the fruit, sure, enjoy it. You’ll do it again and again, I know this.’ Women often have to bite off the bitter part and bear it. You already know the game is rigged. What you do with that is up to you.”

For Molinaro, “Peach Fuzz” may be rooted in lived experience, but its charge comes from the space it leaves open for listeners to find themselves inside it. The song’s details are specific – the bruised ending, the owed devotion, the bitter skin, the stolen sweetness – yet its emotional architecture is wide enough to hold anyone who has had to work their way out of a lopsided exchange.

“It’s a very personal song, and this is a very personal album,” Molinaro says. “It may be yet another song about disappointment or upset of some kind, and then working through it. I tried to write the album’s lyrics so that the listener could sit in the driver’s seat and feel ownership of this complex entanglement of human emotions. Happens to all of us.”

That driver’s seat is crucial. “Peach Fuzz” does not hand us catharsis from a distance; it throws us into the motion of it, letting the verses tighten and coil before the chorus tears the roof off. Molinaro’s repeated “And I’m lost and I’m lost and you’re locked to” becomes its own pressure point, a phrase caught mid-sentence until the accusation finally lands: “The notion that you were owed.” By the time she declares, “I don’t owe you a goddamn thing,” the song has earned every ounce of its defiance.

Ticked every box on the list
Persona’s all wrapped up with a bow
Like every magical trick
Always has a secret no one knows

It also makes a sharp case for Molinaro as a solo artist. “Peach Fuzz” is layered with the ear of a veteran arranger, but it moves with the immediacy of a nerve being struck in real time. Her voice cuts through the distortion with cool command, while the band’s overdriven force gives the song its physical impact: lean, loud, and tightly wound, with enough melody in the chorus to make the venom gleam. After years spent adding texture and gravity to other artists’ worlds, Molinaro emerges here with a sound that is unmistakably her own – intricate, instinctive, and fully alive.

‘Blind Trust’ is about allowing deep instinct and intuition to lead the way and trust that process. It also means, ‘here, I’m putting this in your (the listener’s) hands, I trust you.’

* * *

If Blind Trust is an album about surrendering to instinct, then “Peach Fuzz” is the moment that instinct bares its teeth.

But more than anything, this song makes freedom feel physical: The buzz in the amp, the blood in the cheeks, the gold left glittering on the table, the peach juice running down someone else’s lip, the laugh that breaks loose when the old grip finally gives way.

Stream “Peach Fuzz” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and dive deeper into Lisa Molinaro’s Blind Trust, her debut solo chapter, and the personal reckoning behind its charged, self-possessed world in our candid conversation below.

Freedom rings feverishly here, and it leaves a lasting mark as refusal rattles in the air, the amps burn hot, and Molinaro strides away – head held high, holding the sweet part for herself.

And I’m lost and I’m lost and you’re locked to
And I’m lost and I’m lost and you’re locked to
The notion that you were owed
I don’t owe you a goddamn thing

All the gold that you have
wouldn’t offer me the world
I bite the fuzz off a peach and
leave the flesh for another fool so
Take a bite let it drip off your lip
don’t bother to wait
Cause there’s another ripe fruit
waiting just for you any other day

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:: stream/purchase Peach Fuzz here ::

:: connect with Lisa Molinaro here ::

:: stream/purchase Blind Trust here ::

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Stream: “Peach Fuzz” – Lisa Molinaro

A CONVERSATION WITH LISA MOLINARO

Lisa Molinaro: I think folks should know that I was never just a sum of my parts. There was a whole other side of me that had yet to be revealed. If you have heard any contributions I have made to works by other artists/bands, you may possibly not even have known my own style, my own voice. So, honestly, I hope people are shocked (in a good way) by the balance of complexity and simplicity, the buried layers, textures and nuances I tried to create for the listener.

Lisa Molinaro: Whoah, there are a lot of good ones, but memories that pop up quickly are:

• Breaking down on I-5 near Vacaville, CA, when The National stopped to scoop us (Talkdemonic) up and cram us into two vans for the rest of the tour.
• While on tour in The Decemberists, playing “Madonna of the Wasps” with Robyn Hitchcock AND “Fisherman’s Blues” with Mike Scott from The Waterboys at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in the UK in 2007 were bucket list checkmarks I didn’t even know I could achieve.
• Playing MSG with Modest Mouse with my mom there from Florida. That was really special.

Lisa Molinaro: This might be weird, but Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Glass. Ok, add Billy Joel and Frank Sinatra. No, seriously. The former showed me how to connect to indescribable, emotional beauty, the latter informed me on songmaking. I don’t think any of it actually shows in my work, but they are anchor points. Modern north stars would be Eric Bachmann, Radiohead, PJ Harvey. About my own music, I am most excited to sing. I love it, I need it. I’m also excited for what hasn’t yet materialized. What am I capable of?

Lisa Molinaro: Some kernels of this album were conceived long ago, before the pandemic. Then, well, the pandemic occurred. I lost a lot. But I also gained so much from having to take a hard look at myself and parse out what was real and what was “imagined” about who I was and how I presented. There’s this illustrated quote I taped into an old high school journal of mine. It said, “I’ll always love the false image I had of you.” It was directed toward someone else at the time, but it burned brightly in my vision when I had to tear my ego down a year or so ago and start over. Blind Trust is about allowing deep instinct and intuition to lead the way and trust that process. It also means, ‘here, I’m putting this in your (the listener’s) hands, I trust you.’

Lisa Molinaro: I wrote earlier about shocking people, and I do not think my music is shocking. It’s a bit restrained actually. Perhaps it’s because it’s my first effort? Blind Trust shows I can balance eclectic, almost opposing styles of composition and yet make the music work as an entire body. I used to think all my many interests in music were a setback to this process. Like, am I confused in my identity? But in fact, it reiterated the notion that music can be whatever it wants to be. The album is intended to be an entire listening experience, a journey with a silky, nearly invisible thread weaving it together.

Lisa Molinaro: “We All Get Stuck” naturally felt like the first release. It feels like a cornerstone of the album’s oppositional qualities; at the same mellow and driving, soothing and cathartic. When I began writing this song, I knew I had an album. And perhaps it’s representative of the tone of the album…We go through cycles of peace and discontent, sadness and euphoria, heartbreak and deep new love, and it’s alright.

Lisa Molinaro: It is about that quiet, controlled anger women may experience when they encounter discrimination, alienation, objectification, minimization, and dismissal throughout life. I drew from my experience in the music industry, but its application is universal.

Lisa Molinaro: Well, before that line, the song goes “… you’re locked to the notion that you were owed…” It’s that entitlement I’m bucking, I owe no one. For me, the peachy chorus implies, ‘go ahead, eat the best part of the fruit, sure, enjoy it. You’ll do it again and again, I know this.’ Women often have to bite off the bitter part and bear it. You already know the game is rigged. What you do with that is up to you.

Lisa Molinaro: It’s a very personal song, and this is a very personal album. It may be yet another song about disappointment or upset of some kind, and then working through it. I tried to write the album’s lyrics so that the listener could sit in the driver’s seat and feel ownership of this complex entanglement of human emotions. Happens to all of us.

Lisa Molinaro: I learned what is so old and tried and true. If I stay honest, work hard and believe anything is possible, I can achieve my goals, my dreams. Not everything amazing happens when you are young and full of that zest. Big stuff also happens after you’ve reaped a bunch of it.

Lisa Molinaro: I’m currently mostly nostalgic, so here ya go:

For the gym: Die Spitz, Drug Church, Deadguy, Idles, Doechii

For that walk in nature: A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Chihei Hatakayama, Philip Glass String Quartets, Timber Timbre

In case you have been hibernating under a rock: PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea

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:: stream/purchase Peach Fuzz here ::

:: connect with Lisa Molinaro here ::

:: stream/purchase Blind Trust here ::

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Stream: “Peach Fuzz” – Lisa Molinaro

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