Interview: Camille Schmidt Bares All in Debut Album ‘Nude #9’

Camille Schmidt 'Nude #9' album art
Camille Schmidt 'Nude #9' album art
In her experimental debut LP ‘Nude #9,’ Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Camille Schmidt bares her soul and reminds herself to have fun while doing it.
Stream: “Nude #9” – Camille Schmidt




It can be challenging to make something stick in today’s climate.

So many brilliant ideas get lost in the void of oversaturated online media. But sometimes, an artist comes along who is so wholly themselves, so uninhibited, that they’re able to pierce through the noise and find us when we need them most.

With her debut album, Nude #9, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Camille Schmidt does just that.

Nude #9 - Camille Schmidt
Nude #9 – Camille Schmidt

Growing up in the middle of the woods in Upstate New York, Camille Schmidt’s parents had an art studio in which she spent countless afternoons hanging out. There she’d observe models posing nude during various painting sessions. At the end of the sessions, Schmidt often wondered why such vulnerable artwork would be given impersonal titles like “Girl with Dogs #3” or “Woman Sleeping #7.” It’s a striking juxtaposition Schmidt has recently adapted into her own playful yet soul-baring art.

In Nude #9 (released January 10th, 2025 via Six Castle Road), Camille Schmidt introduces herself to the world in a refreshingly forward manner. No longer is she afraid to say aloud the thoughts swimming around her head.

“This is an album where I decided to just say exactly what – from my perspective – has happened in my life and what I felt,” she says.

During our Zoom interview, two hands can be seen carefully passing over a piping hot glass of tea to a laid-back Schmidt. She mouths a ‘thank you’ to the person offscreen and explains, “I’m not at my own place because the heat broke in my apartment last night, and it ended up getting crazy cold. It was wild.”

Wearing a seemingly permanent soft smile on her face, even in pensive moments, it’s evident how warm and open-hearted Camille Schmidt is. And it’s no wonder her music carries a similar energy.




Camille Schmidt © Bao Ngo
Camille Schmidt © Bao Ngo



The songs on Nude #9 are reminiscent of someone reading aloud their journal entries.

Each track develops the story further, creating a time capsule of Schmidt’s life as a young queer woman. When describing the record in her own words, Schmidt says, “I was really focused on being able to have fun and treat both the writing of it and the sonic world of it a little bit like finger painting. I was trying not to think about what I ‘should’ say or what would sound smart to say, and to just let what wanted to come out come out.”

Opening the album, “XOXO” is the perfect example of how to have fun whilst exercising vulnerability. It sets the tone for the humorous way in which Schmidt gets to the bottom of her feelings throughout the record.

“Did you hear I’m a nepo baby?
I am mother nature’s favorite kid
Even then I knew I would make it
Driving 65 in my Sportage”
– “XOXO,” Camille Schmidt




Humor is a mode of self-expression for Camille Schmidt, both in her music and in her daily life.

While pursuing a BA in creative writing at Harvard, she fell into a severe bout of depression that left her feeling completely lost. She started taking improv and comedy writing classes as a way to cope. After landing an internship on the set of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, she wound up doing PA work for its producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. “There had been some really intense things that I was dealing with at the time, and it was just great to be in an environment where everyone was laughing and telling jokes,” she shares.

Life is a continuous balancing act; without the darkness, there couldn’t be light, and vice versa. Camille Schmidt understands this on a deep level. “Kind of like how salt brings out the sweetness of chocolate, I think things are often more poignantly beautiful when there’s a little bit of darkness in them,” Schmidt says.

It’s a subject matter she’s truly passionate about, so much so that her hands start talking with her. “When I think about some of the harder things I’ve gone through in my life, the way I’m often able to sit with them is by finding the absurdity in them.. I think it’s important for the human brain to be able to go somewhere else for little periods of time. It seems almost like an evolutionary thing, our humor and imagination. It’s where we go when this world starts to feel unbearable.”

But even Schmidt, who is able to find humor in virtually anything, believes some things are best dealt with head-on. In “Nic,” a song about a codependent relationship with a past-lover, Schmidt leaves her heart on the table.

“I gave so you would give
I said ‘buy more’
when you wanted to quit
I’ve never been selfless
The heart expands and the heart contracts
The heart expands and the heart contracts
I still needed oxygen”
– “Nic,” Camille Schmidt

With sparse, bass-driven instrumentation sprinkling over a beat machine, “Nic” is as tender as it is revealing. “It’s about a short-lived situationship where me and the person I was seeing would use each other for different things in a way that was so empty of love,” Schmidt explains.

“To want someone to give you something that they don’t have – and to know that they don’t have it but still stay in the relationship as if things could change – is painful for both people involved.”

Camille Schmidt © Bao Ngo
Camille Schmidt © Bao Ngo



In Nude #9, Camille Schmidt hones in on her ability to explore complex feelings in a disarming way.

Rarely does she point a finger (or stick up a middle one) at the people mentioned in her songs. More than anything, it serves as a memoir of a woman learning how to love.

In “Fish Pills,” a song about the struggles she faces with her mental health, Schmidt references a quote from the late poet Leonard Cohen who famously wrote: “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” Cohen’s words cut through to the very heart of Nude #9.

“The idea of there being a crack in something is so interesting to me,” Schmidt says.

“I was thinking the other day about this particular type of Japanese art where the artist fills cracked pottery with gold and the imperfections then become beautiful. But I also think about how, if something cracks too much, the whole thing falls apart – it can just dissolve into dust. I feel like this album tries to find that balance in-between.” 

Camille Schmidt © Bao Ngo
Camille Schmidt © Bao Ngo



The human experience is complicated, and it can be tough to find our balance amidst the ups and downs.

Perhaps, as Camille Schmidt shows us, our only way out of the darkness is through it. With Nude #9, she guides us through the tunnel, holding up a lantern to light the way.

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:: stream/purchase Nude #9 here ::
:: connect with Camille Schmidt here ::

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Nude #9 - Camille Schmidt

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Discover new music on Atwood Magazine
? © Bao Ngo

Nude #9

an album by Camille Schmidt



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