In a word? Noelle Rene is captivating. Atwood Magazine had coffee with the LA-born, Boston-based musician and talked about making music in her mom’s closet, femme fatale energy, retro aesthetics, and what it means to reclaim your voice in your twenties.
Stream: “so, you’re back!” – Noelle Rene
It’s not just her bright clothes, chic hair, and makeup that turn heads; it’s her confident, kind nature.
Tucked away at her local coffee shop, Noelle Rene listens to a demo on her phone. Her own voice echoes between her eardrums as she sips on an iced latte despite the Boston wind.
Her music career began in Los Angeles – specifically, in her mother’s closet.
“I had been sent home to California from Boston,” Rene says of her 2020 college experience. The COVID-19 pandemic ran through college campuses across the country, leaving many students to return home just months after they’d left for school.
The pandemic became a time of introspection for many. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, people found new hobbies or worked towards goals they’d put off due to busy schedules.
Music was something Rene had always wanted to do – the pandemic provided her an opportunity to overcome her mental hurdles and throw herself into her art.
“I actually remember recording the vocals in my mom’s closet with my laptop,” she says. “I just did it in Garage Band and sent the vocals to the vocal stems to the producer.”
Condensation trickles down the side of her cup as she thinks, her brows creasing against her forehead. Music surrounds Rene’s life – from her corporate job to her own performances.
Different genres, aesthetics, and outlooks have shaped Noelle Rene’s artistry since her adolescence.
As a teenager, she found solitude in the melodies and sonic bliss of R&B.
“Ctrl changed my life,” she says. The music of your adolescence tends to stay with you for the rest of your life; SZA’s debut remains close to Rene’s heart. “I thought the album was such a cohesive project, and I don’t think I had latched onto something like that before.”
“Growing up, I was big on ‘Back to Black’ by Amy Winehouse. I tried to lean into that at the start,” she says. “I’m drawn to anyone who has really soulful voice in any quality. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the vocals entirely – it could be the music, like Mk.gee.”
“I was a big Arianator growing up,” Rene laughs. “As a singer, I admire her a lot.” She’s quick to add that she loves her as an actress too, from Wicked to Victorious.
Rene also finds herself inspired by modern forces in the indie and pop scenes, from their lyrics to their sound to their presence, like Lizzy McAlpine, Remi Wolf, and Chappell Roan.
Her soft-spoken nature emerges through her emotionally rich choruses – deeply rooted in the R&B and soul influences that first drew her in. As she’s grown artistically, Rene has expanded her sound, weaving in diverse genres rather than staying confined to one.
While many artists distance themselves from their early projects, Rene understands the value they hold in longevity. “I shouldn’t touch it [her 2020 singles] because it would be disrespectful to my 19-year-old self,” she says. “I liked it at the time, and it’s just kind of a bookmark.”
It’s a refreshing stance in an age where artists often abandon their older catalog. Sabrina Carpenter, for instance, now performs tracks from emails i can’t send and Short n’ Sweet – rarely reaching back to her earlier, R&B-tinged albums.
As Carpenter’s star has risen in the last year, new fans are discovering her early work and reclaiming them. Rene’s eyes drift to the coffee counter, the scent of fresh bagels filling her lungs. She welcomes the day fans reclaim her older tracks in a similar fashion to Carpenter’s.
Noelle Rene staples include cat-eye eyeliner and ’60s silhouettes.
Complementary colors make her album art pop – from her pop-art cover on “Creature of Habit” to Ryan Clemens’ photography for “so, you’re back!”
Twiggy was the muse for her latest photoshoot in LA, and the influence is clear. Since her debut single, Rene has leaned into “Gogo boots” and “boxy ’60s dresses.”
“I’ve taken it into more dramatic fashion,” she says of her evolving aesthetic. On “so, you’re back!” Rene is pictured in dark reds and browns, her eyeliner emphasizing her eye colors. Her earlier singles, like “Flight 2402” and “not my lover,” feature more neon and pastels.
“I’ve never felt like I wanted to lean into this sort of sexy, flirty as much as I’ve wanted to lean into it [now]. The femme fatale and dramatic, and those Roy Lichtenstein paintings.”
The evolution feels natural – Rene has always gravitated toward baby doll dresses, skater skirts, and headscarves.
“I was also the girl who was like, ‘I wanna move to the East Coast,’” she says. Lady Bird was a defining film for her – and for many modern American teenage girls. (I confessed my own phase of thick eyeliner and pink hair at sixteen.)
She laughs and sips her latte, which contains more water than espresso. “I feel like I’m saying ‘like’ a lot. The California is coming out.”
Though flirtation colors her latest releases, it’s built atop a well-established artistry, blending with the mature themes in her March 2025 single, “so, you’re back!”
Red has come to symbolize a great deal for her. Her first photoshoot used red lighting. Her high school car was red. So it felt only natural for red to mark her artistic rebirth this year.
“There were so many moments where I realized that’s the color that signifies a lot for me in terms of like emotion,” she explains. “I think it can be on both sides of the spectrum – like love and infatuation – but also the darker sides of the mood, and being a ruminator, like an overthinker and someone who gets sad.”
Released in mid-March, “so, you’re back!” blends pop lyricism, R&B synths, and rock-esque guitar riffs.
This shift in her sound allowed her to focus on singles rather than committing to an EP or album.
In the age of social media, singles often perform better. Artists like sombr, Ravyn Lenae, and Charli XCX have seen their careers surge from viral 15-second clips on TikTok.
“My main goal was to start back up and have a song released that would be fun to perform live,” she says. It’s safe to say “so, you’re back!” delivers.
As summer nears, Rene is preparing to release a new single titled “in his camry” (out July 11). Teasers on social media already show off her signature mix of charm and style.
“I wrote that one on the guitar,” she says of the new track. “So it has a little bit more of that contemplative feel to it. I wanted to describe this relationship that I felt hadn’t gone anywhere, and we were always in his car.”
The metaphor stuck: Two people constantly moving between homes, yet never progressing emotionally.
She throws her head back as she laughs, adding, “It’s one of those songs you can add to the list of people being traumatized in Boston.” She joins a growing list, including Reneé Rapp, Tate McRae, and Chappell Roan.
“In his camry” will debut at her Boston show in June with Breaking Sound. “We didn’t go very far,” she says of the inspiration. “And also in a relationship, we didn’t make it.”
Opening for Sophie Ellis-Bextor at The Royale in June 2024 was a turning point. “I realized my song ‘Not My Lover’ was maybe the last super up-tempo song that I had put out,” she says. “I wanted to have something in my arsenal to perform live that was more exciting.”
Her lyrics draw listeners in with vivid imagery and emotional honesty. While she treasures her melancholic songs, more upbeat tracks tend to energize the crowd. The Ellis-Bextor show inspired her to experiment with pop.
Opening slots are essential for emerging artists – they offer exposure to new audiences and labels. “So, you’re back!” and “in his camry” both stemmed from her desire to create engaging, high-energy songs for live shows.
“At the time that I originally wrote the chorus [of ‘in his camry’], I was so very hurt by the situation,” she says. “I was like, this man is not finding – I’m not what he’s looking for.” She smiles wryly. “Legend has it he’s still driving, and I’m still here.”
The single will hit streaming platforms this summer, accompanied by visuals from Reagan Allen. The 1960s femme fatale aesthetic returns in posters blending Bonnie & Clyde and Taylor Swift’s “Getaway Car.”
“I’m also looking back at certain times in my life where maybe I didn’t write about something that happened to me,” she says, “just because I wasn’t super tuned into digging deep.”
Audiences today crave authenticity – and Rene delivers. Like Lizzy McAlpine, Chappell Roan, and Olivia Rodrigo, her emotionally rich lyrics strike a chord. “Sometimes it’s hard when you’re going through it. I have a very different perspective on things now than I did at the time.”
With time and maturity, she’s gained the distance to explore those experiences more freely. In “in his camry,” she shifts the narrative between her own perspective and the man’s – offering both sides of the story.
“I think a lot of artists – a lot of female artists in particular – are starting to end these sort of breakup songs, and I don’t want to label it that necessarily, ’cause it isn’t quite.” For her, it’s more about reclaiming agency than mourning loss.
It’s a perspective echoed in songs like Sabrina Carpenter’s “Busy Woman” and Dua Lipa’s “Training Season.”
As the coffee shop begins to close, Rene rises from her table.
She grabs her drink – now separated into milky layers – and heads out into the crisp New England evening.
With confidence in her stride and music in her ears, it’s clear Noelle Rene is just getting started.
Rene will be headlining Bill’s Bar in Boston, Massachusetts on June 17th. Get tickets here, and follow her on TikTok and Instagram for updates.
“In His Camry” is set to release July 11th.
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