Atlanta’s Becca Harvey, aka girlpuppy, opens up about self-discovery, friendship breakups, and the unique writing process behind her sophomore LP, ‘Sweetness.’
Stream: ‘Sweetness’ – girlpuppy
Atlanta’s rising indie rocker Becca Harvey, aka girlpuppy, is a lovergirl through and through, and she’s not afraid to show it.
Take the name ‘girlpuppy’ for instance: it was her Instagram username throughout high school inspired by her love for dogs. “I feel like I have the essence of a puppy,” Harvey says. When asked which breed she’d be, it takes her no time at all to answer. She’s thought about this before. “You know those little white dogs that have those brown tears under their eyes? That would be me. I’d be one of those little ratty white dogs.”
Although we’re meeting for the first time over Zoom, there’s an instant warmth that emits from Becca Harvey through the screen. The singer is cooped up in her bedroom, which is adorned with antique photo frames on the walls and shelves of trinkets. Chatting with Harvey feels like catching up with an old friend, and that’s also precisely how it feels to listen to her latest album, Sweetness (released March 28th via Captured Tracks).
Growing up in a small southern town, Becca Harvey’s knowledge of music as a kid came from top 40 radio and the music her parents played around the house– everything from The Beatles, to Bob Dylan, to Shania Twain, and more. As she started developing her own musical ear, she later found a deep connection to the songs of Elliot Smith, Lana del Rey, and Liz Phair.
All of these inspirations are sprinkled throughout Sweetness, most noticeably in the singer’s earnest, unabashed songwriting. Harvey lights up at the mere mention of Lana del Rey during the interview, enthusing, “I was listening to so much of Lana’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard while making this record. It’s so underrated. I think it’s one of her best.”
The 10 tracks on Sweetness tell a chronological story of a four-year relationship from Harvey’s point of view.
In the span of 32 minutes, she takes us on a journey through every stage of loss and grief that she’s experienced on the other side of the relationship. “‘Sweetness’ represents a lot of grief following a first true love heartbreak,” Harvey shares. “Most of the songs for this record were written 2 or 3 years ago now, so for me, it really feels like a time capsule of all the grief I was feeling at the time. It’s a nice encapsulation of those feelings, and a reminder that I made it through.”
Though it’s largely an album focused on a romantic relationship, there are moments where the singer-songwriter sneaks in songs about friendship, and how painful those kinds of breakups can be as well. That’s what lead single “Champ” is about. “I feel like, at least with how close I am with all of my friends, friendships can be just as intimate as romantic relationships, just without the commitment and the kissing and all the other things you do in romantic relationships,” Harvey says. “I care for everyone in my life so much and I’m just instantly attached to people. It’s just as easy for me to write about friendships as it is to write about relationship breakups, because I think it hurts about the same.”
You toss me away
And you push me aside
I take it like a champ
I just wanna be your man
You know that I tried
Think you have too much pride
It’s happening again
You don’t wanna be my friend
I just wanna be your champ
– “Champ,” girlpuppy
Becca Harvey has proven to herself, and now the world, that using one’s voice as their primary instrument isn’t at all the limitation it’s sometimes perceived to be.
Freed from the belief that she couldn’t be a songwriter without playing an instrument – she cites The National’s Matt Berninger as an inspiration – Harvey found empowerment in the writing process of her sophomore LP.
It’s hard to imagine songs like “I Just Do!”, one of the guitar-heavy rock anthems on the record, starting out as a cappella voice memos on Becca Harvey’s phone. But that’s the way most of the record first came to be. “A lot of the songs started with me bringing them to my friends Holden Fincher and Tom Sinclair– they would listen to those voice memos and build chords around them,” Harvey explains. “Then I’d bring them to Alex Farrar who produced the album. He has a huge brain and great ear for sounds. He really helped with adding all the elements.”
Harvey relates the writing process for Sweetness to that of directing a movie, saying, “I was a director in the way that, like movies, actors bring their own thing and talents, and then there’s the director that gives the actor a script or an outline of what to do. That’s how I felt. Alex had all of these materials that he knew, and I feel like I just got really lucky because he understood me so well. He was able to make these beautiful worlds out of the scrappy little acapella voice memos I brought to him.”
Think I’m a masochist
I know you can hurt me
And I’m letting you
I don’t know why I always do
But I’m letting you
‘Cause I like you, I just do!
– “I Just Do!” girlpuppy
If Sweetness were a color, it’d be a deep blue.
Blue is quite a misunderstood color. So often, it’s associated with hopelessness, coldness, impersonality. But when you look around at the world, so many radiant parts of it are blue: the sky, the ocean, dragonflies, hydrangeas.
The color blue is bold; it makes a powerful statement.
Interestingly, everything about Sweetness, from the cover photo, to the promotional shots, to the music videos for the album’s rollout has been drenched in blue. Though this was an unconscious aesthetic choice on Harvey’s part, it’s ended up being a happy accident. “I didn’t think Sweetness was blue off the bat,” the singer admits. “Originally, I thought of bubblegum pink as the color of this record. But when I listen to it now, after making everything, I think it is a very deep blue.”
From top to bottom, this record has an arms-out-of-the-sunroof energy about it; it’s the perfect record to play while driving on an open road with the windows down on a breezy, golden afternoon.
Harvey’s voice is pure and bright as it glides against darker, grungy electric guitar tones and driving drums that make nearly each song off the record headbang worthy.
When asked which song off Sweetness she identifies with the most at this moment, Harvey takes a beat, sorting through the tracklist in her mind. “Maybe ‘I Think I Did,’ the last song on the record,” she shares.
“It’s the closing of that chapter. That song feels the most like the final stage, like moving on. That’s what it feels like to me.”
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© Tonje Thilesen
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