Blondshell is the stage name of LA-based singer/songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum. Born in New York City, Teitelbaum was drawn to the confessional nature of such musicians like Tracey Chapman, Elliott Smith, and Patti Smith. On her very first single, “Olympus,” premiering on NYLON, she joins their ranks with a raw take on heartbreak and addiction. “I wanna save myself you’re part of my addiction/I just keep you in the kitchen while I burn,” she sings over unrelenting slinky guitars. In her forthcoming music, expect similarly cutting lyrics on topics such as coming to terms with her queerness, becoming sober, and being saved. (The upcoming “Veronica Mars,” she laments of adulthood through the lens of the hit teen drama, singing, “Veronica Mars, 2000 oughts/Logan’s a dick; I’m learning that’s hot.”)
Today, she’s finally announcing her self-titled debut as Blondshell — out April 7 via Partisan Records — alongside the single “Joiner.” Inspired by Britpop, the track is like a darker “Coffee & TV,” containing a sunny acoustic chorus that contrasts with lyrics about scoring drugs and sleeping in bars with a gun in your bag. “Think you watched way too much HBO growing up,” she observes. On the last day of 2019, Teitelbaum made the decision to get sober. “I take it really seriously, because drugs and alcohol were not a good thing for me,” she says.
The main feeling Teitelbaum didn’t know she had: anger. A lot of it. “There were a bunch of songs that I listened to that had women being enraged, and I was reading a lot of books,” she says, citing Clare Sestanovich’s Objects of Desire and Rebecca Solnit’s Recollections of My Nonexistence as examples. “My whole life, I felt like I couldn’t talk about any feeling that was over a certain amount of intensity.”
Through this rage, Teitelbaum suddenly felt a shift. She began to ask herself questions, like, “Why do shitty things happen to my friends or my family?” and “Why do I have to have feelings for only people who don’t have feelings for me?” Plus, she says, “Not only am I angry about those actual things, but I’m also angry about the fact that I’ve been made to feel like I can’t talk about them.”
All of this emotion makes for a fantastic live show, which Teitelbaum proved when she performed at New York City’s Mercury Lounge in December. Wearing a Le Tigre shirt and surrounded by candles, she tore through every song on Blondshell, and covered the Cranberries deep cut “Disappointment.” In her hometown, with her friends in the front row holding a sign that read “You’re hot,” she’d finally found herself.
REF: Nylon; Rolling Stone
Sacramento’s K-ZAP 93.3 FM plays Blondshell. All part of 50 years of Rock, Blues and More, 24-7 on our station’s stream at K-ZAP.ORG/LISTEN/
Check out Blondshell :