American artist Em Beihold is one of pop music’s brightest new stars.

The songwriter first discovered her love of music when she was the age of seven-years-old and continued to hone her skills throughout the years. Yet the songwriter would never have been able to foresee that she would be a platinum-certified pop songstress with over 1 billion streams as an adult. It’s all thanks to the artist’s gift for penning catchy pop melodies with honest lyricism and lush vocals. As soon as the singer-songwriter started posting her voice notes on TikTok, Beihold started garnering a lot of attention and deservedly so. Fast forward to 2023, the songwriter released the viral breakthrough hit, Numb Little Big to much acclaim. What makes this emerging pop force really stand out is her commitment to constantly bettering her craft in a genuinely authentic way that pays little attention to viral moments or streaming figures, Em Beihold is solely focused on writing songs that are true to her experience in life and there’s no other way about it.

The most recent example that demonstrates this is her latest single, Roller Coasters Make Me Sad. An infectious tune that sees the artist open up about the pressures of the music industry and how the industry is obsessed with making artists feel like they always have to create something bigger and more viral than the previous release. If anything this release cements that Beihold is here for the long run and we can’t wait to see what she does next. In conversation with 1883 Magazine, Em Beihold chats about Roller Coasters Make Me Sad, touring with Lewis Capaldi, and more.

Hi Em, thanks for speaking with 1883 Magazine. As your latest single Rollercoasters Make Me Sad has been out for a little while now, how have you found seeing the fan reaction online? And what is your favourite line of lyricism from the song itself?

I think it’s funny because Roller Coasters Make Me Sad is very much about my journey with my song Numb Little Bug that happened last year, and just how intense it was to have such a high, and the fear of it dropping. It was also about what artists face in the industry but don’t necessarily talk about a lot. But people really think it’s just legitimately only about roller coasters and don’t really see the deeper meaning. So they’re like: ‘I would jam to this song, but I love roller coasters.’ It’s a little bit more than that [laughs]. But I sang it on tour when I was opening for Lewis Capaldi, and it’s crazy to see that people know the lyrics and sing along already, they sing their hearts out. My favourite line would have to be: ‘It’s a capitalist frenzy, ten dollars for an ice cream?’ probably.

Speaking about Numb Little Bug, it must be feel so surreal when you look back on the last several months since the release, I suppose?

Yeah. I still live at home with my parents. But otherwise, everything else has changed. This is still my childhood bedroom that I’m in right now [laughs].

Nothing wrong with that! Either way though, I think it’s so admirable how transparent you have been regarding life and the pressures that come with stardom. I think the general public tends to forget how artists don’t just become overnight successes, it takes years of hard work and dedication and even then, nothing is guaranteed to take off in your career. What kept you determined and motivated before the success? 

I have been writing since I was seven years old, basically. It’s just how I processed my emotions and music was my favourite thing ever. I kind of had this blind faith that something was going to happen really, ever since I was a kid. I wasn’t ever nervous about that part because also just I realised as I kept going little things would happen like ‘Oh, I got a synch here,’ or ‘Oh, I get to play at this venue. That’s cool.’ I think it’s about persistence and at the end of the day, it’ll happen if you just keep on keeping on and dedicate your life to it. But I’ll say after I graduated from college, I was applying for jobs and both of my parents said “You should really give music a shot. So just give it a full year, and we can talk about jobs later.” That was really tough. Everything I had on my voice memos, I just put on TikTok. Then it felt like it was kind of up to TikTok if music was going to be a career for me. But I don’t know, it happened with Numb Little Bug, and I feel very fortunate.

That’s so lovely your parents supported you, it sounds like they are realists as you all talked about a year to focus on music and then reassess things. Did you have a really meticulous plan on how you were going to achieve all this within a year?

I mean it was during the pandemic, so no one was really going anywhere. So TikTok was the only option for music. But I also did some weird ghostwriting session that was kind of suspicious, with people I just met on the internet. I really don’t know if it was legit thing or not to this day. But I just threw myself into any opportunity that came. Even though my parents were realists, I’d say I was more so because I kept saying to myself “I really should just get a job and then just do music on the side like I’ve been doing”. I’ll be happy doing music no matter what. It doesn’t have to be massive, you know.  I just kept posting my little snippets and I watched them grow. I think the first TikTok I posted got 3000 views and to me that was crazy because I had 10 followers. So I didn’t understand how your TikTok followers don’t translate to your video views. So it’s a very useful platform for reaching an audience.

It definitely is. It’s also so interesting how TikTok has changed the music industry tremendously because there’s such an emphasis now for music to do well on that platform. Or artists now want to write songs that have those perfect 15 seconds for a TikTok video.

Yes but I also feel I’m definitely an artist outside of TikTok. I maybe used to think like that more. But now I feel like you can have your viral moments but you also want the songs that aren’t necessarily the gateway to your discography, but when someone discovers your discography, you have these other great songs. So I’m kind of focusing on just getting a lot of great songs together rather than creating viral moments because I think that’s a fleeting thing.

Now that you’ve established a platform for yourself, how do you personally hope to keep the momentum going without compromising your artistic integrity? Some industry workers would say to keep putting out music constantly but it’s all about quality, not quantity…

I’ve been doing a fair amount of touring and live shows and I plan to continue that. I have some stuff coming up later this year that I’m excited about. I think that transition from internet songs to really playing and connecting with an audience is what I’m focused on right now. I’ll keep posting but it’s so much bigger than that.

We need to talk about your recent support tour with Lewis Capaldi for his North America dates, how did it come about and what was something that really interested you or took you by surprise during the four-week period? (e.g. the level of production, maybe you learnt something new)

Yeah, it was my favourite tour that I’ve ever been on. Lewis Capaldi is really just the nicest human. He’s really funny on the internet, and I was hoping he would match up in person, and he definitely did. It was just a really fun, well-organised tour. This sounds silly maybe but I’ve never been on a tour with catering. So it’s really nice to have just kind of a higher level of production that that they were working with. I don’t know necessarily what I learned. I think a tour takes a lot of endurance, tenacity, and also just the ability to problem-solve. There was one show where the sound completely went out. I had to just pull up Lewis and try to do stand-up comedy for five minutes until they fixed it and it still wasn’t totally fixed but I just kind of sang anyway [laughs]. I think a year ago, I would be freaking out in that situation. But this year I felt more like ‘I know these songs, it’s fine.’ I’m happy with the growth that I felt on this tour.

It sounds like you really handled the small blip of technical difficulties well. When you’re playing to a big crowd you really need to think on your feet, so it sounds like you pulled it off. 

If anything technical happened… there was another show where the lights went out, and I was just like ‘this is my big group of friends, and I’m going to treat them as such’. It was fine.

When are you, Lauren Spencer Smith and GAYLE going to start a supergroup? Coming off the back of your feature/collaboration on Fantasy, it surely needs to happen.

I’m down. They’re two of the most talented people I’ve ever met in my life. So, I’m here for it.

Can we expect a debut album any time soon?

I don’t know about a debut album too soon. I would actually say I’m really discovering what I want my sound to be.  As we’ve been talking about with Numb Little Bug, there’s this pressure to maintain it. So I’ve been in a lot of sessions with a lot of producers, writers and making a lot of varied pop songs. So I’m now at the point where I’m asking myself ‘do I want to be this pop?’ or ‘Do I want to be a little weirder pop?’ So I’m in my discovery phase. But a debut album, hopefully—soonish, after I answer some questions.

Finally, what is one thing you hope to have achieved by the end of 2023 and why?

I think I want to have a clearer sense of who I am because I think there’s a lot of pressure when all of a sudden you have this radio song that goes number one, where you have to be radio competitive. But I’ve never really made music thinking about something like that. I think I’ve lost my way a bit in writing, like thinking about things that come later, and not the things that matter in the moment. So yeah, I’d say just understanding what I want a little more rather than what everyone else wants.

Roller Coasters Make Me Sad is out now. Follow Em Beihold @embeihold

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