Sun June 14, 2026
Em Beihold - Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter Tour - sold out
at The Independent
(8pm)
Singer-songwriter Em Beihold knows a thing or two about shapeshifting. On her long-awaited debut album, Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter (Republic, 2026), she's ready to tell all the ways she's done that: in relationships, friendships, and most of all, as an artist.
But in order to make this album, Beihold needed to learn who she was when the shapeshifting stopped working.
When Em Beihold's "Numb Little Bug" became a runaway hit, she was on top of the world. Her 2022 single about her experience taking antidepressants cracked the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached platinum status. By the time it broke through, Beihold was already several years into her career. She self-released her debut EP in 2017 and had found early success through a growing fandom on social media.
"Numb Little Bug" opened doors Beihold couldn't have imagined before. In 2022, she appeared on a viral remix of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You." She performed her hits on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show With James Corden. She opened for acts like Jonas Brothers, Lewis Capaldi and King Princess before embarking on her own headlining tour in 2024. As the rollercoaster of the song's momentum and a couple years straight of touring wore down, so did Beihold. She knew it was time for a debut album but she couldn't crack the code.
"I had the worst kind of writer's block and identity crisis," she says."I didn't even know what I was trying to make or say or what I liked."
That feeling is particularly difficult to grapple with when your whole worth is tied to being an artist. She couldn't see value in herself when she wasn't able to write songs.
"When I was feeling so blocked, I'd spend hours at the piano and nothing would come out. I felt like maybe it was a power that I lost because I would process my emotions through writing, and when I couldn't write, I couldn't process."
During her summer in outpatient therapy, Beihold returned to the artists who inspired her to write songs in the first place: Regina Spektor, Marina, Sara Bareilles, Feist, and Lily Allen. "When my body didn't feel like home, I went to the things that in the past made me feel like home," she explains. Meanwhile, she found herself befriending many of the other patients seeking treatment--the older ones putting much of what she was going through into perspective. One even said something that helped spark Beihold's return to self: "How would you feel if Regina Spektor tried to be Britney Spears?
When she felt ready to re-enter the studio, Beihold did so with two producers who finally understood her sound and voice: James Flannigan (Marina, Carly Rae Jepsen, Weezer) and Jason Suwito (Benson Boone, K.Flay).
"Meeting the right collaborator was sort of divine timing," Beihold says. Before she entered outpatient treatment, she had been in a revolving door of failed sessions with other producers who weren't the right fit.
The first track Beihold and Flannigan worked on together was the single "Brutus." Beihold began writing the song during outpatient, channeling her feelings of comparing herself to her pop peers into a moment of relief that her writing spark was still alive.
She says the song is inspired by her experiences with comparison to peers who were blowing up while she felt stuck. "It was important for me to write a song about jealousy that didn't necessarily put the other person down but was about how intense the feelings could be. People say jealousy is a map of the things that you want and it can be embodied by a person."
Other songs on Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter dig deep into her archives of journals and voice memos. Bits of "Scared of the Dark," a song about co-dependency, were first written when Beihold was just 13.
"The album is about me trying to fit all these roles that weren't natural to me," she says. "Whether it was staying in the wrong relationships for sake of comfort or writing music that I thought was 'cooler,' I learned that you really can't fake being in the wrong skin for too long. That will make itself known either consciously or subconsciously."
When Beihold played some of the songs she had written for her A&R at Republic, they read the lyrics as a reflection on what it's like to be a girl and how you could feel on top of the world one day then at the bottom the next. Beihold wanted to write a song that more directly spoke to that feeling and quickly penned "Hot Goblin" with Suwito and writing collaborator Nick Lopez.
As dark as the world became for Beihold, the world of Shapeshifter is a bright one. It's always been a goal of hers to tackle the darkness with levity, and she accomplishes as much on her whimsical, smart and honest new project. And she's doing so more certain than ever of who she is and what her powers are.
"I really hope the album emphasizes that it's okay to have these dark moments," she says. "They really don't last forever even if you think they might."
~~~
A conversation with a friend might unfold in multiple directions all at once, surveying the ups, the downs, and the weirdness of life without fear or filter. Via music, Em Beihold converses and connects much like your closest friend would. She isn't afraid to be blunt, disclose her insecurities, or laugh inappropriately, yet she's got nothing but love. It's why she's quietly emerged as an identifiable and inimitable platinum-certified pop songstress with north of 1 billion streams and widespread critical acclaim. She's the girl on the red carpet with the $10 coat (who will proudly tell anyone who asks!) and who sends her hair stylist a picture of Jessica Rabbit as inspo for a late-night TV appearance.
Yet, she opens up even more on a series of 2023 singles and her forthcoming full-length debut for Moon Projects/Republic Records.
"I'm super honest musically, because that's what I am in real life," she exclaims. "Lyrically, I always try to be specific and less generalized. It can come off blunt. Sometimes, I don't care and do it anyway, which is good and bad. I have a dark sense of humor. So, the brutal honesty in the lyrics is paired with bright music. I used to write for myself as a form of therapy, but the fact that listeners relate to the songs is the greatest honor I could have."
Born of half-Persian descent, the Los Angeles native embraced music at the age of six and never let go. She studied classical and jazz piano and carefully crafted a nuanced signature style over the years. She climbed into the pop culture conversation with the 2022 platinum smash "Numb Little Bug." It has generated over 500 million global streams in addition to cracking the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and lifting Em to #1 on the Billboard Emerging Artists Chart. Not to mention, she also toppled the Spotify Global Viral 50 Chart at #1 and climbed to #1 on the Hot AC Radio Airplay Chart as well as vaulting into the Top 5 at Top 40. She only accelerated her rise with the Egg In The Backseat EP, making her late-night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Not to mention, she incited the applause of The New York Times, Stereogum, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, and Variety who hailed, "Beihold is very much part of the new guard." On the EP's heels, she lent her voice to a duet version of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You," which exploded to the tune of over 230 million Spotify streams and counting. Moreover, they lit up The Late Late Show with James Corden together during a show stopping and smoldering performance. Asserting herself as a dynamic live presence, she has also captivated crowds on the road and opened for the likes of King Princess, AJR, Jonas Brothers and Lewis Capaldi.
"It's been super fun and unexpected, and admittedly very overwhelming," she reveals. "Even if your dream is for your music to take off, nothing quite prepares you for what it's like to be flying around nonstop. It's the most incredible and crazy opportunity."
Fittingly, the 2023 single "Roller Coasters Make Me Sad" documents the experience of the preceding year. On the track, airy synths and finger-snaps underscore her candid vocals punctuated by a swooning string-boosted crescendo. The song drops into a distorted stomp on the hook with the force of a loop-the-loop, "First they take you up the track, build you up and take it back, everybody else will laugh Roller Coasters make me sad."
"It's about the experience with 'Numb Little Bug'," she admits. "On the day it dropped, the response was insane. I should've been happy. Instead, I felt this pressure to keep the momentum going. I knew that everything that goes up must come down. I was bracing for the fall, because it was so unbelievably good. I couldn't just enjoy the ride. At the same time, I actually do hate Roller Coasters, and we found a way to tie that together with this idea," she laughs.
The follow-up "Masquerade" bops along on a hummable bassline and boisterous horn samples as she declares, "I'm done with the masquerade, if we're all sad, then everything's okay."
"I had coffee with someone who I had basically idolized for years and couldn't believe I was meeting," Em recalls. "She started talking about therapy. I realized all of these artists we look up to also struggle, and we tend to forget it. The whole exchange made me realize no one is necessarily as better off than you as you think they are. I'm so over pretending to be fine. I'd rather everyone be truthful, and we'd be a much more connected society."
Ultimately, Em might just make you feel like you can open up too.
"I leave enough space in my music to set a relatable scene where people can fill in the blanks themselves," she leaves off. "At the end of the day, my biggest goal is for you to feel less alone. When I meet fans on tour, they often tell me that they sought out therapy, because they realize they're feeling similar things. To me, that's a more lasting change than any stats or accomplishments."
show less
But in order to make this album, Beihold needed to learn who she was when the shapeshifting stopped working.
When Em Beihold's "Numb Little Bug" became a runaway hit, she was on top of the world. Her 2022 single about her experience taking antidepressants cracked the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached platinum status. By the time it broke through, Beihold was already several years into her career. She self-released her debut EP in 2017 and had found early success through a growing fandom on social media.
"Numb Little Bug" opened doors Beihold couldn't have imagined before. In 2022, she appeared on a viral remix of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You." She performed her hits on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show With James Corden. She opened for acts like Jonas Brothers, Lewis Capaldi and King Princess before embarking on her own headlining tour in 2024. As the rollercoaster of the song's momentum and a couple years straight of touring wore down, so did Beihold. She knew it was time for a debut album but she couldn't crack the code.
"I had the worst kind of writer's block and identity crisis," she says."I didn't even know what I was trying to make or say or what I liked."
That feeling is particularly difficult to grapple with when your whole worth is tied to being an artist. She couldn't see value in herself when she wasn't able to write songs.
"When I was feeling so blocked, I'd spend hours at the piano and nothing would come out. I felt like maybe it was a power that I lost because I would process my emotions through writing, and when I couldn't write, I couldn't process."
During her summer in outpatient therapy, Beihold returned to the artists who inspired her to write songs in the first place: Regina Spektor, Marina, Sara Bareilles, Feist, and Lily Allen. "When my body didn't feel like home, I went to the things that in the past made me feel like home," she explains. Meanwhile, she found herself befriending many of the other patients seeking treatment--the older ones putting much of what she was going through into perspective. One even said something that helped spark Beihold's return to self: "How would you feel if Regina Spektor tried to be Britney Spears?
When she felt ready to re-enter the studio, Beihold did so with two producers who finally understood her sound and voice: James Flannigan (Marina, Carly Rae Jepsen, Weezer) and Jason Suwito (Benson Boone, K.Flay).
"Meeting the right collaborator was sort of divine timing," Beihold says. Before she entered outpatient treatment, she had been in a revolving door of failed sessions with other producers who weren't the right fit.
The first track Beihold and Flannigan worked on together was the single "Brutus." Beihold began writing the song during outpatient, channeling her feelings of comparing herself to her pop peers into a moment of relief that her writing spark was still alive.
She says the song is inspired by her experiences with comparison to peers who were blowing up while she felt stuck. "It was important for me to write a song about jealousy that didn't necessarily put the other person down but was about how intense the feelings could be. People say jealousy is a map of the things that you want and it can be embodied by a person."
Other songs on Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter dig deep into her archives of journals and voice memos. Bits of "Scared of the Dark," a song about co-dependency, were first written when Beihold was just 13.
"The album is about me trying to fit all these roles that weren't natural to me," she says. "Whether it was staying in the wrong relationships for sake of comfort or writing music that I thought was 'cooler,' I learned that you really can't fake being in the wrong skin for too long. That will make itself known either consciously or subconsciously."
When Beihold played some of the songs she had written for her A&R at Republic, they read the lyrics as a reflection on what it's like to be a girl and how you could feel on top of the world one day then at the bottom the next. Beihold wanted to write a song that more directly spoke to that feeling and quickly penned "Hot Goblin" with Suwito and writing collaborator Nick Lopez.
As dark as the world became for Beihold, the world of Shapeshifter is a bright one. It's always been a goal of hers to tackle the darkness with levity, and she accomplishes as much on her whimsical, smart and honest new project. And she's doing so more certain than ever of who she is and what her powers are.
"I really hope the album emphasizes that it's okay to have these dark moments," she says. "They really don't last forever even if you think they might."
~~~
A conversation with a friend might unfold in multiple directions all at once, surveying the ups, the downs, and the weirdness of life without fear or filter. Via music, Em Beihold converses and connects much like your closest friend would. She isn't afraid to be blunt, disclose her insecurities, or laugh inappropriately, yet she's got nothing but love. It's why she's quietly emerged as an identifiable and inimitable platinum-certified pop songstress with north of 1 billion streams and widespread critical acclaim. She's the girl on the red carpet with the $10 coat (who will proudly tell anyone who asks!) and who sends her hair stylist a picture of Jessica Rabbit as inspo for a late-night TV appearance.
Yet, she opens up even more on a series of 2023 singles and her forthcoming full-length debut for Moon Projects/Republic Records.
"I'm super honest musically, because that's what I am in real life," she exclaims. "Lyrically, I always try to be specific and less generalized. It can come off blunt. Sometimes, I don't care and do it anyway, which is good and bad. I have a dark sense of humor. So, the brutal honesty in the lyrics is paired with bright music. I used to write for myself as a form of therapy, but the fact that listeners relate to the songs is the greatest honor I could have."
Born of half-Persian descent, the Los Angeles native embraced music at the age of six and never let go. She studied classical and jazz piano and carefully crafted a nuanced signature style over the years. She climbed into the pop culture conversation with the 2022 platinum smash "Numb Little Bug." It has generated over 500 million global streams in addition to cracking the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and lifting Em to #1 on the Billboard Emerging Artists Chart. Not to mention, she also toppled the Spotify Global Viral 50 Chart at #1 and climbed to #1 on the Hot AC Radio Airplay Chart as well as vaulting into the Top 5 at Top 40. She only accelerated her rise with the Egg In The Backseat EP, making her late-night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Not to mention, she incited the applause of The New York Times, Stereogum, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, and Variety who hailed, "Beihold is very much part of the new guard." On the EP's heels, she lent her voice to a duet version of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You," which exploded to the tune of over 230 million Spotify streams and counting. Moreover, they lit up The Late Late Show with James Corden together during a show stopping and smoldering performance. Asserting herself as a dynamic live presence, she has also captivated crowds on the road and opened for the likes of King Princess, AJR, Jonas Brothers and Lewis Capaldi.
"It's been super fun and unexpected, and admittedly very overwhelming," she reveals. "Even if your dream is for your music to take off, nothing quite prepares you for what it's like to be flying around nonstop. It's the most incredible and crazy opportunity."
Fittingly, the 2023 single "Roller Coasters Make Me Sad" documents the experience of the preceding year. On the track, airy synths and finger-snaps underscore her candid vocals punctuated by a swooning string-boosted crescendo. The song drops into a distorted stomp on the hook with the force of a loop-the-loop, "First they take you up the track, build you up and take it back, everybody else will laugh Roller Coasters make me sad."
"It's about the experience with 'Numb Little Bug'," she admits. "On the day it dropped, the response was insane. I should've been happy. Instead, I felt this pressure to keep the momentum going. I knew that everything that goes up must come down. I was bracing for the fall, because it was so unbelievably good. I couldn't just enjoy the ride. At the same time, I actually do hate Roller Coasters, and we found a way to tie that together with this idea," she laughs.
The follow-up "Masquerade" bops along on a hummable bassline and boisterous horn samples as she declares, "I'm done with the masquerade, if we're all sad, then everything's okay."
"I had coffee with someone who I had basically idolized for years and couldn't believe I was meeting," Em recalls. "She started talking about therapy. I realized all of these artists we look up to also struggle, and we tend to forget it. The whole exchange made me realize no one is necessarily as better off than you as you think they are. I'm so over pretending to be fine. I'd rather everyone be truthful, and we'd be a much more connected society."
Ultimately, Em might just make you feel like you can open up too.
"I leave enough space in my music to set a relatable scene where people can fill in the blanks themselves," she leaves off. "At the end of the day, my biggest goal is for you to feel less alone. When I meet fans on tour, they often tell me that they sought out therapy, because they realize they're feeling similar things. To me, that's a more lasting change than any stats or accomplishments."
Singer-songwriter Em Beihold knows a thing or two about shapeshifting. On her long-awaited debut album, Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter (Republic, 2026), she's ready to tell all the ways she's done that: in relationships, friendships, and most of all, as an artist.
But in order to make this album, Beihold needed to learn who she was when the shapeshifting stopped working.
When Em Beihold's "Numb Little Bug" became a runaway hit, she was on top of the world. Her 2022 single about her experience taking antidepressants cracked the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached platinum status. By the time it broke through, Beihold was already several years into her career. She self-released her debut EP in 2017 and had found early success through a growing fandom on social media.
"Numb Little Bug" opened doors Beihold couldn't have imagined before. In 2022, she appeared on a viral remix of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You." She performed her hits on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show With James Corden. She opened for acts like Jonas Brothers, Lewis Capaldi and King Princess before embarking on her own headlining tour in 2024. As the rollercoaster of the song's momentum and a couple years straight of touring wore down, so did Beihold. She knew it was time for a debut album but she couldn't crack the code.
"I had the worst kind of writer's block and identity crisis," she says."I didn't even know what I was trying to make or say or what I liked."
That feeling is particularly difficult to grapple with when your whole worth is tied to being an artist. She couldn't see value in herself when she wasn't able to write songs.
"When I was feeling so blocked, I'd spend hours at the piano and nothing would come out. I felt like maybe it was a power that I lost because I would process my emotions through writing, and when I couldn't write, I couldn't process."
During her summer in outpatient therapy, Beihold returned to the artists who inspired her to write songs in the first place: Regina Spektor, Marina, Sara Bareilles, Feist, and Lily Allen. "When my body didn't feel like home, I went to the things that in the past made me feel like home," she explains. Meanwhile, she found herself befriending many of the other patients seeking treatment--the older ones putting much of what she was going through into perspective. One even said something that helped spark Beihold's return to self: "How would you feel if Regina Spektor tried to be Britney Spears?
When she felt ready to re-enter the studio, Beihold did so with two producers who finally understood her sound and voice: James Flannigan (Marina, Carly Rae Jepsen, Weezer) and Jason Suwito (Benson Boone, K.Flay).
"Meeting the right collaborator was sort of divine timing," Beihold says. Before she entered outpatient treatment, she had been in a revolving door of failed sessions with other producers who weren't the right fit.
The first track Beihold and Flannigan worked on together was the single "Brutus." Beihold began writing the song during outpatient, channeling her feelings of comparing herself to her pop peers into a moment of relief that her writing spark was still alive.
She says the song is inspired by her experiences with comparison to peers who were blowing up while she felt stuck. "It was important for me to write a song about jealousy that didn't necessarily put the other person down but was about how intense the feelings could be. People say jealousy is a map of the things that you want and it can be embodied by a person."
Other songs on Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter dig deep into her archives of journals and voice memos. Bits of "Scared of the Dark," a song about co-dependency, were first written when Beihold was just 13.
"The album is about me trying to fit all these roles that weren't natural to me," she says. "Whether it was staying in the wrong relationships for sake of comfort or writing music that I thought was 'cooler,' I learned that you really can't fake being in the wrong skin for too long. That will make itself known either consciously or subconsciously."
When Beihold played some of the songs she had written for her A&R at Republic, they read the lyrics as a reflection on what it's like to be a girl and how you could feel on top of the world one day then at the bottom the next. Beihold wanted to write a song that more directly spoke to that feeling and quickly penned "Hot Goblin" with Suwito and writing collaborator Nick Lopez.
As dark as the world became for Beihold, the world of Shapeshifter is a bright one. It's always been a goal of hers to tackle the darkness with levity, and she accomplishes as much on her whimsical, smart and honest new project. And she's doing so more certain than ever of who she is and what her powers are.
"I really hope the album emphasizes that it's okay to have these dark moments," she says. "They really don't last forever even if you think they might."
~~~
A conversation with a friend might unfold in multiple directions all at once, surveying the ups, the downs, and the weirdness of life without fear or filter. Via music, Em Beihold converses and connects much like your closest friend would. She isn't afraid to be blunt, disclose her insecurities, or laugh inappropriately, yet she's got nothing but love. It's why she's quietly emerged as an identifiable and inimitable platinum-certified pop songstress with north of 1 billion streams and widespread critical acclaim. She's the girl on the red carpet with the $10 coat (who will proudly tell anyone who asks!) and who sends her hair stylist a picture of Jessica Rabbit as inspo for a late-night TV appearance.
Yet, she opens up even more on a series of 2023 singles and her forthcoming full-length debut for Moon Projects/Republic Records.
"I'm super honest musically, because that's what I am in real life," she exclaims. "Lyrically, I always try to be specific and less generalized. It can come off blunt. Sometimes, I don't care and do it anyway, which is good and bad. I have a dark sense of humor. So, the brutal honesty in the lyrics is paired with bright music. I used to write for myself as a form of therapy, but the fact that listeners relate to the songs is the greatest honor I could have."
Born of half-Persian descent, the Los Angeles native embraced music at the age of six and never let go. She studied classical and jazz piano and carefully crafted a nuanced signature style over the years. She climbed into the pop culture conversation with the 2022 platinum smash "Numb Little Bug." It has generated over 500 million global streams in addition to cracking the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and lifting Em to #1 on the Billboard Emerging Artists Chart. Not to mention, she also toppled the Spotify Global Viral 50 Chart at #1 and climbed to #1 on the Hot AC Radio Airplay Chart as well as vaulting into the Top 5 at Top 40. She only accelerated her rise with the Egg In The Backseat EP, making her late-night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Not to mention, she incited the applause of The New York Times, Stereogum, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, and Variety who hailed, "Beihold is very much part of the new guard." On the EP's heels, she lent her voice to a duet version of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You," which exploded to the tune of over 230 million Spotify streams and counting. Moreover, they lit up The Late Late Show with James Corden together during a show stopping and smoldering performance. Asserting herself as a dynamic live presence, she has also captivated crowds on the road and opened for the likes of King Princess, AJR, Jonas Brothers and Lewis Capaldi.
"It's been super fun and unexpected, and admittedly very overwhelming," she reveals. "Even if your dream is for your music to take off, nothing quite prepares you for what it's like to be flying around nonstop. It's the most incredible and crazy opportunity."
Fittingly, the 2023 single "Roller Coasters Make Me Sad" documents the experience of the preceding year. On the track, airy synths and finger-snaps underscore her candid vocals punctuated by a swooning string-boosted crescendo. The song drops into a distorted stomp on the hook with the force of a loop-the-loop, "First they take you up the track, build you up and take it back, everybody else will laugh Roller Coasters make me sad."
"It's about the experience with 'Numb Little Bug'," she admits. "On the day it dropped, the response was insane. I should've been happy. Instead, I felt this pressure to keep the momentum going. I knew that everything that goes up must come down. I was bracing for the fall, because it was so unbelievably good. I couldn't just enjoy the ride. At the same time, I actually do hate Roller Coasters, and we found a way to tie that together with this idea," she laughs.
The follow-up "Masquerade" bops along on a hummable bassline and boisterous horn samples as she declares, "I'm done with the masquerade, if we're all sad, then everything's okay."
"I had coffee with someone who I had basically idolized for years and couldn't believe I was meeting," Em recalls. "She started talking about therapy. I realized all of these artists we look up to also struggle, and we tend to forget it. The whole exchange made me realize no one is necessarily as better off than you as you think they are. I'm so over pretending to be fine. I'd rather everyone be truthful, and we'd be a much more connected society."
Ultimately, Em might just make you feel like you can open up too.
"I leave enough space in my music to set a relatable scene where people can fill in the blanks themselves," she leaves off. "At the end of the day, my biggest goal is for you to feel less alone. When I meet fans on tour, they often tell me that they sought out therapy, because they realize they're feeling similar things. To me, that's a more lasting change than any stats or accomplishments."
read more
But in order to make this album, Beihold needed to learn who she was when the shapeshifting stopped working.
When Em Beihold's "Numb Little Bug" became a runaway hit, she was on top of the world. Her 2022 single about her experience taking antidepressants cracked the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached platinum status. By the time it broke through, Beihold was already several years into her career. She self-released her debut EP in 2017 and had found early success through a growing fandom on social media.
"Numb Little Bug" opened doors Beihold couldn't have imagined before. In 2022, she appeared on a viral remix of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You." She performed her hits on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show With James Corden. She opened for acts like Jonas Brothers, Lewis Capaldi and King Princess before embarking on her own headlining tour in 2024. As the rollercoaster of the song's momentum and a couple years straight of touring wore down, so did Beihold. She knew it was time for a debut album but she couldn't crack the code.
"I had the worst kind of writer's block and identity crisis," she says."I didn't even know what I was trying to make or say or what I liked."
That feeling is particularly difficult to grapple with when your whole worth is tied to being an artist. She couldn't see value in herself when she wasn't able to write songs.
"When I was feeling so blocked, I'd spend hours at the piano and nothing would come out. I felt like maybe it was a power that I lost because I would process my emotions through writing, and when I couldn't write, I couldn't process."
During her summer in outpatient therapy, Beihold returned to the artists who inspired her to write songs in the first place: Regina Spektor, Marina, Sara Bareilles, Feist, and Lily Allen. "When my body didn't feel like home, I went to the things that in the past made me feel like home," she explains. Meanwhile, she found herself befriending many of the other patients seeking treatment--the older ones putting much of what she was going through into perspective. One even said something that helped spark Beihold's return to self: "How would you feel if Regina Spektor tried to be Britney Spears?
When she felt ready to re-enter the studio, Beihold did so with two producers who finally understood her sound and voice: James Flannigan (Marina, Carly Rae Jepsen, Weezer) and Jason Suwito (Benson Boone, K.Flay).
"Meeting the right collaborator was sort of divine timing," Beihold says. Before she entered outpatient treatment, she had been in a revolving door of failed sessions with other producers who weren't the right fit.
The first track Beihold and Flannigan worked on together was the single "Brutus." Beihold began writing the song during outpatient, channeling her feelings of comparing herself to her pop peers into a moment of relief that her writing spark was still alive.
She says the song is inspired by her experiences with comparison to peers who were blowing up while she felt stuck. "It was important for me to write a song about jealousy that didn't necessarily put the other person down but was about how intense the feelings could be. People say jealousy is a map of the things that you want and it can be embodied by a person."
Other songs on Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter dig deep into her archives of journals and voice memos. Bits of "Scared of the Dark," a song about co-dependency, were first written when Beihold was just 13.
"The album is about me trying to fit all these roles that weren't natural to me," she says. "Whether it was staying in the wrong relationships for sake of comfort or writing music that I thought was 'cooler,' I learned that you really can't fake being in the wrong skin for too long. That will make itself known either consciously or subconsciously."
When Beihold played some of the songs she had written for her A&R at Republic, they read the lyrics as a reflection on what it's like to be a girl and how you could feel on top of the world one day then at the bottom the next. Beihold wanted to write a song that more directly spoke to that feeling and quickly penned "Hot Goblin" with Suwito and writing collaborator Nick Lopez.
As dark as the world became for Beihold, the world of Shapeshifter is a bright one. It's always been a goal of hers to tackle the darkness with levity, and she accomplishes as much on her whimsical, smart and honest new project. And she's doing so more certain than ever of who she is and what her powers are.
"I really hope the album emphasizes that it's okay to have these dark moments," she says. "They really don't last forever even if you think they might."
~~~
A conversation with a friend might unfold in multiple directions all at once, surveying the ups, the downs, and the weirdness of life without fear or filter. Via music, Em Beihold converses and connects much like your closest friend would. She isn't afraid to be blunt, disclose her insecurities, or laugh inappropriately, yet she's got nothing but love. It's why she's quietly emerged as an identifiable and inimitable platinum-certified pop songstress with north of 1 billion streams and widespread critical acclaim. She's the girl on the red carpet with the $10 coat (who will proudly tell anyone who asks!) and who sends her hair stylist a picture of Jessica Rabbit as inspo for a late-night TV appearance.
Yet, she opens up even more on a series of 2023 singles and her forthcoming full-length debut for Moon Projects/Republic Records.
"I'm super honest musically, because that's what I am in real life," she exclaims. "Lyrically, I always try to be specific and less generalized. It can come off blunt. Sometimes, I don't care and do it anyway, which is good and bad. I have a dark sense of humor. So, the brutal honesty in the lyrics is paired with bright music. I used to write for myself as a form of therapy, but the fact that listeners relate to the songs is the greatest honor I could have."
Born of half-Persian descent, the Los Angeles native embraced music at the age of six and never let go. She studied classical and jazz piano and carefully crafted a nuanced signature style over the years. She climbed into the pop culture conversation with the 2022 platinum smash "Numb Little Bug." It has generated over 500 million global streams in addition to cracking the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and lifting Em to #1 on the Billboard Emerging Artists Chart. Not to mention, she also toppled the Spotify Global Viral 50 Chart at #1 and climbed to #1 on the Hot AC Radio Airplay Chart as well as vaulting into the Top 5 at Top 40. She only accelerated her rise with the Egg In The Backseat EP, making her late-night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Not to mention, she incited the applause of The New York Times, Stereogum, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, and Variety who hailed, "Beihold is very much part of the new guard." On the EP's heels, she lent her voice to a duet version of Stephen Sanchez's "Until I Found You," which exploded to the tune of over 230 million Spotify streams and counting. Moreover, they lit up The Late Late Show with James Corden together during a show stopping and smoldering performance. Asserting herself as a dynamic live presence, she has also captivated crowds on the road and opened for the likes of King Princess, AJR, Jonas Brothers and Lewis Capaldi.
"It's been super fun and unexpected, and admittedly very overwhelming," she reveals. "Even if your dream is for your music to take off, nothing quite prepares you for what it's like to be flying around nonstop. It's the most incredible and crazy opportunity."
Fittingly, the 2023 single "Roller Coasters Make Me Sad" documents the experience of the preceding year. On the track, airy synths and finger-snaps underscore her candid vocals punctuated by a swooning string-boosted crescendo. The song drops into a distorted stomp on the hook with the force of a loop-the-loop, "First they take you up the track, build you up and take it back, everybody else will laugh Roller Coasters make me sad."
"It's about the experience with 'Numb Little Bug'," she admits. "On the day it dropped, the response was insane. I should've been happy. Instead, I felt this pressure to keep the momentum going. I knew that everything that goes up must come down. I was bracing for the fall, because it was so unbelievably good. I couldn't just enjoy the ride. At the same time, I actually do hate Roller Coasters, and we found a way to tie that together with this idea," she laughs.
The follow-up "Masquerade" bops along on a hummable bassline and boisterous horn samples as she declares, "I'm done with the masquerade, if we're all sad, then everything's okay."
"I had coffee with someone who I had basically idolized for years and couldn't believe I was meeting," Em recalls. "She started talking about therapy. I realized all of these artists we look up to also struggle, and we tend to forget it. The whole exchange made me realize no one is necessarily as better off than you as you think they are. I'm so over pretending to be fine. I'd rather everyone be truthful, and we'd be a much more connected society."
Ultimately, Em might just make you feel like you can open up too.
"I leave enough space in my music to set a relatable scene where people can fill in the blanks themselves," she leaves off. "At the end of the day, my biggest goal is for you to feel less alone. When I meet fans on tour, they often tell me that they sought out therapy, because they realize they're feeling similar things. To me, that's a more lasting change than any stats or accomplishments."
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