LA-based artist Valeree is more than just a singer-songwriter. Her music is a powerful reflection of her life, marked by both triumphs and challenges. With a sound that blends R&B, Jazz, and pop into a catchy, yet introspective mix, Valeree delivers bold lyrics that resonate deeply. Her journey from Pittsburgh to the LA spotlight has been a tumultuous one, marked by struggles with substance abuse, homelessness, and incarceration. Yet, through it all, she has emerged as a resilient and passionate advocate for women and mental health.
In an exclusive interview with LADYGUNN, Valeree opens up about her deeply personal and introspective concept album, “Interrupted.” This evocative collection of songs traces her tumultuous journey through trauma, PTSD, addiction, and ultimately, healing. Valeree’s candid reflections offer a raw and authentic glimpse into her experiences, inviting listeners to join her on a path from pain to vulnerability and growth.
With influences ranging from Fiona Apple to retro-funk and pop vibes, “Interrupted” is more than just an album—it’s a testament to resilience and the transformative power of music.
“Interrupted” is described as a concept album. Can you walk us through the storyline that connects all the different songs and tells the tale of your personal journey?
Oh boy! Where to begin? So, in essence, the first 5 songs are from my perspective when I was in a place in my life where I couldn’t be vulnerable and I was living in a constant trauma-response mode. I have since been diagnosed with PTSD and done lots of work towards healing it, but I was living in the thick of PTSD for years and years with no clue what was happening inside of me. I found it nearly impossible to connect with people, I was pushing people further and further away as time went on, I was completely disconnected from my emotions, never cried or yelled or felt anything extreme – I could go on and on. I now know that almost every part of that was symptomatic of my PTSD, which I have as a result of living through several traumas, but at the time I thought they were just my little personality quirks! It was so severe and long-lasting that I often considered that I might be a sociopath, which I even joke about on “Therapy Sessions (Get Better)”.
The first 5 songs touch on various aspects of my life during that phase, so “Just One Night” and “Be Alone” touch on how that affected my romantic and general social life, “Worth Remembering” and “Bottle of Whiskey” touch on the alcoholism and addiction issues that I now know are very tied to the PTSD, and “Don’t Wanna Grow Up” touches on my general avoidant state of mind at that time – kind of all-encompassing.
Then the middle 4 songs of the album are a breaking/turning point – where I finally crack the armor and start to feel some feelings, understand myself a bit, and unpack some trauma. “The Key” is me finally admitting to myself that I do actually want connection, in some ways the whole album could boil down to just that song. “Numb” is the real breaking point of the album and the point where I realize that I have to deal with my past trauma in order to learn how to be open and emotional. “Flowers” is me finally confronting one of the pivotal traumas that caused all of this, and “Therapy Sessions (Get Better)” is representative of the growth achieved via therapy and generally leaning on others for help. Then you get the latter piece of the album, the last 3 songs, which come from me at my most healed place at the time of writing – where I’d finally started to cry when I was sad, for example, and let people in on my emotional state. Frankly, I’d just started to recognize that I was even having a feeling, instead of immediately burying them on instinct. “The Table” represents that in my romantic life, as well as finally respecting and upholding my own worth. “No Sleep” also touches on that part of life; I think of it as a direct contrast with “Just One Night”. Both are more topical songs about sex, but one is completely avoidant and detached, whereas the other approaches it from a place of wanting passion and connection.
Then you’ve got the closer, “Good Days”, which represents the hopeful attitude I had about continuing this journey and all of the good it had brought into my life so far. Again, kind of a contrasting song with the opener. That was quite thorough, but there you have it!
You mentioned that the album initially focused on trauma, but eventually shifted towards vulnerability. How did this change in theme come about during the creative process?
The shift came about as naturally as possible because honestly, I didn’t do it on purpose, and I didn’t even notice that the theme had shifted until I was looking back at the album’s writing retrospectively. As I was writing these songs, I was also doing a lot of therapeutic work to try to process my trauma, so I was kind of inherently processing the very things I’d been writing about and having my raw response to that, which included getting more vulnerable in general.
One of the darkest points of this album focuses on a sexual assault, which is obviously based on a real experience, and it was something I’d pretty much never spoken about in my life by the point that I wrote “Flowers”. When the actual assault occurred, I cried about it the next day for the little time that I had before work, and then I packed the feelings and experience away and tried to go on with my life as if nothing had happened.
Writing “Flowers” really blew the floodgates open on that old wound, and then on top of that I’m doing, like, EMDR therapy at the time and learning about attachment styles and all this other stuff that all basically boils down to learning to be vulnerable. So I kind of unwittingly wrote the last few songs of the album from that place of slowly learning more and more about how to be vulnerable after my trauma had completely closed me off from vulnerability for years. Again though, I didn’t truly realize that that’s what I was writing about until I was looking back at the album and trying to figure out the exact common thread, knowing trauma wasn’t quite it. I eventually landed on vulnerability, and that feels the most accurate and honest if I had to sum it up in one word.
“Interrupted” delves into some heavy stuff like PTSD, addiction, and mental health. How did revisiting these experiences affect your creative process while writing and recording the album?
Typically, when I’m writing songs, I’m doing so because I have to make sense of an experience in some way. Sometimes I need to get a feeling out, sometimes I’m just trying to understand something that’s happened, but it’s almost always something I’m doing out of emotional necessity rather than an intention to record, release, or capitalize in any way. Because of that, I don’t think my creative process was affected too much while writing, it was mostly just cathartic. It’s nice too because writing a song gives experiences a new and different purpose. I can feel like this shitty thing didn’t just happen for no reason, it happened so I could write this song about it, and then maybe that song can become something else and mean something to someone else, etc etc.
The one exception is “Flowers”; that was a really, really difficult song to write. I stayed up until 4 am one night during the album recording process knowing I needed to write it – the album just wouldn’t be complete without it – and I just forced myself to not go to sleep until I’d finished a song about that experience. I’d been wanting to write it for 5 years and just been putting it off, likely for fear of having to really think about the experience and the feelings that came with it. Avoidance was my bread and butter for those 5 years. Luckily, “Flowers” was my first draft, and I liked it enough to not have to spend any extra time delving into something so painful to focus on.
While I was recording the album, I was still early in my therapy process with PTSD, so I was still really good at compartmentalizing. I think overall that was bad for my mental health, but in the case of recording, it was actually very helpful. I could record songs that I’d written about incredibly difficult experiences and feelings, and I was able to separate those feelings from the recording process. My producer Adam is also someone I feel incredibly safe and comfortable with, and he was such a professional throughout the process, so that really helped. I never could’ve made this without him, he’s one of my favorite people on the planet. I will have the most love for him forever because he shared the experience of making my very first album with me. He has been a big part of every single song I’ve ever recorded, but this album is definitely the most special to me.
This album delves into some of your darkest moments. What made you decide to share these experiences so openly and honestly with your audience?
I’ve always approached songwriting from a very diaristic place. I think of this as both a blessing and a curse, but when I’m writing something, my brain just absolutely will not touch any thought of releasing it or what people would think. It’s great because my writing is always very authentic and honest, but it can become a bit tricky to market songs where I wasn’t writing to be marketable whatsoever. So, when I was writing most of these, I really wasn’t considering the audience at all – I was just being open and honest for the sake of getting my turmoil out of my body and into something else, which is almost always music in my case. Some of these songs I wrote as many as 8 years ago, so I had absolutely no clue they’d end up on an album. Once it was all recorded though, I definitely hesitated to share this album because of its vulnerability; I actually recorded this whole album in the summer of 2021 and held onto the finished recordings for about 3 years before being willing to release them. This year I finally just felt that it was time to let this all go. It’s very scary to share a project that is so open and so honest about such dark moments, but I think it’s what I need to do to really move forward.
I’m just hoping this project can help anyone else going through similar experiences. I also really poured my heart, soul, time, money, and life into this project, not to mention the blood, sweat, and tears of my 3 incredible collaborators (Adam Allison, Max Berlin, and Devin Pruden), so it would just be criminal at this point to not release it.
You mentioned Fiona Apple and a retro-funk/pop vibe as inspirations for different tracks. Can you tell us more about how these diverse influences shaped the overall sound of the album?
Sure! Fiona Apple is a huge inspiration of mine in general, and I think that can be heard all across my music. Her songwriting is unnervingly honest, which I hope to achieve as well in my own writing. I think stylistically you can hear the musical influence in a lot of my more piano-forward tracks, such as “The Key”. I also think the way we convey emotion vocally is also pretty similar now that I’m thinking about it. However, I’m also super influenced by funkier, poppier music, which you hear in songs like “Worth Remembering” and “Good Days”. “Good Days” reminds me a bit of a Bruno Mars song circa 24k Magic era in some sense, with the synth sounds and general melodic feel. My songs that sound more like that are definitely influenced by legends like Stevie Wonder as well, I think there’s an obvious retro theme to a lot of my music. Then you’ve got a standalone track like “Numb”, which sounds like nothing I’ve ever done before, and I’d have to say the biggest influence for me would be Paramore for that song. I’ve never really listened to much pop/punk, my producer Adam came up with the guitar lick that inspired that song, and he’s very into pop/punk. I just had a melody pop into my head once he played the lick, and I made a song out of it. So I guess Paramore and Adam were my musical influences in that case. Maybe the most unexpected one is “Flowers”, I actually intentionally modeled the song structure after Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License”. I was struck by how much emotion comes through in that song, and I felt like a big factor in that was the structure of the song and the way it builds. I had this idea that using that same building structure about a much heavier subject could be really emotionally effective, and thus, “Flowers” was born. This album has influences from all across the spectrum, with some clear R&B influence in songs like “Be Alone” as well, but I’m just so grateful to my collaborators for helping me tie a musical thread between them all to make it sound like a cohesive project. I seriously doubt I could’ve done that by myself.
“Interrupted” tackles heavy themes with a lot of vulnerability. What message of hope or empowerment do you hope listeners will take away from the album?
I hope more than anything, people listening who are struggling with anything touched on in this album can take away the message to ask for help and open up. Therapy is your friend! And your friends are your friends! I shouldered so much by myself for so long and it did insurmountable damage. My biggest regret in life is letting so much time go by just living with the symptoms of PTSD running rampant, and it’s not my fault because I had no idea that that was what was happening, but I wish I’d gotten help. I wish I’d reached out to someone and said hey, these horrible things happened and I don’t know how to deal with it. I think if I’d done that, it would’ve resulted in a PTSD diagnosis much sooner, and I could’ve spent so much more of my young life healing and connecting and feeling. Feeling again has been my greatest blessing. I hope someone who hears this album who’s struggling with dissociation can hear that message and get some help. Also, I hope every single woman and nonbinary person who hears The Table feels empowered to never date another loser again! We’re done settling in 2024. We just have to be.
Mental health and addiction are often subjects that people don’t talk about openly. How do you see “Interrupted” contributing to the conversation and breaking the silence surrounding these issues?
I hope that some of the more obvious songs about those things can inspire people to share their own stories. This is the first time I’ve opened up in my music about my addiction story, which is kind of crazy because it’s been such a significant factor throughout my entire life. I first went to rehab at 16 years old, and the problem clearly started before that. So, I myself haven’t been all that open about it until now, but I know that sometimes when I’ve heard someone open up about something difficult, it’s given me the bravery to do the same. I really hope that this album can have that effect on some people, whether that’s about addiction, mental health, trauma, or anything else they’re inspired to share. One of the biggest takeaways I want people to get from the album is to ask for help and talk to people, so it’d be really cool to inspire people to talk about their struggles. It’s really hard for me to fathom the impact of this album beyond the individual impact it could have on listeners, but if it does have a larger impact on the conversations surrounding mental health and addiction, I’ll be incredibly honored. I’d love to help destigmatize all of the aforementioned. Shame is such a useless, awful toxin.
Your music often incorporates feminist themes. How does your identity as a woman influence your songwriting and the narrative of “Interrupted”?
It’s funny because I know that that’s true, it’s become a big part of my “brand” at this point – but my music only incorporates feminist themes because I am a feminist to my core, so when I’m writing songs, I’m writing them from a feminist point of view simply because that is my genuine point of view. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life written a “women’s empowerment” song on purpose, I just actually feel that way so sometimes my writing comes across that way. And I’m so glad that it does! Nothing brings me more joy or makes me feel more fulfilled than empowering women, but I can’t say I’ve ever done it on purpose with my songwriting. That is also sort of exactly the answer to the second half of the question – I think my identity as a woman is a giant influence on my songwriting as well as the narrative of “Interrupted” because it is a massive influence on my own personal lens and experiences. Almost all of the trauma I’ve experienced is directly linked to my being a woman (or girl, tragically), so this album just wouldn’t even exist otherwise. I’m also acutely aware of the facets of my life that are affected by my being a woman. I’m very aware of sexist slights and patriarchy as an institution and everything in between, so my worldview is very much shaped by that. I write what I think and feel, and I think and feel things only a woman could.
This album explores experiences that many young women can relate to. What kind of response or connection are you hoping to have with listeners who connect with the themes of “Interrupted”?
I’m hoping listeners feel seen, heard, and understood. I’m hoping they feel like there’s someone else out there who gets it. So many of the years I spent living with PTSD and not knowing it were filled with feelings of loneliness and otherness. I felt like the only person on the planet incapable of connection or deep emotion. I also believed that to be permanent, which is incredibly lonely, and thankfully was false. I hope that this can open anyone’s eyes who is in a similar position and also feeling that way – you’re not alone, and you’re not stuck that way! I hope people, especially women, will feel emboldened to share their own stories if that will help them to heal. This album is about healing for me as much as it’s about anything else, so I hope to pass that along to listeners who connect with it.
Is there anything else you’d like listeners to know about “Interrupted” or the journey it represents for you?
When talking about it in this kind of setting, it all seems so heavy – but “Interrupted” is also full of joy and fun! “Worth Remembering” is full of little jokes, “Good Days” is fun and hopeful – there are plenty of other points on this record meant to reprieve the heavier moments. There are even general album choices I made because I thought they were funny, like putting “Bottle of Whiskey” directly after “Worth Remembering” in the tracklist. That just makes me laugh, and I think anyone else who’s struggled with addiction will instantly get the humor in it. In general, I want this album to be cathartic for other people, as it has been cathartic for me. It’s also been stressful and painful and emotional and all kinds of other things, but it’s undoubtedly been cathartic.
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