Interview: Slayyyter on her 'Worst Girl In America' album.

"My whole process with anything I make is that I have to be the one that's the most obsessed with it at the end of the day," shares Catherine Grace Garner - best-known as pop artist, Slayyyter. "And usually I feel like I have good taste, so, hopefully me liking it the most will mean that other people also like it as well. In the future, maybe I'll make a creative decision that not everybody is obsessed with, but as long as I feel really passionate about it and feel like I'm making it from a place of integrity, I think I will stand behind anything that I do, if it comes from a good place."

That passion is the through line on Slayyyter's latest album, 'Worst Girl In America' - a tequila-soaked joyride that personifies every intrusive thought that you've ever had. From the unhinged horniness of 'Cannibalism!' ("Tell you I'm needing it, if I don't have you, I'll die"), to the 'Fight Club' bluster of 'I'm Actually Kinda Famous' ("I didn't step off the train tonight to get mean-mugged in the club by some ugly bitches"), and sardonic open heart surgery of 'Brittany Murphy' ("Remember me beautiful / That sentiment probably ain't true at all / Tell them I was such a funny girl / Annoying's probably a better word")... Slayyyter just gets it. Living is messy.

Coup De Main recently met up with Slayyyter in Los Angeles to discuss the multitudes of her past, present, and future...

COUP DE MAIN: You’ve been releasing music as Slayyyter since 2018 and have experimented with a lot of different artistic styles. When you look back on your music career, do all of the past Slayyyters feel like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting together? Or more like Russian nesting dolls resting inside of each other?
SLAYYYTER: Honestly, I love the Russian nesting doll analogy. It kind of feels like I've been opening them over the years and getting deeper and deeper into the inside of it, so maybe that. I feel like I wouldn't be able to make the music I make now without those past eras - even my first mixtape, which was pretty internet-y, I feel like it took me a while to flesh out what I think I am as an artist.
CDM: That's fun because you don't know what's next when you open up Russian nesting dolls.
SLAYYYTER: Yeah, but they always look similar to the one that it comes out of.

CDM: How do you differentiate between Slayyyter and Catherine Grace Garner?
SLAYYYTER: I feel like it's all one and the same now, it almost just feels like a nickname. I don't think there's that much separation. My stage persona is obviously pretty different because when performing, you kind of embody something a little more confident or a little more powerful, but I feel very in line with Slayyyter, and it's all kind of one and the same. It's all just me. It feels like a nickname, or like a term of endearment.

CDM: What does fulfilment look like for you or mean to you? What has kept you going in your career?
SLAYYYTER: Chasing/making visuals, or music that I like and enjoy, and feel proud of. I never feel fulfilled by any kind of external things, or any kind of pat on the back from music critics or publications - fans liking stuff is always nice, but if I myself am not pleased with the work I'm making, then that's when I'm wanting to chase another thing, or do another thing, or get better, or make it cooler. And even with this album, I'm like, 'How can I make the visuals better? How can I make something even crazier? Or make something that sounds even cooler to me?'

CDM: On 'Clouds' from your debut album 'Troubled Paradise', you said: "I'm unhappier than I've ever been / I never thought I'd know what it's like to win." How does it feel to look back on those lyrics now?
SLAYYYTER: That's a funny song, just because I wasn't even really winning back then by any means. But it's funny, I use those lyrics and I kind of flip them in the intro to 'Dance...' - I say, "I'm unhappier now, I'm unhappier now," and I think it's just something where things from your past can hurt you or stay in your brain, or stay in your body, even if you're not thinking about it, even if you feel like you've grown out of it or grown past it, where even the good things that happen to you, you still kind of struggle with things from your past. A lot of this album is about feeling plagued by things from your childhood and things from your past and things about where you came from, and trying to make something beautiful out of that. We all get sad. The bigger my project gets, or the more success I find myself in, I still am going to have moments of existential crisis, but I think it's all part of it.

CDM: Is that still your mother's favourite Slayyyter song?
SLAYYYTER: <laughs> I think now it's 'Dance...' actually. She loves '$t. Loser' too, which is really shocking. She loves my new album, and I didn't think she would because it's so intense, but I love that. She's dancing around; loves it.

CDM: How do you know if you are truly happy or just making the best out of a situation?
SLAYYYTER: I don't know. I'm still trying to figure that out. I feel like there's no such thing as true happiness all the time; it has ebbs and flows. Everything in life has ebbs and flows to it. There's a lot of pressure with the concept of finding true happiness or finding true meaning in your life, but it's okay to have a down year or a bad year, and then right after that, picking yourself up and forging ahead. True happiness is about making the most of a situation, even when things are bad, or even when things are good. Making the best of a bad situation kind of informs the true happiness thing because it's impossible to feel truly happy all the time.

CDM: 'Dance...' is such a perfect way to begin 'Wor$t Girl In America' - did it feel like an opening statement for the album when you were creating the song?
SLAYYYTER: Definitely. I think the long intro always kept it in the number one list on the track list for me, just because I thought it felt like such an opening sequence of a movie, and perfectly opens the album and kind of sums up what it's about, and sums up feeling anxious in social situations. It always remained as number one on the track list for me.

CDM: When you say, "I don't need you, I don't need anyone," are you referring to a specific situation in your life? Or does that lyric have a bigger meaning for you outside of the song as well?
SLAYYYTER: I think it kind of just sums up everything with my music and artistry. I work with a lot of amazing people, but it still comes so from within myself and my own ideas, and I've had a lot of experiences of people wanting to elevate me. This particular song was written about being annoyed by creative directors reaching out, wanting to elevate me, or say that they want to make me better, and I already felt like I was doing cool things, so it kind of confused me. I think it's kind of just a sentiment about not needing to rely on external factors to find success or to make things that you care about, and not needing to phone it in as much with your visual output, or your creative. My creativity is so ingrained in my soul. It's more of a statement of just like, 'I don't need anyone to make me what I am, because it's just what I am.'

CDM: One of the things that I hate most about the music industry is how transactional people can be with wanting credit for other people's artistry.
SLAYYYTER: That definitely happens a lot. I think too, people are really sharky, and they'll look if people are recently signed, they'll look where the budget is, and so they'll try to get in with people. Which is so funny, and I'm very privy to those kinds of things, but I don't think a lot of people are. Some people might need help with creative visual output - it's just not something that I have wanted help with, especially during this album. In the past, when I've let other people take control of things is when I'm so miserably unhappy with the output, and then you have to put a video out that you're not really behind, and it leads to... there's videos that still make me grit my teeth when I think about them because of how bad they are. In the music industry, everybody wants a piece of what you're doing when it's of value, and I think that that can be a weird thing to experience, just because you create something with your friends and the people that you like to work with, and then people kind of circle around like vultures and they want to get their hands on it or put their name on it, and it's not always their creation.

CDM: Listening to this album in order, it feels to me, like a journey of self-discovery. Do you feel like you learnt a lot about yourself during the process of making this album?
SLAYYYTER: Definitely, I rediscovered a lot of my passions for making music and making visuals. I was telling myself how this would be my last album, but in doing that and going into the studio and being so final - 'This will be my last project and then I'm gonna go figure something else out, because it's not working out...' - I feel like I just rediscovered how much I love to create things and love to make music, and I learned a lot about my own habits and tendencies, and the way that I act, and how directly linked to my childhood those things can be. It did feel like a big period of self-discovery, but it's been good, as I creep into adulthood in my 30s, to face those things now, and come to terms with them rather than run away from it.

CDM: You end 'Beat Up Chanel$' with "I want something for real..." - what does 'real' mean to you?
SLAYYYTER: It is about my hometown or people that I grew up with, and how I used to feel in high school, and how that feels like real life, and that the world of the entertainment industry does not really feel like real life all the time, like the way people value others based on social standing or success or things like that doesn't feel.. the "something for real" line, it feels like it's a stoned teenager being like, 'Oh man, I just want bigger things, I want a better life,' but the for real thing is kind of where I was in high school, or how I feel like being at a party in a basement with my hometown friends, drinking and listening to music. All of that feels more real than some things I've experienced in my adulthood, so it's about a nostalgia for different times in your life - simpler times in your life.

CDM: What was running through your mind while writing 'Old Technology'?
SLAYYYTER: I wasn't trying to write a song that felt like it's celebratory of doing drugs, or going out and partying. I think that a lot of people might feel that way on the surface, but to me, it sounds like an unsettling portrait of someone that might struggle with those things. I was thinking about my own habits and how I maybe take it too far sometimes, and lean on things to feel better, to cope, rather than get... I'm in a healthier place now with everything, but it's more about a dark, self-destructive way of partying - not even doing drugs at a party with other people; the song feels like you're by yourself, tweaking out in your own apartment, and I've been-there-done-that many times.

CDM: You've incorporated human-sized David Lynch-inspired bunny characters into multiple music videos for this album era. What is it about that rabbit symbolism that really speaks to you and made you want to include the creepy bunny-man so prominently throughout the album visuals?
SLAYYYTER: It wasn't so directly inspired by David Lynch. I love David Lynch, and I'm super inspired by him and the rabbits in that movie ['Inland Empire'], but it was more supposed to be something symbolic of my childhood and something that represents something innocent and childlike that has a dark, brooding presence or energy, and something that follows you around everywhere like a hallucination. Bunnies are so innocent and sweet, but turning something like that into a really menacing figure that kind of scares you was an interesting thing that felt like it mirrored a lot of the topics and themes on the project.

CDM: Director Richard Linklater is name-dropped in 'Crank'. Do you have any favourite films of his? Surely, 'Dazed and Confused'?
SLAYYYTER: Yeah, 'Dazed and Confused', definitely. That's my number one. I stole the character named Slater for my whole artist project, so that's got to be my first. I love all of his movies, though. I love the 'Before Sunrise' trilogy. I love the way he approaches films, and how he'll do long-hauls, and I think it's fascinating that he made all those movies, like the 'Before Sunrise' trilogy, specifically, filming them all 10 years apart with the same actors, or even 'Boyhood' being made over such a long stretch. That's really so much dedication that he uses towards his projects, and 'Dazed and Confused' is particularly my favourite because it's such a cool snapshot of high schoolers. People call it a hangout movie, where the plot isn't as important - it's like feeling like you're in high school with these people, and going out on a night out. Even though it takes place in the 70s, it reminds me so much of my own high school experience, where there's not much to do, and the party gets busted, so you find another place to go; you go to the park, and they go party at the moon tower. It's just a nice snapshot of American teen life.

CDM: You reference an "old gas station" in 'Unknown Loverz' and are also at a gas station in 'Gas Station'. Are there other locations or visual images that you feel are very strongly linked to the songs on this album?
SLAYYYTER: The album feels a lot like parking lots at sunset, or being in backyards, or in basements of friends' houses, open roads, and it feels like a lot of things from my high school years. We would just set up shop in random places, whether it was public parks to drink or smoke, or whatever. It kind of reminds me of all different places over St. Louis, or even the desert. I see a lot of different imagery in my head, but it's all kind of mundane, desolate places.
CDM: Very lonely places.
SLAYYYTER: Yeah, for sure.

CDM: 'Cannibalism!' is a really fun song. Are you the type to see someone and just go for it? Or are you more likely to plot and/or pine?
SLAYYYTER: No, I'm more the type to just be shy. The song is kind of about having a crush, but being consumed by the thought of it, and it's not even about the person. Sometimes the person might suck, or not really be as cool as you think that they are, but the thought in your head, or the version in your head that you create, is so much better sometimes. It's more fun; it's not real. You kind of make this fantasy character; it's like a movie character that doesn't even exist. I'm a pretty shy person, so I prefer to just take a back seat and create versions of people in my head rather than get to know anyone, I guess.

CDM: What was it like recording 'I'm Actually Kind Of Famous'?
SLAYYYTER: That one was funny. I kind of wanted to go more spoken word with that one, but it came naturally. We were making the beat, and Nico [Nicolas DiPietrantonio] popped in a bunch of songs off my previous album, 'Starfucker', and this song was one of the later ones that came along - one of the last ones I made for this project; 'Old Fling$' and maybe one other. I had been experiencing these nights out with people, seeing people who kind of antagonise you, like provoke you not so directly. I was in a pretty unhealthy relationship for a while, where my ex had girls from his past that would always come around, and I would feel like maybe there was a little bit of infidelity going on, but I would see these girls out, and it would be so funny how they would try to mean mug, or stand across the club and kind of like <crosses arms>, and I felt so not wanting to engage with it and like, 'I'm just living, I'm existing in a bar, why are you putting yourself in like this invisible ring with me?' And maybe they weren't, but I just always had this weird feeling about it, so it felt like an acid trip version of a confrontation that you want to have, but you're not ever going to have on a night out. It felt like when you're drinking and you're getting angry, the voice in your head that's speaking, but you're not saying those things. A lot of it just feels like a subconscious ego trip, but it really feels like a hallucination gone wrong, or whatever. And I felt really inspired by 'Enter The Void' and movies that have to do with drug trips gone badly, so it kind of came from the place of feeling like you're getting spun out at a party, and you're kind of talking to yourself, and having these 'I'm kind of famous' thoughts, but no one really cares, and you're not actually gonna say that, but you're having an ego trip internally,

CDM: Slayyyter fight club, but it's just delusional voices inside her head.
SLAYYYTER: Yeah, it definitely feels like a delusional voice speaking to you.
CDM: But you're self-aware.
SLAYYYTER: You're self-aware, but also I think it's something a lot of people experience when you go out and you're drinking, or you see someone that you don't really like at a bar or a club, and you feel like everyone's laughing at you, and maybe that's not the reality, but sometimes because of substances, it can induce you feeling more anxious and feeling more on edge about how you're being perceived by other people.

CDM: In '$t. Loser' you say: "I got my eyes on the trophy / I think these bitches write me off, but they don't even know me." Was that directed at anyone specific?
SLAYYYTER: No, not anyone specific, really. Just in general, over the years making music, I've never really felt like I'm a part of any kind of scene. I never really felt liked by peers or other artists, and I always felt kind of written off by people, or ignored in spaces where I always was kind of like, 'Why not me? Why am I not good enough to be in these scenes or spaces? Or given the same respect as other people who are either smaller than me or maybe bigger than me?' I always felt a kind of chip on my shoulder, so I feel like this song is a bitter sentiment of thinking about people who don't think about you at all - and really thinking about it, and wondering why people might have disdain for you, and then kind of coming to the realisation that they don't even think at all about me. There's no disdain; they just don't think about me at all, which kind of hurts a little worse.

CDM: My favourite line in that song is, "If kids are bumping my shit, that's a recession indicator."
SLAYYYTER: So true, so true.

CDM: Do you think that fame causes post-traumatic stress disorder?
SLAYYYTER: I think it can, if it happens and you're not equipped or surrounded by caring people to help or be supportive, or resources, or people to lean on. It's such a weird thing. I still don't really feel like I'm famous, or that anything has changed much. I think it's a lot of attention on my project, but I haven't really experienced anything too crazy, so I can't really speak on it that much, but I do think it can cause issues for people just because it's a very strange thing, and a strange concept to be unknown and then go to being perceived by so many people, and not really having control over the narrative about you, or people make up personality traits that you might not have, but they kind of just run with. I see it a lot where people have this parasocial tendency to put on artists or people as they blow up, that like, 'Oh, they're rude, or they're blah blah blah... this or that.' But how could you possibly know that about these people? And I've always said that the more famous you get, the less control you have over your image, what's posted about you, and it can be really bad for your mental health. Nobody likes unflattering bad pictures of them, and if you're famous, you completely have to let go of control over that because maybe you're tired, and you just don't have control over what you look like online, whereas a lot of people do normally. It's a weird thing, and then you get attacked, and you're like, 'Well, I didn't know I was getting my picture taken,' and you just don't have control over how you look all the time. It invites comments about your face or your body or all these things, and that can be really weird to struggle with, but also it's kind of nice to lose that control sometimes. I feel like you shouldn't be able to control everything about yourself, so there's something about it that is nice to throw your hands up and just let it go.

CDM: Ethel Cain has said that: "Pop fans treat artists like fantasy football teams, using streams, stats and followers like Pokémon to fight each other." What has your own experience with 'stans' been like?
SLAYYYTER: Oh yeah, that definitely happens, I feel like I've been on the receiving end of that because with my music, I don't have any true 100 million+ stream hits to my name, so it's always funny when people use that as some kind of dig because I really don't care about streaming numbers, I feel like it's the least important thing to me - that's a record label metric to want to hit, but it doesn't really interest me. How my music makes people feel is more important to me, or if the visual that I created is impressive to me, that is something that I care about more. It's kind of funny watching people battle each other. I feel like there's artists who I really love and admire, and like the music of, and watching their fans beef with my fans, or my fans beef with their fans, I'm always just like, 'You guys... let's pack it up.'

CDM: "Remember me beautiful" you open in 'Brittany Murphy' to later wondering at the end of the song, "is my face too disgusting for open casket?" Was it difficult to be so vulnerable while writing that song?
SLAYYYTER: Yeah, I felt really... I remember feeling really embarrassed in that session.
CDM: I love that song.
SLAYYYTER: Thank you, thank you. I felt really embarrassed over the lyrics I had wrote, so I kind of delivered it with more of a robotic... I don't really use auto-tune in the studio. I feel like that's just not sonically what I like to use as a tool of my music, and I remember I felt so embarrassed by what I had written because it felt a little too personal, so I kind of used this more robot voice with auto-tune on "remember me beautiful" to almost cover up what I'm saying, but yeah, it was kind of hard to peel that away, but I'm glad that I did. After getting on the mic and saying what I had to say, no one really questioned me, or no one was like, 'What's this about?' I hate when producers grill you about the concept of a song, and I'm lucky to work with people who don't do that. We all just want to make the best song possible without being overly literal about everything. I felt a lot of shame, writing that out, I guess.

CDM: What do you feel most grateful for?
SLAYYYTER: My friends, my family, my fans. I feel like I've met a lot of wonderful people over the years that I get to create things with that I feel very grateful to have people who are aligned with me creatively that all kind of want the same things, and want to make the same things, and we all have similar tastes in things, and it feels really nice to have like-minded people in my life that all want to achieve the same things. I feel really grateful for that. I feel really grateful that this music is connected with people. I feel grateful for my fans that have stuck with me for so long. There's a lot to be grateful about in life.

CDM: If you were to burn me a "Slayyyter Summer" themed mix CD, what are the songs you're picking to open and close the CD with?
SLAYYYTER: I would probably open the CD with 'The Party' by Portraits Of Tracy. I love that song right now. And I would maybe close it with 'Beat Up Chanel$' by me. <laughs>

CDM: Did you have any luck in locating Brittany Murphy's dress from 'Uptown Girls'?
SLAYYYTER: No, I wish! The exact one she wore in the movie is a little bit tougher because I know a private collector owns that, but the reproduction ones that Blumarine made back in the early 2000s, I've had a couple people who have helped me get close, but I don't have one in hand yet, but I guess we'll see. There's one person who is pretty close to getting one, and they said maybe end of June they'll have some answers, but I don't want to get my hopes up just yet until I have it in my hands. I might be close to a reproduction one of it, so that's exciting.

CDM: And lastly, have you been working on any new music?
SLAYYYTER: I have. I'm working on a bit of a brother album to 'Wor$t Girl In America' which has been really fun and exciting, and everything feels... there's inverse songs of songs that came before. I've been flipping the titles and making just completely new music, so it's almost like a brand new album, but it feels inspired by what came before it, and feels almost like an evil flip of it, but the music is very different. Feel like I've been a little bit more vulnerable, and I feel like I have a new perspective on things that maybe I was talking about in the first album. It's been interesting to write things as things are happening about new life experiences, so it's almost like the same songs from a different perspective.
CDM: That's so exciting. Do you feel like that will be released this year?
SLAYYYTER: I hope, this year. We'll see... we'll see how fast I can get my shit together.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Photos by: Ragan Henderson | Styling by: Hunter Clem
Hair by: Ricky Fraser | Make-up by: Kelby Adam
Assistant Styling by: Kallie Collet, Thomas Jay & Yousef Rammaha
Polaroids and Instax photos by: Shahlin Graves
Design by: Lola Jacob | Assistant Design by: Madison Thomas

Slayyyter's latest album 'Worst Girl In America' is out now.

Watch the music video for new single 'Brand New Chanel$' below...