Vérité: On Being an Independent Artist and Her Upcoming Record

Art by Yelizaveta Rogulina

In anticipation of her new album, New Skin, Vérité handed out a phone number to fans so that they could text her and call the line to receive snippets of an unreleased single. But just how do they get the number? By pre-saving a new song.

If anything is clear about Vérité, it is that she is always doing something different. From the moment she hit the scene in 2014 with her debut EP Echo, she’s done things her own way. The EP comprised of four songs: “Strange Enough,” “Weekend,” “Echo,” and “Heartbeat” that all share an experimental production that blur the lines between alternative and pop and serve as a pounding, fervent baseline for the true star of Vérité’s music: her deep-cut lyrics and howling vocals.

Following this, Vérité would go on to release two more EPs, a handful of cover songs and features, and ultimately her debut album—Somewhere In Between—all while scraping up hundreds of millions of streams and earning radio play.

And the kicker of it all?

She is an independent artist. 

I got the chance to talk with her about her career path, the ins and outs of being an independent artist, and her upcoming album.

A Brooklyn native, Vérité—born Kelsey Byrne—hustled from the moment she entered the game. Splitting her time between waitressing at Applebee’s in Times Square and holing up in her apartment to make music, she ultimately arrived here. 

When asked about the choice to be an independent artist, she said, “Staying independent was initially by necessity and eventually turned into an intentional decision. Once the project starting having steady income, I recognized the value and freedom ownership brings. I decided to bet on myself and keep full creative control for better or for worse.”

Creative control is, at the foundation of her music, what makes it so different. Every time you think you know what she’s going to do, she does something completely different. When asked if being independent helps with these creative decisions, she explained, “I’ve always had the freedom to make exactly what I want to make. I’ve never worked with an A&R and I’ve built the vision for the music without the pressure of conforming to what someone else thinks may ‘hit.’ I get to succeed or fail on my own vision.”

It may have been a tossup whether she would succeed or fail for awhile, but her vision has not served her rung thus far. She has garnered some radio play, worked on collaborations with artists such as Allie X and R3HAB, and more, and she isn’t stopping there.

The challenges of navigating that as an independent artist without a record label’s connections and resources, however, is great. I pointed this out, and she said, “Being independent, it’s impractical to measure yourself with the same tools major label artists do. It’s counterproductive. I am in my own lane, building my own world. I don’t tick the same metrics that major label artists do, so I don’t measure my success by those same standards. 

“A lot of this is staying resilient, keeping my head down and realizing I have structured my business in my favor and we are pushing forward one inch at a time waiting for one pin to fall into place and unlock all the doors.”

That willingness to keep pushing and embrace any and every change that comes her way is one of her advantages as an artist. Despite the rumblings about streaming ruining the music industry, Vérité argues, “Being against streaming is impractical. It is here, it is the future and artists would be better off embracing the benefits of the democratization of music and utilizing the data provided to them by these services to amplify their voices verses pushing against them.”

“Streaming pays well when you own your master,” she adds, as one of the many arguments against the medium is that it doesn’t pay artists well. It must be said, however, that her close relationship with her fans and sharp business acumen has also helped her get to where she is.

About that, Vérité says “If anything, being independent has forced me to think about social media and my relationship with my fans completely differently. We’re building everything from the ground up and connecting with fans is the number one most important thing. Most of the ideas we’ve come up with have been us trying to solve a problem or me, coming home from tour and being aimless and looking for ways to stay productive.”

Was that similar to how she writes her music? With every song that she releases, she at least co-writes on it, and the lyrics are often hard hitting and unexpected. When describing this process, she said, “All of these factors are completely random. It depends on my mood and where my head is at and what the writing situation is. When I write alone I sit at the piano and play chords and melodies in tandem. Usually I’ll lock in on an idea and then write out the lyrics and tie production and concept in at the end.”

I asked about her upcoming record, New Skin, to which she explained,“This record took me the longest to write, was the hardest to create, and is for sure the most vulnerable I’ve been. I made a conscious decision to go against the grain and not go pure pop, but tried to create a record with substance and staying power that was a world. I was much more involved with production and was on the ground level in every aspect of the record. I wanted to push away from this stereotypical ‘female alt indie pop’ sound and make something that felt unique to me.” 

If the singles are anything to show, this record is going to be some of her most complex and idiosyncratic work yet.

New Skin is slated for release on October 25, 2019.

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This piece appears in the October 2019 print issue of Your Magazine.