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Mar 28, 2025 Web Exclusive By Mark Moody Photography by Tonje Thilesen

Any indie music loving, self-respecting Atlantan has to have strong opinions on the Southern city’s myriad live music venues. A lifelong resident of the region, Becca Harvey (aka girlpuppy) has hit them all. “I love Variety Playhouse. That’s my dream venue. I love The Earl, it’s such an iconic spot. The Eastern too. I saw Father John Misty there a couple of weeks ago. It was insane, it was so good. When you play at The Earl they give you a free meal, and I’m always so excited. I’ve played The Earl and rehearsed at The Eastern, but The Eastern and Variety Playhouse are my dream venues,” Harvey shares.

With her second album, Sweetness, due for release a few weeks out from our Zoom call, Harvey is abuzz with energy and deftly shifts topics on a dime—from her favorite music venues to an impromptu invite to NYC to attend a season finale party for Peacock’s Traitors TV series. Harvey grew up south of Atlanta in Noonan, Georgia, and had a broad exposure to music from early on. “My mom likes Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, she would listen to Shania Twain. My dad was the complete opposite, very big radio country—Brad Paisley, all that group of guys. My middle brother though is pretty much to blame for my entire musical taste, he introduced me to Avril Lavigne, Hilary Duff,” Harvey says.

Harvey, like some of her musical heroes Matt Berninger and Michael Stipe, doesn’t play an instrument. Nor is anyone playing with her when she writes or giving her music to write lyrics to. She records voice notes of lyrics and self-made melodies on her iPhone. More of her childhood background points to this path. “My brother and I had a video game [when we were kids] called SingStar,” Harvey recalls. “There was a blue mic and a red mic, so you could do duets or a solo. My favorite song to sing was ‘Losing My Religion’ by R.E.M. It was kind of like Just Dance, but for singing and if you hit all the right notes, you won at the end. I was really bad at Guitar Hero and so bad at Rock Band, but I was the best at SingStar. That was the one game I could beat my brothers in.”

Through a strong-willed determination and insistence on help from the musical types around her, Harvey released her first album, When I’m Alone, in 2022. Ironically, the subject of the breakup on many of Sweetness’s songs, was her partner at the time of the first album. “My partner was in a local band and doing a lot of production work for them, also engineering, mixing, mastering,” Harvey says. There were some earlier singles, including some in collaboration with Marshall Vore (Phoebe Bridgers, boygenius). Harvey then connected with Sam Acchione (Alex G, Tomberlin) to produce her first album. “We made the whole record in 20 days. We barely left the cabin [we recorded in] because there was nothing nearby,” Harvey says. “I love that record, but Sam and [my partner] were getting into it in the cabin. It was a true mess, but the record was born and I loved it.”

The breakup that’s at the center of most of Sweetness’ songs happened around the time When I’m Alone came out. From Harvey’s description of her prior relationship it was for the best. “I’m glad that it happened, the whole record’s about that,” she admits. “Sweetness was a name my mom and friends would call me and friends of mine. I thought it would be funny, because the record is not very sweet. I think it’s super cunning and bitter. So I was trying to be witty.” To her point, in plumbing the depths of the album’s lyrics there are subtle references to wondering about her prior partner’s dog and never getting to meet his new nephew. As much of the album is about taking figurative blows in the relationship (see “Champ”), the occasional sly barb shows that Harvey is doing just fine, thank you very much.

Left to her own devices, the approach to recording Sweetness was totally different. Produced by Alex Farrar, who Harvey admiringly refers to as the “it boy,” his intermittent availability (and Harvey’s intermittent funds, to be fair) left Harvey on her own in plotting out the record. “I didn’t have anyone that I could send a voice memo to and say ‘Let’s make something out of this.’ I had to sit with it [on my own] for a while,” Harvey says. “When I finally got signed [for the new record], there was a lot of time in the studio alone, just me and the producer. I’d never done that before, with a lot of my own decision making. All of the lyrics were already written and all of the melodies, which was also new. It was scary, but [also] why I’m so proud of the record.”

Perhaps the album’s centerpiece, “Windows” envisions Harvey in the present tense looking in at her prior relationship. Though the lyrics are an open book, Harvey is particularly proud of how the song sounds in its final form. “Tom [Sinclair, who plays bass on the album] refers to that as the most girlpuppy song ever written because you can hear all the music I love in one song. If I had to introduce any random person to my music, ‘Windows’ would be the first song I showed them. There’s a Fleetwood Mac reference, and Yo La Tengo references,” Harvey, who is a Yo La Tengo nut, explains, “and the piano at the end sounds so early Coldplay.” Harvey points to the Coldplay T-shirt she is wearing and also, by proximity, her self-referential dog bone pendant.

Before we wrap our conversation, I ask Harvey if she will play one of her voice note demos. To a fellow musically untrained soul, it’s a bit mind boggling to think that Harvey is concocting full songs with verses and melodies totally unaccompanied. Harvey picks the album’s leadoff song, “I Just Do!,” to demonstrate her approach. Playing the voice note through to the end of the first chorus, all of the structure of the song is on display but utterly unadorned. “With the first record, Sam would listen to my [voice notes] with headphones because he knew it was embarrassing to me. But Alex broke me out of my comfort zone and would play them on the speakers [in the studio]. So now, I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah,’” Harvey says.

Harvey shares that on her phone, for the song “Champ,” she has files titled “Champ Chorus,” “Champ Verse,” “Champ Bridge.” “I’ll either write an entire song, or I’ll write different notes on my notes app and piece them together like a puzzle. Then I’ll drink a weed juice and read the lyrics and sing them out loud until I find something that sticks,” Harvey explains.

Without any formal musical training or understanding of keys and chords and notes, the approach seems daunting. “It’s hard,” Harvey admits. “More than anything I just love writing. Melodies just come from my love of music. I remember when I first started writing ‘Champ’ that I couldn’t articulate the melody to Tom, who I made it with. I remember feeling frustrated, but I love what came out of it. I feel lucky that I’m surrounded by people who understand me. I’m just singing what sounds right and hoping whoever I sing it to can play what I’m thinking. It’s magic when it comes together.”

www.girlpuppymusic.com

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