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Apr 09, 2026 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Logan Zillmer

Michigan-based indie singer/songwriter Brie Stoner released her latest album, Me Veo, in 2024, refocusing her creative efforts towards music after stints as both a writer and podcaster. She followed the album with a new EP, Like a Man, and has spent the last year steadily sharing a series of new singles from her forthcoming sophomore album, Matador, due out next month. Stoner’s latest record pulls both from her roots in sunny California folk pop and her formative years growing up in Madrid, steeping her songwriting in open-hearted melodies, moving string arrangements, and production courtesy of David Vandervelde, best known as a member of Father John Misty’s touring band.

Earlier this year, Stoner shared her latest track, “Avocado Tree,” and today, she is back with an early listen to another new single, “What Do I Gotta Do,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“What Do I Gotta Do” is a soulful and glimmering ballad, burnished with warm horns and woozy West Coast pop harmonies. After opening with keys, chimes, and feather-light backing vocals, Stoner’s voice cuts straight through the mix, crooning out smoky melodies with a laid-back, magnetic ease. Stoner and her collaborators dress up the track in a rich and textured swirl of rock, pop, and soul, culminating in a simmering sax solo before the track suddenly cuts off, leaving only twinkling chimes in its wake.

Lyrically, Stoner strikes a confident tone, driving off into the sunset after finally cutting off a painful relationship: “Be a doll and a believer / Swallow till you catch that holy fever / Well I got one hand out the window, my own head on my shoulders / It’s gettin’ clearer with every mile I’m driving over…What do I gotta do to keep from docking on that shore? / I’m driving off to the west coast, never looking back, never going back no more.”

Stoner says of the track, “‘What Do I Gotta Do’ is a song about driving down the Pacific Coast Highway and finally letting go. I wrote it about the push-pull of breaking free from a relationship that had become more habit than love, the kind you keep returning to even when you know better. The song moves like the road itself, cinematic and forward, with that bittersweet ache of finally choosing yourself. It’s the song I needed when I had to let the ocean remind me that I was here before them, and I’ll be here after.”

Check out the song below. Matador is out everywhere on May 8th.