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This is one of my favorite songs that I’ve ever created. I always knew I wanted to make a sultry, sexy rock song and with Starr, that’s exactly what took shape. The storyline surrounding Starr is based on the paranormal romance novel “Deacon’s Starr,” which belongs to the Orion’s Order series written by none other than my sister, M.C. Solaris. Without giving too much away, M.C. Solaris developed a female bounty-hunter character named “Starr” that was inspired by myself: a fiery and fiercely independent female who doesn’t rely on anyone or anything. The heartbreak and series of unfortunate romantic relationships she experienced in her life led her to become calloused and, in turn, somewhat of a badass female huntress who sought her revenge by taking down criminals and evil in the world. But what she didn’t intend to collide with was the male who silently crept into her heart with quiet yet strong reserve. A male who seemed to contain her fiery energy with his cool and collected strength. A male who could somehow get close without getting burned. I don’t want to give away too many juicy details about the intricacies of this song or frankly about myself and my life (because I’d be giving that away about the storyline of the book it belongs with), so I’ll leave you with this: what I’ve come to somewhat reluctantly accept in my life is that we can build walls that are sky-high and thick and thieves to protect our hearts… but it becomes a double-edged sword. Those walls may succeed at blocking out intruders and people who are undeserving of feeling the warmth from our hearts. But it also isolates us from experiencing the warmth from another. In a sense, we lock ourselves in our own prison cell where no one can get close enough to hurt us… but that also means, no one can get close enough to love us. And even now as I convey the above, strangely enough, I still find myself adding cement and refortifying the walls around me. Oh well. Maybe one day I’ll find a man who matches my energy and is determined, committed, and patient enough to stick around.more

Love Me is a feel-good song that addresses the harsh and unrealistic standards of beauty for young women. I wanted to create a fun song with catchy lyrics for a different demographic than I generally cater to: young girls. When I first heard the beat for Love Me, I wanted to go in a completely different direction with the song. I had thought it would be a Justin Bieber/Chance the Rapper/Khalid “The One” type song. Fun, bouncy, catchy, and yeah, a little swaggy. I had pictured this being a song that my friends and I would have listened to in the car on a summer day headed towards the beach. And while it is that kind of song, in a sense—it’s definitely not what I had originally planned on it being. My writing process is: Listen to a beat and freestyle over it, recording myself into the voice memos section of my phone so I don’t forget what I’ve said or how I’ve delivered lines, and then write down those lyrics and refine them a bit. But I rarely, rarely end up changing the lyrics and flow. So I let the song be whatever it is organically… That’s how I think life should be and that’s what I’d like my music to be: whatever it takes shape as. Love Me wound up being more of an anthem for younger girls in my mind. I had pictured my niece listening to it and a younger version of myself (middle school and early high school). Keeping that in mind, at that stage of life, the beauty standards for girls/young women can be brutal and completely unrealistic. And now, with social media and the ability to edit photos, use filters, and frankly the accessibility of botox, fillers, and cosmetic procedures—the pressure to conform to these “beauty standards” has multiplied. As we continue to normalize altering our bodies for cosmetic purposes, we continue to apply pressure to those to conform… or be perceived as “lesser than.” Quite frankly: this is a shitty way of shaping our culture. While it may not serve the pockets of the cosmetic industry, it’s important to push back and remind ourselves (especially our sponge-like youth) that we are beautiful and worthy as is. Exactly as we were born, exactly as we are in our most natural state, with crooked teeth, frizzy-hair, finger hair, toe hair, acne, extra subcutaneous fats, etc etc. Full disclosure: this song I really contemplated on not releasing publicly. I didn’t want it to change my “image” in any sort of negative way. I knew that the majority of my listeners were not the tween/teen girls so I hesitated because I didn’t want to “lose” fans. But at the end of the day, this is an important message I wanted to get out and I enjoy the song. So to me, that’s all the matters. If I lose fans or if people don’t “get it,” that’s fine. All it means is that it wasn’t for them. So as always, I want to end by encouraging any of the other musicians who may be reading this to get clear about what your primary goals are for music and let that guide the way. If you want fame and status, well then you have to understand that you may be chaining yourself to the very fickle desires of others. That means you’re making music for a set of people and they’ll be essentially controlling your public image and your music… and I would argue that ultimately winds up controlling yourself in totality because music and public image bleed together into our truest selves. This means releasing music that you are guessing your fans will like, it’s catering that to them. (And there’s nothing wrong with this, as long as it’s truly what you want to do). But if you want to create music that you like or if it’s a cathartic process for you or or or, then it’s a good idea to remind yourself that you aren’t doing it for the streams and the external validation. I speak to myself as I speak to you. Here’s to loving ourselves. more