Stella Rose’s world exists in fragments — fleeting moments of beauty, tension, and seduction, where meaning is felt more than spoken. With her new EP, Hollybaby, she invites us deeper into this fractured reality, weaving a story that feels both achingly personal and unapologetically enigmatic. There is an intimacy to her work that can feel voyeuristic as if the listener is peering through a keyhole into private rituals, yet there is also distance — a refusal to fully reveal the truth behind the metaphors.
The EP was recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Yves Rothman—whose credits include Yves Tumor and Eartheater— during the sweltering, oppressive heat of the summer. Stella traded the familiar chaos of New York for a more alien kind of discomfort. The songs that emerged from those boiling days are heavy with their own heat: brooding guitars, volatile lyrics, and a voice that cuts like a razor’s edge. “The best-kept secret between after-hour bars,” Stella says of Hollybaby. “People you’ve been before, fueling superstitions. The sedation in seduction, the day the music died.” Her words hover somewhere between poetry and confession, a theme throughout the EP.
The four tracks of Hollybaby move like a fever dream. The title track sets the tone, both ominous and seductive, a doorway into the EP’s shadowy world that stands as a compelling prologue to chaos, beauty, and vulnerability that is to come. MS.45 follows with simmering intensity, its imagery vivid and cinematic. Beautiful Twentysomethings, as Stella Rose describes, is “a portrait of youth and the nativities of beauty in chaotic places”, underscored by a music video directed by the artist herself. And then there’s Drugstore Romeo, closing the record on a note of raw vulnerability, its soaring melodies and stark lyrics confronting addiction with poignancy.
Rather than a collection of songs or a snapshot of a moment, Hollybaby unfolds more like a map of a journey through discomfort, chaos, and discovery. Stella Rose does not offer easy answers. Instead, she creates a world where the questions linger, daring you to step closer, to lose yourself in the shadows she so carefully casts.
How would you introduce yourself and your work right now if it were the first thing someone read or heard about you? What does that introduction say about where you are at this moment creatively?
I am still discovering who I am and what I have to say. My work so far reflects that search.
Your music often feels deeply introspective, drawing listeners into the raw core of your emotions. What’s the scariest truth you’ve uncovered about yourself while writing this new EP, Hollybaby?
There can be fear in unveiling truths, especially ones about yourself. But life would be pretty boring without those risks. Music allows us, and this EP has proven, to explore those dark places and find light in creating something out of it.
Do you ever find yourself questioning whether vulnerability in your music feels entirely authentic or if there’s a sense of performing it? How do you navigate staying true to yourself when vulnerability has become such a powerful currency in music?
Authenticity has become such a means for relatability. I think there’s a balance between the performative aspects of music and its vulnerability in exposing the intimate sides of an artist. I don’t approach writing a song with the intention of exposing myself, but since my music is a reflection of my experience, I guess it’s inevitable. The way you want to paint those experiences is up to you.
Your writing carries an intimacy that feels like eavesdropping on your own thoughts. How do you navigate the line between what to reveal and what to keep hidden?
I like the idea of my writing eavesdropping on my thoughts because it does feel that way. I think writing can help you work through thoughts and feelings that don’t always need rumination. My navigation in deciding what to reveal and what to keep hidden is determined by the way I want to describe the scene or subject. I wouldn’t say everything I write is so literal, but the details live in the metaphors or characters I’m stringing together.
Your lyrics often flirt with pain, intimacy, and control. Do you think there’s such a thing as being too intimate with your audience?
I’m not sure I have a direct answer to this because music isn’t made for one purpose or one listener. What I am drawn to may not satisfy someone else.
You’ve mentioned using Taschen’s The Book of Symbols as an exercise for writing poetry, a book that delves into conveying hidden dimensions of meaning. What hidden layers of meaning are woven into your new EP, and do you want listeners to uncover them?
It wouldn’t be a discovery if I uncovered them.
Your home is said to be filled with evocative relics and symbols — church doors, Virgin Mary statues, and even an out-of-order typewriter. Do you collect these objects for comfort, or do they push you to confront something deeper within yourself? How did the presence of these objects influence your creative process while working on this EP? Do you consciously curate your surroundings to spark inspiration?
My environment is extremely important to my creativity, especially in my apartment. I spend most of my time in my apartment, so the things around me have to be beautiful. I think objects carry a certain amount of energy or spirit. Most of these so-called relics have been given to me by family or friends. Or things I have collected. So they carry a sense of protection.
If you could build an altar for Hollybaby, what objects would be on it, and what would you leave out, no matter how important they seem?
A candle and a matchbook. Ripped out pages of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. A single flower which has a stem that is long and standing. Fuck-me pumps. An ivory letter opener. Perfume.
I’d leave out a string of pearls.
I’d leave out a string of pearls.
Artists often talk about “losing themselves” to find something new. Was there a moment in creating this EP where you felt truly lost, and how did you come back from it?
When writing a song, it doesn’t present itself that easily sometimes. You have to agitate it to find its possibilities. It can feel found in the early moments, but in losing it, you find real potential.
