I’ve been a fan of Izzy Heltai from the jump, and it was such a pleasure chatting with him about his first album Father on Country Queer Spotlight. (If podcasts aren’t your thing, you can read excerpts of the interview here.) We discussed, among other things, his choice to be out professionally as a trans man, and how his debut LP felt like a bridge between the folk music he’s been writing since a teenager and the experimental pop he finds himself moving towards. Fresh off the heels of receiving a Rainey Day Fund grant, which is given to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ roots artists, Izzy’s been releasing singles at a fast and furious rate that I can barely keep up with.
First up is “Beauty Queen,” a dreamy if acidic take on a romance turned south.
“Pandemic romance is nuts, or at least the way I experienced one was,” writes Heltai. “Intense, dramatic, and unsustainable. All exacerbated by the fact that I was scared I would never meet anyone again due to how hard it is to date or literally just make a new friend right now. Without the distractions of pre-pandemic life, it was pretty easy for me to spiral into obsession, and I probably put up with a lot more shit than I would have normally.
But hey, at least I got this song out of it.”
“Give it a Try,” by contrast, is one of Heltai’s hardest rocking songs yet. The distorted guitars surprised me at first, and I’d be willing to call this Heltai’s first foray into solid Americana — I could easily hear this one in a set with John Moreland and American Aquarium.
“On the surface, this song is about someone I was involved with romantically who didn’t know what she wanted,” he explains. “She wasn’t self aware enough to end it, so I was forced to walk away no matter how much I loved her and how much it hurt.
As I’ve thought about it more and more, this song is about so much more than that. I have been privileged in my life, to be surrounded by some of the greatest friends, family, and support system a person could ask for. People who have shown me how much I’m worth, who have shown me what it means to treat a person well.
This song is for the people in my life who gave me the strength and perspective to walk away. The people who have shown me, time and time again, I will never actually be alone because I am surrounded by their love and kindness every day.”
Izzy Heltai — Official, Facebook, Spotify, Bandcamp, Twitter, Instagram