Interview Isabel LaRosa: “I try to operate like I may never have another song again”
Having grown out of the jazz jam nights where she grew up performing, Isabel LaRosa is settling into her own niche of darkly shimmering alt-pop.
Some artists might find pushing their music on TikTok a chore, or else feel intimidated by the sheer scale of the platform’s audience. But Isabel LaRosa – whose 1.3 million-strong following regularly floods her comment sections with fevered, all-caps adoration – sees it differently. “I almost think about it like, ‘How am I going to keep these people around?’” she explains, perched on a sofa in Sony’s London offices. “I get so scared because social media moves so fast. Instead of thinking, ‘Oh I’m nervous about posting this because a lot of people are gonna see it’. I’m like, ‘I HOPE people see it!’”
Happily for her, people do. A clip of her hypnotic track ‘i’m yours’ currently has 1.5 million likes; a snippet of the pouting, dramatic ‘older’ has over two million. “It’s weird, because you feel so much but [also] nothing at the same time,” LaRosa says of the staggering attention she’s received. “You’re thinking, ‘That’s a MILLION likes’, but then, literally that’s just a number on my screen. I don’t know what that looks like.”
Creating these viral moments is the goal for now. When she’s writing – always as part of a collaboration with her producer and older brother, Thomas – it’s with those few precious TikTok seconds in mind. “You wanna write the punchline, and then write the rest of the joke, you know?” she quips. That doesn’t mean she’s found a reliable way to best the algorithm, though. “Every time I think I can predict something on TikTok, I get instantly proven wrong and humbled,” she laughs. “I always believe in the hooks we have, but I try to never assume anything’s gonna do any sort of numbers, because I’m resigned to the fact I have no idea what’s going on!”
Her ethereal, infatuated new single ‘Muse’ – teased for ten months before its release – did in fact ‘do numbers’. Videos using the track’s snarling riff racked up hundreds of thousands of views, including one sharing photos of LaRosa at this year’s VMAs. That night was her first time on a red carpet; an exciting but daunting early career highlight. “I feel like, in moments like that, my brain shuts off,” she says. “I’ll get off the carpet and I don’t remember anything that just happened.” She did at least remember not to smile (“The most off-brand thing ever”), and came away determined to return as a performer. “It’s cool to have those moments where you’re like, ‘Oh shit, I’m at the VMAs right now!’” she grins. “It’s very inspiring.”
“Every time I think I can predict something on TikTok, I get instantly proven wrong and humbled.”
The 20-year-old from Annapolis, Maryland may have mastered the non-smiling, effortless cool girl look online, but behind the spiked boots and sparkly eyeshadow there’s a palpable anxiety about making the most of her ascent. “It sounds grim, but I try to operate like I may never have another song again,” she explains. “I’m always trying to just keep people interested and entertained, while also maintaining what I want to do.”
Away from the internet, she’s currently seeing a far more tangible version of her fanbase in the sold-out rooms of her ‘Heaven Doesn’t Wait’ tour. Last month, she played London’s Heaven: a bucket list gig since she saw Tate McRae perform there last December. But even with her audience physically in front of her, LaRosa feels the same urgency to keep them onside that she does online. Once they start cheering, she needs to make sure they don’t stop.
“I think I have to learn how to relax onstage,” she admits. Last month she shared a bill with McRae and others at the Prudential Center Arena in New Jersey, but the Heaven headliner was still the more nerve-inducing. “It’s less pressure when I’m like, ‘They’re here for Tate McRae, they’re not here for me!” she says. “Sometimes I think, ‘Damn, why do you guys care? I wouldn’t care this much if I were you’. I don’t know what the phrase is… is it imposter syndrome?”
It’s no surprise that life can feel overwhelming for LaRosa given how much her platform has grown in the last few years. She credits the people around her with helping her stay grounded, particularly her brother. Their ‘alternative younger sister, producer older brother’ dynamic has already prompted countless comparisons to Billie Eilish and Finneas; “Oh my God – literally, I can’t escape it!” she laughs. “Sound-wise I feel pretty different from [Billie], but in terms of who I look up to as an artist – and Finneas as a producer and writer – I absolutely am such a huge fan of them.”
Like the O’Connells, the LaRosas were encouraged to pursue music by their parents, armed with jazz standards and taken to open mic nights by their father. When Isabel turned ten, access to YouTube allowed her to expand her musical horizons to the likes of Melanie Martinez, Ariana Grande and The Neighbourhood, leading to her love of alt-leaning pop. “All my stuff is pop hidden with cool production,” she suggests. “They’re all just pop songs — it’s not that alternative.” She did have a few dead-ends on the path to her current sound, which finally “clicked” in 2022 with the eerie, thumping ‘HAUNTED’. She admits she tries not to think about ‘GAMEBOY’, for instance: a bouncing hyperpop track from 2021. “I think it’s a cool song,” she clarifies. “It’s just SO different from what I do now. But I’m very grateful for any step that helped me find what feels like myself.”
Despite being so early on in her career, LaRosa’s sense of self does seem impressively solid. Her carefully designed aesthetic, catchy hooks and easy confidence draw you in — even if the confidence isn’t actually so easy. “Sometimes when things are too good I get anxious,” she confesses. “I’m thinking, ‘When is this gonna come down?’ I try to think, ‘I’m gonna take this in, and this is amazing’, and calm the anxious parts of me, but it’s a mix of the two. I’m still trying to figure it out, to be honest.”
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