Brooklyn-based DIY Punk Shybaby doesn’t shy away from screaming her heart out and expressing her unapologetic vulnerability on her debut album Is This Intimate. Released on March 1st, 2024, she admits this project was an attempt to say all the things she’s been longing to convey. Reminiscent of a modern-day Debbie Harry of Blondie, Shybaby infuses DIY punk with Ramones-esque bubblegum flavor to create a body of work that brings a brutal burst of color to the current punk scene.
When she’s not tackling the stage as a rising punk icon, Shybaby is Grace Eire, a music PR agent. When it comes to taking on two different careers in the same industry, these two paths are clashing yet coinciding.
“I’m meeting industry people all the time and learning how things work and it’s all kind of symbiotic in that way, but it’s also difficult because I have to prioritize my clients who are paying me to pitch their music,” she says, “which is why when I released this album I didn’t even really send it to that many people beforehand because it lined up with a lot of my client releases. It’s something that I haven’t quite figured out how to manage yet.”
Shybaby had an extensive musical upbringing long before working in the industry. Growing up playing in school bands and then in her own bands later on, Shybaby brought her fondness for the viola and classical music to her punk rock tendencies.
She also brought her love of pop music. When Shybaby announced her debut record, she dropped a punk cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “bad idea right?”. According to Shybaby, the Pop star’s lyrics were begging for a more aggressive musicality.
“I also love how Olivia is introducing more of a punk sound to younger people and people who maybe wouldn’t listen to that normally,” she says. “I think she’s doing a good job of loosening up in the pop world and bringing more rock elements into it in a fun way.”
Although she carries with her a love of classical and pop genres, Shybaby is drawn to the enigmatic power of punk. As one who considers themselves an introvert and grew up an extremely quiet child, Shybaby says that punk gives her the permission to be loud.
“It’s opposite to the classical stuff, where you literally have to be perfect or else you mess everybody else up,” Shybaby says. “There’s no room for error or to find dirtiness when you’re playing classical music. That’s what always stressed me out and made it not fun. If I mess up in punk, it’s not the end of the world. We’re having fun. Hopefully everybody else is also having fun. It’s less pressure to be perfect, and I think what’s kept me from doing a lot of things in life is being scared to mess up.”
On her debut release, Shybaby proves that she’s overcome her fear of carelessness. With 12 tracks that convey humor, love and frustration, Shybaby’s inaugural musical effort is equally self-reflective and devil-may-care. The album was ultimately inspired by a time in Shybaby’s life when she was trying to figure out how the world worked.
“I was learning how to still be a person and interact with people and be on planet Earth with other humans and how to talk to them again,” she says. “I have always been super shy and quiet, so it’s been a long, slow process for me to understand how to exist with other people. A lot of the songs on it are me in real time figuring out how to have those relationships and messing up a lot and being really sad about it.”
Dancing around themes such as love, sex and heartbreak all over fuzzy guitars and relentless percussion, Shybaby says this project truly inspired her to voice her emotions – something she struggles with when she’s not on stage.
“It was an opportunity to get stuff off my chest like that,” she says of the record, “and even though I am a shy person, I’ve never been secretive with people. I’m an open book; if you ask me a question, I’ll tell you. Going out of my way to confront people with my real feelings is the hard part.”
As she is relentlessly confrontational yet lighthearted on Is This Intimate, Shybaby captures various punk vibes on the album. Whether it’s the track “Skype Sex 2013” that seems to be dipped in grunge, the Arctic Monkeys-influenced “Greenlight” or the song “Little Red Hen” which appears to be decorated in whispers of new wave, Shybaby says these songs convey the quick songwriting process that comes with the persona of Shybaby.
“I just go with whatever comes first and don’t overthink it, because I do tend to overthink everything else,” she says. “I joke that ‘Shybaby’ Grace is the best version of me. She’s confident and sure of herself and just does it instead of thinking through every thousand, million different ways something could turn out.”
When it comes to just how much of “Shybaby” is a persona, she says there’s definitely a switch that flips once she’s set to perform.
“Even in the studio if I’m recording in front of one person I’ll still get nervous, but once I’m in front of people, even if there’s not that many people, I’m still in my outfit and on a stage with the people that I play music with,” Shybaby says. “I feel like I have permission to be the center of attention and for people to be looking at me because the environment calls for that dynamic between me and the rest of the people in the room. I’m not comfortable being the center of attention in other contexts. I love attention, but I need it to be in the right context.”
To celebrate Is This Intimate, Shybaby will be playing an album release show on April 6 at The Broadway in Brooklyn along with High Waisted and Homade. (Funny enough, the same night that Olivia Rodrigo is in New York.) In regards to future goals for her and her band, Shybaby hopes to release a music video for one of the songs on her record and play more live shows – hopefully by touring along the East Coast.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shybaby-w-high-waisted-homade-tickets-849601820917?aff=oddtdtcreator
When it comes to the music of Shybaby, something that is ferocious and romantic, biting with teeth yet cathartic in its own way, the punk rocker on the rise is up front when she says you don’t have to love it – and that’s okay.
“It isn’t going to be for everybody,” she says, “but I hope that the people that it is for are able to connect with it and find something cool about it or something that makes them happy. I hope it finds the people that it’s supposed to find in one way or another. And it should be fun. Definitely don’t take it too seriously, because I am not taking it too seriously.”
Is This Intimate, the debut album from Shybaby, is out now.
https://linktr.ee/Shybabyband
INTERVIEW BY JUSTICE PETERSEN