Torres: Thirstier

“I’ve been conjuring this deep, deep joy that I honestly didn’t feel for most of my life,” Scott says. “I feel like a rock within myself. And I’ve started to feel that I have what it takes to help other people conjure their joy, too.”

“Thirstier” is now available to stream on all platforms. Check out our exclusive interview below. 

Your music has country vibes, some grunge vibes — a little bit of everything. How did all these sounds come about? What influenced you growing up?

Country was a big one. I’m unironically bound to my country music roots. I’m from Macon, Georgia, and the pop-country 90s thing was kind of my whole — that and Britney Spears, who I love still to this day. And Backstreet Boys. There's that boy-band/pop-girl influence, plus that 90s country influence. Those are the two major touchstones of my childhood musical influences.

Taylor Swift comes to mind.

Yeah. I mean, I've always loved Taylor. I had her first album when it came out. I was, I don't know, 15 at the time. It rocked my world, it was so cool. I got that album and I was like, ‘Holy shit. This girl is just about a year older than me and she's writing these amazing songs and she's actually making it.’ She gave me hope that I could potentially write my own songs and do the same thing. 

I also heard that a major influence behind your performances is Broadway theater. What's your favorite musical?

It’s gotta be ‘Phantom of the Opera’ still. It was the first one that I saw or heard. I was 13 or 14, and I'm still very much in love with that music. 

With that being said, I feel like I have to ask this on behalf of me and all the theater kids in the world — don't be mad at me: Are you a gleek? 

I know that was like a huge phenomenon. For one, I feel like I'm slightly older than you or a lot older. How old are you?

I’m 22.

22. There you go. I'm 30. So I was just a little too old, I think, for that phenomenon. And also, truthfully, I kind of have a hard time watching where it's supposed to be a show or a movie, and then people just break into song. I actually don't like that. Very rarely could you convince me to enjoy something like that. However, I love the stage. I love acting on the stage. I love singing on the stage, I mean, in a play context. I did theater in high school and locally and nearly went to school to go try and pursue a career in musical theater, but then kind of switched gears at the last minute.

You recorded this new album during COVID, how was that process different from your previous albums?

It was actually really nice to make it in this time. Like, in a way where I felt like for the first time I didn't have anything else pulling on me. ‘Cause when I've recorded in the past, I've been like, ‘All right. I don't know if I can block out a month or a month and a half out of my time to do this. ‘Cause, like, what if I miss out on things?’ I'm very much like that. And almost every time I've gone to record, it's been in England with my producer, Rob. It's a very isolated thing, so it requires blocking out that time and being away from everyone that I know. So this time around, I went to Devon in the UK to record, but I didn't have anything else to do. So it was actually really peaceful and I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. And it was also great to not be in America during the election.

So was that a turning point — ‘cause this new album has kind of happier themes. When did you start to realize that your music was becoming a little brighter in that sense?

When I started writing the album, I started it out with that intention. I'm not someone who writes bright songs or love songs. I mean, I do write love songs, but I'm naturally inclined to write about the pain of love. I had to really force myself to not think that way whenever I started writing it. I knew I had the vantage point of being in the middle of the pandemic with everyone and knowing that whenever the record was released, that people would definitely be ready for something brighter and wouldn't want to listen to a dark, heavy, depressing Torres album at that point. So I intentionally made a very bright-sounding record.

Right. And you previously named people like Kurt Cobain and Sylvia Plath as inspirations behind your lyrics. Did you find yourself straying away from that a little bit during this album?

I guess so, yeah. I drew from way different places, but a lot of it was just what I've been thinking about for the last couple years — which is, like, the Law of Attraction. I realized the Law of Attraction I should have known about a long time ago. But I never really thought about the fact that what you put out there is actually what you get back. I realized that's also karma and we have all of these other terms for it. But in practice, I had never considered actually how that could apply to me. Like, it's not just what you do that comes back to you, it's also the actual energy that you put out there is what comes back to you. 

So I was just thinking along more esoteric lines in general and trying to think about what I've learned in my personal life and how to infuse the music with that. So, if enough people are listening to this album and putting it out there, like sitting in outer space, maybe something positive will happen, you know?

Did you watch ‘The Secret?’

*laughs* I have seen ‘The Secret,’ but I've also been doing a lot of other reading. I got this one book by this woman named Dolores Cannon and it's wild. You gotta look up Dolores Cannon. She's no longer with us on this plane, but yeah, there's a lot to it — like, just a lot about the past lives and also alien abduction. There's whole worlds to discover in that book. It's called ‘The Three Waves of Volunteers and the New Earth.’ It sounds super esoteric, but this is all actual stuff that I've applied to my own life when I started writing this album. I was pretty much on that path — just thinking about how a lot of the negativity that I've experienced in my life very well may have been something that I brought on myself, and how can we do the opposite now?

What albums have you been listening to other than your own? I know you say you don't listen to your albums after they release. 

I don’t listen to my own albums after they release, I do before though. I've listened to the new St. Vincent, I just got that on vinyl. It's awesome. I've been listening to a lot of Cardi B actually and Dua Lipa. I've been in kind of, like, pop-world recently. I've been avoiding anything that could make me feel sad or aggressive. ‘Cause I'm naturally really sensitive to that kind of energy and it's part of my trying not to bring myself down.

It seems like it's working. I mean, you're engaged now and it seems like you're in a good place. 

I am, I am. I'm just riding that wave trying to just enjoy it all. And yeah, just let it, you know, let it float.

And your fiance, Jenna, painted the cover for this album as well as your last album. Was she just as much of an inspiration in the music as she was visually? 

Oh yeah, she's in most of these songs. She's the reason that I'm able to write happy love songs right now.

She was also in the music video for ‘Don’t Go Putting Wishes in My Head.’ What was it like filming that with her?

That was great. It actually made me more comfortable than I normally am making music videos. I feel like I have a hard time being in front of a camera. Actually — it's kind of a funny thing — I'm a real performer, but I really excel in the live sphere in front of an actual audience. But if you put a camera in front of me, I'm just super awkward. And Jenna is actually really great at being in front of a camera. So, I feel like she just helped me to be more comfortable and I think that contributed to the relaxed feel of that music video.

Yeah, it reminded me of this movie called ‘Codependent Lesbian Space Alien.’

Oh my God. Wait, let me write that down.

It's so hard to find, I’ll have to lend you my DVD. But yeah, especially when you were standing in front of the background of stars — what was like the actual thought process behind those visuals?

That was pretty literal. I just wanted to feel like I was floating through outer space. The feeling that I wanted to apart was joy and kind of like, you know, the eternity of the cosmos.

What else have you been doing for fun over the past year? 

I got really into chess, actually. We got a chessboard and I also started playing online, but I had to stop playing people in my family because I get really angry. Like, if I lose, I am uncontrollable. I get so upset and I'm such a sore loser and I just can't take it because I feel like my intellect was challenged. 

You describe the new album as kind of a ‘post-plague celebration.’ How are you planning on conceptualizing that for your upcoming tour?

Well, I'm going to do my best just to perform it really well and make people feel that way. But I might also bring some projected visuals and put them on the curtain behind me. We're gonna just going to try and make the live show really special so that it lives up to the massive sound of the recording.

Which song are you most excited to perform?

God, it's all going to be so fun. I'm really excited to play all of them, but probably the title track. I'm excited to see how that one lands live. I've been really manifesting playing that song on the stage of Madison Square Garden, which is a very lofty goal. But I just keep imagining myself playing it like a really huge arena hoping that I can make that happen eventually.

All of the singles so far have been really fun. Like, I've been blasting them in my car with the windows down and my hair blowing. What do you envision people doing when they listen to this album?

I mean, stuff like that. I feel like I've never made anything that feels like that — where people are having a good time or feeling it in the best way. I feel like my music has been pretty heavy up until this point, and this is heavy in a different way — like sonically heavy — but the mood is not heavy. So yeah, I'm excited to hear about people blasting in their cars with the windows down and, like, actually going on runs and listening to it. I think it's a really active album that people can, you know, exhaust their kinetic energy to. I hope people fuck to it!