Releasing an EP every year since 2014 may sound like a serious undertaking, but when you learn what 26-year-old VÉRITÉ, the rising singer who’s creating alt-pop both subtle and soaring, was doing for the formative years prior, you understand it’s the obvious end-result of someone who’s left little room for anything but artistry.

Though the Brooklyn-based musician born Kelsey Byrne claims she’d be serving tables if not singing—”I would be waitressing trying to do this”—she began performing shows at the young age of 8, with her dad on acoustic guitar. In middle school, she started a punk cover band (“We were horrible”); at 16, she began playing across New York City (“to no one”); and before her cousin went off to college, the two made an alternative rock album (“We were super overambitious”). It was then that VÉRITÉ made the self-described “pivot” into writing for herself and one of the outcomes was the seemingly prophetic single “Strange Enough“: “There was so much positive energy and attention around it, that it was just obvious this is what I was going to do.”

In REVOLT‘s interview with VÉRITÉ, the singer defines her sound, denounces trends, names her dream collaborators (hey, Sampha!), details how disconnection and over-analyzation helped craft the themes of her debut album (and its lead single “Phase Me Out”), and reveals what she hopes people do after hearing the LP.

Read excerpts and watch the full interview below.

On how she defines her sound: I would hope it to be driving, dynamic pop.

On her upcoming, still-untitled debut album: I guess I over-analyze everything in every aspect of my life, but I kind of take these small moments and really blow them up.

On her musical goal: To make people feel anything. I don’t necessarily write big narratives, but what I do is just try and be honest and evoke any sort of feeling or emotion from anyone.