Though Quinn Barnitt, known famously as the indie rock artist quinnie, started putting out music in 2017, it was her 2022 single “touch tank” that catapulted her to a certain kind of viral visibility. Let’s just say that TikTok was involved and leave it at that. But Barnitt's story stretches long beyond that one moment. Case in point: her new album paper doll, which takes the artist’s musical language and pushes it into a more high-fidelity realm, one that is as much in conversation with canonical folk and rock music as it is with more contemporary bedroom-leaning indie sounds. As always, Barnitt’s vivid lyrics drive the project’s emotional core. Recently, we talked to the artist about all of this and more. Her thoughtful answers are below.

Could you tell us a bit about the new record? In what ways do you think paper doll diverges from other records in your discography? 

Quinn Barnitt: There were things I aspired to create and feelings I wanted to generate when I was really young that finally began to come out of me, and that was cool. I think I found out how to uncover melodies that felt more like a part of me. I wrote mostly from a place of instinct. Drums were really major. I'm not sure that this record has an obvious standout track like my last one did, but traditional pop structure was way more prevalent on this record. We started paper doll in 2022, which was right after I experienced my first ever sort of success. That afforded me a certain stubbornness as it came to making music suited to my own desires. It’s kind of a theatrical album. I'm very extreme about my emotions, and I wanted to lean into the drama a bit more.

What is “baja bird” about?

I wrote a lot about freedom on this album, and my sort of convoluted feelings surrounding womanhood, and a good portion of it was grovelling in this feeling of entrapment. But this song came to me at some moment where I could acknowledge this distinct feeling of freedom that was inextricable from my girlhood. Teenage girls are pretty aggressively written off as vapid/insecure/whatever, but for me, being a young woman came with a sort of quiet power and invincibility and contact with something greater than myself. I was reflecting on that. It always felt like a special secret to me, how a lot of us craved freedom and adventure just as much as the next guy. And there is some pleasure in being misunderstood in that way, because it means you get to keep a sliver of something all to yourself.

Do you feel like the music you make is part of a larger tradition of bedroom pop music? Who were some of your formative influences?

I'm grateful to have grown up at a time when recording was becoming more widespread and accessible. Artists like Alex G and Frankie Cosmos were really empowering presences because you could go onto their Bandcamp profiles, see discographies of really great records they seemingly made at home, and see yourself in that. That said, though that style of music pushed me to make things by any means, it's not really what I do anymore.  My music has gotten pretty hi-fi, and the process has become very perfectionistic. I think “bedroom pop” is a cute way of spinning the common scenario of “I don't yet have the means to flesh out my ideas in the way I'd like to,” and a lot of artists making that sort of music really aspire to have greater access—at least that was the case for me. Of course, limitation provides a certain kind of beauty and expansion, but I digress.

Do you have a preferred environment for songwriting? Do you like to work on music outdoors? 

I write when I drive and when I'm laying in bed and when I'm standing in line at the grocery store. Writing outside is good too, but everything is good outside. I try not to squeeze songs out of myself.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in a studio versus something less structured? 

I write outside of the studio, but my writing is a very disjointed process that is integrated into my greater life. Everything else is in the studio. In the early stages of a song, I like to be in a more casual space where there is easy access to all the tools you need to play through it and get to some sort of palette and arrange and whatnot. I live with my main collaborator, Jake Weinberg, so we started everything at his studio in the last house we lived in. We finished everything at Gabe Wax’s studio, Infinite Family. There’s a live room there, so we re-recorded some stuff with some amazing players, and Jake and Gabe painstakingly edited for what might have been months. They mixed the record there as well.

What is exciting you right now about music as a listener? 

I'm of the belief that the things we make art about have never really fundamentally changed throughout history. We keep coming up with new ways to say the same old ancient things: I love you, I’m sad, never leave me, I’m going to leave you, I’m grieving, you hurt me, I’m so happy, and so on. The tech will continue to shift but we will still be finding new ways to say the same things. I think that's exciting. It's very human.

You’ve alluded in the past to having a “complicated relationship” with TikTok. How has that relationship developed, if at all, over the years?

I'm grateful for what the internet has given me. But I’m also somewhat shy, so putting myself out there isn’t natural to me. Mostly I just think the music feels so sacred when it exists in private—amongst family and friends and with no paywall—that it makes me uncomfortable to break this seal of sorts. I resent that the current hallmark of widespread success is innumerable forgettable videos pervading the internet for a brief moment in time. Just wish the norm was to build meaningful relationships with records—in the way people used to have to because they bought the whole thing and needed to make it count.  It's the beauty of limitations! Something we may have lost. I'm not sure.

You are from New Jersey. What are your feelings about Wawa? Do you have a go-to order?

I feel like this question is trying to persuade me to talk about hoagies and stuff. But I'm a lifelong vegetarian so there's a lot of iconic Jersey food that's not really a part of my vernacular. I don't even really know what a hoagie is. I like convenience stores though. I like coffee. And Sugarfree Red Bull.