Seattle-based is the most interesting artist in indie-pop right now, authentically blending her two main passions to create a vibrant and sparkly world in which puppets and pop music live in harmony.
Her musical mission is to “imbue the things that [she] makes with a sense of fun, magic and silliness, amongst all of the heavier emotional things that [she] writes about”. Truax truly embraced this mission a couple of years ago after getting back from The Strung Along Tour and realising that the crowds were most excited about her fun songs, especially ‘MFPR1US’ – “it’s the audience’s favourite. It’s full of ‘your mom’ jokes, car crash noises and a scream that takes in the song where I ask everyone to scream really loud in the middle. It gets really out of hand”.
After this realisation, Truax has shamelessly welcomed playfulness with open arms in her newest EP, ‘Can’t Split A Worm’, a shimmery pop offering inspired by Sheryl Crow and Katy Perry’s early music. Reflecting on her musical evolution, she comments, “I think that in my first EP [‘Kissing With A Cavity’], I was a lot less open to playing with humour in my writing and I was just having less fun. I think I’m always trying to fight the side of me that just writes pop music with making something really cool and serious and thoughtful”.
“For a long time, I felt like those two things were mutually exclusive, but with ‘Can’t Split A Worm’, I was open to making something that felt like it represented all different parts of me, including both the playful side and the thoughtful side”.
The EP’s title is a recognition that she can’t separate herself into two separate parts, just like you can’t split a worm in half to make two different worms – despite Truax’s unshakeable childhood belief that you could. So, instead of separating her playful side from her thoughtful side, or her fragile side from her confident side, Truax allows them to both show through on this EP, accepting that “they they both have to coexist together”.
Following a journey of self-acceptance, ‘Can’t Split A Worm’ begins with the bold ‘10 FEET TALL’ which Truax created to represent “a version of myself that I want to be – this big balloon version where I grow ten feet tall and say all of these things that I wouldn’t normally have the guts to say in my personal life”. But, as the EP goes on, she embraces the “softer version” of herself with acoustic tracks like ‘I’d Still Be’, confessing that “the more confident version of myself exists as a protective force for the little wimpier side of me”.
Just as the epitome of her blustery self is demonstrated in the first track, ‘10 FEET TALL’, the epitome of her softer self comes in the very last track, ‘jackshit’, a gentle stripped-back voice memo which Truax declares to be “one of my favourite things that I’ve ever written.” Adding that, “as much as I love the rest of the EP and the sonic world that it lives in, I really enjoy how it speaks for itself. It doesn’t have any bells and whistles in it, and it feels like the core of the little soft side of me”.
Exactly as she has done for her previous projects, Truax crafted a collection of zany puppets to accompany this EP, including a friendly-looking worm and a huge puppet version of herself for ‘10 FEET TALL’. The puppets are more than just some fun visuals for Truax, commenting that “they are blown up caricature versions of different parts of myself”. Ultimately, the puppets are Truax’s way of processing her feelings and experiences, with one of her first puppets being a representation of her ex-situationship. Truax admitted that Zeb – a blue puppet sporting a beanie, patchy moustache, tired eyes and a cigarette half falling out of his mouth – was a way of looking at her relationship with herself and what she accepts in relationships, reflecting that Zeb “was more a conversation about that insecurity within myself, my identity and who I am and the treatment that I accept”. Laughing, Truax added that “it seems like an absolutely crazy thing to do and I recognise that. You cope in mysterious ways but it’s not even really about the original guy anymore. Zeb has become his own walking, living, breathing, puppeted character in the world”.
Dubbing this original combination of music and puppetry a “happy accident”, Truax says it wasn’t an intentional move to give her a unique selling point in an oversaturated music industry – “everyone always tells you as an independent artist to try and marry your hobbies with what you do. Like, “oh, what else do you do that can make this interesting?” I have been given that advice a lot, but I did not expect the puppet making and music crossover to become the whole world. And I’m really excited that it did it”.
“Puppetry is just such a dying art and I think it’s so magical. I feel very lucky to have fallen into this combination of things that I didn’t even go into being like, “this will be a great marketing angle”.
Looking to the future, Sophie Truax’s world seems destined to only grow wilder and weirder, especially for the tour of ‘Can’t Split A Worm’, due to set off this month. Planning on making it more than just a gig, Truax tells us that she wants it to be “a whole narrative that weaves in between the songs and tells the story of my relationship with Puppet Sophie”, adding that she is “trying to get a rough outline of a script for the show by this Friday. I’m reading about different forms of clown, which is super cool. I also got a book that I started on modern art, empathy and abstraction. I’m trying to reach weird corners of things”.
Truax admits that making the art is just the half of what she does, stating that “the other half is living my life and seeing what inspires that art. So, yeah, I’m living, I’m doing things. I’m leaving the house. I’m touching grass and letting things happen to me.” So if Sophie Truax is unusually quiet after her autumn tour, she is probably plotting her next move, whether that’s in the form of infectious thoughtful indie-pop songs or colourful puppets.
‘Can’t Split A Worm’ EP is out now.