Relentless curiosity has always been Poppy’s greatest superpower — the spark behind every wild, unexpected turn she’s made.
“The coolest thing to do is to like a lot of things and be inspired by a lot of things and always want to know more,” she says. “I always want to have friends who are smarter than me, who make me laugh and challenge me.”
Poppy’s curiosity is what has carried her from early YouTube-era performance art into noise EPs, anti-pop experiments, full-metal assaults and the Lynchian, fever-dream variety show Improbably Poppy — and it’s what has stitched those extremes into a cohesive, ever-growing body of critically acclaimed work (including two Grammy nominations, most recently for her vocal turn on Knocked Loose’s 2024 track “Suffocate”). Each iteration feels like a leap, but also a continuation of that same impulse: follow the charge, see what it ignites, don’t look back.
By late fall, when we catch up with her, that energy has already turned into one hell of a year. Poppy launched a big U.S. headlining tour and scored a prime opening slot on Linkin Park’s South American tour (even jumping onstage to sing “One Step Closer”). She teamed with BABYMETAL on “from me to u” (off the kawaii-metal act’s METAL FORTH) and joined forces with Evanescence’s Amy Lee and Spiritbox’s Courtney LaPlante on the powerhouse single “End of You.”
styling: shirt — Tanner Fletcher, dress — Maimi Sadai
Somewhere in the middle of all that, Poppy finished Empty Hands— her most propulsive record yet, which distills the emotional voltage, sharp edges and mischievous playfulness of her entire career into a tight, hard-hitting album.
Shaped by her time onstage, the record extracts the moments that light up both her and the crowd. Opener “Public Domain” is pure vaudevillian rock maximalism, landing somewhere between Mr. Bungle at their most theatrical and Battles’ off-kilter freneticism. And when Poppy swings for big songs, she swings hard. “Bruised Sky” layers weirdness and real heaviness in ways that hit deeper with each listen.
Empty Hands — released by Sumerian Records — is Poppy’s second album with producer Jordan Fish, Bring Me the Horizon’s former not-so secret weapon and heavy music’s current producer du jour. The elements that made their previous collaboration, 2024’s Negative Spaces, click are still very much in play. “He doesn’t come from metal,” she says. “He was in an experimental rock band before his last band, so our influences are actually really similar. He’s good at a lot of things, and we’re very compatible with our creative inspirations.”
Fish’s ear for precise, downtuned riffs powers pipe-bomb moments like “Dying to Forget,” giving Poppy a platform of breakdowns to shred her voice over. Their creative chemistry pushes both artists further: a shared love of avant-dance genius Four Tet and emotive bass-music king Burial shows up in the record’s elevated textural detail, where even the quietest passages land with surprising weight.
The beating heart of Empty Hands might be “Ribs,” the album’s penultimate track. It’s Poppy at her most vulnerable, with Fish’s electronic production creating a mood that feels almost like a heady anime opening. As she laments a love slipping through her fingers, the anger, acceptance and melancholy surface through riffs, screams and catharsis. The closer, “Empty Hands,” plays like the end credits. It’s one of Poppy’s heaviest cuts yet, pushing into black-metal territory with a goddamn pig squeal to seal the deal.
For all the success and attention she’s received, Poppy remains a curious, wonderful weirdo — one still intent on corrupting and distorting big-room metal into new shapes, whether sleeker or uglier. If a definable thesis exists for Poppy, it’s that the strangest sounds and voices in music are just as valuable as the prettiest ones, and that the real magic happens when you mash them together, turning catchy metal into a chaotic, mutated conversation between beauty and noise.
Poppy is a seeker drawn to anything that inspires, challenges or expands her world. In that spirit, we went deep during our Empty Hands conversation, talking about endings and beginnings, collaboration, backlash and the power of no.
styling: dress — Mila
Sullivan, cross necklace and socks — stylists’ own
The album cover for Empty Hands shows you obscured by a clear cylindrical shape, which is different from past records where you were more visible. How much do you think about people’s perception of you in a physical sense when it comes to you as a performer or musician?
POPPY I think, naturally, as I’m making new work or setting out to make an album, I’m always curious about where I’m going to end up, because I have loose ideas of what I want to accomplish each time. But I know that not all of it is up to me. Part of it is following the trail and whatever you get to at the end. Whatever I get to and decide that it is the body of work — that is a feeling thing entirely for me.
As we go into album art, there are ideas that I have for photos I want to get, but also there’s a lot that’s open to the process and where things lead. I know when I have something that I feel is significant, because I get excited about it. When I’m working and collaborating with other people in other capacities in the room [and] the room gets excited about it, then it’s a different feeling. You’re all united for that one second, and you jump out of your chair. Like, Oh, this is fun, this is exciting, or I want to play this live, or that’s what we were looking for. It’s the exclamation point for me.
What was the seed for the new record?
We wrote “Unravel” first, and that was at the end once the Negative Spaces sessions concluded. I thought maybe it would present as an EP. But we kept writing, and it turned into an album. We wrapped these sessions maybe five months ago now.
I was listening to the songs a bunch while I was on tour. I like getting to know the music on a deeper level once it’s done before anybody else hears it. I think that time is another exciting point for me in the process. When I deem something completed, but nobody else has heard it yet — I know something you don’t know.
What is it about Jordan Fish that makes him a good collaborator?
I think a lot of it has to do with our friendship and how we talk to each other and communicate in a creative sense. When we’re moving along in the room, he’s always trying to facilitate and move it quickly to get the idea across — not intercepting it with something too nitpicky or slowing it down. And not trying to get perfection immediately. Just get the idea out, and then we can go back and refine. For me, that keeps the energy high in the room. We’ve become really good friends. We also fight like siblings, which is part of it. It’s good for us, I guess.
I feel like you have to really trust someone to be able to fight with them, right?
Yeah, I think there’s a certain amount of tension in it that’s important. Not shying away or backing down when you really believe in something, and vice versa. Because if you have too many people that are yes-men in a room — and think all of your ideas are great, and there’s nobody there to challenge you — that’s how you end up with boring stuff.
Sometimes when we say no to each other, it’s like, “OK — and you want me to listen to you?” Then it’s, “Oh, give me something better.” It’s the kind of thing where you push each other to do more, be more, go bigger and raise the bar. I like that.
Has Jordan ever told you something you were doing was straight-up bad?
Yeah, we both have our back-and-forth. He won’t do it in a mean way. I won’t do it to him in a mean way, either. But there is a certain bluntness that’s necessary. I tend to be pretty blunt as a person — he can take it most times, but sometimes not. It depends on the day, but I’ve gotten more blunt as I’ve gotten older.
Having experienced the industry from such a young age, I imagine there were times when you felt pretty jaded by it. But you’ve obviously found a way to stay curious about the creative process and keep moving through it.
Yeah, I think early on, I was really trying to understand… I couldn’t understand how there could be bad people out there. Then I quickly understood. And once I really understood there were bad people, I started to get more blunt and say no a lot more. Then I couldn’t stop saying no. Still can’t stop — I say it all the time. But I think being more self-assured feels good, and I want to let other young females know that you can say no. It’s a good feeling to craft your taste and your interests and not hinge on other people, just always going back to number one and asking yourself what you want to do.
Was there a certain point where you actualized that power of saying no, or was it a more gradual shift?
I think it was gradual, and then all at once. There were a couple shifts that come to mind: One of them was around 2020, and then maybe another one was around 2022. Then I feel it again — being able to do this and release my seventh album. I think it’s my fourth or fifth record deal. I’m still excited about making music and doing this. Early on, I didn’t have a lot of tools to know how to trust certain people, how to not trust certain people. I was just thinking the best of everyone, then got served a reality that was pretty brutal, and then adjusted accordingly. I’m proud of what I’ve done in the past, but I’m excited about what’s happening now.
Were you afraid of not being liked?
I don’t think it was that, because I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong. I accepted that really early. I wanted to make friends. I had not very great friends for a while and not a very great team for a while. Most people have that because it’s part of growing up and learning about yourself.
Do you remember the first time some faceless commenter said something super toxic towards you online?
I don’t remember the first time. But I know there’s some pretty horrific things out there, and people have horrific things to say. But I’m smiling. I’m smiling big. I’m dancing hard. I’m playing loud music. So you can keep saying it.
You came up in what i think was kind of the golden era of YouTube. What do you think of that world now?
It’s not fun anymore. I thought YouTube at the time — before people knew how to use it — was so fun and uncharted. I feel very removed from the internet lately, actually. Every single time I go on tour, I try to not do the internet. I go analog and write and read books and draw… What I can hold. No screens — other than Animal Crossing. I will do that before bed. I will play Animal Crossing for at least an hour to get my Nook Miles up.
Back to the record — I like the way you say “Motherfucker” in “Dying to Forget.” You sound super pissed off but it’s also extremely over-the-top. Are those moments fun to do in the studio?
Absolutely. Yeah. Especially in the room. I think sometimes when Stevis [House of Protection singer-guitarist Stephen “Stevis” Harrison] and I are working on music together, I’ll read them something I wrote, and if I’m looking for the smile or the laugh, that makes me excited.
That one has the breakdown… Jordan bounced me the first demo, and it didn’t have the instrumental breakdown. I said, “Oh, we should just keep it vocal-only when I’m saying, ‘I want both eyes and your lying tongue.’” And he’s like, “No, we can’t do that.” I said, “It’s so hard, we should.” We went back and forth about it.
I don’t get the sense that you ever Googled how to scream properly. Your style always sounds really raw, emotional and real. And it always fits the song.
Yeah, I don’t watch YouTube tutorials for screams. I go based off emotion. I think it’s really corny when people have debates about technique. That’s the least hardcore-metal-punk-rock thing to do: worry about your technique. What happened to feeling anything and responding to it? I think it’s so corny. I hope you print this in bold letters: I think it’s so corny when people think about technique at the microphone, and they’re nerds.
“Ribs” feels particularly emotional. I’ve noticed that the way you write about feelings is often in relation to the body.
I’ve had this image in my mind for a while about keeping something protected, and what’s the closest place to do so, and where it would land. And then what it’s like when you’re parting with someone, or there’s the end or dissolve of something. You still hold onto the experience — or the faintness of the memory of the experience — emotionally.
Or maybe someday if the weather is the right way, and the sun is shining, and it catches you off guard, and it kind of throws you back, and there’s that moment of this melancholy feeling that you can’t entirely place, but it’s been so many years, and it’s just a fragment now. It’s still in you somewhere. So, I was thinking about that.
Memories are weird. Sometimes I remember the feeling of a memory more than the actual specifics of that memory, and that’s what gets carried around.
There is a thread with this album — the last line of it is, “Empty hands, can’t take it with you.” You can hold onto certain feelings in your chest, even if you can’t entirely place them, because so much time has elapsed. Then there’s this other side of it with a negative feeling or emotion and the thought of betrayal, and how betrayal feels. And also how things being taken from you feels. Finding your way back to yourself and realizing that there’s no … “thing” that matters other than yourself or how you feel about yourself. When people try to take things from you, they can’t carry it with them into the afterlife. So, was it really worth it to put somebody else down? Because you’re going to end up with nothing in the end anyway. So even if you’re greedy, you’re not taking it with you.
What’s the emotion you would attach to this record?
It’s hard to pick one. It feels a bit riled up to me… maybe that’s what I would say. The record’s a bit riled up. I heard the term once called “wallpaper music.” It was spoken on NPR. I was listening passively — it was in a car I was in, turned low — I heard somebody say it, and I realized that’s what I never want to make: wallpaper music.
Glam by Nick Lennon, hair by Preston Wada, styling by Shalev Lavàn and collage illustrations by Sara Jensen