Tessa Violet on new single ‘Play With Fire’ and blowing up on TikTok

Singer-songwriter and social media personality Tessa Violet, formerly best known for her vlogging under the username Meekakitty, speaks to Headliner about her brand new single Play With Fire, her reaction to blowing up on TikTok, and her creative process as someone who undoubtedly has their finger on the pulse of content consumption in the digital age.

Famed for her trademark colorful hair and array of large-frame glasses worn in her videos, Tessa Violet is your typical fun-loving geek-girl, but don’t let that fool you into thinking she’s not a serious musician. In fact, the reality is quite the contrary. At the time of interview, Violet had just hit the halfway mark on her own headline tour in support of her new album; that’s 26 shows in six weeks.

“We’re currently in Columbus, Ohio, which is one of my favorite cities to play in America,” she tells Headliner with an infectious energy. “We had a day off yesterday, but the fire alarm went off in the hotel at like 2am last night, so we all evacuated and then Frances was like, ‘we should make some content.’ And I was like, ‘we should make some content!’ There was no fire though, it was a false alarm. So just for the record, we wouldn’t have been influencing if there had been an actual emergency!”

The Frances in question is the brilliant Frances Forever, who features on Violet’s latest track Play With Fire; a somewhat fitting title considering the escapades we’ve just been discussing.

“One half of the director duo that did the music video for my song Games also directed Space Girl for Frances, so that’s how they were on my radar,” says Violet. “One day my manager texted me saying he’s in a meeting with Frances’ manager, and asked if I want them to come on tour with me. I thought it was a great idea! Frances then sent over the bridge for the song and just killed it, because I always wanted the song to have a bridge but I felt really stuck. So it was fun to get a collaborator on it.”

Violet’s creative process with regard to songwriting usually starts with a concept or topline, which she’ll then explore further by playing around with some chords: “The melody comes together with the lyrics,” she reveals. “There is a melody to the way that we talk; it’s the same with songs.

“My little belief about songwriting is that I think that songs already exist. They’re in the air, and a songwriter’s purpose is just to be open enough to listen, to hear them and let them come through them into this realm.”

Listening to her mother’s Starbucks jazz compilation CDs as a child, and getting into musical theatre as a teen, Violet was destined for greatness when she left her small hometown to seek out like-minded songwriters who could help her on her quest.

Play With Fire features on Violet’s recently released album MY GOD!, a record that really is a tale of two sides. Violet admits that the majority of her songs are all either a diary entry or a letter to someone that she didn’t send, giving familiar echoes of Taylor Swift.

“The album is a lot of bad bitch confidence at first, and then it’s got all these sad girl breakup indie songs,” she explains. “The truth is that I wrote all the sad songs first, because after Bad Ideas [Violet’s second studio album], I went through a serious heartbreak. Then I started practicing confidence and getting in touch with who I am and what I want, and I wrote a bunch of songs about that.

“I like the title for it too, because it’s something you can say when you get good news, ‘Oh my God’, or when you get terrible news. As for Play With Fire, I’m currently a sober alcoholic, and when I was writing it I was like, ‘do I want to drink again? Am I about to re-enter my chaotic era?’ And so in the chorus and first verse I wrote about that; spoilers - I did not drink again, I’m still sober. But by the second verse, I’m like, maybe it’s about a boy [giggles].”

Headliner was curious to find out how Violet’s early experience as a full time vlogger has influenced her artistry, since releasing her debut album Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled in 2014.

“I don’t think that being a vlogger influences the way that I make art, but it definitely influences the way I market that art,” she responds. “And it’s definitely a boon, because I think a lot of artists will make a beautiful piece of art, and then their management’s like, ‘Okay, now be an influencer’, which is hard, even now having done it for years.

“When you’re an artist in the modern era, you’re required not just to make art, but to sell yourself and be really good at selling yourself, and that’s a whole job within itself. I feel very lucky that I already have a lot of practice at that job, and I understand and speak the language.”

Violet’s infectious pop number YES MOM went viral earlier this year on TikTok, and needless to say, she was stoked:

“I love the song,” she says. “It was actually the first song I’d written about feeling good. I have a lot of songs about feeling depressed, so it made me feel good to sing about feeling good. And it got me thinking about the power of our words and that our words are spells. I’m like okay, well if I’m casting spells, I want to cast spells that make me feel good and make other people feel good.

“There’s something to be said for sad songs that also make people feel good, because they make people feel understood. So that’s also a powerful thing, but I really tapped into something new and special with YES MOM, so when I got it going in such a major way on TikTok, I was like, ‘yeah baby, I knew it.’ Validated.”

When people ask Violet what has been her favourite collaboration, she has – up until this moment – always said Smoke Signals, because she has always been such a huge fan of British singer-songwriter Cavetown, who she featured on the song with.

“But I really love my new collaboration with Frances too; I love our song together,” she says. “It’s also fun to be in the trenches on social media promoting it together, because that part of the job can be lonely, and it’s fun to feel like you have a team member in that.”

As well as being halfway through her own tour at the time of interview, in May Violet also completed a 24-date tour in support of California-based trio Half Alive, and has been taking the live side of her craft to the next level.

“I’m really excited about doing Europe with Robbie (Cavetown), because I haven’t been to Europe in four years,” she concludes with a smile. “And I’m also getting married in October, so I’m extremely excited about that.”