Slayyyter crawls in through the window of her pseudo-childhood home, her long blond waves damp from a night out and the fringe of her Western jacket swinging as she reaches for a beer in the fridge. Her dad is screaming at her as she escapes to her room; as he bangs on the bedroom door, she reaches for a shotgun.<\/p>\n
There, surrounded by plush bunny toys, pink lace curtains and a cross on the wall, Slayyyter shoots her dad. And so begins the music video for \u201cDance\u2026,\u201d the opening track of her new album, \u201cWorst Girl in America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slayyyter directed it herself, and says it\u2019s a fitting start to an album that, on the surface, is erupting with club pop anthems, dripping in electric guitar-lined excess and her humble desire for \u201cmoney, drugs, chains on my chest.\u201d On a deeper level, Slayyyter\u2019s \u201cWorst Girl in America\u201d is the lonely girl from a small Midwestern town, one who she says craved a healthy relationship with her father\u2014 and a way out.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I\u2019m not the Hollywood girl. I\u2019m like the trashy Missouri bar girl,\u201d Slayyyter said. \u201cThat\u2019s who the \u201cWorst Girl in America\u201d is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I\u2019m not the Hollywood girl. I\u2019m like the trashy Missouri bar girl,\u201d Slayyyter says.<\/p>\n
(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
Slayyyter, born Catherine Garner, grew up in a suburb of St. Louis, shaped by the early aughts tabloid photographs of Lindsay Lohan and the sounds of Lady Gaga\u2019s \u201cArtpop\u201d and Kesha\u2019s \u201cAnimal\u201d in the wired headphones of her iPod. As a child dancer, performance was Slayyyter\u2019s youth, and as a college dropout from the University of Missouri, she turned to SoundCloud to share the music blossoming from her at-home recording sessions.<\/p>\n
At 23, she released her self-titled 2019 mixtape, \u201cSlayyyter,\u201d a bubblegum Gwen Stefani-inspired pop collection half recorded in a \u201cmessy a\u2014\u201d closet in her mom\u2019s house. From it was birthed the Twitter-viral hit \u201cMine\u201d and the nasty \u201cDaddy AF,\u201d which energized the soundtracks for \u201cBodies, Bodies, Bodies\u201d and the Oscar-winning \u201cAnora.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, Slayyyter took off running, landing opening slots for Charli XCX and releasing two albums. At 29, after years painstakingly building her career in L.A. and fresh after touring with Kesha, Slayyyter is dragging her music back where it began.<\/p>\n
The new album tells a story through the fragmented memory of her early youth: In \u201cWorst Girl,\u201d there\u2019s \u201cCrank,\u201d a pumping, screaming dance single that demands its listeners to \u201cCrank it!\u201d beside \u201cUnknown Loverz,\u201d a dreamy, wistful recollection of unrequited love. \u201cI\u2019m Actually Kinda Famous\u201d sneers and taunts a portrayal of fame over synths, and \u201cCannibalism!\u201d is wrapped in youthful desire and garage rock fuzz.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to paint a hazy portrait of the Midwest but not in such a literal way,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like a real moment, inspired by summer nights in my teen years, wandering around golf courses and drinking warm beer cause that\u2019s all we could find in our parents\u2019 basements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The album releases Friday, after months of building up fans\u2019 excitement around singles and self-directed music videos. With a tour looming in the summer and a first-time Coachella slot coming next month, Slayyyter is winding up for a momentous year.<\/p>\n
Outside The Times\u2019 office, with highway and airplane traffic buzzing by on a cloudless afternoon, Slayyyter walked into our interview in Moschino kitten heels and her now-signature fringe jacket. Bubbly and friendly, she poked holes with her heels in the paper backdrop as she posed for portraits and gushed over Brittany Murphy\u2019s 2003 film \u201cUptown Girls.\u201d As the pictures flashed, I spotted an American flag in the room and suggested she use it as a backdrop to allude to the album.<\/p>\n
She shook her head. That wasn\u2019t what it meant; \u201cWorst Girl in America\u201d isn\u2019t really about Americana, or wearing a flag as a badge. It\u2019s complicated. In it, Slayyyter explores her hometown roots, family dynamics and desire at her most trashy, mournful, hungry and loud; as the \u201cWorst Girl in America,\u201d Slayyyter is raw.<\/p>\n
Obviously the title really jumps out at you and it\u2019s almost playful in that it says, \u201cI\u2019m the worst girl here but I don\u2019t care what you think of me.\u201d Can you talk about the title and where that came from?<\/b><\/p>\n
It could be a term of endearment from friends, because I grew up being friends with a lot of skater kids that would call each other \u201cthe worst.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was also from being insecure or feeling out of place or hated. I\u2019ve always felt on the defense or disliked. Just kind of a loser, I guess. So I feel like the Worst Girl in America is almost the voice in your head that is telling you what you are, even if you\u2019re not that, that\u2019s how you feel.<\/p>\n
![\"Pop](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/fc018fe\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5464x8192+0+0\/resize\/320x480!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F31%2F95%2F03fef3794545adf02b97c8ef1100%2F1545429-et-slayyyter-cmh-17.jpg)
<\/picture> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n 1<\/span>\/3<\/span> <\/p>\n (Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n 2<\/span>\/3<\/span> <\/p>\n (Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n 3<\/span>\/3<\/span> <\/p>\n (Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/gn-carousel> <\/div>\n You\u2019ve been in the entertainment industry for almost a decade now. How does it feel to look back on that early Slayyyter music to what you\u2019re making now?<\/b><\/p>\n It feels nice to be a little more seasoned and to have grown into my taste, but sometimes I get sad just because I feel like in my very first project, I really was plucked out of St. Louis. I was a hair salon receptionist, no family connections to any entertainment industry, let alone the music industry.<\/p>\n I always felt very out of place. My extensions would show in the back, and I would go to parties and I would be so nervous that I would drink to overcompensate. I look at my early beginnings in music and I just am like, \u201cGod, I wish I had figured it out a little sooner,\u201d but I wouldn\u2019t change it for the world, knowing what I know now.<\/p>\n There\u2019s bits and pieces of my early music that are all over this album. \u201cDaddy AF\u201d was the first time I ever rapped on a song and that felt so good so I continued it. There would be no \u201cCrank\u201d without \u201cDaddy AF.\u201d Everything has its fingerprint on other things.<\/p>\n I saw a lot of allusions and references in your lyrics and videos to \u201ctrashy icons,\u201d like Lindsay Lohan with the Chanel purse ankle monitor. What is it about the \u201cgirls gone bad\u201d that was inspiring to you?<\/b><\/p>\n I feel like they\u2019re all so largely misunderstood, especially Lindsay Lohan. I could do a TED Talk on my feelings on Lindsay Lohan because she was so judged. I felt seen by her because she is someone who had issues with her father early on and I relate to that a lot<\/i>.<\/p>\n I feel like when you have a hard childhood, a hard start at life, it\u2019s going to affect you for the rest of your life. You\u2019re going to be a girl who drinks too much at parties. It\u2019s hard to get buttoned up and take things seriously. I feel like I\u2019ve always been one of those girls, wild and getting in trouble for drinking too much at the club. I feel like there\u2019s a misunderstanding of them, of where they come from or things they\u2019ve been through that contribute to the way they are.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always felt that way. If people see me at a party and I\u2019m off my face, that might be something to judge at first, but there\u2019s a sadness and a misunderstanding of why that kind of self-medication might be necessary for me or for anyone, you know?<\/p>\n I really reached a point of frustration with making music and thought that this was going to be one of the last projects I would make.<\/p>\n You have a large gay audience and really came up in the underground queer pop space. How do you weave in queerness as an artist and speak to that community?<\/b><\/p>\n I feel like it\u2019s such a natural thing. I hate when artists pander. I find it really capitalistic and wrong and weird when artists will specifically target a gay audience. I\u2019ve never shot for the gay audience. I feel like I am that audience. Like in high school, my two best friends were gay and we would ride around and listen to Lady Gaga and smoke weed in the car. I was going to Marina and the Diamonds concerts. I loved Lana Del Rey from Tumblr. <\/p>\n I create from a place of just expression and I feel like in queer spaces, that kind of music always feels very true. It resonates and it feels right.<\/p>\n \u201cI really reached a point of frustration with making music and thought that this was going to be one of the last projects I would make,\u201d Slayyyter said.<\/p>\n (Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n You\u2019re talking about all these icons that you grew up with, like Marina and Lana. For you to have toured with Kesha this past summer, that must have been huge. What is something that you learned from that?<\/b><\/p>\n Oh my gosh. I think just her fearlessness, her professionalism, her coolness, her aura. Yeah, her swagger. She is someone who, I would not be an artist if it weren\u2019t for her. Her music changed my life. Like hearing Sleazy for the first time, and when she debuted, she felt very undone. She would just be free and wear glitter on her face and have feathers in her hair and her music was very unapologetically brash and tongue-in-cheek with the lyrics. She would say edgy s\u2014 that no one had said before. I feel like she has inspired me a lot in my music to just take those leaps and not take things too seriously, you know?<\/p>\n Watching her perform, It felt very much like seeing her taking back something that was hers and it just felt very emotional to watch every night, honestly.<\/p>\n I saw you got signed to a major label (Columbia Records) but you were saying you still make a lot of your costumes and direct a lot of your music videos. How have you really held on to this DIY ethos while now associating yourself with a bigger label?<\/b><\/p>\n Honestly, they [Columbia] have been so amazing in letting me do my thing, which has been really nice. There\u2019s a risk when you do something yourself. Things can look chopped and I know that. I\u2019m well aware. I\u2019m well aware that it\u2019s not always going to be pulled off, but for the most part I\u2019ve gotten pretty lucky that everything comes together at like the last hour.<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t have to do with budget. I just feel like I need to do it. I need to have hands on everything. With this album, it is so specifically this thing in my head and it can\u2019t be up for interpretation because it just feels like my life and it feels like my childhood. <\/p>\n I made a lot of the videos with my friend Kate. The footage she has of me\u2026 at the time, I was like, \u201cWait, this is so creative and cool.\u201d And we watch it and just both sit and laugh because it\u2019s really bad. At one point, I thought it would be cool to do like a pageantry baton spinning dance. I can\u2019t spin a baton. It\u2019s actually really hard. So it just looks really bad. It\u2019s harder than it looks. I said, \u201cIt\u2019ll be so retro, like a 1950s pageant.\u201d It was nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n I loved \u201cGas Station.\u201d It brought me this vision of isolation under the overhead lighting and this disconnect and chasing of attention in modern relationships. That\u2019s what I got out of it at least. How do you feel like you talked about relationships or modern love in the album?<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cGas Station\u201d is a funny example. I started writing that song about an ex-relationship with the hook and as I got more into writing it, I started talking about a situation that happened with my dad actually. We got in a fight and he made me get out of the car at a gas station and just drove away. Maybe that\u2019s too trauma dump-y to just drop that, but I found it interesting that when you\u2019re in a bad relationship and you look at relationships with your parents, there can be a lot of parallels.<\/p>\n When you pick the wrong guys, or men who don\u2019t really care for you, and you have to chase them down for attention, how that can feel like the same relationship you\u2019ve had with a parent.<\/p>\n Looking to what\u2019s ahead, what are you really excited about following this album? Do you have a vision for your tour or where do you see yourself going next as an artist?<\/b><\/p>\n I do. I\u2019m excited for touring. I feel like that is my favorite piece of the puzzle with being an artist. I love playing live. I\u2019m excited to design out a show and a stage that feels like stepping into a set of one of these videos.<\/p>\n I want to keep making music. I\u2019ve been working on songs and I wouldn\u2019t really call anything a deluxe, but I\u2019ve been testing the waters of a repackaging of this project and having a bit more collaborations and different versions. I don\u2019t really know what it will be yet, but I\u2019ve just been toying with different songs and different things and maybe that leads to nothing, but maybe it doesn\u2019t. I also have a couple songs on the back burner that didn\u2019t make the album that I really really still want to put out.<\/p>\n I would love for this album to soundtrack whatever people need it to soundtrack. That\u2019s for them to decide, whether it\u2019s crying in your room, drinking with your friends in the back of someone\u2019s pickup truck out in a muddy field or whatever you people want.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Slayyyter crawls in through the window of her pseudo-childhood home, her long blond waves damp from a night out and the fringe of her Western jacket swinging as she reaches for a beer in the fridge. Her dad is screaming at her as she escapes to her room; as he bangs on the bedroom door, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2345196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2345195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Meet-Slayyyter-at-her-most-raw-as-the-Worst-Girl.com2F2f2F052Fcf7d0b4e4fffa62298734cf7-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2345195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2345197,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345195\/revisions\/2345197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2345196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2345195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2345195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2345195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"EL](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/c55547e\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5464x7122+0+0\/resize\/320x417!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7b%2Fe6%2Fc3e180784e0c8b06ca2be72394f7%2F1545429-et-slayyyter-cmh-07.jpg)
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