Newcomer Wallice reveals debut single 'Punching Bag,'
Los Angeles newcomer Wallice takes a self-deprecating swing on her debut track ‘Punching Bag,’ a lo-fi indie anthem for anyone who’s ever experienced an unrequited friendship.
22-year-old Wallice began writing songs in middle school, lamenting secret crushes over instruments she learned to play in the school band, and armed with her trusty ipod maxed out by Weezer, Black Eyed Peas, Radiohead and Lana Del Rey.
With Big Thief, Vampire Weekend, and Beach House on her current high-rotation, elements of both her past and present influences distill in Wallice’s sound - which feels sweet and nostalgic with a rowdy edge. ‘Punching Bag, which comes with a video directed by Taylor Fitzgerald, is already making waves with airtime on Apple Music 1 with Zane Lowe, and a placement on Spotify’s ‘Lorem’ playlist.
Of the meaning behind her debut track, Wallice offers;
“Punching Bag started with me seeing the address of an old friend pop up in my Google maps as a suggested destination, but we weren’t talking at the time so it just made me feel weird.
I wanted to be able to just go to their house and hang out with them but that wasn’t an option anymore.
Around the same time I had another friend get a girlfriend and completely stop talking to me.”
she says.
“I realized that there is such a correlation between strained friendships and romantic relationships that most people have probably felt. There’s such a strange absence of someone who used to be
such a big part of your life.
I made it with the thought of the protagonist (me, cause I am the one singing) being so dramatic and manipulative to do anything to see this other person, but in a completely relatable and valid way.
“Left my Hydroflask in the back of your car” was a line that we thought was so silly and an
obvious (perhaps pathetic) excuse to just see someone again.”
Wallice’s distinct and emotive voice led her to the New School’s Jazz Vocal Performance program in New York City. After a year, she decided to pack her bags and head back to California to focus on her own music. Wallice linked back up with David Marinelli, her childhood friend and longtime collaborator, who helped Wallice develop a clearer direction for her voice and style. ‘Punching Bag’ was written in only one day, and recorded in another, in Marinelli's bedroom,
“a 7 minute drive from my house.” Wallice feels this method helps capture the candidness of the track, so that it feels all at once energetic, nostalgic, honest, pathetic, and hopefully relatable. “I don’t want people to feel bad for relating to it. I want them to think it’s funny and pretty ridiculous - the lengths we might go to see someone again who we MAYBE shouldn’t.”
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