Q&A: Clairice Steps Into Her Power with Daring Debut EP “Patient On Me”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
FINDING STRENGTH IN SOFTNESS — With her debut EP Patient On Me, rising Chicago artist Clairice turns tenderness into a radical act. The songstress reclaims her softness as a source of strength, sensuality and power. The EP is a fearless exploration of emotional chaos, where heartbreak and self-discovery unfold in a genre-blurring collection that fuses alt-pop and R&B into a sound that feels refreshingly unfiltered. At the core of Patient On Me is a reclamation. Clairice leans into vulnerability not as a weakness, but as a source of radical feminine power.
“This EP is about reclaiming softness, expressing desire, and finding freedom in your own emotional chaos,” Clairice says. “I'm finally telling the story I’ve been waiting to share—unfiltered and exactly how I felt it.”
Each track on Patient On Me is a vignette of vulnerability—never fragile, always intentional.
A standout moment on the EP, the title track “Patient On Me” serves as the emotional centerpiece of the project—raw, tender and undeniably honest.
“‘Patient On Me’ feels like maybe the most honest thing I’ve written,” Clairice says, describing it as a delicate dance with vulnerability and the uneasy process of learning to let someone in again after heartbreak.
The track captures the moment of emergence—of surfacing after being emotionally submerged, as Clairice puts it, “like coming to the surface to breathe again, when you’re in the depths of the ocean.” It’s a powerful affirmation of self-worth. With lush instrumentation and a vocal delivery that feels both fragile and fierce, Clairice invites listeners into the world she’s rebuilt for herself—a world shaped by independence and self-love.
“I had built this beautiful world of independence and self-love,” she says. “And this song is about affirming that I’m ready to let someone into that, but please be tender. It’s a gift I’m offering, and it requires a kind of vulnerability that isn’t easy—especially after the whirlwind of crap I’d experienced before.”
Patient On Me arrives on the heels of a breakout year for the artist. After winning the Chicago Made Showcase competition last fall, Clairice earned a coveted performance slot at Lollapalooza 2025, where she’ll take the stage as part of the Chicago Made lineup on Thursday, July 31.
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what kind of atmosphere or sonic world do you aim to create for your listeners?
CLAIRICE: What a great question. If you've never heard my music before, it is embracing the full spectrum of emotion that I feel like femme people experience. I feel like the music embraces the chaos of life and the full spectrum of emotions that I experienced as a woman, so sometimes it's really tender and it leans like a little bit more R&B and like luscious and synth heavy, and then other times it feels like a little bit more chaotic and upbeat, maybe even borderline neurotic in a fun, accepting and exciting way.
LUNA: Are there particular moods or themes you find yourself gravitating towards when writing and performing? How do you channel these into your music?
CLAIRICE: I am always writing from the perspective of what is it that I need to hear, or what is it that I need to move through—whether that be manifestation, or whether that be a really difficult emotion for me to experience and I'm judging myself for feeling this emotion—I need to just accept that it's what I'm feeling in order to move past it. The way that that ends up getting translated into the music is sometimes it's really intuitive where it's time for therapy 101, let's sit down with yourself, grab the guitar and just move through a chord that feels like the emotion that you're experiencing and you need to deal with. Then other times, I'm working with my producers Marcus Darling and Danny Kulasik, and they're playing a chord that strikes a deeper understanding of myself, that pulls these internal, subconscious dialogs out of me where I needed to get that off of my chest.
LUNA: You just released your newest EP Patient On Me and huge congratulations! You’ve described the EP as reclaiming softness and finding freedom in emotional chaos. Can you talk about what inspired those themes and how they show up across the songs?
CLAIRICE: To be candid, all of the songs on the EP, with the exception of one, were me dealing with all the emotions that I was experiencing coming out of a narcissistic relationship. “Getting Better” was a song written from the place of I'm finally ready to move into something better for myself and say what I need to say to this person, and believe that I am worthy of being loved for all that I am, even if this person is making me feel like I'm too much or insignificant.
“Patient On Me” is probably the track that I'm most proud of, because it feels like maybe the most honest thing that I've written is this interesting dance that I was having with vulnerability, being ready to open myself up to the idea of letting someone in again after coming out of that relationship, that I also felt like a lot of shame around because I felt like I put myself in that position. I allowed myself to be treated in specific ways. And that's obviously not the truth, but I couldn't get away from what I felt like my own personal role in the situation was, because you never think that something like that can happen to you until it's happening to you.
“Patient On Me” was moving through that shame that I had for myself and I had built this beautiful world of independence and self love and affirming that I'm ready to let someone into this, but please be tender and understand that my life is really beautiful, and it's a gift that I am sharing this with you, and it requires vulnerability from me that is not necessarily the easiest thing to do, especially coming out the whirlwind of crap that I had experienced before. Ultimately, the EP embraces all of the emotions that I had to go through, dealing with that and it's like coming to the surface for breath again, when you're in the depths of the ocean.
LUNA: I would love to touch more on the creative process behind Patient On Me. How did the songs evolve from its initial idea to the final version? What did a typical songwriting and recording session look like?
CLAIRICE: They are really all over the place. “Patient On Me” was written in a very stream of conscious way, once those lyrics came out and that melody came out, I never changed that. I played with the idea of changing it, but no, it is what it is. It's honest. I didn't want to taint it. I brought that track to Danny and Marcus to flesh out what this soft dream world looked like after I had the melody and the guitar part down. “Getting Better” was a track that I wrote on my 30th birthday with Marcus Darling. I was determined to gift myself a song on this birthday. I'm 32 now, so this was two years ago that the song was initially written, and Marcus started playing a bass part and it just flowed out of me in a very unexpected way, both of those songs did.
“Grab That” was written four years ago, and that was in a session for a project that I decided to move away from. How I approached that project was writing on a whiteboard all the things that I was struggling with as a person. I'm going into this session with no expectations, but I know these are things that I internally need to deal with, so let's see what happens. We just set up instruments, and I started playing the chords on a synth, and then “Grab That” was born, which has gained a lot of natural algorithmic traction. It's this manifestation song about not letting opportunity pass you. Claim it and own it when it is in front of you. It's really about not being afraid of rising to the occasion, to step up to an opportunity that's coming to you, which is something that I think I struggled with for a really, really long time, which kept me from releasing music. Sometimes it's an intentional session and that's the theme we're going for. And then sometimes I'm going to create something and let it flow.
LUNA: What is your favorite song from Patient On Me and why do you love this song? Is there a certain element, lyric or message that you gravitate towards the most?
CLAIRICE: “Patient On Me,” because it is a really honest depiction of the vulnerability of choosing to love and share your life with someone. It's not all pretty and it's soft and it's sensitive, but it's very much give and take. It's a really honest depiction of taking the leap to love.
LUNA: How do you hope listeners—especially young women and femme audiences—feel when they hear Patient On Me for the first time?
CLAIRICE: I hope that they feel hopeful. I hope that they feel encouraged, even in the chaos that is this dating landscape of 2025 they feel hopeful. Even though choosing to be tender and choosing to share yourself with somebody else is extremely difficult and probably disappointing over and over again, choosing to do it is making a choice to believe that you are worthy of being loved for all that you are, and keep with that, even when your tenderness wants to disappear and you want to be blockaded and defensive because of your own trauma. I hope that people listen to it and they continue to have hope and faith that if I keep at it, I will attract what it is that I deserve, and someone who is willing to accept everything that I am, and not just the little pieces that fit perfectly into their life.
LUNA: What’s fueling your fire right now—musically or personally—that’s pushing you into this next chapter?
CLAIRICE: It definitely helps when you have community. I am at a point now in my life where I am surrounded by people that genuinely believe in what it is that I'm doing, which is extremely helpful to because believing in yourself constantly as an artist, especially in this economy where this landscape of music is constantly changing with streaming and social media, it is extremely like helpful to have a unit of people that are supporting you in all of those things. That's definitely a huge thing that is pushing me forward.
I also think I have spent a good portion of my life being scared of being judged for what it is that I'm creating. I used to have this really insane perfectionist mindset, and I have been doing music across multiple different projects since 2012 and some sort of switch has flipped. I have put in the hours and I have put in the work, so you need to follow through tenfold and continue challenging yourself further. Who cares if you're not getting million dollar checks for what it is that you have to contribute to the world? I know that if it heals me to do this music, it will inevitably heal other people, and that alone is a good reason to really give it my all.
LUNA: Congratulations on landing a performance at Lollapalooza through the Chicago Made Showcase! What was your first reaction when you found out you'd be playing the festival?
CLAIRICE: I was honestly a little shocked, because I didn't really know what to expect. Competitions are so weird. I purposefully avoid them with my whole chest. Especially when you think competition art, I don't personally love that vibe because it puts me into a mindset of being judgmental of myself. When I heard that I was competing with people that I didn't know in front of audiences that didn't know me, in front of a panel of people that also didn't know me, that was really cool, but it was also really shocking. I realized I was doing a cool thing and I was shocked and excited and wanted to make the most of the opportunity and rise to the occasion and put on a damn good show.
LUNA: Performing at Lolla is a major milestone for any artist. What can fans expect from your Lollapalooza set—are you planning any surprises or special moments?
CLAIRICE: I'm still in the works on figuring out exactly what it is that I want to do with the time that I've given. A lot of my effort right now is going towards the Sleeping Village set, because that'll be my first headlining show as Clairice. I'm trying to make that the big spectacle that I wanted to be. We're getting so weird and theatrical, because I also have a background in theater, so I haven't been able to flex all of those muscles, but we're really taking it to the max, whereas Lolla is a little bit constricting. I am thinking about what arrangements I want to do to make it feel like the biggest show it can be. Stay tuned. It's going to be spicy.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would like to share with Luna?
CLAIRICE: I'm feeling really proud of myself in this era that I'm in right now. I've been doing this for a really long time, so to be starting to really see some real momentum is really rewarding. Even though I've been performing for such a long time, I'm 32 years old and I'm a new artist, but I've tried on many hats, and now I found my sound. This is what I'm about. I'm about embracing all of the chaos that is me and my womanhood and I have a better understanding of that now in a way that I haven't before.
There's a bunch of music that's getting released this summer, some cool stuff with some local Chicago features that I'm excited to release. Then I am working on an album. 'm excited to be rolling out a bunch of more music this year, on top of the EP that I'm extremely proud of. And of course, things shift. Things change. We all are influenced by new things. I'm sure I'll become obsessed with some sort of sound or tone. I know who I am in a way that I've never known who I was before, which makes me feel really proud to be following through on my vision now at this point in my life.
