Q&A: Inside Sam Short’s Expansive World of ‘earthgirl’ and Her Most Vulnerable Track Yet
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Peidi Mayou
ALT POP ARTIST SAM SHORT IS NO STRANGER TO VULNERABILITY — but with her newest single, “Needle and Thread,” she fully leans into it. Short continues her evolution as a vital new voice in confessional pop, delivering a hauntingly ethereal, emotionally rich offering that doubles as the next chapter in her conceptual project, earthgirl.
Marked by cinematic production, vulnerable lyricism and dreamlike textures, “Needle and Thread” is a powerful confessional, and one of Short’s most vulnerable releases to date.
“‘Needle and Thread’ is probably my most vulnerable song on the project,” Short says. “It has an inherent duality that makes it very unique.”
The single is the latest in a series of releases that center the emotional arc of earthgirl—a bold, expansive project that dives into heartbreak, ego, self-discovery, and the long road back to wholeness. Told in chapters, each song peels back another layer of Short’s storytelling, threading personal experience with universal feeling.
Earlier this year, Short dropped two standout singles that introduced earthgirl’s dreamy atmosphere. With “Needle and Thread,” that world becomes clearer and more emotionally immersive.
As earthgirl continues to unfold, “Needle and Thread” stands as an intimate glimpse into Short’s emotional core and her emerging voice in pop’s more introspective corners. With each release, Short deepens her narrative, sharpening her sound while staying rooted in lyrical honesty.
Peidi Mayou
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 inspires your artistic style and sound?
SAM: I’m inspired by other artists’ world building. It is probably the most influential aspect of mine, as well as my real life experience.
LUNA: Your newest single release “Needle and Thread” feels like such a delicate yet emotionally potent moment in your earthgirl project. What is the inspiration behind the single and what themes or emotions do you explore?
SAM: That song is more an ode to acceptance. The project is a chronological narrative piece that essentially tells a story of earthgirl and her getting heartfelt or exploring herself and basically becoming to accept herself by the end of this and accept the heartbreak. I think “Needle and Thread” actually comes later in the project and serves as this moment when we realize that earth girl’s overcome this feeling of heartbreak and it serves as a shift in tone. Once everyone hears this project in context, I think it'll make a lot more sense, but on its own, it's definitely more of a ballad. It's definitely more of a sad song and an extended metaphor that describes love and the lack thereof.
LUNA: “Needle and Thread” is accompanied by a music video. How was your experience filming it and what visuals did you want to explore and bring to life?
SAM: We did a visualizer and shot the content in January. I did a big shoot for all the covers for the project, and I was really inspired by a lot of imagery from Vogue Korea and Vogue Singapore, where they did this really long, surrealistic hair. I feel like Surrealism was a big thing that I wanted to tap into with this project, with Dali and Ernst and artists that have a very surrealistic take on very mundane things, and so that's what I wanted to do with the hair. I'm not really wearing anything crazy. I'm standing in the studio and I'm wearing black, but what is the one thing that's surrealistic about it? It was just this over exaggerated hair thing, so I think that that was really cool. We ended up just filming video and photos. I didn't purposely film it for “Needle and Thread,” but I always had that song in mind. I was looking back at the concept, I was like, “oh my god, this is so ‘Needle and Thread.” The imagery was so perfectly aligned with the song, so it was all just serendipitous.
LUNA: Earthgirl feels like a deeply intentional and layered body of work. What sparked the idea to build a world around this emotional arc of heartbreak, ego and healing?
SAM: I didn't necessarily intend to do that. I wrote this whole project with my friend Eva, and Chris, the producer that we work with all the time, and we started writing last summer. We did a few different days together, and we ended up writing earthgirl in a week. We wrote so many of the songs and the sonic world was being built. We were having so much fun connecting and interweaving all of the songs together.
For the first time, we realized this song ties to this song in this way, or this metaphor that we use. This synth that we're using in “earthgirl” is the same synth that we're using in “star tripping,” like all these little connections come together. We used to joke when we were supposed to be finishing songs, we'd be like, ‘so what if earthgirl was a musical? How would it go? Who would sing this song? Who would sing this?” It is just a story about my life. After that, which was in the winter, we decided to fill in the blanks and center the story around this is a real story based on my life, and there is this emotional art. What moments do we need in the story to come together? We wrote a bunch of songs that helped fill those holes.
LUNA: Did you take any creative risks or explore new directions on earthgirl compared to your faulty wiring EP? What felt different this time around?
SAM: I think this whole process felt a lot more artistic. For my last project, I was super consumed by what was going viral online and what was happening, and I felt like a few viral moments packaged into an EP, which is so great, and I'm and I'm grateful for it. With earthgirl, I've taken a totally different creative approach. I've trusted myself and not really allowed validation to influence the project at all. When I released “earth girl,” the first song, I was so excited about it. I got no press and no playlisting. I just kept going. That's been the vibe of this project, like good art eventually rises to the surface. Even if nothing happens with it, and even if I don't have a huge, crazy viral moment, I at least think it's cool, and people can look back on it. I think this is more of my artsy rebellion EP.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on earthgirl—one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Sam Short is right now?
SAM: “Star tripping.”
LUNA: What messages or emotions do you hope listeners can take away from earthgirl?
SAM: The very personal feeling that is heartbreak is ultimately just so universal. When you're going through something hard, you really think that you're the only person ever who's experienced that feeling. I think that this project is like a reflection of this is actually a super normal feeling, but it's still all consuming. I think that goes with awareness. I think that comes with accepting new aspects of yourself. I think it comes with aging. This project tackles so many different themes about feeling othered, but wanting to realize, ‘oh shit, this is something that everyone feels like.’ I hope it brings people solace, and I hope they have fun listening to it, because there's something bigger.
LUNA: What’s fueling your fire right now—musically or personally—that’s pushing you into this next chapter?
SAM: I've been really into fashion lately. I think that's been really cool to explore and lean into visually creative and compelling things. I'd never really been into world building in a visual way as much as I have been now, so that's been really cool. And taking inspiration from some of my favorite artists, like The Marías. I really love what they're doing right now. Lana Del Rey, love her all the time. I'm looking at other artists' campaigns, like Jessie Murph, and I'm really inspired by an entire artist's campaign. I feel like that's been fueling my fire right now, is watching how other people present these projects to the world.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
SAM: I'm feeling good. I'm on tour. I'm driving back to LA right now, so I'm feeling good. Last week, I was scream crying about everything and hated my life. Everything's kind of TBD, but I think that's just what being an artist is. I think that things ebb and flow. I'm going to be playing more shows in the fall, and I'm just excited for this project to be out. I'm proud of it. I'm excited by it. I think it'll be really cool to have it out in the world, but in terms of what's to come, I'm writing my next project now and still playing shows. I’m praying I get to do another big tour soon.
Peidi Mayou
