New York singer-songwriter Rivkah Reyes has spent her entire life living and breathing the arts. After commencing guitar lessons at four-years-old and breaking onto the entertainment scene as Katie in School of Rock while still a grade schooler, she’s steadily evolved into a multi-faceted creative with expansive credits as a musician, actor, and screenwriter. Whether it’s writing and starring in the Margaret Cho-led Gianna, appearing in Lawrence Lamont’s One of Them Days, or releasing brilliant music under her namesake, she’s curated a genuinely compelling body of work.
As she continues to evolve in her career as a solo musician, Reyes recently unveiled her brilliant new single “Miss Congeniality,” an alt-pop single perfectly placed between the polarities of catchiness and grit. Pulling inspiration from the classic Sandra Bullock film, it comes alongside a fittingly cinematic video directed by Katie Colwell and Reyes – filmed at the Bushwick gym OutBox – that finds a bruised but resilient Reyes eventually claiming the title of Sapphic Menace.
In celebration of the release, we sat down with Reyes to chat about her sprawling career alongside the personal experiences like long-term sobriety that have shaped her as an artist and led to newfound freedom in the process.
What were your formative music experiences? I know you picked up the guitar at four-years-old and I'm curious what inspired that very first moment as a musician.
When I was four, I started taking lessons, and they offered [so] many different instruments. They were like, "What about violin? What about flute? What about piano or cello?" Guitar was kind of the outlier. My mom had taken violin lessons when she was a kid, so she was like, "Oh, let's do violin," because she already kind of knew her way around one. At my first violin lesson, the teacher clocked that I kept on wanting to hold it like a guitar, and she was like, "I think she wants to play guitar." After my first guitar lesson, I was absolutely hooked. I had grown up listening to a lot of classic rock. My dad's influence was heavy on me – the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, very classic, basic dad music – but that's what I wanted to do. I was trained classically, and in my spare time, when I wasn't doing school or homework or my classical lessons, I would just listen to whatever record my dad had on and try to play along and ear trained myself to pluck out a melody of whatever was playing and shred over it on a child-sized, classical, nylon-string guitar.
Even before that, I was singing in my stroller. I was a big Disney kid, I loved Aladdin, and I would always be singing "A Whole New World." [We were a] big karaoke family because my mom's side is Filipino, so [at] every family gathering, I'd ask for the mic multiple times to sing. I definitely was born and bred to be a musician,
I love that. And I feel like kids have more intuition than we give them credit for, like you knowing "That's the instrument I'm supposed to be playing."
I love playing guitar, man ... it makes me feel so close to the universe.
You mentioned that your dad was always playing classic rock. As your music taste started to develop, what were your earliest personal favorites?
My dad is very classic rock, you know, the British invasion of it all. He also loved reggae – he had a reggae compilation album that we would listen to in his car sometimes, or a Motown one. And then my mom [was] very much into the divas, like the Whitney [Houston], Mariah [Carey]. '90s and early 2000s r&b was big in our house, so I was always listening to a bunch of different stuff. I would say the first time I was really, really inspired by listening to a record was Queen. I loved the theatricality of it all [like] "Bohemian Rhapsody.” When I first heard that song, I was like, "This is 10 songs in one – that's crazy. And it sounds like it's coming from a musical or a movie." I just love how cinematic and how beautiful Freddie's voice was. ... the original cast recording of Rent was entirely like my personality when I was a kid [too]. I think I listened to it maybe a little too young. My dad had seen the production, and was like, "This musical is great", and showed me and my siblings Rent, and the first time I heard "Light My Candle," I knew there was something special there, and that I wanted to do musicals. Those were like two of my like very early references, and then of course the Beatles. The first non-classical song I ever learned how to play on guitar was "Blackbird," and for my first audition for School of Rock, I played "Here Comes the Sun." Looking back at that now, I'm like, "Oh, I was nine years old, like that's not an easy song. Neither of those are easy songs for a kid to play." Not to toot my own horn, but that's pretty cool.
What was the School of Rock experience like? I know lot of child actors talk about the burnout that comes with being thrust into the spotlight at a young age, but I imagine there’s also a lot of excitement.
It was my first audition and I didn't quite know what I was getting into, [but] the second I got on set and met the other kids, we played together. We were locked in a little studio together to like get to know each other, and rock out for a little bit, and we ended up like staying in there for like three hours ... we're just jamming, and then they're like, "All right, kids, we gotta go to fitting", and we're like, "No, three more hours, please!" But yeah, that experience was so formative. I didn't know how big of a deal it was that we were working with Jim O'Rourke from freaking Sonic Youth, because I wasn't like too privy to Sonic Youth when I was a kid, but [I'm now a] huge fan. As far as the quote unquote burdens of being a child star, I didn't really experience that until way later. I loved getting pulled out of school. It was like [being] discovered. I was bullied a lot in grade school, so I was excited to get the heck out of there. But it wasn't until I came back from School of Rock, and I had to go back to regular school for a little bit while the film was in post production, and kids were either really cool or really mean. There was no middle ground whatsoever. They were either like, "Oh, like that's so cool, I want to be your best friend now" – and I could see right through it – or they were like, "What do you think you're better than us because you had to go do a little movie in New York?"
When the movie came out, I was constantly being pulled out of school. Luckily, you know, we had on-set tutors and everything, so I didn't fall behind on my schoolwork, but it was a lot, you know, going to press junkets and doing these TV appearances. We were traveling a lot too, flying everywhere was very exhausting, but we were little rock stars, so we were just so excited to be there. Getting our hair and makeup done, getting styled, getting to like meet the Osbournes and Dave Grohl and our heroes. When all of the buzz around School of Rock died down, I auditioned a lot. I was back in Chicago, and back at regular school, and auditioning for a lot of movies and commercials, and TV shows. It was made very abundantly clear to me that it wasn't going to be as easy as School of Rock was audition-wise. I got that job because I was the person to tell that story, and they saw something in me. They didn't even have my character in the script when I auditioned for School of Rock, they wrote that because they saw me shred. That was like a literal miracle that that happened, and very quickly I realized, "Oh, it's not always going to be that easy." I internalized it a lot. I was like, "Is it because I'm ugly, is it because I'm too tall [or] too fat?" I made it about my appearance and I took a involuntary hiatus from acting in the public eye.
I did a lot of theater, I did a lot of like musicals [and plays] at my school, and would make little short films with my sisters on a really bad camera that our parents got us for Christmas. Other than that, to the world [it was like I] fell off the face of the planet. What I was actually doing was like living a life and having a normal high school experience, which was kind of sick, because then I got to do drugs and drink a lot without like public scrutiny, like Miley Cyrus, and those other like Disney and Nickelodeon girls. Anytime they even smoked a cigarette, people would be like, "Child star smoking cigarette, look what happened!" You know, the trials and tribulations of Hollywood.
I also was in a band in high school, and we were drinking a lot and smoking a lot. We would smoke a bunch of weed, smoke cigarettes in my dad's garage. My drinking started in high school. I had my first drink at the Toronto Film Festival, which was the world premiere of School of Rock, actually, but it wasn't like, "and then I became an alcoholic!" But I do remember that night a couple of us from the movie grabbed little champagne flutes and were like, "Oh, this is crazy," and then the boys were like, "I'm done," and I was just like, "Are you kidding? We're just getting started!" I remember going to the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror and being like, "Hell yeah, this is awesome." I was able to like go say hi to Hilary Duff and the Olsen twins and not be shy. I had a couple years where I didn't touch anything, but then in high school when I joined a band and started going to parties with them or shows with them, they were all older than me [and] we all started drinking a lot. I just immediately knew [that] for some reason when I do it, there's something weird about it, where I can't stop, or I just get so sick to the point where I would black out or throw up. The other thing was, whenever I was drunk, I would kiss girls, and that was scary to me. I was like, "Oh, what's that about?" They started calling me the “two beer queer” [in school]. I was like, "Oh, alcohol is making me gay. Alright, we'll address that later.” Turns out it wasn't the alcohol that made me gay [laughs]."
What sparked your pursuit of sobriety and how has your sobriety evolved over the years?
Well, I drank and used from when I was 14 until I was 24. I had various attempts at trying to get myself sober, a couple of psych ward visits, a couple periods of me being like "I'm never drinking again," and then two days later I'm drunk. Classic failed strategies. It wasn't until I hit all different types of rock bottoms, with alcohol and drugs ... my love life was messed up at that time. I was acting out sexually with people that I didn't even like, and getting myself into dangerous situations with people all in pursuit of when I'm gonna get a high next. Coke was my main drug of choice, and alcohol was hand in hand with it, and then the sex stuff was hand in hand with that, and money stuff, and lying, and cheating, and stealing. Then I just got to this point where I would I look at myself in the mirror for like a little too long when I was messed up, and I'd be like, "I don't like you, I don't know you anymore. This is not what your parents wanted for you. This is not who we thought we were going to be when we grew up." And I just surrendered. I remember a very specific night where I was with the person I was seeing at the time, who was very toxic ... I was just like, "God, get me out of this." I didn't even really believe in God, but I found myself using that word because I was desperate.
A couple days later I got this job offer that would mean I had to move to LA. A big part of my inability to stay sober when I would try was because Chicago is such a big drinking city. We drink when the Cubs win, we drink when the Cubs lose, we drink when it's cold, we drink when it's hot. I would drink at my feelings, I would drink at rejection, and at breakups, and at relationships. And so I was just like, "I barely know anybody in LA. The people that I do know in LA seem to be pretty healthy and happy, they go on a lot of hikes and drink green juice, and they're vegan. Maybe when I go to LA, my whole life will change, and I'll become one of those healthy LA people." Within my first month the coke was better, I had easier access to it, and I was doing sex work to try to get free drugs, and getting into really gnarly situations. Again I was like, "What am I doing wrong?" And then I was at work, and I overheard a girl on set say something along the lines of, "I don't really drink, because it shows up on camera." I was like, well, I gotta stop, and so my actual reason for giving up drinking was purely out of vanity. I didn't want to look like a drinker on camera and risk not getting work. My last drink was on December 10th of 2017 and I haven't picked it up since. Then I had three months of being so miserable because I just wasn't drinking or doing drugs, [and] I didn't have any therapy or any program or any community around me. I was very secretly not drinking.
Around that three month mark of being a dry drunk, essentially I hit another kind of emotional bottom. I was in a polyamorous throuple situation ... and I went to a 12-step meeting for relationship stuff, and after hearing me share a couple times, a friend from that program was like, "Hey, I'm an AA, and I think you should check that out and do that before you do address the relationship stuff, because the way that you talk about your relationships, making you want to drink and go back to drugs might be worth checking out." I was like, "No, I'm not an alcoholic, I think I just really like coke, and I think my issues are really with everybody else and I attract such like toxic people.” They were like, “Why don't you just come to a meeting with me?" I'd had friends for years that were like saving me a seat in AA without me knowing. I knew they were sober, but I didn't know they were in program because they weren't trying to out themselves at the time, but then I started going, and I loved it, and I was immediately like, "This is where I belong." ... I just think it's so special. So, yeah, [I have a] little over eight years sober and I love my life. There are moments that really suck, but I just have no doubt that picking up a drink or drug because something sucks in my life is not going to help. It's going to make everything worse.
I feel like with getting sober, our relationship to our passions and creative outlets evolves. Since getting sober, has your relationship to your art changed?
I pivoted pretty hard into acting, and I found it a lot easier to act when I can feel my feelings. It's a huge part of it ... the first song I wrote "Sober" was a really cheesy song about putting the drugs down, and it was not great, but it's out there somewhere. I think it's on my Instagram, buried in my reels. I thought that my identity as an artist was so tied up in being a party girl and being drunk. "I write better when I'm a little drunk, and I perform better when I'm a little high," and it was just never the case. I go back and look at some of the stand-up sets that I had taped when I was on coke, or performances of my band when I was really drunk, and I'm like, that's not the real me. This is the real me. I find having a clear mind just makes it so much easier to express the truth as an artist.
Listening to your music, you're a really poignant lyricist. What’s inspired your writing as a solo artist?
I was playing in bands for a long time, and I love playing with a band, but I've never been the front woman, and I've never been the primary songwriter in a band before. In fact, I was usually in bands with all guys, and oftentimes would write songs, and they'd be like, "Oh, that's really cool, you should use that for a solo project, it's like a little too girly for us." I've amassed so many songs over the years that I've started releasing, and I'm really proud of this material, and what inspires me to write in my life, the shit that happens to me in my love life. I think it's pretty clear that my songs are like about relationships and situationships and half love [and] unrequited love sometimes ... that's that's what inspires me. I also pull from cinematic references like Miss Congeniality. My new single that just came out is obviously like very heavily based on the movie Miss Congeniality. I have little references to other films and literature, and music things ... I'm such a pop culture girl, whether that's music, fashion, film, books. I'm so easily inspired by walking around Bushwick, fun nights out on the town, where thankfully I'm able to experience them fully, because I am sober, and I just hope that I can tell these stories and write these songs, and make these movies like from a place of honesty.
What about Miss Congeniality speaks to you on a personal level?
Oh, it's so good. Have you seen it?
I haven't, and after watching the music video, it's at the top of my list!
You have to see it. Specifically, there is a scene in that movie, where she has overstepped in a mission, and the mission failed, and she potentially could have gotten herself and some other agents in danger, [but] they end up okay. But she gets home from this botched mission and she like has a little internal battle with herself and she's got a punching bag, she's punching the punching bag, then she goes to heat up dinner and she bangs the microwave a bunch, and I'm like, that is being a girl in a nutshell. It's like having something not go the way that you thought it would, even if you like poured your soul into it, worked your ass off to get there, and because you're a woman, the guys around you are like, "I don't think you're right for this job." On this like feral level, she wails on this punching bag, and I'm like, "That's me."
Other things about that movie [are] this idea of pageantry and performance of femininity. I'm a pretty hyper-feminine person in my day to day, and when I perform and when I’m on stage, I tend to be dolled up, but then at home I'm just such a guy [and] rough around the edges dude ... I love that movie so much, and I think Sandra Bullock is such an icon. Her character in that movie almost wins this pageant solely based on being herself, and I think that's a beautiful thing, but then if I go even deeper on it, Miss Congeniality in any pageant setting is not the winner, she's the one who everyone was best friends with – the one who was the fan favorite, maybe the one who was projected to win, but then didn't. That's kind of how I feel like my love life has been lately, so it is sort of a love letter to the girls who are the fan favorite, but never get picked.
What was the process of that music video like? It's so cinematic, and I know you co-directed it as well.
Yeah, me and a couple of my friends got together, and my director, Katie [Colwell], who was also the director of photography – we scouted this boxing gym that's in my neighborhood, called OutBox. It's owned by a friend of mine who's like a queer trans boxer, and a couple of my friends coached there, and they graciously like offered to let us film in their space on an off-day. There were actually two people just working out in the gym while we were filming there [which was] funny. Then I got my friend Olly [Elyte], who I know from [the] dance world to play my love interest in the video slash boxing coach. It was fun to roll around in a pink dress, and I did my own makeup. The special effects makeup was all my doing. I took one class in college, and I was like, "Okay, yeah, I'll need this forever." I love to give myself a little bloody nose, a little bruising. It's very fun. I love making music videos because it allows me to scratch my filmmaker itch, you know? I've made quite a few indie projects and short films that I either wrote and starred in, or produced and starred in, or just starred in. I just love being on camera.
I love the overlap of mediums. I feel like when you integrate multiple types of creativity into each other, they bring something out that maybe just one on its own wouldn't achieve.
I think that music is cinematic on its own – that's why I fell in love with Queen when I was a kid. Songs like "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston are just so powerful. There are [also] a couple of songs by her that were written for The Bodyguard, and I'm like, [it] makes sense that like all my favorite songs are ones that are from movies, like [Aerosmith’s] “I Don't Want to Miss a Thing” for Armageddon. There are times where I'm having a cinematic experience and the perfect song comes on in the movie, and I'm like, “Thank you to whoever the music supervisor was!”
What’s next for you creatively now that “Miss Congeniality” is out?
I think [I'm] probably going to release some more singles and see how that goes, and I have some film projects coming out soon, and [I’m] obviously going to keep on dancing and singing and performing as much as I can. I really want to do some live shows with the new music. I just posted an Instagram reel about looking for bandmates. So, if you're reading this and you're like, "Hey I'm a girl and I can play drums and/or bass and/or guitar and/or synth, and I live in New York," hit me up and we'll chat. It'd be cool to maybe have a sober band. I don't know. We'll see.
Speaking of sobriety, I really liked what you said earlier about that feeling you get where you're like, "Oh, am I a better artist when I’m drunk?" It's such a creative hurdle to overcome, and it's scary to create while sober after years of creating in active addiction.
I think alcohol and drugs block us from our real selves. I am my realest self when I'm just talking to somebody one on one without anything in my system, but the love and the spirit of the universe – and a little bit of nicotine and Red Bull [laughs].
