Em Beihold Interview - Shapeshifter Album, Songwriting

Over the past five years, Em Beihold has been known as a young pop singer/songwriter who has her own unique, creative style. She writes songs that are full of imagination and ideas, with lyrics that can be quirky, amusing, entertaining and personal. And three years ago, she had a breakthrough hit when her song “Numb Little Bug” reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became a platinum success.

Now in 2026, Beihold is releasing her long-awaited debut album, called Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter (on Republic Records). This is an excellent collection of 11 songs that show her full creative range, both musically and lyrically. She is particularly inventive with her lyrics and song titles, and she comes up with such unusual titles as “Brutus,” “Hot Goblin,” “Soup,” “Van Gogh,” “Exorcism” and “Unicorn.”

Beihold starts the album with “Scared of the Dark,” which has a more personal, heartfelt lyric. It starts softly with an intimate lead vocal and strings, and then shifts to an uptempo, bouncy feeling later in the song. Another key song is the playful “Brutus,” where Beihold tells a modern version of the classic Brutus vs Caesar story. Notably, she has made a highly entertaining video of “Brutus,” which is fun to watch and has already been viewed over three million times on YouTube.

On her new album, there are many other highlights including “Hot Goblin,” “Soup,” “Shiny Little Things,” “Strong Medicine” and “Lottery.”

Beihold grew up in Los Angeles, and she learned to play piano and start writing songs at a young age. In 2017 she independently released her first EP, Infrared, and she received exposure when her song “Groundhog Day” went viral. Then in 2022, she released “Numb Little Bug,” which gradually became a breakout hit and stayed on the charts for a year.

Interestingly, following the success of “Numb Little Bug,” Beihold experienced some personal issues and stress, and she suffered through writer’s block. However, after taking some time off and getting therapy, she came back strongly to write & record the songs for her new album.

In addition to releasing her album, Beihold will be launching a major tour as a headliner. She’ll be traveling to Europe to play shows in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and then she’ll return to North America to play shows in the U.S. and Canada.

Here’s the video of Em Beihold’s song, “Brutus.”

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Em Beihold, She discusses the making of her album, Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter, and how she comes up with her creative writing ideas. She also tells how she wrote her hit, “Numb Little Bug.”

DK: Three years ago, you had a breakthrough hit with “Numb Little Bug.” Can you tell the story behind writing that song?

Beihold: Early on, I had a song called “Groundhog Day” which went viral on TikTok, and doors started to open up for me, for sessions and label talks and publishing talks. It was everything I wanted, but it was overwhelming in the way it was happening. My life was changing very quickly, but at the same time I started taking antidepressants. And the combination of all these things happening and taking antidepressants, made me feel literally nothing. And I thought…when you accomplish your dreams you expect your problems to be solved, but not necessarily. So I posted on TikTok that “I feel like a numb little bug” and people started commenting on it.

Then I was driving and the beginning of the chorus came to me, and I took a little voice memo while I was driving. From there, I came home and I wrote the first verse and chorus pretty quickly. Then I brought it into a session the next day and finished it with my co-writers & producers.

DK: You received a lot of exposure and success from “Numb Little Bug.” What did it feel like to get this exposure, and know that many more people were listening to and liking your music?

Beihold: It was incredible and an honor. But it was also scary because I didn’t know how to keep up the momentum. It was like…Oh my gosh, how do I keep this up because the music industry can be so unforgiving, and who they give attention to. So it was a combination of the good and the stress.

DK: In your new bio, you said you had writer’s block for a while after your success with “Numb Little Bug.” What was it like to have this writer’s block, and how did you start writing again?

Here’s the lyric video of Em Beihold’s song, “Hot Goblin.”

Beihold: After ”Numb Little Bug,” I was put in a lot of sessions with writers and producers who had huge credits, and it was exciting to have the music industry doors open like that. But the more people I worked with, the more I started to doubt my own gut and intuition because I’d come in with these song snippets, but then they would be sort of questioned and torn apart by collaborators. This could be fine and is part of the job, but you know, I wasn’t trying to be a radio pop princess. So I think it was difficult to stay true to myself. But the way that I found my voice again was to take a big break and step back from everything that was music, and allow myself to live a little bit, treat my depression, go to outpatient therapy, and learn to enjoy music again.

DK: I like the songs on your new album, and most of your lyrics are very creative and imaginative, with unique titles such as “Brutus,” “Unicorn,” “Soup” and “Van Gogh.” So how do you come up with the ideas and the titles for your songs?

Beihold: I’ll talk about “Soup” in particular. I was going through a falling out with a friend group, and I was talking to my mom about it because these were friends for many years. It was hard what was happening. And she was like, “You know these friends…they’re a little bit culty. They mesh into each other, like soup.”

When I think about what she said, I was like laughing instead of being in tears about the situation. That’s where that song came from. But if I can do what she did for me for other people, to get a more fun understanding of difficult things, than i’ve done my purpose.

DK: When you’re writing, do you like to come up with the title or lyric first and then put the music down, or is it the other way around?

Beihold: It’s usually lyrics first, with the song title last, except for “Hot Goblin.” That was the only title that came first. I just needed a song called hot goblin. It was in my notes on my phone and I thought, I need that to be associated with me somehow.

Here’s the audio of Em Beihold’s song, “Scared of the Dark.”

DK: Why did you feel a need to write a song called “Hot Goblin”?

Beihold: I just feel like it’s very me. I think it follows that sort of silly but potentially difficult feeling (laughs). It’s about womanhood and the spectrum of how you can feel on top of the world, but also be on the bottom very quickly. And how women are able to shapeshift and get different attention in society based on how they shapeshift.

DK: The title of your album is called Tales of a Failed Shapeshifter. What does this title mean, and how does shapeshifting fall into your creative world?

Beihold: I think after “Numb Little Bug,” I was trying to be the girl that fit the prompt of number one hot AC radio song. I was doing all those radio festivals and these performances where I’m slotted between like Tate McRae and 5SOS (Five Seconds of Summer), who are incredible but it’s a different trajectory and bigger than I was expecting of myself. I grew up listening to Regina Spector and Feist. And I was like, “Well, I have this opportunity, I need to fit.” But I was not being true to myself. And so I was doing all these shows where I was dancing around the stage and maybe trying to to come off more as like cool.

So I think once I stopped shapeshifting and owned the fact that I am an introverted grandma girl who does her crafts at home with her cat and hosts a book club, that’s when life got a lot more fun.

DK: I like the first song in your album, “Scared of the Dark,” which seems very personal and emotional. What inspired you to write that song?

Beihold: That song is about co-dependency with my former partner. I had written the chorus when I was 13 about literally being scared of the dark. But the hook had just stayed in my brain until now. I thought there was something to that song, so it changed meaning over time and was about how I stayed in the wrong relationship too long.

DK: I also like your song, “Brutus,” which tells a modern-day version of Caesar and Brutus. How did you come up with the idea for that song?

Here’s the video of Em Beihold’s hit, “Numb Little Bug.”

Beihold: There are a few girls that I’ve really struggled with comparison to, who I think the way their careers have gone so far have been closer to what I was hoping maybe mine would be. You know, it’s always the grass being greener. But I wanted to write a song about my feelings where I wasn’t putting them down because they have hadn’t done anything wrong. There’s no reason to reason to be angry at that. But also I haven’t done anything wrong, but I felt these inexplicable feelings of grrrr (playfully expressing frustration). And I think when I found the analogy to Brutus and Caesar minus that part with the knife, I was kind of jiggling about it for the first time, and that’s when it became clear to me, It was kind of a flow statement…it just came out of my brain.

DK: In addition to releasing your album, I read that you’ll be launching a new concert tour as a headliner, first playing several countries in Europe, and then playing shows in the U.S. Can you talk about your live show and tour?

Beihold: The tour is still being planned as we speak, but this show is going to be a lot more me, a lot more intentional than past shows. I’ve never been more excited to go on tour, and I think if someone hasn’t bought tickets yet, this is the one to see.

DK: Thank you Em for doing this interview. Is there anything that we haven’t talked about yet that you’d like to mention for this article?

Beihold: I do like to say that if anyone is struggling in their lives the way I was in 2024 when I was in outpatient therapy, that it’s temporary even if it doesn’t feel like it, and it will get better. And I feel that being an advocate for mental health is very important to me, and sometimes I hope that people who consider not sticking around, maybe hear something that I’ve said or sang about and consider staying longer because it does get better.