\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\tIt didn\u2019t help that DiRusso, a New York native, was living in Nashville, where women who don\u2019t make country music are often siloed into one neat lane: plaintive singer-songwriter. DiRusso plays her electric guitar loud, sometimes brings a trampoline or walking pad on stage, sings about sex, and went viral on TikTok in 2021 for her song \u201cNine Months\u201d that contains the lyric \u201cyou ruined my life for nine fucking months.\u201d She was not exactly fitting into whatever mold was expected of her. \u201cI guess that\u2019s just not something the boys of East Nashville were ready to get behind,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \n\tShe tried to be serious here and there. Or, rather, she did what she thought she had to do to be taken seriously, until she had an epiphany on tour with her friend, the comedian Caleb Heron. They\u2019d have a dance party at the end of the night, bring on drag queens and make the whole thing into her own breed of rock & roll bacchanal. \u201cIt was just full of bits, and I thought, wait, it\u2019s such a gift to be able to create an evening of joy and fun for people,\u201d DiRusso says. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t even want those East Nashville boys at my shows. They just stand there.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tListening to DiRusso\u2019s debut album, Super Pedestrian<\/em>, which was released this past March, it\u2019s hard to imagine an artist that ever felt encumbered by expectations or resisted enjoying herself. Super Pedestrian<\/em> is loose and fun in an untight world \u2014 pop-rock banger after banger about the messiness of life in your early twenties, navigating situationships, and combatting post-pandemic ennui. With a deluxe edition out earlier this month, including an appearance from Samia on \u201cBack in Town,\u201d Super Pedestrian<\/em> does what DiRusso always wanted \u2014 punch you in the gut \u2014 but with a refreshing dose of self-awareness and humor while favoring scuzzy riffs over weepy acoustic strummers.<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\u201cI wanted every word to be a word I stand by for a long time,\u201d DiRusso says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to worry about the album being cool to anyone in East Nashville or Brooklyn or Silver Lake. I just wanted to make something I like.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDiRusso grew up in New York, writing songs in her childhood bedroom, listening to Taylor Swift and convincing her parents to take her to local folk competitions upstate. At 13, she was cold-emailing venues and publicists to try and get gigs (it didn\u2019t work, but A for effort). \u201cAll I wanted to do my entire life was tour,\u201d she says. She moved to Nashville for college at Belmont University, and never got her driver\u2019s license: Hence the title Super Pedestrian<\/em>, as in someone who is really, really good at walking around, all while making a double entendre that hints on the banality of youthful existence.<\/p>\n \n\tBored and antsy during Covid lockdown, DiRusso\u2019s bandmate urged her to join TikTok. DiRusso was on the fence (\u201cI was like, \u2018That\u2019s for children or something\u2019\u201d), but she posted anyway. Several clips went viral, including one that clipped her song \u201cComing Soon,\u201d which perfectly articulates that sort of early adulthood, post-college identity crisis when you\u2019re a little fish in a very big, very sleazy pond. \u201cI used to be smart and I used to be nice\/now I\u2019m neither of those but I\u2019m feeling alright,\u201d DiRusso sang straight to camera, shaking her head to swirl her bleached-blonde bangs.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tAnother viral hit, \u201cNine Months Later,\u201d tackled staying way too long in a relationship with a manipulative, abusive partner. DiRusso\u2019s writing toys heavily with convention, often repeating the same words multiple times in a song but using tone and intention to change the meaning (here, \u201cbeautiful\u201d manages to mean both \u201cpretty,\u201d and, somehow, \u201cfuck you\u201d), and always gives a hearty catharsis. Her mother was a domestic violence prosecutor, and she wanted to make sure that other victims knew that if it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone. And not one bit of it is their fault.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI felt really ashamed and ignorant that this could happen to me, especially since I was educated on it from a really young age,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s literally what my mom did for a profession. And the thing I learned, and why I wrote \u2018Nine Months,\u2019 is that you never think it\u2019s going to be you. But my mom said something to me that I will always remember, which is that if you\u2019re in a cave with a hungry bear, you are going to get eaten.\u201d Soon, DiRusso had a devoted, captivated audience built almost entirely online who saw her music as a joyous and off-kilter mirror to their own lives.<\/p>\n\n
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