Girlpuppy Wants To Be The Hannah Montana Of Indie Pop

Becca Harvey, who performs under the moniker Girlpuppy, imbues her music with a kaleidoscope of pop culture references. On her recently released debut album, When I’m Alone, there are allusions to everything from the novel Daisy Jones and the Six, to The Twilight Saga: New Moon, to actor Sam Rockwell. But there’s one hidden meaning she’s not willing to expound on. “There's a lyric in ‘Swallow’ where I'm like, ‘We can watch all of your movies. I'll cry after each one,’” the 23-year-old tells Bustle. “It's about someone I've never met, an actor. But it's a secret [because] he could be attainable.”

While using her songs to shoot her shot is certainly a perk of the job, Harvey’s passion for music runs deeper than that. The indie rocker grew up on a steady diet of Taylor Swift and Hannah Montana, and has had pop star ambitions from a young age. “I wanted a wireless microphone. I wanted glittery outfits. I wanted to run down a catwalk,” she says semi-sarcastically. “There's a song called ‘East Northumberland High,’ on Hannah Montana that did shape things [for me], actually.”

Yet Harvey’s tracks, which were recorded and released from home at the height of the pandemic, sound much more like bedroom pop than Hannah Montana’s arena-rousing bubblegum anthems. In fact, her soft, ultra-feminine vocals and clever, cutting lyrics have led people to compare Girlpuppy to a different singer-songwriter: Phoebe Bridgers.

Though covid restrictions had lifted by the time Harvey went to make her debut album, she soldiered on with her bedroom pop approach to recording, renting a house for 20 days with her bandmates on the top of Clinch Mountain in Thorn Hill, Tennessee. “The Airbnb was so high up on a mountain, it was so far from everything. Grocery stores were 30 minutes or more away,” she says. “It felt like a fever dream towards the end of being there. We were probably just delirious.”

At the height of that delirium, Harvey found refuge in a familiar place: shows about high school. “Every Sunday we'd have Euphoria night. Making three men sit down and watch it was just too much fun.”

Get to know more about Harvey — as well as her other television obsessions — in her Bustle Booth questionnaire below.

In The Bustle Booth

What's your coffee order?

Iced vanilla latte with oat milk

What are the saved weather locations on your phone?

Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Nashville, and Toronto

What’s your sign?

Pisces

Favorite overused movie quote?

“It’s all happening” from Almost Famous

What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?

Rugrats

What’s one movie or TV show you're currently obsessed with?

Every October I rewatch the first and third season of American Horror Story... so, that!

Who is your celeb idol?

Taylor Swift

If you had to be on a reality TV show, what would it be?

Big Brother

Go-to karaoke song?

“I’m Gonna Getcha Good” by Shania Twain

What’s something that’s inspiring you lately?

The child I nanny

What is something you would want people to say about you?

That I’m hilarious and hot