Willa Mae’s Dreamy Southern Grunge Makes a Statement in New York City

New York, New York - December 3, 2025

Willa Mae took the stage of Manhattan’s Night Club 101 wearing a rhinestone-studded tiger shirt while wielding a baby blue electric guitar covered in stickers, and her attire perfectly captured her clear, sweet voice roughed up by her music’s grungy edge like scuffed Sunday shoes. The performance was the Tennessean indie artist’s second-ever show in NYC, and she was backed by guitarist Evan Hurst, drummer Connor Kelly, and bassist Oscar Dunn.

The first voice to grace Night Club 101’s stage (besides the opening acts Bug Crush and Poise) was the haunting voice of Marilyn Monroe singing her infamous rendition of “Happy Birthday” to JFK against the backdrop of cymbals. Given the performance of femininity is a recurring theme within Willa Mae’s music, the nod to the beloved and tragic bombshell was as fitting as the infamous Marilyn dress Kim Kardashian (allegedly) damaged.

Willa Mae’s discography includes her most recent single release “Heaven I Might Find” that dropped this past August accompanied by a music video, and she also gave the audience a sneak peak at some unreleased music, including the track with the working title “Marilyn Monroe Died For Our Sins,” which had a hint of a country twang in its bright guitar rhythms and used the tragic and beloved blonde bombshell star to explore objectification: “You’re the best that you can be / you’re like a girl in a woman’s body.” This thematic dissonance between body and autonomy carried into “Two Girls in a Trench Coat,” which Willa Mae explained was written from the experience of not feeling like an adult but like two girls in a trench coat pretending to be a woman.

Image from “Flirt with the Idea”

She also introduced a song written about “queerness and transness and how it matters”, the unreleased track “Yeah Right,” an ode to the disillusionment of growing up in the South and the desire to leave because of its restrictive ideologies while also feeling a responsibility to stay to make it a better place. When Willa Mae asked if anyone in the audience was from the South, half the hands in the room (including mine) went up, so it’s safe to say the crowd resonated with the song’s inspiration and conflicted lyrics: "We hate America, we hate rednecks, well we hate a lot of things / hey, weren’t you raised by some? Weren’t you well-fed and loved?”

On “Voodoo Doll,” Willa Mae’s voice pitches to be desperate and enraged at its own desire: “I'm glued to the TV / Why can’t that be me? / I've always wanted to be someone else's art.” During an instrumental interlude the sound effect of a buzzing fly keeps Willa Mae’s off-kilter, theatrical energy, and during a searing guitar solo she flung herself into the crowd and started a mosh pit—which was fairly easy, given the size of the intimate venue meant there really wasn’t a part of the crowd that wasn’t included in the thrashing.

The set broke into another interlude, this time a recording of Marilyn Monroe in which a male interviewer tells Marilyn he bets a lot of men are scared of her because she’s a “national possession,” to introduce the metal-influenced female rage anthem “Gisele” and its exploration of grotesque beauty standards. During the last song “Flirt With the Idea” Willa Mae dropped her guitar to hold only the mic and knelt with it between her hands as if in prayer while she delivers the lyrics “He calls me first and last at the barbeque / a little too polite.”

Although the venue was tight and the night was cold, Willa Mae heated things up with her explosive performance and created space to express exactly who she is as an artist—her influences and inspiration, her incisive and unflinching songwriting, her attention-arresting sound. Willa Mae has come into her own as an artist who can confidently express her perspective while also tapping into current conversations; add her grungy female rage anthems to your playlist now so you can brag you were listening to her before she gets the major attention she deserves.

Find Willa Mae’s upcoming shows here, keep an eye out for new song announcements on her website, and listen to her music below.