Featured photo courtesy of Atlantic Records.
On their debut album committed to a bit, pop artist corook meets a grieving widow in Palm Springs, messes up blueberry pancakes at a sleepover, and joyfully comes out as nonbinary all over again. Those moments are only the tip of the iceberg to an album dedicated, front to back, to telling the true story of corook — and of Corinne Savage, the singer-songwriter behind the moniker.
“I can’t tell anybody else’s story. Like, I literally couldn’t if I tried,” Savage tells INTO. “I’ve gotten that criticism even, of like, ‘You know, I lost myself in your song. I didn’t hear my story in it.’ And it’s just like — well, it’s not yours.”
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That philosophy is on full display throughout Savage’s debut album committed to a bit, which released at the end of February. Every song on the album is rooted in a deeply personal story — some serious, some romantic, and some straight-up silly — though always with corook’s signature sense of humor, razor sharp wit, and bubbly pop production.
Now, Savage is on a sprawling North American headline tour. When we speak at a hotel in Manhattan, they’ve just come off of opening night in Philadelphia and are gearing up for a show in Brooklyn.
“It’s been like two years since I did my last tour, and it’s a really hard thing to get your body to do again,” they admit. “It’s like, okay, you’re gonna stuff everything you own into a bag, into a van, with two people that you love very much but talk a lot, and do the scariest thing that you can possibly think of doing every single night, which is standing in front of people and baring your soul.”
And so, stepping on stage in Philadelphia was no easy task — but once the show began, they say, they remembered why the turmoil of touring is ultimately worth it. “It was just like, ‘Duh. This is why you do it: a room full of incredibly amazing, sensitive, queer and allied people that are just so open and wonderful and fun.’”
It’s fair to say that a corook concert is just as much an interactive party as it is a showcase for their music: From on stage, Savage relishes the chance to connect with their fans, something they lament is becoming harder and harder in the internet age. At their show in Brooklyn the next night, they volley with the crowd, encouraging the audience to sing along, embrace the silliness of kitschy sound effects, and let out guttural screams at the state of the world.
“You better laugh and you better cry, over and over and over again in a cycle until the show ends,” Savage insists of their concert crowds. “I think there’s really something to that that just breaks walls down. And it makes a really fun and tender and sweet environment.”
This is why you do it: a room full of incredibly amazing, sensitive, queer and allied people that are just so open and wonderful and fun.
– Corinne Savage
That combination of comedy and catharsis is at the heart of committed to a bit, which sees Savage tackle several personal journeys. There’s their relationship with their inner child (something they’ve also been focusing on in therapy), reckoned with on tracks like “crumbs” and “pepto bismol”; their relationship with the less-than-kind internet, broken down in songs like “joke’s on me” and — by way of its viral success and two-fold use as a trending sound on TikTok — the nonbinary anthem “THEY!”; and perhaps most saliently, the relationship between Corinne the person and corook the persona, encapsulated in the album’s title track.
In that song’s final line, they complete the phrase: “I’m committed to a bit that I don’t even get anymore.” That titular “bit” is their on-stage self: corook has become known for humorous, high-energy hits like “snakes!” and “if i were a fish,” but when they’re not performing, Savage says they’re entirely different.
“I’m this funny, joyful, playful, loud personality sometimes, and I don’t know why I do that,” they wonder aloud. “Like, I don’t have to do that all the time, because whenever I’m alone, I’m quiet.”
Indeed, Savage says their off-stage life consists largely of alone time and video gaming. (Baldur’s Gate III is their favorite, in which they’re currently playing as a half-elf wizard. They’ve never actually played its source material, Dungeons & Dragons, but they’re eager to take a seat at a table: “Open to it. Invite me. Call me,” they say.)
That difference between their on- and off-stage selves inspires a comparison Savage makes with two of today’s biggest artists: Chappell Roan and Beyoncé.
“[Beyoncé] gets on stage and she’s like, ‘That’s Sasha Fierce. That’s not me,’” Savage says. Corook, then, is their Sasha Fierce stand-in: “The album is just kind of unraveling that and where it comes from and why it’s there, and if it’s actually serving me or not. It’s been a really eye-opening and sensitive discovery.”
Roan, meanwhile, has helped Savage verbalize a sentiment they’ve long been struggling with. “I think Chappell has put words to it in a way that I haven’t heard anybody else put words to it, which is, she’s like, ‘This is my art project. Like, I’m putting on makeup,’ and then she’s performing,” they say. “I think that that’s such a great way to put it.”
“In terms of process, I’m boundary-less. I’m having a hard time with boundaries. I need more of them,” Savage continues. “I think she does such a good job of being like, ‘This is me. This is my project.’ And so I think that right now I’m exploring where I can separate the two and have more inner peace.”
Though committed to a bit is Savage’s creation through and through, one of its songs slipped out of their control: “THEY!”, an uplifting ode to nonbinary identity. Savage says they expected it to be “a B-side, really niche nonbinary bop,” something queer folks would love but would ultimately only speak to a small audience. But they also never expected it to come out under a Donald Trump administration and the conservative cultural wave that flooded in with it.
Savage first posted a snippet of “THEY!” to TikTok in November, shortly after the presidential election. They hadn’t anticipated elevating the song to a single, but Trump “getting into office and immediately taking rights away from trans people, literally, it just hit me the day that I posted it,” they recall.
“It was like, you just have to do it right now. Because fuck this! I can’t do anything right now in the White House. I’m not a politician — but I make songs, and this song could support people, and it makes me feel good about who I am.”
Their first video showcasing the song quickly spread across TikTok. You may have heard the trending audio of Savage performing the bridge — a pulsing chant of “THEY/THEM ENERGY! THEY/THEM ENERGY!” — which has been used for thousands of videos on the app, including by fellow queer pop star Troye Sivan, that have cumulatively amassed more than 20 million views and 4 million likes. (Savage didn’t even initially post the bridge themself; instead, a third-party video of them performing it at an outdoor concert caught the internet’s attention.)
But amid the nonbinary folks celebrating a new anthem and the internet comedians making innocent jokes about channeling “they/them energy” at the coffee shop or the thrift store, some TikTok creators used the song to spread queerphobic hate.
“It was really complicated because, depending on what you were looking at, half of the videos were this incredibly joyous queer moment, and half of it was making fun of us,” Savage says.
Suddenly, their voice and their song were being used to belittle queer folks, the exact opposite of their intentions for “THEY!”
“It’s really hard that you have no control on TikTok. I have no control over who uses my voice, my audio, my face. So being like a little toy in their hands felt incredibly difficult to process and hurtful, you know?” they reflect. “But it’s just the reality of being a person online and being somebody that has to give yourself away for free. In order to find my people, I also have to be in front of these other people.”
These days, they stay as far from social media as they can, ceding direct control of their accounts to team members and close friends. There are much better ways to connect with fans, they think, than suffering through apps like TikTok that increasingly seem designed to beat people like Savage down. Instead, as they explained in a post the day their album released, they invite fans to join them on Discord, sign up for their email list, and — of course — meet them in person on the road.
“I think the algorithm’s changed a lot since the election,” Savage says. “It’s harder for us to find each other reliably, and that’s why I’m so excited about the tour and was so hype [at the first concert], because I just want to see people. I just want to be in spaces with people. And it’s just so necessary right now, I think, for queer spaces to exist safely.”
I can’t do anything right now in the White House. I’m not a politician — but I make songs, and this song could support people, and it makes me feel good about who I am.
– Corinne Savage
By their side through it all is their girlfriend Olivia Barton, who co-wrote the duo’s viral hit “if i were a fish.” It’s only in the final moments of our conversation that I notice the mug they’ve been sipping tea from throughout the interview is collaged with pictures of Barton’s face — a gift from a fan, Savage explains, who also gave Barton a matching mug covered in pictures of Savage. “It feels like a flex,” they joke.
Though Barton was a collaborator on one of Savage’s biggest hits, her role on committed to a bit “was just the loving girlfriend and muse,” Savage says with a smile. “Which I love.”
Barton has her own music career separate from Savage’s, and the two appreciate their artistic independence. “We write together so rarely. When it happens, it’s super magical. But we can’t ruin that magic,” Savage explains. “It just has to happen really naturally, because when it does happen, it’s really like lightning in a bottle. But, yeah, it’s not something we want to wear out or create a professional job relationship between the two of us, because I think our relationship is so sacred that we just don’t want to fuck with the juju.”
In the wake of committed to a bit’s release, Savage hopes fans can walk away from the album with a deeper connection to themself, having taken a moment to reflect and see where Savage’s stories might speak to their own lives. Because before seeking fame, fortune, or musical notoriety, Savage is simply seeking to tell the truth. That goes for “THEY!” as much as any of their songs: yes, it was meant to inspire and uplift other nonbinary people. But before it was viral, or an anthem, or a small source of light in a very dark time, they say, “it was just true.”
“Y’all can say whatever you want, but I’m gonna still want a mustache and a mohawk and I’m gonna be nonbinary,” Savage says. “You can do whatever you want, but I’m gonna be nonbinary. I will continue to resist whatever you do and continue to exist.” ♦
committed to a bit is now streaming on all platforms.
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