Bella Fiske, the 19-year-old with an undeniable pen
Meet Bella Fiske, SU’s indie singer-songwriter
The voice behind one of 2023’s wittiest TikTok hits talks about cold weather, the downsides of social media virality and the struggle to brand herself as an artist.
When it comes to female songwriters of the modern age, there is no shortage of sad young women who want the men in their lives to do better. SZA is begging to learn the love language of an emotionally opaque man; Sabrina Carpenter hypes up a new crush she knows is aggressively mediocre; Gracie Abrams watches a charming narcissist drive away in a Benz. But 19-year-old singer and guitarist Bella Fiske’s main problem with the man breaking up with her is that he seems warm.
“I think I associate the cold with deep feelings,” Fiske says of the once-cold Octobers of Syracuse, New York. “The weather being really sunny and happy outside doesn’t make a lot of sense for songwriting.”
Fiske chronicles the emotional torments of college romance in “Cyanide,” released in February 2024. It’s an acoustic rallying cry for anyone who gets their hopes up about new romance, a longing to have your crush look in your general direction. Fiske, a Massachusetts native, emulates the emotionally crushing lyricism of fellow former Boston resident Lizzy McAlpine: “You’re not looking my way, I know I’m not enough.”
“Girls are carrying the music industry right now,” Fiske said with a laugh. “And I think as an independent artist, that is almost at my disadvantage because I have to fight against the noise of all those people.”
Fiske’s debut project, Eliot Street, was one of 2023’s best-kept secrets since its release in July 2023. “Break” is a highlight of the project, gaining traction on TikTok for one hyper-specific line (“Your dog died and you didn’t tell me!”).
Lanham Scofield, who produced Eliot Street, also worked on “Cyanide.” After teaching himself the music production software Ableton during the pandemic, Scofield attended a summer program at the Berklee College of Music, where he met Fiske and started collaborating with her. The two immediately bonded over their love for playing guitar and songwriting.
“Bella really opened my eyes to a lot of singer-songwriter music,” Scofield said. “To live seven or eight hours apart was a lot, so we did pretty much her entire first project over Zoom.”
There is one other reason you might have heard of Fiske: she created a TikTok that went viral in September, a response video to a hate comment stating, “Fandom so small it could fit on a bus.” She eloquently responded, “I literally know all of my fans by name and still reply to every single DM.” When asked if she ever struggles to balance the artifice of social media with the authenticity of her music, Fiske’s response was similarly succinct.
“I’m a big advocate for social media promotion,” Fiske said. “But it’s definitely a mind game, and it’s definitely made me spiral a million times.”
Despite coming from a family of athletes, Fiske found her niche in musical theater and taught herself guitar at a young age. She began writing songs in middle school, modeling her lyrics after household favorites Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson. She defines her creative influences as “girls with guitars.”
As a junior in high school, Fiske decided to take her dream and make it a reality by releasing her own music on an inexpensive service called DistroKid. Not long after graduating, she dropped Eliot Street on streaming services.
While Fiske’s emotive, loud voice made her an outlier in the elementary school choir, she noticed a market for unique female vocals with the online success of artists like Dora Jar and Phoebe Bridgers. And despite the advice she has received from music professors, she is hesitant to strictly define her “brand” as an artist. Fiske says her music is based more on “nostalgia, deep feeling, almost surrealism” rather than a concrete aesthetic.
“When I write songs, I turn into a very anxious person,” Fiske said. “I think a lot about the past, or moments with people and try to capture the energy in the air.”
Fiske and Scofield connect over their struggle to find the balance between marketability and true art. Many artists who have found success on TikTok, such as folk singer Eliza McLamb, end up distancing themselves from social media in favor of pursuing commercial success the “traditional” way. But both artists have found success on social media, and plan on continuing to post.
“Everyone who I’ve worked with, Bella included, knows that this is what you’re supposed to do, and it’s what gives you the best chance of pursuing art,” Scofield said. “But in order to do that as effectively as you can, it’s a really intense grind.”
Fiske’s song “Of Light” also garnered attention on TikTok. With lines jam-packed with emotional observations (“I love you so dearly, it’s too much to handle”), the five-minute track is less indie-rock, and more lofi synth-pop.
Fiske’s roommate Juliana McDonald said Fiske inspired her to start making music. The two girls met on their first day at SU and immediately bonded over a shared adoration for sad-girl music (“I saw her Fiona Apple shirt, and now I have it too!”).
Fiske is still working on a release date for her Duets EP with Scofield (two singles, “Signs of Movement” and “Liquid Christmas” are available to stream). For now, she is halfway through completing a communication and rhetorical studies degree, and trying to live through enough interesting experiences to have material for her next record. She is studying in Los Angeles this semester (“L.A. is just where everything is”) and hopes the change of scenery will inspire her to write from perspectives other than her own.
Her long-term goal is to have enough listeners to go on tour, and with almost 10,000 on Spotify in the month of March alone, she is well on her way there.
“I would come home from school my sophomore year of high school and write a song every day because I just loved it, and that’s something I’m really trying to work on right now,” Fiske says. “The main thing you can do is make f—— music.”