The Real World of Joanna Sternberg

[Pitchfork]

Talking reality TV, imposter syndrome, and the pursuit of timelessness with the New York singer-songwriter, whose second LP I’ve Got Me arrives this week

The art of Joanna Sternberg invites you into an intimate and interconnected world. Through their casually profound lyrics, the whimsical self-portraits that adorn their visuals, and even their endearingly self-deprecating live banter, it’s easy to feel like you know the person behind it all—that you’ve commiserated about the people in your lives, flipped through each other’s photo albums, or gone long on your nostalgia for NeoPets or the therapeutic joys of Real Housewives.

As I sit across from Sternberg in the apartment where they grew up—eating pizza, looking through a manilla folder of hand-drawn stickers, making small talk with their dad—it’s easy to see how they settled on this approach to art and life. Their father moved into this artist-subsidized building in midtown Manhattan in 1977, and the walls are adorned with his paintings, along with a well-curated selection of books and vinyl records. The space feels cozy and lived-in, reflective of Sternberg’s wide-ranging tastes. (Sternberg, who moved in during the pandemic, is hoping to find their own spot in the building at some point after their tour wraps up.)

On the afternoon that I visit, it is an eerily quiet day as wildfire smoke obscures the city skyline. But inside the apartment, our conversation is bright and free-flowing, interrupted only by their father who slips in and out of the room, making the occasional supportive quip about Sternberg’s music. “That’s them playing drums,” he comments about one song. “I thought it was Charlie Watts!”

Sternberg has experience performing in classical ensembles and teaching a wide range of instruments—they studied jazz at the New School on full scholarship—but their music seeks a more pared-down, intuitive path. They strike a delicate balance between timeless forms of music—folk, gospel, the Great American Songbook—while guiding the songs with a conversational tone that’s made them a favorite among fellow musicians like Phoebe Bridgers and Mary Lou Lord. Sternberg’s 2019 debut, Then I Try Some More, was issued by Team Love, the label co-founded by Conor Oberst, who brought them on their first tour as a solo artist following its release. Suddenly they were delivering stark, autobiographical songs about addiction and depression for rapt audiences.

“That was exciting and a big, big change,” Sternberg tells me of the experience. “I have autism so I’m very used to routine. So if there’s all this new stuff being thrown at me—and it’s dream-come-true stuff—I’m afraid I’m gonna ruin it. Imposter syndrome started getting really bad at that point.”

When they returned to New York shortly before the pandemic, they went through a dark period that halted the recording of a follow-up. “It all accumulated into me crashing,” they say. “I just couldn’t get out of bed.” After a few aborted attempts to record the album, they signed to Fat Possum in 2022 and began making headway with producer Matt Sweeney, Chavez frontman and erstwhile Bonnie “Prince” Billy collaborator. The result is I’ve Got Me, Sternberg’s triumphant new record, whose songs span their whole career—even the first song they ever wrote, almost a decade ago, the barroom-piano ballad “She Dreams.”

Other I’ve Got Me highlights include the quietly self-determined title track—inspired by the Charles Bukowski poem “Oh Yes,” which Sternberg has tattooed on their arm—and “Stockholm Syndrome,” a crowd favorite that involves a toxic relationship, a cockroach, and one of the year’s best couplets: “Did you keep your room dirty so I’d feel like I had the flu? Did you expect me to clean it like your mom must’ve done for you?”

A deeply self-critical artist who can have a difficult time assessing their own work, Sternberg mostly left it to their trusted friends and family to settle on a tracklist. They were most surprised by their mother’s insistence on including a romantic tune called “I’ll Make You Mine.” “I just got scared it was cheesy,” they explain. “They’re all embarrassing, but some of them are tooembarrassing.”

Throughout our conversation, Sternberg continually refers to I’ve Got Me as their “dream record.” The studio setting allowed them to furnish the songs with as many instruments as they wanted, and the approach is most audible in full-band tracks like the fist-pumping single “People Are Toys to You” and “The Human Magnet Song,” a rollicking outlier inspired by a self-help book. Though Sternberg took on more roles than ever—arranger, multi-instrumentalist—they note that the album’s communal process changed their perspective on making art. They credit Sweeney with ushering them out of a period of burnout in ways that felt sustainable and empathetic, describing him as a mentor. (One method Sternberg recalls was an enforced selfie to a group chat each day of themself outside the apartment.)

In addition to Sweeney, Sternberg rhapsodizes about The Real Housewives of New York, a reality show they believe helped them through one of their darkest hours. Discussing the characters, they seem to spring forward with energy; they have thoughts on specific subreddits dedicated to certain housewives. Their assessment of the show comes both from a place of deep fandom and a more zoomed-out, anthropological view: “A lot of it is escapism, and some of it upsets me, like the greed. But it’s also just funny. They’re so themselves. It almost helps me study people and learn body language and communication—it’s almost like performance art, really.”

Nowadays, Sternberg is feeling a lot more motivated as they prepare for their first-ever West Coast tour. In addition to the “five to six” albums they have already written, they list an ambitious itinerary of potential projects, which range from writing songs for pop artists, penning a rock opera, and pitching a reality show: The Real Jazz Musicians of New York. “Everybody wants jazz at their party but nobody really wants to listen to it,” they say, laughing. “I think it would make people respect jazz musicians more, but there’s also a lot of characters and diva drama.”

Like a lot of Sternberg’s jokes, this one slowly unravels into more existential concerns. “Musicians get a weird reputation in the world,” they continue. “It’s ‘cool’ to be a musician, but then they aren’t treated well financially and they’re not humanized. Everyone’s like, Oh, you’re just having fun. But it’s their job—and music can save lives.”

When I ask how Sternberg’s own life has changed as they’ve carved out a little financial stability, the answer is complex but ultimately hopeful. “I got harder on myself and scared that I would ruin it—which did make me ruin it, for a period. Now I’m trying to find a way to be scared and still do my work.”

Pitchfork: One quality I associate with your music is its timelessness. They almost feel like standards, songs that anyone could sing at any point in time.

Joanna Sternberg: That is what I want to do. I want anyone to be able to connect with the songs, regardless of age or anything. That’s something I love about Elliott Smith’s music. It’s so easy to connect to just the feeling of it. Even the songs with specific references from his life or people he knew, it’s easy to be in his shoes and feel like it happened to you. That’s the main thing that I got from him: the feeling that I have to write songs right now. Growing up, I was too scared to do it, and couldn’t come up with anything to write about. But when I heard him, I was just like, Oh wow, I can do it like this. I was too inspired to be scared.What inspires you to write songs now? Is it always an emotional impulse or does it ever come from a more abstract place?

I’m always trying to convey a feeling. I love abstract music, too, and maybe my songs could be abstract if someone can’t relate to what it’s about. But all my songs do start with me saying, I wanna write about this right now. I can’t do it unless I have that thing.As you navigate the music industry, are there aspects you have struggled with?

I firmly believe that everyone is equal. Everyone’s the same. There’s not this hierarchy of how I treat people. And that’s not me saying I’m a great person—I just can’t not do that. But I noticed this weird thing happened once I got good at music: suddenly people started being nice to me who used to not notice I exist. Now that I’m getting stuff in my career, I’m seeing that happen again. And it’s upsetting because it will be someone who never would’ve cared about me, suddenly they’re being nice. The problem with that is I get so excited someone’s being nice to me that I forget why they’re being nice to me. I’ve been taken advantage of a lot. But I guess I’m learning. Once I got diagnosed with autism, it explained a lot. I have effective empathy but I don’t have cognitive empathy, which is what you need to manipulate people—the ability to tell how someone will feel if you do something.

Do you have any religious or spiritual practices?

I went to Hebrew school growing up, but I never really believed in God or anything. I just believe people should be kind to each other and I don’t think there should be a religious reason for that. I’ve tried to meditate but it’s hard for me because it’s hard to be that aware of my body because I have all these chronic discomforts. But I think what happens is when I’m drawing and listening to Real Housewives I’m accidentally meditating. I’m so in the moment, and time goes by so fast. It’s not consciously meditating, but that’s the effect it has.Do you find a therapeutic purpose to songwriting?

Definitely, it’s very healing for me. It has more of an effect when the emotion is sadder because I needed to write the song more. But there has to be a period of letting it digest—when I try to write about a hard time as it’s happening, it doesn’t come out right. It’s like I’m trying too hard. If I’m singing about something that was a hard time, and I was able to write a song about it, that is a great sign of hope. Because that means I’m getting over it.