World Of Rivkah Reyes; Fan Favorite, On Her Own Terms

In this World Of conversation, Rivkah Reyes talks about the difference between love and winning, making uncomfortable things entertaining & what it means to finally be the one at the front of the band

Rivkah Reyes knows what it means to perform. Acting, filmmaking, comedy, bands and live shows have all given her different ways to sculpt a story, step into a room or become somebody else for a while. Fan Favorite, though, feels interested in a messier kind of performance: the kind people do when they really, really want to be liked.

The six-song debut EP moves through bubblegrunge, emo-pop and lesbian rock while circling desire, romantic humiliation, and bravado. Rivkah can be funny about all of it – often very funny – but the jokes don’t sand down the wanting underneath them. If anything, they make the contradiction sharper.

In this World Of conversation, Rivkah Reyes talks about the difference between love and winning, making uncomfortable things entertaining and what it means to finally be the one at the front of the band.

Matilia, World Of: You’ve been releasing music for years, but you’ve called Fan Favorite the truest introduction to who you are as an artist. What finally became clear enough about Rivkah Reyes the musician for these six songs to feel like an introduction rather than simply your next releases?

Rivkah Reyes: Honestly, I think I just found the right person to make music with. My co-producer, Blonder, and I speak the same language in the studio, which is mostly references, jokes and “wait, do that again.”

I would go into the studio with half an idea and leave with something that felt more like me than anything I’d made before. And in the early days of these songs being made, I’d show my close friends the demos, and they’d be like, “Holy fuck, THIS is you.”

World Of: You’ve described every song on Fan Favorite as a different flavor of wanting to be chosen. When you started seeing these songs together as a project, what did you realize about the different ways that desire has shown up in your life?

Rivkah: That there’s a difference between loving someone and wanting to win them. I’m not proud to report that distinction has historically been a little blurry for me.

World Of: There’s something interesting about calling the project Fan Favorite when the lesson underneath it seems to be that popularity and self-love are not interchangeable. Did the meaning of that title change for you as the project came together?

Rivkah: It’s a nod to Miss Congeniality, to my work as a child actor, and to my work as the girl everyone loves to fuck but never wants to marry. But I’ll always be their favorite.

World Of: “Miss Congeniality” deals with shapeshifting into the most likable version of yourself, while the title Fan Favorite plays with being liked without necessarily being chosen. When did you start recognizing the difference between being liked, being wanted and actually feeling loved?

Rivkah: I think being wanted is actually the easy part. Someone can want you and even tell you they love you and still treat you like shit. Love is an action. I think people forget that.

World Of: You’ve compared relationships to auditions before – trying to figure out what version of yourself will get the part. What signals to you now that you’re genuinely compromising with another person versus beginning to perform for their approval?

Rivkah: Compromise doesn’t make me feel embarrassed for having needs. Performing does.

World Of: Has being chosen professionally – for a role, a show, an opportunity or by an audience – ever scratched the same emotional itch as being chosen personally, or do those forms of validation live in completely different places for you?

Rivkah: Is it toxic if I say professional feels better sometimes?

Understandable. Professional validation, at least, comes with a cleaner answer: you got the role, the opportunity, the audience. Personal validation is murkier. Being chosen can still leave you negotiating how much of yourself you’re willing to trade for the privilege.

World Of: What does it look like for you to choose yourself without turning that into another performance of being independent or unaffected?

Rivkah: Letting myself want love without accepting whatever is offered to me just because I want it. I have no interest in pretending I’m above needing people but I also have standards.

Standards don’t necessarily make the wanting disappear. They just give it somewhere to stop. The juxtaposition between knowing exactly what you’re looking at while still being drawn toward it runs straight into “Menace.”

World Of: “Menace” is unusually aware of its own bad decision: you know exactly what you’re doing and do it anyway. What interests you creatively about the space between recognizing a pattern and actually being ready to stop repeating it?

Rivkah: That space is where the song lives.

World Of: When you write about a pattern while you’re still close enough to potentially repeat it, does the song function more as a warning, documentation or a way of trying to understand yourself?

Rivkah: It’s equal parts evidence and an insurance policy. It’s like, “See how that person or experience made you feel? Maybe don’t do that again.”

World Of: Your work often gives the least flattering version of yourself some of the best lines. Is there something freeing about refusing to make yourself the hero of every story you tell?

Rivkah: The truth will set you free, baby. I’m the villain in many people’s stories. It would be narcissistic of me to deny that.

World Of: Between musical comedy, Gianna, your stage banter and now these songs, you repeatedly make uncomfortable things entertaining. What interests you about giving an audience permission to have fun with something that may not have been particularly fun for you to experience?

Rivkah: Why shouldn’t we laugh? I’d rather be laughing at myself than wallowing in my misery over a 5’5” masc lesbian who repeatedly showed me they were incapable of loving me.

World Of: You work across acting, filmmaking, comedy and music, all of which give you different ways to turn experience into story. How do you know when something belongs in a Rivkah Reyes song rather than becoming a joke or some other form of performance?

Rivkah: If it comes out of my mouth in a room of my friends and they laugh, that’s a joke. If it comes out of my mouth in a room of my friends and they go “Riv, are you okay?” that’s a lyric.

It’s a pretty efficient sorting system. But even when Rivkah’s name is the one on the project, the work itself still happens around other people: producers, bandmates, friends and the communities that turn up when there’s something worth showing up for.

World Of: You’ve said you thrive in bands even though you’re excited to finally be the frontwoman. What parts of being part of an ensemble are you intentionally carrying into a project that has your name on the front?

Rivkah: I like making things with people who are better than me at stuff. I just also like being the boss now.

World Of: There’s an interesting contrast between songs about desperately wanting one person to choose you and the queer communities you’ve helped build or participate in outside of romantic relationships. Has community changed your understanding of what it means to feel chosen or wanted?

Rivkah: I was bullied pretty badly as a kid, and after coming out in my late twenties I very sensibly avoided the queer community because I was scared they wouldn’t like me. Eventually I got desperate enough to need people and I now have a really solid group of friends. We show up to each other’s shows, screenings, openings, birthdays, all of it. It’s all I wanted as a kid. My friends are my biggest fans and I am theirs.

“Fan favorite” means something different when the fans are also the people who know you offstage. There’s no audition in showing up for someone’s birthday, screening or show, and no prize for being the most desirable person in the room. That kind of mutuality sits in interesting contrast to the version of being chosen that runs through the EP.

World Of: If Fan Favorite is your formal introduction as an artist, what do you hope people understand about Rivkah Reyes after hearing it that none of your individual songs could communicate alone?

Rivkah: I hope they understand that the mess and the humor and the bravado are all sincere. I can make a joke out of almost anything, but I’m not kidding about wanting things deeply.

World Of: When you eventually move beyond the relationships and situations that inspired this project, what part of the artist you discovered while making it do you hope stays?

Rivkah: I’m happy to say I have moved on. I just hope that I can still write bangers now that I’m in a stable relationship and my antidepressants are working.

World Of: Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you wish people asked you about more often?

Rivkah: People always tell me I smell so good but no one ever asks me about what fragrances I like. Right now I’m obsessed with the Bratz x Boy Smells body mist.

Maybe that’s the right note to leave on. After an entire conversation about being interpreted, chosen, desired and occasionally very badly behaved, Rivkah would also like it on the record that she smells excellent.

Valid.

“Miss Congeniality,” “Debt Collector” and “Menace” are out now, with Rivkah Reyes’ six-song debut EP Fan Favorite arriving November 6.