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Gift-wrapping vulnerability in a package of joy, corook’s defiant album committed to a bit is a showstopper release. Bright and intellectual, the album offers a safe space for conversations of gender identity, queer love, and family tension, delivered with top notch pop sensibilities. We wanted to hear more about the dissonance between Corrine and corook so beautifully explored in committed to a bit, so we took to the artist themselves. Read on: 

Hello! Congrats on the album, committed to a bit out now everywhere! How are you feeling about it all? 

It’s wild. I'm honestly so wrapped up in tour, I totally forget that the album's out and then somebody says something like that and I'm like, oh yeah. 

It does happen all at once. I feel like the general public doesn't really get to see that a lot. How are tour rehearsals going? 

Oh my God, they're crazy. It's like one minute you're playing and then the next minute, something's routed weird and you can't hear anything and that's just totally what touring is. It's like everything working and then nothing working. And it just kind of goes back and forth. 

Right. 
What can we expect from this run of shows? Is there any fun stuff in the works?

Always, always fun stuff in the works for corook. Honestly, I'm just really bringing my whole self and I feel like this is such an important time to have a safe space for queer people and for nonbinary people and for trans people, and specifically, I think that that's what I'm trying to bring. Just a really safe and joyous place for us to exist together for one night. 

Yeah, you definitely exude joy. I think it's been really cool. I’m very much on queer TikTok and you're always on my FYP – it’s nice to see all of my mutuals always commenting on your videos. It really is a tight knit community and it's important for us to feel like there's a space to find each other. 

Yeah, totally. But I'm really excited. Specifically, I’m really excited because I get to see everybody I work with and have worked with on the album today, on the day that it comes out. That's just going to feel really intimate and special, and of course I'm so excited for everybody in the world to hear it, but ultimately it's something I got to make with people I love and that's what I like the most about it. 


That's beautiful. How long has the album been in the works? 

You know, some of the songs are really old. 
Some of the songs are fairly new, but the actual work of putting them together and producing them started in like March of this past year. So it's almost been like a year in the making. 

That's really cool. I'd love to hear about this album and why you decided to write it. It's called committed to a bit, so… what's the bit? 

Such a good question. Ever since I was a kid, I have been the entertainer. I'm the middle child –
I have two sisters and my place in the family was kind of like when shit's hitting the fan, I make everybody laugh, distract everybody, turn it into a good time. And it's funny, as I've grown up, I've just kind of continued that bit of like, okay, be the entertainer. That's how you're going to fit into these spaces. And now it's become my job, and I get paid for it. I'm now 30 years old, I turned 30 in January, and I have become such a different human being than I was as a toddler learning that, you know? There's a bit of questioning within me of like, why do I do that? Why do I have to entertain in order to fit in? Is that me? Or is that the entertainer? And so I think that this album kind of dives into the difference between the two, between Corinne and corook. 

I think that's just a really real thing that artists have to deal with, is that even if your artistry is rooted in you as a person, it still becomes some sort of a persona. And I love that that's both like you trying to discover the differences between your personal interpretation of who Corinne and corook are, but also bringing a vulnerability to the fans, which, ultimately, it just makes everyone feel closer. What track would you say you're most excited to release? 

Honestly, I think “Pepto Bismol” is my favorite track of the whole album, specifically the very end of the song, where it kind of changes genre and gets really raw. I just feel like in that song I was so honest and at the same time, it's so funny, it's such a funny song to listen to. Even during my tour rehearsals, I'll be singing it and I'm giggling at some of the lines that I decided to write. That just feels so truly Corinne also so truly corook. It’s this very cool intersection of the two. So I would say “Pepto Bismol”. 

That one, I feel like specifically, you really get into some heavier topics, like mental health, but you present it in a lighthearted package. It’s a really inviting and comforting way to bring some of these topics up. I'm curious what some of your sonic influences were while you were writing the album. Some other artists that inspired the sound!

I really like so many different kinds of music, which I think is what's so cool about this album and about being corook, is that I really don't like being in a box. So if I want to have a really poppy song that I think could be on the radio, like “blankets,” like it's going on the album. And if I want a section to sound like Pinegrove and be extremely alternative, I’m going to do that, you know? So like big inspirations were Pinegrove, honestly Tennyson is a really big influence of mine. I just love his use of percussion. Also artists like Still Woozy, who is just so creative with his ability to use synths and make it sound classic, but also his version of new, you know? 

I love that. I also saw that you went to Berklee College of Music, when were you there? 


I was there from 2014 to 2017. 

Okay, cool, I started there in 2019. I ask because I know you produce as well – what was your major?

I was a Contemporary Writing and Production major, and yeah, I co-produce the whole album with my friend Ehran Ebbage. 

Okay yes, I was curious how much of the production you had a hand in, and were there any close collaborators on the album? 


Yes, so I ended up flying to Eugene, Oregon, with my producer and just like, hung out in his studio in his house with his family for a bit. He has two kids and a wife, and it was a very wholesome time, you know, it felt like the perfect place to make a corook album.
It's like, we can go and have fun and play Zelda in the other room with Noah. And then, you know, we can come in and cry to the last song that we produced. 

I think that makes a lot of sense for the album, that you had someone emotionally close and comfortable to do the whole thing with rather than, you know, little one-offs. And it’s still cool to bring in various songwriters, but I can hear the cohesiveness of this sound, which is really something to be proud of. 

Totally. 

Well, since this album kind of deals with a sense of childhood versus your sense of adulthood – I'd love to know, if you could describe your childhood years in an album, what would it be? 


Oh my God. I mean, the first one that comes to mind is Love Angel Music Baby by Gwen Stefani. It was fucking blasting throughout my childhood – it was the first CD my mom ever got for me. Me and my older sister just absolutely loved that album. My mom confiscated it shortly after buying it. 

Still shaped you though, that's awesome. What about now? What sort of album describes you today? 

It's hard not to say committed to a bit. 

That would definitely do it. I'd also love to know, I mean, we talk to so many artists just about their musicianship and touring and everything about this career that is so hard on you as a person. You're really accessing that personhood in this album, so what do you do to stay grounded and in touch with yourself outside of music, and especially throughout the hardships of tour? 

Yes, that is such a good question. Which, by the way, I will always say I'm still figuring it out. 

Sure, aren't we all? 

Number one, though, I think is just having people around that you love and that love you. I'm really lucky to say that l I tour with two of my best friends, which is great. Also, getting to come home to Olivia – my girlfriend – and our dog. And playing video games has saved my life within the last year and a half. 

What have you been playing? 

I've been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 kind of non-stop. I play Sims, I play Skyrim. Tears of the Kingdom. 

What draws you to video games? Is it the otherworldly escape of it? Is it the routine? 

I love worlds and I love characters and stories and I feel like specifically Baldur’s Gate 3 has done all three of those super incredibly well. It's super immersive. uh and an inspiring um and yeah, it is like a little bit of an escape from whatever is going on, you know? And Sims is another one that I always go back to, it’s super comforting. There's something about telling a Sim to do something, and it does it, that like really drives me. 

Oh, that's such a meta, full circle moment. Amazing. Well, I have just a few final questions for you. I'd love to know if committed to a bit were a candle, what would it smell like? 

I don't know if it would smell good. 

That's fine, it doesn't have to. 

I'm realizing it would need something really warm and comforting, like cedar wood, but also something like pop rocks. You know what I mean? Some kind of candy scent as well. So I don't know if the combination smells good as a candle, but it sounds good. 


Yes, it has an auditory experience as well, like those little birthday candles that crackle a little when you light them. 

Yes, I love that. 

I'd also love to know, if you could direct listeners – what would be the first song they should listen to off of the album? Should it be listened to in order? 

I love the order personally. I'm such a top to bottom album listener personally, like vinyl listener. But if I had to pick, if they were like, “I'm only listening to one song, it better win me over.” I would probably say “blankets.” 
I think it just captures how much fun I have making music. It's just a sweet song, and I just always try to be myself in songs rather than being like a cool, acceptable version of myself, you know? And I feel like that song specifically is just so sweet in the way it stumbles around liking somebody. 

Yeah, it's organic. I love that. Okay, well, my very final question is, who are your OnesToWatch? So, who are some artists that you are listening to that we should also be hip on? 


Olivia Barton, of course. I also love Saya Gray. I just found that album and I'm like fully obsessed. 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat and I’m so stoked about this album, it really is amazing. Enjoy tour!

Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.