Los Angeles-based artist Blondshell, born Sabrina Teitelbaum, emerged in the early 2020s with a sharply observational brand of indie rock.
Balancing diaristic lyrics and emotional maturity with a deadpan sense of humour, her music about love, self-doubt, grief, and power dynamics landed not as confessions for confession’s sake, but as carefully sharpened statements.
Her 2023 self-titled debut announced her arrival with bracing clarity, earning widespread acclaim for its raw immediacy and blunt honesty. But it was 2025’s If You Asked for a Picture that cemented Blondshell as an artist operating with a more expansive emotional and sonic palette.
Released in May, the album leaned further into cohesion, building a complete world rather than a collection of standout moments. Across it, she explores memory, identity, and intimacy with a steadier hand, trusting listeners to sit with discomfort rather than chasing instant catharsis.
Later last year, she extended the album’s universe with Another Picture, a deluxe companion released in November. Rather than a standard add-on, the project functioned as a genuine continuation featuring new songs written in the same creative window alongside reinterpretations by artists she admires, including Gigi Perez, Conor Oberst, and Melbourne’s own Folk Bitch Trio. The release underscored her growing confidence, not just as a songwriter, but as an artist willing to let others reframe her work and reveal new emotional angles.
Now back in Australia for the first time since 2024, Blondshell is touring the country in support of If You Asked for a Picture and its extended counterpart. Her tour kicks off tonight at Sydney’s Factory Theatre, before making its way to Brisbane and Melbourne. See here for last minute tickets.
We caught up with her ahead of her Sydney show to discuss life on the road, letting go of new music once it’s released, and finding steadiness amid a whirlwind year.
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Rolling Stone AU/NZ: You’ve been to Australia before, haven’t you? How are you feeling being back here?
Blondshell: Great. I don’t feel that jetlagged, which is a shock.
Considering you were on an overnight flight, that’s pretty impressive. How have you kept yourself busy the last few days?
I’ve just been walking around. I got like 20,000 steps yesterday. So I’m just walking around all day, I like it.
Last time you were here, you played Laneway Festival as well, does it feel different coming back this time around? It’s been, what, two years or so?
It feels a little different, but I don’t totally know yet because our tour hasn’t really started. I’m just adjusting. Laneway is so much more go, go, go, so it’s nice to have time. I’m going to be in Sydney for four days and then Brisbane is going to be quick.
What are you most excited for while you’re here, music related or otherwise?
Okay, my plan was to go to Bondi Beach and just do that really long walk. And I wanted to go swimming in the little enclosed little pools. I wanted to go swimming, but it’s kind of really cloudy today.
I know, the weather’s not really turned on for you, unfortunately. Hopefully it clears up!
I really hope so.
You’ve spent quite a bit of time on the road recently, since the album came out in May then the deluxe in November… Is there anything about Australia that feels different to other countries you’ve toured?
I mean, the climate is really different and it feels really nice to be in this weather. But it just feels kind of crazy that it’s the middle of winter for us [in the US] and it’s like this outside. It’s also crazy to be somewhere so far away and not know anybody and feel like I’m kind of entirely separated from my whole life.
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What’s that feeling like on stage? Being on the other side of the world and having a room full of people screaming your songs back at you?
I mean, it’s so cool. But shows don’t have anything to do with where they take place for me. It’s just like that night, the energy was really good in that room. I don’t know, it’s really unpredictable. I feel surprised anytime anyone goes to my show. Honestly, that’s not like I’m trying to be any type of way, I just literally feel surprised when people show up. That’s the case in LA where I live or in New York where I’m from. And so it’s definitely the case here. It’s kind of shocking.
Is there an initial feeling or emotion that comes to you when you walk out on stage to these crowds?
I think it depends. I don’t have one sort of uniform experience. It’s just, this day I feel this way or that day I feel that way. It has changed over time. I don’t have a ton of clarity on how it’s changed but with the first album, I was playing rooms that were 200 people or 500 people, and that was just so crazy that it was my own show because I had spent a lot of time opening for people and playing in front of people who didn’t know me or my songs. So that was the biggest change where it was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to work so hard to win people over, they’re here because they like the music.’ Now, the shows are bigger, but it’s kind of the same thing, just a bigger room.
Did you have a favourite opening tour?
I’ve opened for lots of different types of artists. In 2023, before my first record came out, I opened for Suki Waterhouse in the States and it was just an extremely positive experience. Everybody on the tour was really nice. The fans were all just really sweet girls who wanted to know new music. And it just felt easy.
Sometimes tour can be, it’s on an entire spectrum from easy to gruelling. And that tour was just smooth. Plus, it was kind of romantic to be touring in the winter. It was in January, and I never tour when it’s snowing. It was just nice.
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Learning from Suki Waterhouse must have been amazing too, right? Is there anything she taught you, anything you learnt from her that you’ve brought into your own shows?
Yeah, I love her. I’m sure I have, because I watched her show every night at the venue. I feel like she has a lot of joy in her shows. And I feel like she’s really present with the people that are there. She’s not withdrawn or anything. She’s really actually communicating with people who are there. And I feel like I probably took that through on that tour.
So you’re trying to be more present on stage?
Yeah, I think it’s easier. My instinct is probably to be a little bit withdrawn and to be a little bit in my own head. And I’m trying to be more in my body than in my head.
I want to talk about the deluxe album, Another Picture. Congratulations of its release, what’s it been like processing the reaction to it?
Well, I feel like when something comes out, I do a lot of work leading up to it. I mean, there’s just work you have to do to get people to hear it. And I do a lot of that in the months before it comes out. And then from the day it comes out, it’s kind of like, ‘Okay, now it’s somebody else’s.’ And I think a lot about the show and how to make the show better and more seamless and more comfortable not just for me, but for people going. So I try to just kind of move on after it comes out.
I think with the first record [2023’s Blondshell], I really felt people engaged with specific songs. It was like, they loved this part of “Salad” or the high part of “Kiss City.” It’s like really specific stuff like that moments. But with this album, I felt people engage with it more as a whole project.And that was surprising to me. But I was happy about that because I think with the first record, I was also really focused on songs, it was just these are the songs I had right there. And it was kind of track by track. Whereas this album was really meant to be a whole body of music.
Well people are saying the era of listening to an album in full is back. So it feels like perfect timing for that then, right?
Thank God. Like, there’s nothing worse than being an artist and having people not care about the album as a medium. So it’s just like, thank God.
And now what needs to come back is attention spans. Like the era of I’m making 18 second videos to get people interested is exhausting for artists and detrimental to fans. And we got to bring back attention spans.
I’m right with you there.
Artists are promoting their music on TikTok, for example, and they’re using the same hook of the song. Which by the way, is me, I do that. Like, you have to do it. But now I don’t know that I’ll keep doing that because it’s just painfully aura depleting. And I don’t know, when I was growing up and finding music that I loved… Well, first of all, I found a lot of MTV Unplugged videos, and those are long, you know, you’re watching someone’s entire set. But I fell in love with artists by watching live videos.
Like, okay, there’s this Rihanna video from SNL from probably 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more. I think it was “Stay,” some song like that. And what I fell in love with about that video when I watched it was the whole journey of the emotional experience you’re watching her have. You can’t have that if you’re watching a video that’s 10 seconds. You can only have that if you’re actually watching an entire song or an entire set or you’re listening to a whole album.
Why did you decide to keep the thread going from If You Asked for a Picture (2025) with the deluxe album?
It was so close to when the album came out. You often have a deadline with an album because stuff has to get pressed on vinyl. And you can say, like, ‘March 3rd, I’m going to turn my album in.’ But then you can write a song March 6th, and then although it’s literally within the same world as the album, it is three days too late and it missed the vinyl deadline. So there’s stuff like that that happens. I felt like instead of waiting for a next record, this stuff just fit in the same world. So, I wanted to have a project that’s kind of an extension of the second album.
What are you most proud of with this project? Is there anything you got to do, for example, that you hadn’t done before?
There’s a song on it, “Berlin TV Tower,” that feels really stream of consciousness to me. It doesn’t feel like I’m having to explain every little thing that I mean. Being able to sing a song that has a bunch of images and trusting that someone else can string it together, that felt like something new for me.
Was there a moment during the creation of it that you realised it was maybe becoming its own thing? Or has it always just felt like a continuation?
I knew when the album was coming out in May that I wanted to have something that felt like an extension, it just took a while to figure out. I mean, I guess it didn’t take that long because it came out six months later. But it took a minute to be like, ‘Okay, do I want to have other artists on this? Who do I want to have on this? What songs do I want to have them cover?’
But I knew from the time that we put the record out in May that I wanted to have that.
You have Folk Bitch Trio on there, among many others. How did that come about? Were you a fan of their music?
I found their record. I don’t remember who showed it to me, but I found their record when I was touring in June and I was listening to it so much. I’m just a big fan of their voices and their writing. So I felt like I needed to have them on the project.
Why was it important for you to have these other artists interpret your art?
I love when other artists do that. One of my favourite things from last year was Caroline Polachek doing the Charlie XCX song [“Everything is Romantic”]. I just wanted my indie rock version of that. It’s fun to work with people you know. Some of the people on the project are my friends. It’s just cool to hear people whose voices you really like sing your songs. And to get to work with them in that kind of capacity.
Did it feel vulnerable at all, letting go and handing the reins to someone else?
Yeah. I also think it’s kind of a weird thing to hear somebody else sing your song whose voice you know. Conor Oberst did “Event of a Fire”. When I was making that song and when I sing that song in the show, I don’t think of it as vulnerable. I don’t really think of it as putting myself out there in a kind of plain-spoken way. But when I heard him sing it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is really direct.’ I didn’t think of the song as so direct before. I thought of it more as kind of shrouded in metaphor, and then when I heard him sing it, I was like, ‘It is not. It’s just straight up what it is.’ So I think it can also kind of have the possibility of changing your perspective on your songs.
That’s so interesting, that must have been a crazy thing to comprehend, right? The way that you reacted to him singing it, knowing that’s how your fans react to you singing it.
Well, that was the thing that was crazy. It was like, ‘Oh, when other people listen to my version of this song, do they hear it as just these really direct lyrics? I think probably yes.’ I just didn’t think of it that way.
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When you look at yourself now compared to before May, before the album came out, before you went on this extensive tour cycle, is there anything that you noticed within yourself that’s changed?
I think it’s hard to tell when you’re in it, and I’m still in it. The reason I’m in Australia right now is because I’m touring this album. But I think if you asked me that question in five years, I would probably be able to be like, ‘Oh yeah, between the first and the second album, these are the three things that changed about me.’
I know I feel more settled. I feel less unsure of everything because I’ve just toured more now and spent more time in the studio. With the first record, everything is so new. But I’ve done more now, so I just feel more sure of myself.
If there’s one thing you want people to take away from the album, or from your shows on this tour, what is it?
So, I’m obviously from the States, and things are really, really tough. And I think live music is meant to be a space where people feel really safe. And safe in a variety of ways, obviously physically safe, but also just safe to show any sort of emotion they’re having, and be the person they are and experience kindness from each other. So I think my main thing that I would like people to experience from any tour, or any show that I do, is just that feeling of safety, and comfort with other people that are there.
Back in November, you posted to social media that “this year has been something I’ll try to explain forever.” Acknowledging that you’re still in the midst of touring, do you feel like you can try and explain it now? Have you been able to come to terms with how insane this past year has been for you?
Yeah, I think the best way I can explain it is that everything just felt really heightened. If I have the spectrum of emotions, and just the way stuff feels, it was at 10 all the time. I think what I meant by that was time feels weird when you’re touring a lot. First of all, if you’re playing a show for 75 minutes, it doesn’t feel like 75 minutes. If you’re touring for a month, it doesn’t feel like a month. It can feel like six months, or it can feel like two days. And trying to just make sense of that stuff will probably take a really long time.
For complete tour and ticket information, see here.
BLONDSHELL AUSTRALIA 2026
Wednesday, February 4th
Factory Theatre, Sydney NSW
Thursday, February 5th
Crowbar, Brisbane QLD
Saturday, February 7th
Max Watts, Melbourne VIC
