Your debut album had such an impact on early 2000s culture. We try to work together as much as possible. The song on the Riverdale soundtrack on season one, episode seven, he co-produced that with me. We've done a couple of other things together. We had a song called “Animal” on his album Radioactive. Have you guys continued to make music together? I was out with Jim with a couple of other writers out in Nashville for about two-and-a-half weeks, and we were working on Austin's album. I just started working on Austin Mahone's album. Have you written for other artists throughout the past decade? There's been music I had after Joy: We released a couple of other singles called “Legacy” and “In Better Hands.” There's been music in between management trying to figure out my right team. I've had a family life, I've been just growing up. So we're working on that at the moment, but I've written a lot throughout the years.
I'm actually writing an album right now with Jim Jonsin.
#ITUNES STUTTERING FEFE DOBSON TV#
And then I did some TV with The Listener.
#ITUNES STUTTERING FEFE DOBSON MOVIE#
I did a Christmas movie actually called Christmas in Compton. What have you been up to the past decade? But I'm definitely going to bug her until we sit at a piano through Zoom.
I told Rachel the director, I said, "In the last hour and a half, I have cried, laughed." I'm like, "I feel all these emotions, it's amazing." There's so much heart in that movie. But her melody and her lyrics are so "rock girls are great." And I really have a connection with girls coming together and women coming together, and the movie is about that: two girls and their friendship and embarking on this journey. Linda Perry is a legend and working with her was just a dream come true. What appealed to you about the song in particular? So I was like, "Man, can I write with you now too for my album?" And then I heard the song, and I was like, "I'm in." I was already in before this offer. She was like, "Do you want to do this song?" It was just really crazy timing because I'm actually in the middle of making my album. And so I went out and called her and she was so chill. She's such a legend, but my gut told me to call her instantly. Yes, it's Fefe." It was such an honor, and she instantly gave me her number and was like, "Give me a call, I need to talk to you." So again, I'm like, "Is this really her?" At first, I was like, "Maybe I'll just wait a few hours," to try to get the balls to call Linda Perry. And so I responded, I was like, "Oh my God. Am I being punked?" Because I had never met her previous to this. I was like, "Ah, I don't want to be punked. and it's just “Searching for Fefe Dobson.” That was the subject line. I was on vacation four months ago and me and the family just went in a little cabin out in North Carolina, baking cookies and going on the lake. It was a fun surprise to hear from Linda. It was a welcomed surprise to hear your new song “White Line Runaways” at the end of Unpregnant. With the release of her new song, NYLON caught up with Dobson about what it was like working with Perry, her next album, and the challenges she faced being a Black girl making rock music in the early aughts. “Linda Perry is a legend and working with her was just a dream come true,” she said. Most recently, she was asked by Linda Perry to sing “ White Line Runaways,” the track that ends the Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira-led dramedy Unpregnantand is featured on its soundtrack. Now, at 35, Dobson resides in Nashville where she’s largely been working on her own music the past few years. Aside from a handful of acting roles the past few years, things went quiet.īut that’s changed. Throughout the next decade, she’d go through a rollercoaster with her label Island/Def Jam and release two other albums. With rebellious, uptempo singles like “ Everything” and “ Take Me Away,” her self-titled 2003 debut focused on the rush of teen love.
“I've had a lot of young and older Black kids, Black women and Black men tell me how much I've impacted them,” she tells NYLON. In a genre that was largely dominated by white women, Dobson inspired Black alternative kids who saw themselves in her. But Dobson’s songs-fierce pop jaunts with gritty guitar riffs-made a splash with moody emo kids. At the time, she weathered comparisons to fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne, and rode the pop-punk wave alongside Paramore. Back when eyebrow rings, Chuck Taylors and raccoon eyeliner were all the rage in the early aughts, Fefe Dobson emerged as a singular pop-punk force.