It’s early November in Los Angeles, and PAPER has plans to meet up with singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs at a local karaoke bar. The unconventional interview backdrop makes sense. The now LA-based vocalist got her start singing in karaoke bars in Japan as a kid, long before her massive hit “River” took over the airwaves, becoming a commercial success and taking the top 10 spot on multiple Billboard charts.

But — much like our plans that day — after achieving industry fame, Briggs’ trajectory shifted. Her first full-length album release in five years, Tell My Therapist I’m Fine, details those staggering changes, from the birth of her son to the tragic death of her sister, who was also her manager and best friend. The raw journey doesn’t wade in despair, however, but takes on the whole breadth of human emotion, from the glittery, pop song “Good For Me,” where she questions her longing for stardom, to “Mona Lisa On A Mattress” where she details the lethal impact of a situationship. There’s also “Isolated Love,” a track that features Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and slowly builds and crashes, an encapsulation of the music she shared with her sister as well as the heartbreak of losing her.

After listening to the album and scoping out its themes, it didn’t come as a surprise that Briggs would want to spend our interview doing something a bit more “healing” than karaoke. We planned to get foot massages instead, but when we walked into the parlor for our chat and the kind lady at the front gave us an upsell, we nodded in agreement, noting that it felt like the perfect way to work out the album and maybe a few knots.

So, ahead of her tour kicking off in March and following her live rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” at this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, PAPER got couples massages with Briggs at a tiny LA strip mall and talked about healing, battling depression and the cathartic process of creating Tell My Therapist I’m Fine.

What headspace were you in going into the studio for Tell My Therapist I’m Fine? Heading back in after five years would must’ve been a daunting task.

The first song was written before lockdown, and it was called “Isolated Love.” That’s the one with Travis Barker, which is insane. I remember leaving that session because it was so much fun to sing in that way, with a different vocal style and totally different instrumentation. I was like, “I’m so excited. This is gonna be for another artist!” It was just unlike anything I’d ever done before. Right at that time, my sister had been diagnosed [with ovarian cancer], so I got to play it for her and see her reaction. Consciously or subconsciously, I was chasing that the rest of the time I was making the album. You know? Like, “How does this compare to the music she showed me?” That was really the beginning. But also, the joy and beauty of creating is that you don’t realize you’re making a body of work until it starts coming.

Was there an “aha” moment in the studio where you could feel that it was going to be a cohesive collection and a theme and not just one-off songs?

There’s a song on the album called “I’m Not A Machine.” I wrote that after watching the Barbie movie. I know it’s classified as a comedy but it felt very real and was more of a horror film in some ways for me. That was the main theme that I realized, “Okay, I want to have an album, have a body of work that really talks about girlhood and all that comes with it.” There can be a lightness to that, but there’s also so much heaviness. I feel like when I’m talking to women, we all carry these similar stories. Then it became this goal of making sure I write more about those themes. Like in the song, “Shut It Off,” where I was talking about the men in the music industry and trying to just talk to my 22-year-old self.

Speaking of “Shut It Off,” what was the experience you were sharing? What was it like for you as a young woman trying to navigate the music industry?

I realized what I was experiencing wasn’t okay and it wasn’t normal, and so I shifted everyone I was working with that wasn’t a feminist. When you’re in that situation, when you are constantly told that you have no power, and then you realize that you have the ability to fire people … it’s important. What I inevitably realized was, “You’re just promoting those people to young artists that potentially like your music.” It made a huge difference.

The process of making this album, did it feel cathartic? Did it feel challenging? What was the overall energy of pulling this together?

Cathartic is a good word to describe it. I was writing all these sad songs and I was like, “Where is my sister? These represent her and I don’t feel any closer to her.” I felt farther away. So then once I found this sort of itch that I needed to scratch, I felt like I got to connect with her again. That felt really healing and it was in the way that she existed in the world. She was a huge music lover. We were kind of raised as twins hence the closeness.

If you’re comfortable talking about her I’d love to know more about those formative experiences.

She set up my first YouTube account and was the first person to ever encourage me to pursue music. I would come to visit her in LA and we would drive through Mulholland Drive and she would play me Portugal The Man or Local Natives. She just was a connoisseur of all things music. When we were much younger, any sort of memory of those bands like Good Charlotte and Panic at the Disco were really encapsulated with all the posters on her walls and crazily, I’ve been managed by Good Charlotte’s same management company. And as you can imagine, we just freaked out. Something I’m noticing with artist friends of mine is that they’re doing things for your younger self. In a lot of ways you’re trying to heal those parts of your younger self that maybe have not yet healed, and there could be so much joy in that, which is why I love being a mom too, because I feel like I get to redo things in a different way than what my parents did.

How has becoming a mom transformed your life and what you’re creating? Also, how you navigate and exist in the world?

It’s the biggest gift. I didn’t really see a future for myself after my sister passed away. I had a lot of work to do on myself before entertaining the idea of having a baby. Not everything stuck. I did EDMR, equestrian therapy and art therapy, but the biggest thing that changed my life was self-care and [medication]. I wasn’t on a high dose but even just the placebo effect — I was choosing to live. We don’t get a choice in that ultimately, with health and everything, but I was actively trying to. Because I really had the dream of being a mom one day. I dreamt of that with my sister, that we would raise our kids together. It was hard to have that dream again, but that made the biggest shift.

I’ve since come off the antidepressant. But someone once described it to me as a leg injury. You’re wearing a cast, and you can practice the movement of what it would be like to build up that muscle and sometimes you have the ability to take the cast off but that’s not the same for everyone. It’s literally a deficiency in your brain at that time. That’s what depression is. That’s what anxiety is. It shows up on a brain scan. That’s why these things exist.

You’ve clearly made this album for yourself but also for your those close to you. For fans, though, what do you hope they hear when they listen to Tell My Therapist I’m Fine? What message do you want to leave them with?

For people to feel less alone by hearing the music. That’s what music has been for me. When I felt the most alone, I heard Adele singing about heartache and I’m like, “Oh, she’s going through this too. It’s not just me.” I think it’s really common when you are going through any sort of difficult time, whether big or small, it feels as though the world is collapsing in on you and you’re completely alone in it. So I think the biggest takeaway that I want people to have is to feel empowered to use their voice and to know that they’re not they’re not alone in it.

Photography: Nick Walker