PLUSH (+h) COMES FROM A HEAVENLY PLACE AND GOD, REALLY, FUCKS WITH HER. DUH.

Photo by Cash O’Brien

Six months ago I met the musician known as Plush (+) at Sincerely Tommy in Bedstuy, our old part-time day job. When Plush (+) first told me they made music, I asked them to send me something so I could listen. She said just search “Plush (+h).” I was visibly confused, and she very gently, with a light stoicism, said, “Just search it, if it’s meant for you, you’ll find it.” The music found me, and I fell in love with the lush guitars, the ethereal vocals, and the shattering grunge of a lost voice searching for God. I asked to sit down with Plush (+) and talk about their process and the beginnings of their search for heaven. After close at Sincerely Tommy, we sat down to talk about her influences, grief, and how she would approach herself at a bar. It was summer, her head was dyed bright pink, and she had just released her debut album, HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER. Following the release of “I WON’T SHOOT YOUR WINGS” and “WHITE DRESS,” her new single, “SWORD,” will be available on Valentine’s Day, 2025.

WILLIAM: I want to ask you first, what is one piece of advice that you would give to POC creatives worldwide?

PLUSH (+h): I think when you're starting, outside opinions are very obsolete because you want to be as close to your authentic self as possible when you start creating. So I would just say, don't let other people's work influence your work. I think you should just genuinely go based on what you think feels good. That's my advice for worldwide creatives, for sure. Yeah. 

When you first started creating, who were the influences that you had to block out that were heavily influencing your art?

I think anyone that was, like, Jai Paul or Paul Institute affiliated had a sound that I wanted. They were so influential to the way that I wanted to sound, even vocally. The way that they, like, manipulate their voice to sound, like they have a little chorus or fling attached to it. I always found that so cool. I think when I listened to Loveless by my bloody valentine, I was so ready to go into that like washed-out, shoegaze-y thing. Ecco2k, like, I don't know. I just feel like I was trying to pull from so many areas that I find so inspiring that I wanted to pay homage, but the best way I could do that was allowing those influences to inform my work as opposed to doing a whole copy-paste thing. But that was hard not to do because it was just like, I was listening to so much music, and I just felt so compelled to make the thing that's closest to the music that I liked to listen to.

I was like, okay, wait, actually what do I want to sound like? I think once I found a way to find my voice, like through electronic digital audio software and auto-tune, it helped me a lot because I used to sing when I was younger, and then I kind of lost my voice for a little bit. I feel like more recently, I've kind of come closer to that idealized version of myself.

Your most recent project is Here Comes a New Challenger. Tell me about the creation of it. Where did it start, or when did it start?

I think it started around 2018. I got COVID during Christmas, and I was just kind of locked in my room. And then I started creating songs on GarageBand. I would use this app called Launchpad, and I also had my electric guitar. So I was just kind of making do with what I had at the time. That's really when it started, but when it really kicked off was when I ended up back in Syracuse, around the fall of 2022. I spent the whole year in my hometown in my mother's home, and it was a very humbling experience. So as an outlet, after feeling like I was really self-deprecating, like I failed at life—I think it was like a span of like two to three years of just making [music] and then this year I was like, I’m gonna master it and figure out how to really bring it all together. I just got the itch to be like, okay, fuck it. I think it's done. I know it's done. Here are the songs I want the world to have. It took a long time to feel confident enough to take a chance on this debut project because I was just so scared of people who were making way better music than I was. I guess this project is my antithesis to that.

Where did you grow up?

Syracuse, New York, Syracuse. It’s very rich in nature, but also an amalgamation of rural, Trump-y, but also like deeply inner city urban, neglected, like very scrappy. You can tell when you're meeting somebody from Syracuse because it's just like they kind of have a very unique disposition: loud, outspoken, very to the point. Growing up there, I had a very colorful childhood. I enjoyed where I lived because it was so central to everything. It was right across the street from my elementary school. My middle school was up the hill, and then my high school was down the street from my middle school.

I was kind of on a grid, and life was very easy. I was also raised in the church, and Syracuse doesn't play about Christianity. It's a very, um, conservative area for being a part of New York state. There isn't like a popping queer scene. We have one gay club, and the other one burned down, so it’s really hard to find a community. I think music helped me to, like, get through all of that.

Explain your name for the audience.

Plush. It's Plush. But it's like “Plushhhhhhh.” So the (+h) is a double entendre because it also means “plus heaven.” I think I make music from a very divine and ethereal, angelic and heavenly space. I feel like I'm in heaven once things click.

The word “Plush” is a soft thing; when you hear it, it has texture. It’s an energy. I think about the colors pink or blue, very soft things, but it takes a lot of rigidness and a lot of adversity to become plush, to become soft. Those elements are also in my music. I have very bubbly moments, but then I also have very hard, very dark, very wounded puppy energy in my music too. 

It's grungy, very grungy sometimes. I’m glad you mentioned pink because I wanted to ask you about your pink hair.

*Laughs* Yes. 

I've listened to the album so many times, the first time you sent it to me.

That's so sweet.

We'll also talk about religion because there are a lot of themes concerning God in your music. But talk about heaven, for me, in relation to your sound.

Hmm. Well, I think just being raised in the church, there was always this thing that people were reaching towards, and I think music helped. It was so much more digestible when you're hearing things that sound beautiful, and people are singing in unison, and guitars are like washed out, and there's hella reverb. Heaven, to me, was a place that was absent of pain and suffering.

I think that I wanted to create an audible, sonic signifier of that. I still believe in God in some capacity. I think I removed myself from the lens of Christianity. I have my own understanding of my relationship with God. I don't know if heaven's real, but if it is, I would like to think that the things that we experience as people on this earth are slices of heaven if we allow ourselves to see the green and how beautiful things can be.

I also know that religious dogma really kind of destroyed my idea to connect to that higher Thing for a while. So I feel like this music is my way back to that. ‘Cause I feel when you think about holiness or heaven, you think about being clean and being pure. I don't think rigidness or control are pure things. I think those things come from very perverse places. Heaven for me is a state of mind; it's a feeling, it's an experience, and I think those are all things that I am very enamored by. 

I have a tramp stamp on my lower back that says “Heaven,” and it's a butterfly.

The butterfly's for my mother, she has one on her shoulder. And heaven is also like a double entendre; we don't have to talk about it too much. But it's like, duh, I come from a heavenly place. I mean, I, I fully believe that. I think we all do. I think thematically, it makes sense that I want to make pretty music.

With a little bit of grunge.

Yeah, I mean grunge is beautiful. For example, Majesty Crush is one of my favorite bands of all time, and they have such lush guitars, but it's almost like everything is crashing, and then you have the lead singer's voice that it’s so airy and beautiful. Like [the song] “Number One Fan,” is about being an obsessed stalker. He says, I love you so much, I’m going to kill the president for you.

*Laughs*

Like, that's nuts. To have that kind of theme in your music, but have it sound so beautiful, that is so gorgeous. For me, I am a very light and sunny person, but there is a darkness attached to me, and I lean into that as a means to release that strong grip that [the darkness] had on me. Here Comes A New Challenger was a catharsis in that way because I wanted to challenge myself, and I also wanted to challenge the landscape of music even if it doesn't splash as big as I would anticipate it to. I feel like where I am at is a great starting point. 

So at the end of the album, my favorite song on the album, there's a lyric that says, “If Jesus was here, I would ask what the hell is going on now. Tell me how we can fix it. What’s with all the imperialism and all the death and mourning?” Talk to me about that, and then answer, “What is the problem with evil?” 

I think that song, as short as it is, is the most impactful track. I think it's a reflection of the times. I think that me as a person that was raised in the church I was told to believe that, you know, God is this omnipotent, all-powerful being, and Jesus is the extension of that, and as a person that has like fantasized about having a conversation with this mysterious Being—I kind of wanted to utilize [the song] as a prayer. A prayer that is dipped in cynicism. 

I think that if I'm being honest, I still struggle with my relationship with God, with Jesus, with that iconography, with all those things, but I think something that Christianity taught me was not to ask questions or to suppress your questions and just have faith. But I think that we should be doing the opposite of that. I think if we are an extension of God, and the world is so confusing, we should be able to get to the bottom of it, but I don't think we ever will.

I think that's why at the end of the song, it says, “You’ve gotta pray first.” That’s something Christians tell us to do if we have an issue with something; just pray about it. I haven't met Jesus, but I've experienced semblances of that. Growing up in religion, I've had spiritual and cathartic experiences, but I haven't seen the person Jesus. I think people in Christianity try to personify that, and the best solution that people have for me is to pray. But, what am I having dialogue with? 

What’s the problem of evil?

The problem is we didn't have to experience it. I don't think evil should inherently have a place in a world that everybody wants to feel safe in. And I think evil just has been so normalized because it's so a part of our infrastructure as Americans and just as people in the world.  We have all been fed a scarcity mindset, and I think that’s where evil kicks in. It’s poisoning all of us.

I think our consistent exposure to the internet is making us more cynical, less trusting, and very anxious. It's destroying our ability to see a greater good that can exist. 

What is your God?

I think God is my God. There's something bigger than me. I think people. I think love. I think community. Music. Those are all things that I consider God's gifts to me. I think that being trans is an aspect of godliness, and these experiences that I've been gifted, like, I just think Life is God. I think that what we're seeing is too complex not to be magic.

Maybe that's too “woo woo,” but I genuinely believe that this is one of the most magical things we have been gifted with. I thank God for all of it; I do. My mother, she wouldn't want me to call her God, she’d want to be seen as a person, but my parents gifted me this. 

I found that through my own understanding, and searching, and having experiences with people that could only be from this divine thing, that God really fucks with me, and loves me, like, wholeheartedly. I’m very taken care of. My responsibility is to mirror that back into other people. I just want to be as grateful and as gracious as possible, in the ways that I can be. But also, like, don't try me. 

Who or what are the two biggest inspirations for you right now?

Oh my god. Mk.Gee is a huge inspiration. I also am so obsessed with this R&B artist Isaiah Huram. He just made this album called I Will Write The Lyrics Later. It's an incomplete album of drafts, and it's some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. It’s very incomplete, but you can hear the vision, and sometimes something that is unfinished kind of sounds perfect because it's in its walking stages, baby stages. 

I’ll throw in a third thing: I think my friends and my life have been inspiring and informing my work. I'm like building this world and I’m being poured into in a way that helps me to fully realize like, “Oh shit, this thing could actually work,” and I think it will.

So during my prep for this interview, I saw a video of you performing, and you were just spinning on stage and singing, and your limbs were at your side, and you just looked so free.

Yeahhh.

How do you protect your energy on stage when you're performing in front of a crowd?

Not talking to people before a show or a shot. [Laughs]. I think during my first real performance, I did not make eye contact with anybody. I had an ache from that. So the second time around, I just created a space for myself to be prepared and grounded so that even if things go wrong, I can still look like that was part of the show. Not allowing my inner saboteur to take the driver's seat and asking, “What do I want people to feel?” “How do I feel?” Those are like the two questions I always ask myself before I perform. I allow myself to let go in a way [on stage] that I don't allow myself to in my actual life. I'm still very much a human.

I feel like the more I pour out, the more I get, but those darker places, anger, and frustration that I sometimes implement into my shows are the things that are sometimes harder to tap into. But recently, it's been easier just because, like, the world has been going to shit. So, yeah, centering myself before a show is how I protect my energy. 

What's your sign?

I'm a Libra. Go figure.

*Laugh* I’m an Aquarius. 

Yeah, I'm a Libra big time.

So, we talked about your music and your sound and how there is a lot of love, and it's soft and heavenly, with so much light, but not without shadow.

Yeah.

Who or what has been your biggest heartbreak in your life so far?

Oh god. I think my cousin's overdosing is probably one of the biggest heartbreaks I've ever experienced. He was so young, and he loved music so much, and I never really got a chance to like, expose that part of myself to him, or show him like, “Hey, I'm doing this too now. Isn't that so fucking cool?” He was very much into metal, and he would always practice his scream. 

I was supposed to perform at Elsewhere Zone One, and I was supposed to travel for it because I still lived upstate, and then I found out my cousin died, and everything fell apart.

And I had an ex that I was really in love with. We dated for two years, and that shit went south so badly, it just kind of made me tuck into myself in a way that I've never really experienced before. I think both of those were heartbreaking.

I felt so far away from the things that made me feel safe, but I needed those experiences to sharpen myself, and I feel like those things show up in the music in some ways. I think that shadow can only come if you allow it to, and you have to recognize that it's not a bad thing; it’s just part of life. You have to surrender to those aspects of yourself, or the shadow will get bigger, and you will become a version of yourself that you don't recognize. I don't want to become a person who doesn't recognize themselves. I had to go through hell to get to that heavenly place. I just felt like the universe was so indifferent to me, and I felt so bitter and so angry all the time, and I had no outlet.

Yeah

I had no way to get through any of it, but I had to realize that I have people who do love me. These aren’t targeted circumstances; life does hit the fan, and you just have to go through it. I think that's what was so heartbreaking: my cousin didn't have a chance to go through it, um— that is something that turns in my head a lot.

I think I'm still navigating the grief of that, and I don't think it'll be something I ever get over. I mean, there's no way to, right? Like when you lose something so precious, and you can't change the outcome. That's fucked. That's so fucked.

Fucked.

I've gotten better about allowing myself to grieve; you know, I have so much love around me. There's this Neutral Milk Hotel song called, “In The Aeroplane Over the Sea,” and there’s a video of him [my cousin] playing that and sometimes when I'm working or out anywhere, that song will play and I'm like, “Oh, that's like, definitely, my cousin.” Like he's around me, and I feel it's a signal of him saying like, “Keep going,” “You're getting closer to the things that you want,” and like, “I'm here with you.” That has been super affirming. 

On his funeral card, there was a quote that said, “When all else fails, music speaks.” I wasn't making music at that time, and so I just like allowed myself to rise to that occasion, and then Plush (+h) started to take a form of its own, and it's genuinely my armor, my protection, the way that I process everything. I just needed to find a way to say what I needed to say and quickly, because I was going to lose my shit if I didn’t. 

Tragedy was the catalyst for all of that. I know it won't ever bring him back. We don't know how close people are to their demise, and nobody deserves to be alone in that, so every time I make music, I'm like, “This is for my cousin Jordan.” He was a great kid, and I'm very happy to be able to honor him by honoring my process.

Thank you for opening up about that.

Yeah, of course, it’s something I keep very close to myself. It’s been over a year, and it’s still something I will have to continue to reckon with. I still well up when I talk about it. I hope that I can just continue to keep the memory of him alive because he was very interesting and strange and unapologetically himself. He did his own thing and was kind of an outlier, and I resonated with that. He put me onto Marilyn Manson when he was eight, and I was thirteen, and I was like, “Oh this kid's fucking crazy,” but he was just so happy, he knew what made him happy and he never strayed away from that. So I want to continue to do that for myself. These are things that we are at the mercy of, honestly. I have to open up. That's a part of growing; that’s a part of the journey. 

You have a song on the album called “PLUSH (+h) VS. THE INTERNET.” What is your relationship to the internet, and how can we create more space for POC creatives in internet spaces/worldwide?

My relationship with the internet is chronic. I think I would like to take more space from it. I want to be present, and I would like to harbor my time to create and then display my creations, but I also think in regards to making spaces on the internet for black people—I think that already exists. We just need to be appreciated and respected for what we're bringing to culture. I don't think we need new apps. I don't think we need new things. I think that we are creating waves of newness. I think we are creating fresh things. I just think that we need to be recognized as world shakers. 

And it's nice that people are like, you know, tagging along, but it's also just like, I think we need to recognize that the world is not going to give us our flowers until everything's said and done. We still have black people dying for no reason. Multiple genocides are happening. Palestinian and black people are being slaughtered at an alarming rate, and once we get recognized that this all comes from the same place, white supremacy is actively a recipe for the disaster that we're all seeing. I also think part of being on the internet is knowing when to take a step back because if you live in that bubble, it can become so alienating and isolating. We, as black people, need to be careful with our consumption.

If you went out one night, you were at a bar, and you were yourself, but you're also not yourself, and you ran into another version of you, what would your pick-up line be?

“Damn, you're cool as shit. What's your name?” *Laughs*

So what's next for you?

A lot of things. I want to work on a deluxe version of Here Comes A New Challenger and then actually go into a proper album mode.

Is there a title for the new album?

There's a working title, but I think I would rather keep it to myself for now. I'm writing music, and things are just coming out of me in a really exciting way, and I'm so thankful for it. And, you know, just continuing to play my Fender, loving all my friends, and my boyfriend, and figuring out how the fuck we can make this a Worldwide thing. *Laughs* You saw what I did there?

*Laughs* That was really good.

But yeah, I'm creating a ride for people to get on, and I think in due time, Plush (+h) will be a thing that people hear more often. I’m really excited for what’s next.

Thank you so much, so much. You're such a wonderful speaker, I love listening to you talk.

Oh my gosh, you're a great listener, and you have great questions. I'm just very thankful that we got this time, and it's so funny that we work together and we're, like, pushing each other forward. I told my family about the interview, and they were like, let God use you. It’s an honor, I’m gonna let God use me. Thank you.