Nessa Barrett answers questions about her new album 'Tough Love' in Confession Cube

Wait, this is actually, I have like a really bad cereal addiction and it's awful. On tour, all he has is Frosted Flakes. Hey, I'm Nessa Barrett and I'm answering questions from the Confession Cube with Page Six. Ooh, you racked up millions of views on TikTok early in your career. Do you ever go back and watch your old videos and what's the most embarrassing thing you've come across? Um, no, I do not go back to any of my old videos. If I do, I do cringe so hard. I think all of them are embarrassing but that's kind of what happens when you're 16 17 i'm growing up with a lot of followers on on TikTok very scary a lot of moments that um are very terrifying to think about so not watching them your new album is called Tough Love so let's talk dating advice oh crap um if you If you could give your teenage self one piece of dating advice, what would it be? To not. I hate dating. I'm going to be so honest. And I think that for a really long time, as a teenager in my early 20s, I just really craved love and it just made me go into relationships that weren't for me. And so I'd probably tell her to wait for the right one. And she'd still be waiting. The Neighbourhood was one of the bands that inspired you to pursue music and now you're opening up their arena tour What has it been like to go from being a fan to sharing the stage with them? I this is just something that is a complete dream for me Still I wake up and I'm just so Confused at how I got here and I just feel very lucky. I've been a diehard fan since I was 10 years old I actually tried out for the middle school talent show singing Sweater Weather, and I didn't make it. And so being able to open up for their arena tour has just been insane. And being able to watch their show every night has been absolutely amazing. I mean, I just love them so much. And I think about myself when I was like 10 years old listening to all their songs and crying to them. and i just like i can't believe that i'm here today it's so it's so crazy you went from posting TikToks and song covers to signing a record deal and releasing full-length albums do you remember the moment you realized music could become your career i don't really remember the moment exactly um it was something that i knew that i always wanted it was a dream of mine since i was a kid like I would blow out my candles every birthday and wish for this life and so I always knew it's something that I really wanted and I just did whatever I could to make it happen you've released three studio albums and experimented with different sounds and personas along the way across your three albums what's one thing you've learned about yourself as an artist that you didn't know when you released your debut I did not know that I was able to write songs about things that I wasn't going through in the moment when I first started writing forever honestly I was just writing about the things that I was struggling with and what was happening to me in my life in that moment but as time moves on and I started to heal from a lot of things and there wasn't really anything significant in my life significant enough to write about it I I started to kind of experiment with telling stories and creating, like, new ideas and new things to write about that I guess weren't true to what I was living, actually, but still was me in my core. That kind of makes sense. So I think that that's something I never thought that I could do. You have quite a few tattoos that reflect different parts of your life and personality. Which one is your favorite, and what's the story behind it? Boom. I have like over 60. These two butterflies on my hand and I got these as a matching tattoo with my best friend Cooper and yeah it was one of my it was my first matching tattoo ever and we were so excited when we got it and then yeah he's passed since then and so I feel like I can just look at my hand now and I know that he's with me you said tough love draws from both your real experiences and fantasies you've created how do you decide to tell your own story versus create a fictional one it's all about inspiration if I'm inspired and feel compelled enough to talk about what I'm going through and how I'm feeling then I'll write that and if I don't have anything to talk about and I feel inspired on the piano or with a few guitar chords and I just create something you spent so much of your life expressing yourself through music and social media where do you go or what do you do when you want to completely disconnect from everything I really love spending alone time with my cat and getting off my phone and probably picking up a book or sitting at my piano and writing songs I feel like those are the things that really get me to get out of my head and to get away from all the noise you've already achieved so many milestones in your career from signing a record deal to performing on massive stages What's something you still dream of doing that has absolutely nothing to do with music. I think another one of my biggest dreams has to be maybe publishing one of my books or being able to direct a movie and bring one of my books to film. I am a writer at heart and so when I'm not writing songs I also write books. I have like five that I am working on and they're like kind of for fun but I've kind of gotten to the point now where I'm like I should probably publish them at some point you know instead of just keeping them for myself I feel like that might be a little selfish you've described falling in love creating a fantasy becoming obsessed and then getting hit with reality as a recurring cycle in your life do you think you'll ever stop romanticizing love I don't think so I think I just love love so much I think that I have stopped craving it, probably because I'm a little older now and I've learned from a lot of mistakes. But I do still fantasize. I still want it in the future. I just don't look for it as much as I did before. You've amassed billions of streams and millions of followers since your early days on TikTok. Is there a moment from your career that still feels completely surreal when you think about it? I think me opening up for The Neighborhood is absolutely insane to me. I also got to perform with Lana on stage at a festival in Alabama that she was headlining. I will never forget that moment, best moment of my life. You step into so many different characters throughout Tough Love. Which one feels the most to you and which is the furthest from your real personality? I actually don't think that any of them are too far from who I really am. I think that the one that feels the most to me probably is Candy, simply because it's like my most vulnerable song and I was super honest and I feel the most attached to it. Your influences on this album range from Portishead, Massive Attack, to Fleetwood Mac and Alice in Chains. Which influence would fans be most surprised to hear on Tough Love? I was really inspired by Eagles and I think the whole, just all of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s rock. Your Tough Love music video is practically a mini-thriller, complete with a kidnapped man, a gun, and a burning house. What was the most fun part of bringing that character to life? There were so many fun parts on that set. I got to drive this really old vintage car. And usually in music videos you fake it, but I actually was kind of like whipping it around the neighborhood and it was really scary because there was like lights and cameras attached to it and I feel like it probably wasn't the safest to drive. We had the man hanging in the video, which sounds crazy, and it was. We had a stunt guy, and he put, like, a harness on the actor, and they were just, like, cranking him up with the rope to the ceiling upside down. And it wasn't fun for me, but I think it was, like, fun for everyone to watch. It was crazy. I've never seen anything like that before. um but props to him because he was a real trooper and that must have been so difficult and also like dancing on a table with a gun pretty fun after fans listen to Tough Love from beginning to end what's one thing you hope they understand about you that they might not have known before i hope that they could see how much i have matured and healed compared to my debut album where every Every single song on the record was sad and dark and depressing, honestly, and in this new album I feel like there's only one to two sad songs on there and so I hope that people can kind of see my healing journey a little bit and it could kind of inspire them. I also hope that they can hear how much I love this body of work and they can hear how me it is. That was the Confession Cube with Page Six. My new album Tough Love is out now and I hope to see you out on the road this year with The Neighborhood and next year on the Tough Love Tour. Bye!