An inside look at the inspiration and story behind the track

You're at a party. You should be having fun. But instead, you're hiding out in the bathroom, listening to the music pound through the wall. That's the image Abbey had in mind while writing her latest single, "Plastic Faces”.

"I don't want it to be a soundtrack for someone being sad," she says, "but that's how I imagine the song—like, whoa, this song really gets you—even though you're in the bathroom at a party and just want to go home."

That's the emotional center of "Plastic Faces," a song about the quiet exhaustion of navigating high school social circles and discerning genuine connection from feigned interest.

"When you're neurodivergent, or kind of weird, people in high school don't really want to talk to you, but they'll pretend like they do," she explains. "It's super frustrating, because you're just trying to navigate what's real and who you can trust. 'Plastic Faces' is about how people put up this facade, and if we were more genuine, it would cause so much less stress. But instead, high schoolers have to go through that process, and it's really stressful."

That tension shows up most clearly in the chorus, which Abbey says came together almost immediately and never changed. "Everyone is lying straight to my face" was one of the first lines she wrote, and by the time she got to "everybody here is totally fake, plastic faces peeled away," she knew she had her song. "That last line was the one I knew had to be in the final version. I loved it so much."

From a scrapped idea to a recording studio in New York

The song almost didn't happen. Abbey started writing it a year before it was finished, then abandoned it for a while. "I gave up on it, because I was like, this song sucks—even though it doesn't," she laughs.

It resurfaced last summer, when Abbey attended SOCAPA, an arts camp in New York City, and needed a song to record. She returned to the initial stem and gave it a new sound. 

The camp gave her access to a real recording studio, but with a catch: one take, under an hour, no layering. Just bass, guitar, synth, and vocals. "It was super grungy, very bass-heavy, almost acoustic," Abbey says. "It was way more sad, less catchy, and danceable. More like Ethel Cain vibes. Slow and emotional. It started off definitely more raw, and emo, I guess."

That version never made it to Spotify. What listeners hear now is a different recording entirely and the transformation between the two is its own story.

Finding the sound, with some help

That transformation happened with Fin Hagerty-Hammond, one of the music production teachers here at Sunburst.  "Honestly, Fin helped me so much," Abbey says. "I'm not a producer by any means, but he helped me understand and figure out what I wanted."

What she wanted, it turned out, was for the song to move away from that early, somber version and toward something people could actually have fun with. "I wanted it to be relatable and I think being relatable means it has to be more fun," she says. "I wanted someone to be able to interpret it multiple ways, but I wanted it to be listenable, not a drag."

Most of Abbey's songs draw inspiration from another artist, but this one didn't. "With literally all my other songs, I'd say yes, but for this one, I don't think there was really a direct inspiration," she says. "It was very much like a Pinterest board. I wanted it to sound like a feeling, instead of drawing inspiration from another artist, which I normally do."

The reimagining of this song took shape line by line. "We recorded the vocals a ton, because I am a perfectionist, and we chopped it up basically word by word," she says. Then Fin added a guitar hook that changed everything. "That's when I knew—I was like, wow, this is going to be completely different, and I loved where it was going."

The two worked on the song for several months—"three, four, maybe five months in total," Abbey estimates—recording in one of our lesson rooms, "literally with a microphone and a guitar plug-in."

A mannequin, an empty theater, and a music video

If you've streamed "Plastic Faces" on Spotify, you've likely seen the looped visual that plays under the song. It's actually a clip from the full music video, which is out on YouTube.

The clip was made at SOCAPA as well. The same camp where Abbey recorded the song. Filmmakers on-site worked with students to bring their songs to life visually, and Abbey's concept was simple: a person alone, surrounded by faces that aren't quite real.

"We found this mannequin, and we had an empty theater, so we just filmed in there with the mannequin," she says. "That's where that clip is from." 

“The music video's been out for a bit," Abbey adds, "but I love that clip."

It's a brief, but poignant moment, and it works. The isolation of an empty theater, a mannequin standing in for the "plastic faces" of the title, mirrors the song's central idea of being surrounded by people, and still alone.

What's next

Abbey isn't thinking of "Plastic Faces" as a one-off. "I have two or three singles that I have recorded, and I don't know if they're cohesive enough to become an album," she says, "but either way, I have three songs that I'm really giddy to release at some point. They're all super different." 

An EP is on the table too, which was exciting to hear. Either way, her goal is simple: "Keep getting my music out there."

Looking back

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Abbey what a younger version of herself would think about this song finally being out in the world.

"I think my younger self would be really proud that we had something out," she says, "because I was stalling so hard to put it on streaming. I don't think my younger self would even think to do that."

It's a fitting note to end on. "Plastic Faces" is a song about the gap between who we are and who we let people see, and in getting it out into the world, Abbey closed a gap of her own.

Stream 'Plastic Faces' now

"Plastic Faces" is available on Spotify, and the full music video is on YouTube. You can find more of Abbey, including updates on new music, at @abbeywritessongs on all social platforms.