*Artist photo courtesy of Paul Cosby.
If someone had told me as a little girl that I’d grow up to become a singing princess, it would have sounded too good to be true.
Of course, what I do isn’t quite that simple, nor royal. The “princess” persona of Violette Rain that steps on stage is an ever-evolving creation, shaped by years of brand development, experimentation, and reinvention.
Before the release of my 2025 debut album Charting the Stars in Her Eyes, I spent years shifting directions, contemplating a return to theatre, releasing music only to pull it down months later. That is, until a clear realization arrived: I needed to combine every part of my history in order to build my future.
Theatre, fairy tales, visual storytelling, and everything I already knew had to come together to build something entirely new: my own "realm."
Here's how I did it.
The seed of an idea
A little over a year ago, during an end-of-summer California heatwave, I was sitting at Maru Coffee in DTLA with Elliott (my soon-to-be producer) and Paul (my visual director), feeling as though the Earth had shifted and I was exactly where I needed to be in time and space. I expressed my desire to work on a collection of songs, and Elliott proposed an album that would unfold like this: one new song, written, produced, and published every month in the calendar year.
I already knew it would be a challenge, but I was excited about the unique release schedule which would potentially allow new listeners to follow the story over the course of 2025. There was a little bit of magic in the idea. We were in the studio by October, 2024.
To say that executing twelve releases in a year — each perfectly paired with its respective month — complete with fantasy visuals and costumes was a hustle would be an understatement. We sprinted to meet each deadline, only to immediately turn around and begin work on the next.
This release plan broke a ton of the “rules” of brand development I had absorbed over years. Tried and true strategies like “plan far ahead” or “only release your cleanest material” or "don't give up on your new release until you've been posting about it for three months" all echoed around in my head.
But I was determined. This concept had a grip on me and I intentionally disregarded those rules, diving headfirst into this new kind of world-building exercise like a mad scientist.
Most of the concepts presented themselves organically — the song and its production would outline the world, and the visuals simply colored it in.
Initially, I envisioned the album moving through centuries and eras of fashion alongside the months of the year. “Forget Me Nots” (January) would draw from medieval inspiration, “Courtly Love” (February) from Tudor aesthetics, and “Starshine” (March) from the age of seafaring exploration and its mythos (think mermaids, lore, and legend).
As these ideas evolved, I wanted to pair each era with a contrasting vintage film style: “Forget Me Nots” rooted in dark ’80s fantasy, “Courtly Love” in the 1960s Renaissance revival, and so on. Combined, these elements would hopefully create a world that felt like an actual dream; nonsensical yet deeply nostalgic, stitching together familiarity and fantasy.
"A few people did ask what I was doing over the course of the releases, and I responded with a coy wink and a simple, 'You’ll see.'”
Breaking all the rules
I knew the project would potentially confuse listeners artistically. Why I might appear as a rose-tinted Anne Boleyn in one release and a disco mermaid in another? A few people did ask what I was doing over the course of the releases, and I responded with a coy wink and a simple, “You’ll see.”
I also anticipated that the album would be sonically discombobulated. From the outset, I knew some tracks would have greater algorithmic potential than others, and that many would question my inclusion of the latter.
Throughout the project, I had to learn how to tune out the noise while still welcoming advice and constructive criticism, of course. Without that balance, this project would have been much harder to see through. This was one of the strongest lessons I learned throughout the year.
And, busy as it was, this has been the most gratifying project of my life.
With each release, I connected with new audiences — watching fairies and witches find “Forget Me Nots,” gothic crowds find “Follow the Crows,” each song becoming another piece of a vast cosmic puzzle. I’m deeply in love with the digital world that’s emerged from this series. I have a trial reel on Instagram that feels like a full Dungeons & Dragons ecosystem, with thousands of accounts commenting to enter “my realm,” and it’s the coolest thing.
I wouldn’t have been able to build this dream world without breaking a few of my own branding rules along the way. And in end I feel like I've grown significantly because I did.
You can create an album with songs that don’t fit popular music guidelines, you can choose to write and produce quicker than your comfort zone pace, you can mess with your own visual aesthetic if you bet on yourself to tie the quilt together when it's done.
In short, if you know who you are and what you want to say at your core, you can take risks and throw paint at the canvas, it will land exactly where it needs to.
Violette Rain writes songs like spells — soft, sorrowful, and shimmering with longing. Blending haunting folk-pop with medieval and vintage influences, she invites audiences into a world of myth, moonlight, and a little magic. Her debut album, Charting the Stars in Her Eyes, is out now.
