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UPDATED, 7/10/2025: We caught Remy Reilly performing her new single at Harvest House in Denton. Check out our interview with her before her July 9 show with our social media editor, Jordan Maddox.
See original story below.
The last time we saw singer/songwriter Remy Reilly perform was at Larry Gee’s headlining show at The Kessler Theater before his kidney transplant in May. Reilly was one of his openers, along with Kelvin Thomas, and she sang “Half Price Books,” a song she explained to the crowd was written after getting heartbroken about two years ago. The opening lines come from a real-life occurrence where she spilled about the breakup to a Half Price Books employee, looking for self-help books to rebuild her confidence.
Dating in Dallas can feel like a chore. On her Instagram, she’s been introducing a new Remy era, one that has a new hairstyle to pair with her euphoric single “Ricochet.” In teaser Reels for “Ricochet,” the lyrics frame what her life is like getting back out there after dealing with a situationship. “And I know / you shouldn’t get to me / but still though / I’m pulled in constantly and you know / Just what you’re doing to me,” she sings.
“Ricochet” is made with Josh Goode, a two-time Emmy Award-winning producer and songwriter, and is built around an old piano riff she made in the eighth grade. She’s releasing it on her best friend’s birthday (June 30) on an off-cycle release day of Monday. New music usually hits streaming services on Fridays, but she’s switching it up. Fans of hers would be pleased that she’s going for an upbeat dance record for the summer, showing a different side of her personality than her slower indie pop and Americana songs. This is Reilly evolving, freely creating and doing what she wants.
During our Zoom conversation last week, we talked about Larry Gee, who completed his kidney transplant on June 19 and has been updating his fans on his recovery. Reilly mentioned him at The Kessler show as someone who had been behind her before she became a professional musician. She pulls a magnet from her magnetic board to show us a picture of her when she was 14 with her dad and Gee.
“He has been supporting me since quite literally the very beginning of my career. I remember doing karaoke with him when I was 14. We used to go to the Zalat [Pizza] by Modern Electric Sound Recorder, where there was a karaoke night. I don’t remember which night, but that’s where it all began,” Reilly says, showing another photo Gee took of her at Opening Bell Coffee when she was 14.
If you live in Dallas, you’ve probably seen Reilly booked at one of your favorite places. She sees our music scene as a community and wants to build relationships, showing her genuine support by attending open mics, hanging out with other people, and seeing their shows.
“I grinded from 14 to now, I was doing four to five open mics a week for two years until I got paid,” she says. “I was just in people’s faces. I showed up to everything. And I wouldn’t have done that if it weren’t for my dad, who drove me. My dad was like, ‘You need to be very active in the scene if you want to get booked, if you wanna be a part of the scene. If you want a community, you have to go to the community, be supportive and you’ll get the support right back.'”
When the scheduling and timing finally felt right to work with Goode, Reilly was hesitant to connect with him because she didn’t have any song ideas. “I brought him a piano riff, it took us three to five hours, and that was the song,” she says. “I’ve been wanting to work with him for years and I was just like, ‘Alright, it’s time. Let’s just do it. I don’t have anything for you song-wise but I’m gonna show up to your door and we’re gonna write something.’ We did, and that was this song.” “Ricochet” ended up being the first song they’ve ever written together.
“I’m really proud of the song. It’s super fun, and I hope people enjoy it on their boats or by the pool,” Reilly says of “Ricochet.”
Faith Thompson
The lyrics of “Ricochet” were written fast, Reilly says, because she was telling Goode about the grey area with a guy she was dating as it was happening. Reilly felt like “Ricochet” was relatable to anyone who is currently or has gone through something similar. “My therapist agrees, you might be kind of toxic / When it is only you and me, the attraction is obnoxious,” she sings about the fling that went awry.
“I feel like songwriting is my therapy sessions,” she says. “We were able to talk about it and came to a conclusion that these are what the words are gonna have to say! It’s like free therapy, and then you get to give the therapy to other people.”
The piano riff of “Ricochet” came to her while she was in Houston for a show. She was staying at her close family friend’s house, who had a piano upstairs in the room where she was staying. That night, she came up with the opening notes and recorded them on a voice memo. “I just kept playing it. I put it in my Voice Memos. Unfortunately, I can’t find it. I’ve been looking for it everywhere. If I do, I’ll post about it,” she says. “I was playing that riff over and over again and I was like, ‘I hope this becomes something someday.’ That’s why I love to tell people never to throw it away. Don’t throw away, even if it’s a piano riff, because anything could be placed anywhere.”
“Ricochet” has themes of rebounding after a breakup. Reilly wanted to get a clear answer on the “what are we?” question. When they both couldn’t define it, there was still some lingering attraction between them.
“I assumed that I was either like a rebound or I was rebounding off of him because even though I knew I was nothing to him, I still went to him for attention, or I still would go out with this person even though I knew it’s going nowhere,” Reilly says. “When you have nobody, sometimes you get lonely and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ll go out with this person tonight.’ But then you’re always left broken and feeling like, ‘Dang, I wasted my time because this person doesn’t actually want me.'”
Reilly says “Ricochet” has a similar feel to another song of hers, “Avalanche,” in that everything came crumbling down. She effortlessly illustrates her story of going back and forth with powerful vocals that, by the end of it, we know she’s ready to move on. She admits that this phase of her life, being in her 20s and dating, comes with certain expectations. “It’s not supposed to be fun right now,” she says. “I know all my friends are getting married and having kids right now, but not me. I know it’s okay because I’m a musician and we’re hard to date.”
With “Ricochet” out now, Reilly is not looking to stifle her creativity by chasing one sound. She’s inspired by the outburst of music by women right now, including Rachel Chinouriri, Lola Young and Olivia Dean, as she continues to try different things to see what sticks. She jokes that if someone looks her up on Spotify, they’ll be confused because her genre changes so much. “I like to tell people that I don’t even know what I am,” Reilly says. “I love not having every song sound the same. I love having variety.”
Reilly, who won Best Pop Vocalist and Best Americana Act at the second annual Dallas Entertainment Awards, owes it all to the artists and fans who keep coming back to see her. As the first self-described “Indie Ameripopcana” artist in North Texas, there is no better time than now to start paying attention to her and the Dallas music scene, which she describes as “pure happiness” when you see all your people out and gathering at the same time.
“I love the closeness, the supportiveness. It’s family,” Reilly says. “Everybody shows up to everybody’s shows. And you know it’s going to be a great night when you see your people, which is the Dallas music scene. I think other people should care about it because there’s a ton of us that are really on the rise. Cam from Cure for Paranoia, Angel White, or any of the big ones that are coming up right now. We’ve got the fire and people are going to know.”
