Avery Cochrane Is Shapeshifting Into a Superstar

On a chilly Tuesday night at Night Club 101 in the East Village, Avery Cochrane performed a set worthy of Madison Square Garden. As the redheaded rising star strutted across the stage, belting out hits like “Shapeshifting on a Saturday Night,” every element of a pop supernova was on display: songwriting prowess and vocal range, a dazzling cutout bodysuit, an endearing backstory, an insatiable hunger to “make it,” and gays crying in the front row.

Avery’s twisting, shapeshifting on Saturday nights (and Tuesday nights) into a bonafide pop princess. But although she embodies the dream girl persona on stage, feeling like an “outsider” is actually what drives her to write music. “It’s such a corny thing,” she tells me over Zoom a few weeks after the show. “But feeling like I don’t belong… everybody feels that way. Whenever I have a deeply personal thought or experience, I’m obligated to make it into a song because I know people have had this experience.”

The 24-year-old Seattle native, fresh off a political science degree and ten years of caddying at a country club, has a lot to say about capitalism, the patriarchy, and life-altering WLW relationship heartbreaks. And based on her viral TikToks and more than 500k monthly Spotify listeners, the world is eager to listen.

Avery captured pop fans’ attention with her unique ability to package introspective, sometimes dark epiphanies in sonic glitter. Her new EP, Male Validation and Other Drugs, features seven cinematic pop bangers and ballads à la Chappell Roan and ABBA. (She also cites David Bowie and Taylor Swift as songwriter heroes.) The melodies are designed for belting at Saturday night karaoke, but the lyrics will send you into a Sunday scaries existential crisis.

“Prayin’ for beauty in the numbness / Is it the state of the world or my state of mind?” Avery croons in “Oh, Mercy,” the final track on the EP. The quandary of mentally ill, politically conscious girls everywhere. She also compares society to a “matrix” and declares that “all” her pain is “patriarchal.”

Was there ever an alternative dream to use that poli-sci degree in courtrooms or non-profit offices – not pop hits? I wonder. Avery smiles and confesses that music was always her “secret” plan. “In my head, it was music or nothing,” she answers. “I think it was important to get a degree because I’m privileged to have had that opportunity. I was like, I should learn more about the world because I know it will make me a better person and a better writer.” She’s proud to be carving out her own niche as a “poly-sci pop star,” and grateful that her education enriched her worldview and expanded her vocabulary.

Now, she’s expanding our vocabularies with the word, “intricities” — intricacies’ more singable synonym. The recording session flub became a fun TikTok debate, landing the made-up word on the clean version of her viral single, “Losing Streak.”

The WLW heartbreak record details the end of a four-year relationship with a yearning-on-steroids chorus and a raw, crescendoing bridge. Avery wrote “Losing Streak” about her very real, very formative sapphic experience, but noticed that she felt more affirmed in her queer identity after LGBTQ+ fans gave the song their stamp of approval. In a vulnerable moment during our conversation, she recognizes that she’s still wrestling with internalized biphobia: “Sometimes I would gaslight myself and be like, Oh my God, am I even queer? Am I a fraud? Sometimes I feel like I look too straight or maybe I’m not gay enough, and it’s just been a lot of back and forth in my mind.”

But that distinctly queer “Losing Streak” chorus poured out of her like it was already written, begging to be expressed. “Hearing other people be like, oh my God, this is like the gayest song ever, I feel this pain… it was really affirming of my sexuality and my queer experience,” Avery reflects. She says she’d never be able to write a song like “Losing Streak” about a man, because she’s never experienced a love “as pure as that” with an ex-boyfriend.

The brunette masc love interest in the music video isn’t just any actor; Avery hired her actual ex for the gig after her creative director threw out the idea. At the time, Avery and her ex were still together, navigating relationship issues. “I was like, this could be a beautiful healing moment,” she remembers. “Like, maybe it’s our last thing together. In hindsight, I’m still glad we did it.” They broke up about a week after shooting it, and the singer understandably can’t watch that video now.

She’s processing the lingering complex feelings around that saga by writing more songs, of course. Even after a triumphant EP rollout and sold-out headline tour, Avery snapped right back into the grind, clocking in to studio sessions five times a week and posting new music teasers on TikTok. (“[My label] was like, stop doing that. They were like, you need to keep posting the EP stuff.”)

Fans of Male Validation and Other Drugs are in luck: Avery reveals the upcoming project will be a “resolution” to the EP, but perhaps “less self-deprecating and more on the other side of all of this.” She’ll continue to explore her recent long-term relationship and how it changed her perspective on herself and on love.

For now, she’s basking in the success of achieving her childhood dream — moving to LA and making music full-time. But there’s always more on a determined pop diva’s bucket list. A million monthly Spotify listeners, a Coachella headline set, and opening for Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, or MUNA are a few of the items on Avery’s.

Zero members of the Coch Squad (her fanbase) would be shocked if Avery’s pop career ~shapeshifted~ to A-list status real soon, but it’s her striking authenticity that will keep people coming back for more.