Cayley Spivey and Connecting with the Queer Community
For Cayley Spivey, singer-songwriter from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, being queer has so much to do with everything she creates. Growing up, there was little to no queer representation around her, so Spivey felt isolated in her beachfront town. Where peers could go to their parents or friends with news of a crush, Spivey felt the heavy weight of a heteronormative society and knew she was different. So, she turned to poetry.
“I wrote about [my experience] and I would pretend I was someone else so that I could digest my feelings in a safe way,” says Spivey. It was in the fifth grade that Spivey realized her feelings could be turned into music. One of her friends, a girl she had a huge, secret crush on, played her the legendary rock band, Breaking Benjamin — the connection Spivey formed with her crush cracked open something new in her brain. When Spivey turned fifteen, she got a guitar. The poetry quickly turned to songs, and she’s been making music ever since. “I didn’t relate to a lot of people around me. I was confused. I had a hard time finding my place in the world and a lot of the introspection and introvertedness made me the writer and musician I am today.”
“I had a hard time finding my place in the world and a lot of the introspection and introvertedness made me the writer and musician i am today.”
At her core, Spivey is a singer-songwriter with a fun, bubblegum-pop feel to her music, but she’s also influenced by the indie-rock and pop-punk genres in addition. “I’m keen on pop hooks and pop lyrics and the simple chord progressions. And then, I throw in a backing band and they add this rock element to it,” Spivey says. Many fans of this cross-genre with heavy queer themes found and resonated with Spivey on TikTok, an app she has an incredibly positive relationship with. Spivey picked it up at the perfect time: during COVID, and after she’d already had some experience touring and creating smaller, intimate moments with listeners in person. On TikTok, Spivey doesn’t only post content about her music, she began posting more of just herself as content on the app, talking about her queer experience and gender identity. “TikTok has been a diary for me. It’s a platform where I can talk to people who are like me and build a community. My music, since TikTok, has become more open and honest.”
Before, Spivey would avoid using pronouns in her music because she didn’t want people to know she was talking about girls. Now, Spivey talks and writes about being a queer artist all the time, something she is extremely passionate about. In a world where the majority of mainstream music is assumed straight unless told otherwise, she finds it wildly important to label herself now: a queer artist — so others can find and resonate with the open queerness engrained in her music.
Over the years, as Spivey has crafted her queer love stories, her relationship with making music has changed. In the past, she always went into writing sessions with a song prepared, anxious about not being able to conjure up something on the spot. “As I’ve become an older artist, I’ve [realized] that if you’re creative, you’re always going to be creative. You’re never going to run out of ideas or something to create as long as you’re in touch with yourself,” says Spivey. Now, she’ll enter sessions with a clean slate to collaborate with producers, beginning with the here and now and writing whatever first comes to mind.
Currently, Spivey’s favorite songs she’s released are “She’s Pretty” and “Backseat Boyfriend,” which are darker and edgier than her typically bubbly tracks. For Spivey, the edginess exhibited in the cheekiness of “She’s Pretty,” her most recent release, actually resonates with her more as an artist than previous releases. Most everything she’s written and is coming out with in the future is going to be more along this route, which Spivey feels is the most “true” to her sound.
Image courtesy of Kelly Sandberg
The artist finds the spiritual connection that is formed during a live show to be one of the greatest things about being a musician. As someone with social anxiety, going on stage has always been incredibly cathartic for Spivey. She lets go of a lot of things, releasing it all in the venue and more than anything, she aims to connect. Touching the audience emotionally and building a bridge between them and the emotional state of the song is her biggest goal. “Every time I get on stage, that's my only thought. I just want all of you to drop your hearts on the floor, because they’re safe here, and we’ll pick it all up when we get out of the room.”
As she’s always looking for recommendations, Spivey hopes that any new listener of hers will DM her their favorite song on Instagram.