Andy Greene
View all posts by Andy Greene June 22, 2026
About an hour after stepping offstage at Governor’s Ball in New York City, Slayyyter sat down backstage with Rolling Stone to shuffle through songs on her phone and chat about whatever happened to pop up. This was, of course, another fun episode of Rolling Stone’s Song Shuffle series.
First up was “Country Song” by Jake Bugg, from his 2012 self-titled debut LP. “I love Jake Bugg,” Slayyyter says. “I had this CD when I was in high school…It would be a nice song to come on when you’re by yourself in your house and there’s a little bit of rain hitting the window. You’re having a calm night, and want to be sad about something.”
Portishead‘s “Threads,” from their 2008 comeback album Third, followed. “This song is kind of hectic,” she says. “The outro freaks me out…I like when music can evoke fear out of you just from the sonic palette and chords being off and dark and scary. I like weird noses. The music I’m working on now, I want it to feel scarier and creepy and wrong and off-putting.”
The manic energy continued with the title track to Mannequin Pussy’s 2016 album Romantic. It came out when the group was still playing tiny clubs, before they were given the chance to open up for the Foo Fighters at football stadiums all across America.
“[‘Romantic’] has soft/slow moments, and then gets really extreme,” says Slayyyter. [Mannequin Pussy’s 2024 song] ‘I Got Heaven’ is so great. That’s a great summer song. It feels very hallucinogenic at first, very psychedelic, and then the beginning is just [lead signer Marisa Dabice] screaming. I love screaming.”
Her love of screaming also drew her to “Blackout” by Turnstile. “I saw them years at at the Shrine, and then I saw them at Coachella,” says Slayyyter. “They are so incredible. Very cool to see a hardcore band pushing their own genre forward, and then also do a lot of different things in different genres. I love that. They don’t just stick to one.”
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The California-based hardcore quarter Niis don’t have a following quite as large as Turnstile, but they’re also a favorite of Slayyyter, especially their song “Fuck You Boy.” “The lead singer Emily [Sando-Brown] is so cool,” she says. “She’s so hot and so talented. I’ve seen them live a couple times. I listen to it at the gym. It’s a good gym song, honesty. I like listening to heavier music at the gym or when you’re walking down the street and you’re pissed off.”
