Abby Nissenbaum Packs Diverse Influences, Personal Affirmations and Advocacy into New EP

Built from voice notes on lunch breaks and late-night songwriting sessions outside her full-time job, Nashville-based LGBTQ+ artist Abby Nissenbaum created her upcoming EP “Want to Be Wrong” in fragments inspired by situationships, disappointments and empowerment. 

While primarily an indie-rock artist, her upcoming EP spans a diverse range of musical genres, including indie, alternative, pop and country. As a classically trained soprano, originally trained in Italian opera in high school, Nissenbaum’s melodic, smooth tones and high belts move listeners alongside her vulnerable lyricism.

Alongside music being a huge part of her life, she pursued a doctorate, ending with a master’s, with research focused on LGBTQ+ discrimination and violence. She also previously worked at an indie video game company on games such as “Fishin’ For Permission” and “Benevolent” (in which she voice acted).

“I got really into music around the time that I started working in video games, and just seeing the way that music can enhance a video game was really special to me, and like how it can drive or support a story,” Nissenbaum says. “That’s kind of the approach I take with my music, too. There’s always some sort of central theme and storyline running through the entire album.” 

The album’s first single, “Why Does No One Want Me?”, originally an empowering song written for her friend who is an R&B artist, explores vulnerability and difficulties in the modern dating world. The title is a common feeling many single people come across while navigating modern dating and self-confidence.

“I actually wrote it for a friend who is an R&B artist … and she was talking about how hard it is to just find someone in today’s modern dating world, so I was like, ‘Wow, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Like, if you can’t find someone, how am I going to find someone?’” she says.

The original premise of the song was “Why wouldn’t anyone want me?” so the verses take a sassy and empowering, almost early 2000s girl group style, she says, and the choruses were altered to fit her typical vulnerable side seen in her music.

The title “Want to Be Wrong” comes from the single’s bridge: “Will I have to do this all on my own? For once, I really want to be wrong.” The album explores the negative things she tells herself, and many of us do as well, and reinforces that they are untrue.

“You can tell throughout the album that there’s an arc of being really disappointed and being angry, and by the end, there’s a really fun song where I’m getting back into it and finding my power again,” Nissenbaum says.

Her music often deals with topics surrounding subjects such as past singles “Perfect Crime” and “Glass Half Full,” which discuss toxic relationships and abuse, in efforts to continue her previous advocacy work.

“I think it’s just really important to shine a light on LGBTQ+ harassment, which I unfortunately receive a lot of … or like domestic violence prevention, shining a light on how we can take community-based approaches to prevention efforts,” she says. “I think just like the more people who can speak about it in an educated way, the better off we’ll be as a society.”

While many songs stem from real-life experiences and advocacy work, Nissenbaum also writes songs to pitch to other artists or TV shows. “Naomi,” another single off the EP, was inspired by an episode of “Emily in Paris” that her mom was watching, and the sound is based on the French-Spanish pop genre yé-yé.

Nissenbaum says she’s inspired by artists like Brandi Carlile, especially for her advocacy and inclusivity for other artists and the queer community. Alongside Carlile, k.d. lang has also served as an inspiration as Abby explores the country music scene, notably in “Growth Story,” her favorite song off her upcoming EP.

Carlile, and lang, while known LGBTQ+ artists, didn’t use that as a part of their marketing in ways artists are able to now, she says. 

“It’s important to honor the roots of LGBTQ+ music and honor those trailblazers and also just be thankful for the fact that we’re able to use it as a way to get our audience,” Nissenbaum says.

Despite balancing music alongside a full-time job after pushing it aside for many years, Abby aims to get every drop of life she can get, whether it looks hectic or not, especially having felt limited as a queer kid in what she was told she could do.

“So now that I’m an adult and I can choose what I want to do, I want to do those things for myself as a kid who was told, ‘You can’t do that’ or ‘You can’t achieve X, Y and Z because you’re gay, you’re weird.’ So doing that for little Abby is really important to me,” Nissenbaum says.