Alyse Vellturo is the one-woman band pronoun.

The Brooklyn, New York based artist uses music as a storytelling platform to share her own heartbreak and vulnerability. The 2016 EP “There’s no one new around you” is a WLUW favorite–so getting to talk to her at Riot Fest was an absolute dream. With new projects in the works, this is definitely an artist to keep an eye on.

Vellturo stopped by WLUW’s Riot Fest booth to chat about her music writing process, building a brand in the music business, and what’s up next for pronoun.

You can also listen to the low-qual recording but high-qual convo here, and check out a few highlights from the interview below.

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Oliva Cerza: How do you cope with tapping into really emotional lyrics every performance? How do you deal the vulnerability of performing itself?

Alyse Vellturo: Honestly, at this point, it’s kind of like I could do it in my sleep. Especially the old ones, I’ve been playing them for two and a half years. But every once and a while it really hits you, like today it does. Oh my god, I’m playing Riot Fest. It’s very surreal.

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OC: Do you have any advice for aspiring music makers?

AV: It’s gonna be really hard. I always say no one will care about you until everyone cares about you.

OC:That is very deep. And very true.

AV: Also, challenge yourself. It’s so hard. You can do everything right, and it still might not work. Parents when you’re growing up say to you “if you put in your all, work hard, stay true to yourself, it will happen.” And that’s just, in music, it depends on what you mean happening. You can go tour the country and lose a bunch of money but feel really fulfilled inside but play to nobody. Or you can make it big and not be happy at all. It really depends, but it’s just one of those things. You can do everything right and it’s just not the right time, or someone swoops in right before you and does the same thing. There’s zero guarantee.

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OC: What was the inspiration behind the new “wrong” music video? How did it all come together?

AV: I don’t know when it came into my head, probably like a year ago. I was just frustrated with the business side of the industry and I thought “what if I have a basketball game and the guys in suits represent major labels and me and all the artists on my label are just trying to have fun playing basketball and they keep getting in the way.” … It was super fun and it was nice because I had been imagining it in my head for a year and then actually making it happen was super cool. I’m happy with it.

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Pronoun will play Chicago’s Lincoln Hall on Nov. 1. Tickets and additonal show dates can be found at pronoun’s official website.