Having built a strong foundation as an indie artist over recent years, singer and songwriter Zoey Tess now turns her attention towards the culture and topical issues of our time, directly addressing the dark state of modern politics and leadership, with the powerful rock single Knocking at Your Front Door.
The song is the first to release from the upcoming album There’s Gonna Be a Reckoning, and we were blessed with the chance to interview Zoey, to find out more about this lyrical and stylistic redirection, the inspiration for the music, and what we can expect from the full project. Here’s the conversation in full.
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Hi Zoey, it’s so great to catch up with you! How has 2025 been treating you so far?
Rebecca! You’re one of the kindest people I know, and I’m incredibly grateful each time we can chat.
This year’s certainly been a tough one for anyone with a soul. I know we’re all doing the best we can to navigate this timeline, trying to stay engaged, offer hope to those who need it most, and maintain our sanity.
Creating music with a wonderful group of folks has been my therapy and a place of peace. Knowing that the music we created might bring some form of healing and strength to the collective is a light right now. My husband and our pet children have brought a lot of joy this year. I have to believe things will get better.
Thanks so much for the kind words! I’m glad family life and music are bringing you plenty of joy, and huge congrats for the new single and album. You’ve taken a clear and confident step into topical and political values with your songwriting. What first prompted you to start this creative journey back in January of this year?
Thank you kindly. It’s certainly never something I expected, or a direction I felt I could come at from an authentic place. I grew up listening to ’60s and ’70s protest folk/rock—records like “Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Neil Young’s solo record “Southern Man”. I’ve also always been heavily into Jazz and soul music, as you know, and the work of Nina Simone, as well as ’90s female singer-songwriters like Ani DiFranco.
We’ve seen a rise in hatred and the normalization of indecency over the last ten years, but I think it had reached a boiling point during the latest election and with this new administration taking over. I took a lot of my poetry and put the words to melody. I had been working alongside my music partner Spencer Hattendorf since July of 2024, and I brought him these words and ideas, which he helped me mold into what has now become this project.
You describe the process of writing Knocking at Your Front Door as cathartic—can you elaborate on that a little?
Yes, I use the word cathartic almost hesitantly, as I don’t believe I’ve reached that place of healing. But I do believe I’ve been able to work through the aggressions, fear, anger, and strength. All the narratives that are present within Knocking at Your Front Door. Again, it was therapy to lay everything out on the table and say, “Hey, this is what it is, and I’m certainly not holding back, nor censoring the truth.”
The lyrics are intensely confronting, holding nothing back, referencing incredible hardships and both unsettling and heart-breaking moments from our recent history. What was the writing process like, and were there other lines or topics that you considered but left out—if so, why?
I certainly had no hesitations during the writing process. There were some moments when I looked at Spencer and said, “Can I say this?”, and his reaction would be something like, “Hey, it’s your song” (laughs).
“When I wrote this, I asked myself, “What would you say if you had the opportunity to come face-to-face with the president and his administration? What would you say to those in power that have failed us for so long?””
It’s quite funny because during the creation process, from the acoustic guitar/vocal demo to bringing it to Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, New York, no one thought twice or batted an eye. It wasn’t until I began the process of distribution that I started to get pushback. My distribution company was wonderful, but they emailed me and said, “Hey, just so you know, you might face some hurdles trying to release this song as the strong choice of words/themes might get flagged on the major streaming platforms.”
I was prepared for anything. I went ahead and did the best I could to reach out to some of the platforms to explain where I was coming from, rather than having their automated systems hear a word or phrase and flag it. So, to make a long story short, for this song, no. We didn’t censor or cut anything out.
The song began as just an acoustic performance and was later brought to life by your producer Spencer Hattendorf and a band of musicians. What do you think the fuller audio landscape brings out in the sentiments and emotions of the song?
At first, I thought, “Why do the full band thing?” If this is truly going to be a folk record, then why not keep it as is? But when we got to Clubhouse and I heard the musicians running through the song, the amount of power and fortitude it brought to the record was undeniable. It felt like an army of folks and felt that much more powerful.
Is there also a potential to take this back to the bare essentials—an acoustic version maybe, or a live take?
Absolutely. I had posted the acoustic demo online well before the release, and people reacted well to it. I think if a song can be stripped back to the bare bones, that’s the test of whether it has legs to stand on. But yes, we are planning many different live, recorded, and unique approaches to not only Knocking at Your Front Door but for the entirety of the record.
You mention that the style of the song is in part a nod to the spirit of the ’60s and ’70s. Do you mean the musicality alone, or also the societal mood of that time?
Certainly both. Some of my folk inspirations from that time being Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell. I wanted to draw upon the strength in those artists’ work. The unapologetic nature of their work, the ‘ringing of revolution,’ in the words of Phil Ochs.
“The music of that era was more than simply art; it was a movement. It was a sound that inspired people to act, spread awareness, and rise to the occasion. We need that now more than ever.”
Artistic freedom is under attack, and if artists with a small following or a large following all used their platform, we could really enact a movement and make some change.
Let’s talk about the album, and again this idea of catharsis—perhaps the optimism or hope at the end of a dark tunnel. What inspired the powerful title There’s Gonna Be a Reckoning?
“There’s Gonna Be a Reckoning” was the second song we began working on after “Knocking.” The song has a refrain that says, “Mama’s angry, oh she’s angry, you better run, run, run.” The song has a very earthy, intimate nature where the narrator is channelling Mother Earth. She’s angry due to the greed and capitalistic frameworks that have long existed within our society. It tells of “witches burned at the stake,” which can be taken quite literally and is also a metaphor for all women being chastised and held back by patriarchal values which, again, have been embedded in our society since its inception. The track is very earthy, grounded, and draws upon female rage.
“The premise is that these deeply rooted issues have gone on too long and that there’s only so much that our ecosystem and the divine feminine can take before it fights back.”
The last line, “Your money won’t save you and soon come the end, and soon come the time for the reckoning,” is the final nail in the coffin. It sums up where we are as a society. We’ve arrived at this place where many of us have come to the epiphany that the very structures put in place to keep minority groups down are a byproduct of a larger system built by those with great wealth and power.
What can you tell us about the track list—is this a concept album, does the style vary, do the stories shock or unsettle in a similar way to the single?
There are seven songs total:
- Knocking at Your Front Door
- There’s Gonna Be a Reckoning
- All of the Beautiful Things
- You Just Missed Him
- Stable Ground
- Children of the USA
- Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel
They all tell a unique story and have their own life thematically as well as instrumentally. Each song speaks to what I’ve seen in society, from religious hypocrisy to gun violence, and were largely inspired by conversations with friends and folks from such diverse backgrounds and viewpoints. It’s extrospective. The other songs are not as shocking or in-your-face as “Knocking,” but they serve the purpose of letting the listener walk away with a viewpoint that makes them question these issues and ideas.
And of course, the final song on the album is an arrangement of one of the greatest songs ever written, “Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel,” by Townes Van Zandt, which describes life as an unpredictable ride and the cards dealt to folks in a way that’s unpredictable and we can’t make sense of.
We had been at Clubhouse Studio for around thirteen hours, recording the final four songs. Everyone was exhausted from a very long day, and my idea was to sit down at the piano, have a mic for the piano and one for my voice, and just record it as is, the whole way through. I wanted it to be extremely raw, unfiltered, and “as is.” So, I sat down, they rolled the track, and six minutes later we had the take. I got very emotional at the end of the song as the magnitude of the song hit me. But again, we wanted to capture a real moment in time.
The best protest songs generally emerge out of times of true hardship. This time, however, there’s also the excessive rise of AI-generated music—a skilful tool but perhaps lacking the essential humanity and heart to say something truly gritty and real.
Do you think this decade might produce some of the most iconic songs, due to the times we’re living in, or are we headed down an unprecedented and unpredictable new creative pathway?
Sadly, A.I. has become so embedded in almost every aspect of how we work, communicate, and create that it’s become a challenge to try and make music and art without it. A challenge, but not impossible.
Algorithms, marketing, and the quest for perfection are everything that goes against what art stands for. My belief is that it’s essentially a tool for plagiarism and lessens our ability to create.
There are some incredible artists that don’t rely on a crutch to create beautiful work. Our thoughts, ideas, lyrics, and melodies should come from our brain and our heart.
“We don’t need perfectionism; we need authenticity in a world that demands a packaged product. Music and art should capture reality as is, and if it’s not “perfect,” then we’ve done our part.”
Will you be performing these songs live, or releasing any visual accompaniments?
Yes! We are currently working on putting together a live album/performance at Clubhouse Studio, where the album was recorded. A stripped-back acoustic set of five songs with piano, acoustic guitar, and strings. I’m incredibly excited and look forward to sharing it!
What’s your mindset like this close to the full release—what do you hope people take away from this music?
My hope is for people to feel empowered, understood, and to hear this album not only as a body of work but a soundtrack for liberation and revolution. For those who might not understand or who see the world through a different lens, I truly wish they can understand that the power of the people is far greater than those who seek to keep us divided.
Is there anything else we should know?
I am so proud of this entire album, and I look forward to sharing the next single There’s Gonna Be a Reckoning on November 21st, as well as the entirety of the project soon after. I stay humbled and grateful to everyone that contributed their unique and blessed talents to bring these songs to life.
And Rebecca, I thank you for sharing your space and for always giving a platform to independent artists.
It’s absolutely my pleasure, thank you, Zoey! A brilliant single and I can’t wait to listen to the full album!
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Find Zoey Tess on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & her Website.
