Nat Timmerman, who goes by the stage name Rabbitology, has made a name for her “folk-tronica” music and whimsical story-telling. Her music finds the place where folklore and haunting melodies come together in a way that feels both timeless and personal. Whether she’s unraveling the complexities of the human experience or painting vivid scenes from myth, Rabbitology’s music lingers long after the last note fades.
Her second EP, Phthalo, is out August 28th. Following the release in September, she is hitting the road with Lilith Max and Amélie Farren for their Three Wishes Tour. Ahead of both tour and her EP release, Nat sat down with Melodic Magazine to discuss her virality and the deeper meaning behind her music.
“The Bog Bodies” and “Prey Birds” have both gone viral recently, how does it feel when songs like that get so popular and how do you feel it impacts your approach to songwriting?
It’s actually kind of interesting, because I feel like I thought I understood what going viral meant when “The Bog Bodies” went viral. I was like, “Oh, okay. I wrote the song in kind of one night, so maybe it’s just people really love songs that are fresh off the pot and feel supernatural and, you know, just kind of flow out of you.” And then when “Prey Birds” went viral, I was like, “Okay, never mind. I don’t know what makes a song go viral or anything.” Because that song I had been working on for, like, maybe three, four years. So it’s a very weird experience, because it’s like it kind of gets taken out of your hands and people know about your song in a way that you’re like, “How do you know about this? I didn’t personally show you this.” It’s very surreal and strange, I think, to have a song go viral. And I don’t know what makes a song viral, and I don’t know how it happens, but I’m always excited when a bunch of new people start coming in.
Your music feels so cinematic and is incredibly emotionally immersive. When you’re creating a new song, do you begin with a feeling, a story, a sound, or something else entirely?
It changes every time. I think a lot of times I have this little bank of like concepts that would be cool for a song, like ‘this is a perspective that I wanna write about or something’ And then I have a separate bank where I’m kind of just noodling on instruments. And then oftentimes there’ll be an intersection where I’m like, “Oh, this sounds like that thing that I was trying to write,” or, “This has the rhythm of those lyrics that I had but didn’t have a melody for.” So I would say I don’t know quite where it starts, like kind of a chicken or an egg thing, but I begin by making different banks of different ideas when they come. Sometimes you’re in a really instrumentally mood, and so you can get that out, but you don’t have a story for it. And then sometimes you have a story, but you’re like, “I don’t know what this sounds like,” That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I think my process has changed a lot over the years. When I first started, I’d just brute force it and be like, “This is the melody and this is the song, and we’re doing it one step at a time,” and it took forever.
Is there a lyric from one of your unreleased songs on Phthalo that like you’ve written but you feel like has become something entirely different now that you’re like about to release it?
You know, I have one lyric that I think is coming to my head just because it has the title in it. But it goes, “In phthalo green, by your hand’s instinct. Love left me unforgotten.” And I kind of wrote it at the time being in the story of this kind of character, I guess. And after I wrote it and started releasing music, I hadn’t really released music in a little bit. It was kind of slow to start back up again, ’cause after tour I kinda fell into little slump where I had no ideas, and I think that lyric has kind of become almost meta in a way. People are re-remembering Rabbitology I think now that I’m coming back, and it’s a very sweet experience to have people not have forgotten me, and they’re kind of re-remembering the love they had for this music with this new EP coming out. So yeah.
Has your understanding of yourself as an artist changed since you first started releasing music and how do you feel it has changed your music-making process?
I think so. I honestly go through this phase, I think now that I’m an adult and not just a teenager where it’s harder to be creative almost because you have all these pressures of the world and all these judgments, where I’m learning to give myself more lenience now that I’m post-tour and getting older. And I’ve also met musicians and stuff. When I was first starting out, and then even younger, I’d be like, “I have to make a song every day. I have to write every day. I have to win all these awards. I have to get to this good college and study.” And then after kind of going through college studying communications, all this stuff there’s been a lot less pressure where it’s like, I don’t know, like, art will come. You don’t have to be this prodigy at a young age to do that kinda stuff, you know? It’s more of just a thing you can’t pressure out. You have to be a little mystical about it. That’s kind of what I’ve slowly learned about myself, is I can’t just force out something good. I have to kind of let it come to me, I guess, which is hard because I went to a bunch of creative writing camps in high school and their one big thing is that for inspiration, you have to have rituals or whatever to have it come.
Every project tends to capture a specific chapter in an artist’s life. How do you feel Phthalo like represents that chapter of life for you right now?
I think I tried to make this more optimistic, like this EP, like to have kind of a switch. It ended up being, I think, just as dark in a different way, but you know. I’m sure that’s not an unwanted thing. I think it’s representing like this new, like new possibilities. Like when I wrote Living Ghost, I was still in a dorm room. I wasn’t expecting it to really go anywhere. I was making it because I was like, “I’m angry and I wanna express some of that in the, the form of song.” And now it’s more like this is kind of like a career, which is very odd and strange. A lot of the songs I think kind of almost reflect on the absurdity of art a little bit. When I wrote the lyrics, I was like, “Yeah, I’m kind of leaning more into that.” And so I think I’m leaning a little more playful in this next EP, a little more weird. I guess, to kind of reflect where I am right now: art is weird.
When people listen to Phthalo, what do you hope they take from it?
I want people to be able to dance to this one. My main goal was to really practice production in this EP and kind of be influenced a lot more by the electronica side of folk-tronica. I want people to be able to move to this one. But in terms of takeaways, I think I would love people to have maybe a more nuanced viewpoint of the concepts of love and, you know, change because I think in Living Ghost, it’s like this is all the ways that love can be bad and evil and hurt you. And then I think that’s still kind of the same way here is, like, here’s how love can hurt you in a good way. So hopefully, honestly, I hope people take inspiration and use some of the themes in my songs and themes of in what they’re doing. Whether that be art or just living. But obviously I think of art the first.
And so, the Three Wishes tour about to start, the EP about to be released, how do you find yourself preparing for life on the road?
You know, I kind of am a wing it kind of person. It’s a lot to be on the road, and it’s gonna happen, and there’s some things that you can prepare for and some things you can’t. But I do better when things are kind of off the cuff. I’ve been obviously getting more gear and prepping on that front, but I don’t even have a setlist yet because I kind of just wanna see how things feel right before we go on the road because, you know, there’s an EP out, and that could change what songs people wanna hear.
My next question was actually going to be if there any special things the fans can look forward to on the tour?
I think we’re planning some fun stuff together. I don’t wanna spoil anything, but we’re hopefully getting some cool props and stuff. I don’t quite know what the other setlists are quite yet either, but I think we’re gonna do some cool audience participation stuff, or at least I am on my end, and we have something planned for the end. So fingers crossed on that, but obviously nothing’s set in stone yet because we have to figure out our set lengths and all that.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Honestly, I don’t have much other than come see the tour. It’s gonna be really exciting. I think whoever you’re listening to, you’re gonna hopefully be introduced to some new songs. Unless you know all three of us. But I think it’s a cool opportunity, like a mini festival, to kind of get to know some new artists and that are like kind of similar but also different.
Pre-save Phthalo here.
Tickets for the Three Wishes Tour are on sale now.
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