Brie Stoner is a multi-talented musician with a unique sound that draws on various influences.
Born in the United States but raised in Spain, Stoner's background is a blend of cultures and languages, inspiring her music and giving her a distinctive creative voice. Her new album, Me Veo, is set to be released later this year, and her latest single, "Loved Me Like A Weapon," offers a taste of what's to come.
The song is a haunting meditation on the pain and heartbreak of leaving a toxic relationship. Over a dreamy, atmospheric soundscape, Stoner sings of the struggle to escape gaslighting and emotional manipulation, a struggle that will be familiar to many listeners. Her lyrics are poignant and honest, capturing the anguish and confusion of trying to leave someone who has hurt you deeply.
But the music video for "Loved Me Like A Weapon" really brings the song to life. Co-directed by Logan Zilmer, the video is a stunning visual exploration of the themes in the song. Stoner stars as a hired assassin trying to escape the control of her handlers. She's trapped in a nightmare world that feels like something from a French New Wave film, full of twisted images and surreal landscapes.
As the video progresses, we see Stoner struggling to find her way out of this world, to escape the people trying to control her, all while dealing with the anguish of the all-too-familiar feminine experience of being silenced or targeted as a problem.
The tension and suspense build throughout the video, culminating in a dramatic finale that leaves the viewer reeling. She uses every trick in the book to deceive and outsmart her handlers, but in the end, she's left bleeding out on the shower floor, shattered by life itself. It's a powerful, emotional image that perfectly captures the song's themes.
Some of the most eye-catching moments of "Loved Me Like A Weapon" are its use of imagery, the many shifts in character dimensions with the outfits to match, and the bloody end sequence that appears towards the end. The mirrors not only create a visually stunning effect but also serve as a powerful metaphor for the way in which women are often forced to confront distorted reflections of themselves in a society that seeks to control and define them.
"Loved Me Like A Weapon" is a fantastic track that showcases Brie Stoner's unique blend of influences and creative talents. The music video is a work of art in its own right, full of stunning imagery and emotional depth. It's clear that Stoner is a true master of her craft, and we can't wait to hear what she has in store for us on Me Veo.
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Welcome to BuzzMusic Brie Stoner. Cheers to letting it all out on “Loved Me Like A Weapon" What inspired the story and visuals in the "Loved Me Like A Weapon" music video, and how do they relate to the message of the song? I wrote this song to recover from a very toxic relationship in which I was perpetually gaslit. It was a hall of bendy mirrors, of disposable polaroids in which the responsibility of the damage being done was perpetually escaped and eluded…no matter how much I kept trying to contort myself to make it work. So I knew I wanted to play with multiple reflections in the visuals, which Logan Zillmer (co-director) and I wove in throughout the performance shots of the music video. LMLAW is part of my upcoming album Me Veo (which means “I see myself” in Spanish), so this felt like an important thread.
But the song isn’t just about my personal experience of romantic gaslighting; it is also about the institutional gaslighting and the ways we internalize those messages that cause us to mistrust our own instincts and rely on external validation to create our sense of worth or self…and I especially wanted to highlight that in the feminine experience and the ongoing weaponization of female bodies, and the culturally internalized silencing and ongoing conditioning to “take the bribe” and settle for allowing our bodily agency and autonomy to be subjected to government policies or religious claims. So that’s where the storyline came in for the music video in wanting to portray a hired assassin who gets fed up with being “loved like a weapon”…and decides to try to break free and escape, only to wind up being mortally wounded…and leaving the viewer wondering if she’s become the victim of her life, or whether she survives and transcends that identity. You’re quoted saying, "much of the feminine experience has been trained to question and devalue our own inherent instincts and truth" in regards to the lyrics of "Loved Me Like A Weapon." Can you speak more about how this theme appears in your music and how you hope to empower listeners through your songs? I begin the song with a line in Spanish, “Trata con mi vida…que yo no puedo,” which translates as “deal with/take ownership of my life…because I can’t.” This is where the song began for me, with the defeated and deflated loss of my will and agency. And I think there are millions of ways that we’re trained to hand over our power…some are tiny things like the ways we are conditioned to say “Sorry, but…” when offering our opinion or “I’m sorry” just when we’re trying to get by someone. It escalates into the collective cultural norms and patriarchal religious ideology that creates the negative anthropology keeping half the world feeling like we need to live in disguise to survive.
On so many levels, I think too heal, we have to shatter the mirrors and rebuild our own reflection from within…so, for me, empowerment isn’t found in the tired duality of creating victim/perpetrator and “who is in the right/who is in the wrong” binary but in the reckoning of a personal and collective transformation… it's being able to hold a both/and responsibility: to have a grounded clarity in the truth of our experience but with the freedom to not stay stuck in a story of victimhood or blame. For me, the best critique of the shit that happens in our lives is the creation of the better. So by the time I get to the song's end, I flip the opening lines into a dare in the reclamation of my own agency. “Trata con mi vida que yo no puedo????” I don’t think so. That girl died, and it seems I’m rising instead.
How did your experience of living in different countries and cultures influence your bilingual songwriting style, which is apparent in "Loved Me Like A Weapon" and other songs on your upcoming album?
I’ve never had one clear national identity. Spanish was my first language, even though I wasn’t born in Spain…my family moved there when I was 8mos old…so I didn’t know any different. I remember my mom would make cassette tapes to send to my grandparents, and I used to break down in tears because she’d ask me to speak English. I would scream frustrated, “PERO ESTOY HABLANDO EN INGLES” (I speak English) and sincerely couldn’t tell I wasn’t. So I think growing up bilingual and learning some French has always been a gift…I sound different when speaking another language, but my personalities differ. I’m way more confident and sassy in Spanish than in English. And I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel how French brings all the energy sensually to your lips when you speak, so it’s a sexy language. So…because of that, I think this album was a real homecoming for me…in accepting on so many levels that I”m more than one thing, and moreover, I’m glad to have multiple ways to express all that “moreness.” One of my favourite quotes is by Dorothee Soelle, “All the best women I know refuse the either/or.” And that is part of the freedom I’ve found on this record. I’m Spanish and American, spiritual and sensually fleshy, academic and artistic. Speaking in other languages lets that come through for me.
In "Loved Me Like A Weapon," you reference the concept of being "bribed into silence" or "targeted as a problem." How have you navigated these challenges in your life and career, and what advice would you offer to others facing similar obstacles?
I think it's far easier to spot the external bribes, silencing and targeting…but far harder to spot the ways we have internalized that self-attack, which I believe is a far more insidious problem. For me, it is a daily practice to re-wire how I speak to myself and view the natural challenges of being creative….am I playing the same damn tape loop of domination internally by trying to have power OVER my art, my body, my relationships or the unknown? Or can I shift into a more ecological/communal way of relating to myself…and offer myself a more loving presence that can play with the possibility to co-create something new in my life?
I think Eve Ensler said somewhere that the more we plug into ourselves and our own bodies, the less available we are to domination…and I think that’s the work however you identify and whatever force you’re being “hijacked” by…whether it's a toxic lover or belief or institution. The more you are present and in relationship to self and others (and the planet), the less you participate in the systems that perpetuate harm to life’s flourishing (yours and the whole).
Your upcoming album, 'Me Veo,' is said to explore themes of sensuality, connection, and transformation across continents and states of mind. How does "Loved Me Like A Weapon" fit into the larger narrative of the album, and what can fans expect from the overall sound and style of the record?
Me Veo' is a journey of discovering a deeper non-contingent worth than anyone's mirror or identity could offer me. I was inspired by the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, “I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough.” For me, “Loved Me Like a Weapon” is the song about shattering those external identifications and validation points (even the lofty spiritual or mystical ones) and giving birth to myself as my own mirror for my whole body and my whole life. The rest of the record for me was like a remembering (a becoming membered to ) the fullness of who I am as someone who is always unfolding…so I sometimes sing about experiences of sex and love in one song that harkens to a style like Mazzy Star and then arch in a whole raging rock and roll critique against the industrialization of art in the next that feels more like a pissed off Lana del Rey singing a Serge Gainsbourg tune with Crazy Horse as the band. It belongs on this record because I finally belong entirely to myself. As Rilke says…
“I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone….
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.”
