Iris Dailey

Iris Dailey

on her new single higher calling, spirituality, and the power of music

Talking with Iris Dailey felt less like an interview and more like two people accidentally finding out they'd been circling the same thing—I had questions written down but we barely touched them, following instead whatever came up and finding, again and again, that we'd already lived some version of it alone. From there it kept unspooling, mostly around the album she's been building in secret for three years away from the online audience she'd built around her spiritual work. At one point I mentioned the fear that if you don't do an idea justice it goes and finds someone else, and she asked, quietly, if she could tell me what she was hearing underneath that, and then just did—not performing wisdom, but actually channeling something true. By the end, it didn't feel like I'd interviewed an artist about her upcoming album so much as spent an hour with someone who happened to also be making one—title track higher calling, out now—and I'm grateful to Iris for being that open and letting the conversation go wherever it wanted to. — Cariann, 2026 ◇

〰️

Cariann Bradley: I want to hear about what is present for you and what you've been working on lately!

Iris Dailey: Well, first of all, thank you for sharing so much [about Midnight Woman]. I'm sorry that you went through anything even revolved around the MeToo movement, but it's amazing that you chose to make something so beautiful out of it.

Cariann: Thank you.

Iris: I really like that there is so much integrity in that. I really respect that. As far as what I'm working on right now, I'm kind of secretly making this album that has been like three years in the making. When it comes out, it'll be like a four-year-old album, like a slow burn created by this big shift from being a TikToker to following what my soul really wanted to do. I think TikTok was like, "Oh, I know how to do social media. Social media is easy. I can spread information that I've learned quickly that will have a positive impact." And that was very fulfilling. 

But creatively, you know, there's that thing inside you that whispers and it's like you're supposed to do this and you love it. It's the thing that makes you so happy. And yeah, it was a very big transition for me because I had been so derailed from it. My first conscious thought was that I may be a singer and I've always wanted to be a singer, but when I moved to LA when I was nineteen to be a singer, but then I just got in some horrible relationship as, you know, we all do. And I was really derailed—I was like, okay I’m really just not pursuing music, this is just not something I'm doing anymore. So then, I got really into spirituality and my hypnotherapy school and started talking about all [of it] on the internet during the pandemic and then I hit the milestone I was aiming for at a million and then I just felt like something was so deeply wrong and missing. 

That's kind of where the album begins is that moment of realizing—which was on so many mushrooms and at a Tame Impala set—and and I was like, "Oh, this is my calling. Like, what am I doing? I'm supposed to be doing what he's doing." And it was so insanely inspiring. It shook me to my core. And I was like, "You will never ever shake this feeling. It will only grow and it will be a pit in your core until you actually just do what you truly want to do." So, that's what the album's about!

Cariann: Wow. Okay, I have so many questions. Has collective effervescence kind of been part of your life your whole life, like when you go to concerts, do you just feel everything at once?

Iris: Yes. Wow. I've never heard that. Collective effervescence. What is that? 

Cariann: Well, it's this feeling I get—I think it's like a widely used term—but when I go to like a concert, and this could have something to do with the fact that I'm a little off socially, [laughs] but when I go to a concert, I'm not dancing and screaming the lyrics. Typically, I'm just standing there in silence and overcome with emotion because I'm just so happy that that person is living out their dreams and so enchanted by the fact that we're all there for the same reason. Collective effervescence is like being in a group of people and realizing you're all experiencing some similar thread of the same tapestry. You know what I mean?

Iris: That's amazing. I really like that. I love that. I want to look that up and look more into it. That's so cool.

Cariann: Yes, I completely agree. And it’s just anything that's moving emotionally. 

Iris: I would say for me it's like that but in my own neurospicy flavor of just feeling and taking in so much of the energy beneath the music, if that makes sense. I kind of always use this as an example but it's like the song Billie Eilish made for “Barbie,” What Was I Made For? Like yes, it's a sad song, but you don't even need the lyrics to feel deep. The lyrics and melody and the song are a vehicle for it to reach you, but just so much deeper is a little like a glimpse into that person's soul and so much of her music has hit me so deeply in my soul and and helped me move through horrendous things that I wouldn't be able to feel again if I wasn't listening to that song that was that deeply moving. I think for my type of collective effervescence, [it’s] kind of feeling that deep, deep emotional throughline—when you you see people too or you have friends that have been through really similar emotional experience or maybe they have the same type of mental disorder you do and you also shockingly love the same artists. I think that's also along the same lines of that deeper feeling and window that connects me so deeply to music and to other people.

Cariann: Yeah. The album that has been four years in the making; what was part of it that really surprised you when you cracked it open and started making it? 

Iris: That's a really good question. I have so many answers. I'm just gonna say all of them. [Laughs] First is—I mean, this is what most of my content is about. I need to start, you know, posting more about music—but I am also a psychic channel and I channel spirit guides or healing energy. Whatever it is for people. And that's what I first did before I got back into music. And I knew it through TikTok because that's a form of creation too. Making content is a form of creative energy. But I think with music and going through music school and seeing how all these different producers create, and other students create, and other people create—specifically in their own process—is that creation is just channeling. There's, to me, almost no difference between creating a song or creating any form of art. Somebody who's a painter or a photographer creating, and also somebody who channels something psychically for a person. It is all coming from something somewhere and then being downloaded and then expressed into a form of art. So, that was the coolest thing: I learned so much about how special creation is. 

And it's so interesting because it's not normalized to even speak about it that way in society yet. Like, it's when I think about Fleetwood Mac, you know, or [specifically] Stevie Nicks. She's outwardly a witch, but she's very much channeling something into her music that we all feel and are. It's like we're under that collective spell of hers. So, figuring out that it's the exact same thing as psychic channeling was very, very interesting. And that's also why sometimes, if I make a song that's just from my mind, it's like it falls flat. It's a pretty horrible song. I've made some bad music. That’s because I've made it from my mind instead of my heart or what's true to me or like something that is channeled through my heart versus something channeled through my mind. [That] changes my art a lot. And then that has translated into my content that's translated into other forms of art that I do. So yeah, just seeing how special art is in general and how we come to it—which I'm sure you have like created so many wonderful things.

Cariann: That's such a nice thing to say. It's actually funny because I love l’Odet and Midnight Woman, but to me there’s a book that I'm working on that is like my highest priority right now. I'm co-writing it with Kass and we've been working on it for like three, four years. A lot of what you're saying is ringing true of just like… have you read Big Magic?

Iris: Oh, I love it. I actually gave Dimiti that book.

Cariann: Yeah! Well, something that really scares me, and also delights me, about Big Magic is that she talks about how, you know, you can be a vessel for a story and if you ignore it knocking on the door for long enough, it will go to someone else.

Iris: Yeah.

Cariann: That's something that I find so incredibly frightening. And I just generally put a lot of pressure on myself when it comes to literally anything. If I don't do it right, this being—like this thing without a shape or a color—is going to just go to someone else because I'm not good enough for it, you know?

Iris: Wow. Can I share what I'm hearing for you?

Cariann: Sure.

Iris: You can always tell the idea: this is mine. I'm going to bring you to life and I will do you justice. And you can talk to it like that. As you said, and I know very deeply, [that] we project all of our fears onto our art as well. And there can be some solace in having an open line of communication between the consciousness of you and the idea, if that makes sense. I have a song and it's so high pressure because it's the first one that's coming out for the EP this year, and I'm getting so caught on verse one. And then I was like, I'm actually just going to write out the intention I have for this verse [and] it's going to set up the rest of the song properly. It's going to do the things that I want it to do. The intention of my music is to help people and that's what it will do and that is the energy I'm choosing to channel into it. Writing out any of your fears does kind of the opposite, where it's like your impact through Midnight Woman and anything that you do, especially coming from your own personal pain and experience. That's such a service that only you can provide. 

So, with your book, just kind of being anchored in that frequency, which is obviously easier said than done, but just writing out sometimes too, especially if you're a writer, that'll be a good strength for you. Like a good gift. Your own psychic gift comes through writing for you. Just being like, my intention is service and I know I can do that for you, idea, we can help genuinely help people. Does that help? I don't know. Sorry. [Laughs]

Cariann: No, it really does. It does help. And I can't speak for Kass, but it really is a weird thing. I've written a book before, it wasn't published, but doing it with someone else is this weird kind of like triune, melding of the minds, and this weird alchemy of the two of us battling with an idea and being in conversation with an idea and something that we love that is so equally both of us together. That's also something that I feel like I've learned so much, working with someone else, and learning so much about someone else. That's been a beautiful part of it as well. And I think I do need to talk to the idea sometimes because I think most of the time I'm just afraid of it.

Iris: Yeah, of course. Of course. That's so cool that you guys get to do that together. Having a creative connection is like one in a billion. It is so rare. It's really cool you guys have that together.

Cariann: It really is. It's like, are we lovers? No, worse, we're partners. [Laughs]

Iris: So much worse actually. [Laughs]

Cariann: But tell me about this first song that's coming out on the EP.

Iris: It's actually about the moment that I had at that Tame Impala set. It's very Tame Impala inspired, too. It's very much like, oh, this girl likes Tame Impala. Like, this girl at a party is going to tell you that Kevin Parker is the only guy in the band. [Laughs] And it's kind of psychedelic inspired too. I think that's my roots honestly—my roots of who I am as a person [are] psychedelics, [they] brought me back to who I truly am. I was honestly a monster. I was like a ball of trauma and had never addressed any of it or released any [of it]. I was a big walking black cloud of just bad energy until I did psychedelics for the first time and every time I've kind of had those big moments before I really got deeply into energy work, it was through psychedelics. 

So, um yeah, it's actually a song that is about me being like—it’s called higher calling—so, it's like, I hear and feel something calling me to do something that is my actual purpose, but I feel I'm going to have to do a lot. Like, I knew I was going to have to go through a breakup and I knew I was going to have to leave my partner of three years and I knew I was going to have to do a lot of things in order to pursue my purpose. So, it's kind of that debating back and forth. But also, it's in kind of like a lighter way because the song is just like synthy and Tame Impal-y. 

Cariann: I can't wait to hear it. When does it come out?

Iris: Thank you. August, I believe, if everything goes well. There's so many moving parts, but August, hopefully. 

Cariann: I figured you were working on music because last night I was doing a deep dive of your Instagram and there wasn't as much recent content as there was in like 2023/2024, then you had released some music. So I was like, I wonder if she's going full in on that.

Iris: Yes, I am. Yes, that's actually exactly what has happened. It's interesting,  when I made the switch, I immediately went to music school. I'm doing everything I possibly can to align with this. I will put one hundred percent of myself into it. I didn't realize how much content creation would take a back seat. And there's also a really big battle with art and then, I mean, it's not like my day job, but it was what paid my bills. Art and balancing like, okay this is I'm birthing something into the world. How do I balance life beneath that if this is going to take one hundred percent of me? That's been a big lesson too. And right now, actually, it's perfect timing because I'm actually coming back to posting more regularly starting in May. I hadn't posted right when I started music school. I slowly declined from posting because I just didn't have the time and space. And then I've just really pulled back from posting for years. Now I just have the space again for the first time in years. So, there will be more music content and things like that.

Cariann: How did you balance bringing something so special and important to you into the world and having to do other things at the same time?

Iris: I didn't for a long time. I did not balance it at all. [Laughs] One hundred percent of me was all in on music. I think also when you're manifesting something or bringing something into creation, the universe sends you through a whole journey around it. For example, my friend was writing a book about change. Then he got engaged and married that year. He quit his job that he'd been working for seven years. He moved to Europe or something. But the journey I was on made me face so many things and so it was also like… I don't know how spiritual jargony I can even speak but [do] you know what shadow work is and things like that?

Cariann: Yeah!

Iris: Okay. It was like a three year long period of the most intense shadow work I'd ever done in my entire life. It was like, "Oh, you think that you've healed, but you actually have a whole other layer." I even ended up moving back home to Idaho with my family where one of the people there is a deeply abusive person. And I ended up staying there for six months, having to because of my lack of balance, and then moving back and coming right back to living in LA again and then having like family drama. So many different things happened that were also, I feel like, the universe was creating a pressure cooker for this album for me to be the version of myself that's from here: the TikToker, to like a more embodied version of myself who is more certain of myself. Like friendship breakups and breakups that ended up ultimately shaping me into such a stronger person that has boundaries and so many different things happened to create that. I actually think being out of balance was very useful for a little bit, but I did not balance it at all for a while. Now like this as of maybe the last six months, everything has not just gotten better but I am now seeing the purpose of why it was chaos, if that makes sense.

Cariann: Yeah. No, that does make sense. I relate a lot to what you're saying. My Saturn return didn't only kick my ass, it also hit me with a bus, and ran me over with a car, and threw me out of a plane. [Laughs] It was so crazy, honestly. 

Iris: [Laughs]

Cariann: The past five years for me have been wild and  I still feel like I'm at the point where I don't feel like I'm closing a loop yet. But I know in many ways I probably am. And yeah, it's just really hard to do. It's really hard to balance everything and also like grieve parts of your life that you used to be in and were kind of yanked out of and then it's better. You're better for it, but like it still changed and it's really hard. You know what I mean?

Iris: Yeah. Absolutely. And then all of those feelings existing at once, too.

Cariann: My therapist says I have a hard time holding two truths at once.

“All the things that went out of bounds were all the things that broke down about my foundation that wasn't strong enough. But also, something that's interesting is we are also pulled into different versions of ourselves and called to heal different things that are relevant to what we're calling in.”

Iris: Oh, yes. What are your guys' signs?

Cariann: I'm a double Cancer, moon and sun, and then a Taurus rising.

Iris: I'm a double Cancer moon and sun.

Cariann: Really?

Iris: Yeah. With an Aries rising.

Cariann: Oh my goodness. So amazing. So much moon. So much water. 

Iris: So much cry. [Laughs] What about you Kass?

Kass: I'm a Capricorn sun, Cancer moon, Leo rising.

Iris: Oh, what a good, good chart. We all have the same moon sign!

Cariann: Three cancer moons in one Zoom.

Kass: [Laughs]

Iris: [Laughs]

Cariann: What could go wrong? But what could go right?

Iris: Did your [Saturn return] just end?

Cariann: Mine just ended. Yep.

Iris: Okay. Yeah. Congratulations.

Cariann: [Laughs] Thank you. Yeah, it was tough, but also so glad it's over. But yeah, I used to live in Nashville and then got laid off from my job, had to move back in with family. It was a lot of like tearing down [the] things that I thought I had built, but really weren't built on a solid foundation, I would say. 

Iris: [Aggressively agrees]

Cariann: I've been talking to my therapist about this as well—just this naivety of being young and idealistic, maybe, and hopeful of thinking, wow I did it, I healed and maybe I healed something. I think you go through cycles of healing certain things but it's like it's really never over, and I struggle with grieving that and thinking I reached a healed point and then when I realized there's so much left to go, it almost feels like a failure. So I've been looking at it with my therapist as like first draft, second draft, third draft. Like there is no final draft. It's like, okay, you might have healed some things on the first draft, but just because there's going to be a second draft doesn't mean that that the first draft of you was bad. It just means it was different.

Iris: I love that. Also, I mean, if we have the same signs, too, we've probably been through really similar journeys. Very similar, like all the things that went out of bounds were all the things that broke down about my foundation that wasn't strong enough. But also, something that's interesting is we are also pulled into different versions of ourselves and called to heal different things that are relevant to what we're calling in. So, me making the transition to like, okay I'm gonna pursue music, this is what my soul wants to do and this is what will truly fulfill me and the way I can help the most people, that made me have to address very specific things. It made me have to heal the part of me that seeks external validation because seeking my mother's love from external validation tainted my art. It made my music sound more poppy and like I was trying to fit some mold and I was! And then I had to really go into my mother wound and that changed my art and it changed the version of me that I show up as a musician. And then, even when I was calling in to be a TikToker, I had to heal so much of being seen; like random embarrassment trauma I had when I was like thirteen or bullying drama from thirteen or whatever it was. 

The journey is so deep from me to TikToker to musician because it was such a big jump for me. The shitty journey up is like the law of polarity: it's the equal amount, it’s like on the horizon of the journey, if that makes sense. Like, you guys creating this book—I don't know I don't know much about it—but the energy I see from it is also very healing and there's like so much to it. I've noticed that a lot of the healing journeys that we go on are specific to what we are calling in, if that makes sense. So, I'm sure like a lot of the trials and tribulations that you went through are going to be so rewarded with your guys' book.

Cariann: Thank you for saying that. We're so close to the end of it. It feels like it's a home stretch. It feels like the hardest part for me, personally.

Iris: Yeah. I'd love to hear more about it, too, if you guys are down.

Cariann: Yeah! Kass, what do you think? You want me to take it? 

Kass: The floor is yours!

[Redacted information, with mention of vampires.]

Iris: Okay, this is a random fact about me, but I love vampires. It's very weird. It's like a bit between me and everyone who knows me. I've read them since I was a kid. I'm like in the fourth grade reading smut about

Vampires. [Laughs] The Vampire Academy series. Love Vampire Diaries. I love The Twilights. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love vampire anything. So, that is very exciting for me to hear. I can't wait to read it.

Cariann: A lot of throughlines about power and class and people who siphon energy from other people. I think it's the best thing I've ever done.

Kass: [Nods affectionately in agreement]

Iris: Oh, that's so cool. This is so exciting.

Cariann: I don't know if you can say the same things about your album. I would imagine it's similar, but to me, at least [with] this version of [redacted title of book], it holds all of my everything. Like all my hopes about what I hope to be true about the world is in there. All of my fears about what I think could be true about people and what people do to each other, you know? It's all kind of condensed into this ball of story.

Iris: Wow. A vampire book written by two Cancer moons is like… I can't even explain to you how like—if somebody could make a meme and [it] would be something that I would like, it's literally that. There are jokes or screenshots of me texting Dimitri at three a.m. and being like, "Of course we love WC. He's a cancer moon.” I actually can't even put into words—I have this whole theory about cancer moons. Like every famous lyricist or songwriter is a cancer moon. There are a lot of creators that are cancer moons. So this is like… I'm really, genuinely so excited for when this book comes out. 

Cariann: That actually makes me really happy because I mean, I get to a certain point in a project where I'm like, "Oh, this is trash." I feel that way about what I'm making, you know, and it's like I can't say that about this project because it's half Kass and I would never say that about Kass, so thankfully she is half of it [and] I haven't been able to throw it in the trash because I don't think it deserves to go in the trash, you know? I talked to my therapist about this too: can a vampire book change the world? Probably not. But it has changed mine in the last five years.

Iris: I believe it can. That's amazing. 

Cariann: Have you done all of the creative visuals and stuff for your album already?

Iris: I think my favorite part was the world building around it and it kind of shifts over time because I first started building the world like three years ago. I'm sure you guys have the same experience that when something takes so long, you're like, "Okay, but I've changed so much in like three days," like I don't even know who I was last month. So there's a lot that changes so much. It's also always evolving in a good way. But the world building is so much fun. And I think what you described where you were saying your hopes and dreams for the world and your fears about how people are, I think specifically in the same vein, mine is a very like internal reflection. So it is actually like my journey in an album. It's like world building of my own internal world that is so intense. And the only way it could even possibly exist is in a slightly psychedelic or reality-shifty or like a Black Mirror episodeesque type world that I'm building. It's so fun at the same time as it is like this impossible puzzle that challenges you. 

Cariann: Concept albums are like the best thing ever. As long as I can remember, I've just been obsessed with like, I mean it's like a book or a show or a movie, you know, you get to dive into all the visuals and the booklet and the all the lyrics and trying to decode everything and like apply it to your own life and use it as a soundtrack for the moment. It's very cool.

Iris: Yeah, I agree! I love that about music. Also, with everything you just said, music has evolved—especially with short form content—music has evolved to be so visual now too. It's like music barely even exists as just a song and that is like a fun thing to build into it. 

Cariann: What were some of your influences other than Tame Impala?

Iris: Okay so, sonically, Tame Impala has always been a big influence. I think it took me a long time to find my sound even [though] I don't even think I'm there. I don't even think I'm halfway there. But production-wise and Tame Impala, just that like synthy but still alternative pop. It's kind of like, production-wise, if Dominic Fike and, sometimes, Sugar Ray, ‘cause Sugar Ray is just like the happiest, feelgood music to me ever. I just love Sugar Ray or music that just makes you feel immediately euphoric. And then it's almost like… I'm not even sure how to describe it because I haven't made it that far in my artist identity. So, it's almost difficult. But what I've been inspired by is always Tame Impala. And I mean, Frank Ocean has been my favorite artist since I discovered music was good. And Paramore, Hayley Williams, is incredible. She's so free and so incredibly talented; even the videos of her performing, you just feel free and empowered and joyful. I think she's a very special person. 

Visually, I really love plays on reality shifting or time travel kind of plays on time, like Donnie Darko is so interesting to me ‘cause it's like an alternate reality. I know that's very cliche, “Donnie Darko” like I just discovered that movie, but I just still think it's cool even though it's obvious; how it's an alternate reality created from a decision that he made and it deals with time travel. And different types of movies like Interstellar and The Boy and the Heron. There's this hallway [in The Boy and the Heron] he's running through and it's all these different timelines and you figure out this little girl—spoiler—but the little girl he's been interacting with this whole time is his mom. I just think it's really interesting because this is like me jumping into a different timeline and all the things that happened in order for me to open that door. So visually, it's like how to make that world is so interesting.

Cariann: That's very cool.

Iris: Thank you. Thank you.

Cariann: Do you still do energy work and things like that actively?

Iris: Yeah, I secretly do one-on-one sessions with people. I only do it word of mouth, but I do it because it keeps my channel open, so I don't charge very much money for it. And I do it because it's kind of like running or learning a language. So, with my psychic channel, I just do it to keep that open. Energy work, I make courses now. I've just, dude—I've just learned so much. Because of the things I went through in the past like four years, I have so much information in here [points to self] about energy work that I'm like, I can't not put this somewhere. I have to put this [out[ and help people because I went through the most horrendous things around energy work, like energy being sent to me or like how much, especially because we're all Cancer moons, I'm sure you guys are going to understand more than anybody else is like absorbing so much of other people's energy all the time. I didn't realize how much I was constantly doing it and I was taking it on as my own. When I went to music school that was like a really hard experience for me, and school's always been hard, but in that time frame, I realized like, oh I'm absorbing everyone around me all the time and I'm not aware fully, and then we would all get a beer afterwards. So then, my aura would be even more weak because

I was drinking and doing it regularly was really weakening my aura and then my everything was just so out of balance that I hit this really hard bottom with energy work that I had to like really, really spend a year of my life totally devoted to. Almost two years ago. I spent like that year devoted to it and yeah, now I'm like, "Okay, I need to do something with this." So I made courses around energy work and that's funding my music. So it's also interesting with what I was saying earlier, how things always have their own purpose and they shape towards helping you with what you're calling in. Like physical manifestation of this incredible vampire book that I can't wait to read from you guys. And this album I'm creating. It's like all the things I went through, unfortunately like in a pressure cooker, [made] this come to fruition. 

Cariann: I have an interesting background in spirituality. It's complicated. I used to be super religious and then wasn't anymore and then still spiritual and still trying to figure out what that means. But I find meditation and energy work so beautiful.

Iris: I also always find people who grew up really religious, I mean I have obviously my own religious trauma like we all do, but people who grew up really religious like that are born into a type of cult. It's so fascinating to see people be mentally and spiritually strong enough to leave or break out of things like that. Those are my favorite types of people. So it's also a special thing that you've done too.

Cariann: Yeah, I guess so. I didn't think about it that way.

Iris: Breaking out of a cult is like you have to be like Neo from the Matrix. It actually requires so much sovereignty. So it's really cool, genuinely.

Cariann: Also, I watched one of your YouTube videos this morning about how to recharge and it really helped me because I feel like I've just been siphoned lately and I don't know how to recharge. And so even that one thing helped me so much and I would never have met you otherwise. I'm just really grateful to be in the same field as you and yeah, I just appreciate your time.

Iris: Thank you so much. That's so cool that you watched that.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Interview By Cariann Bradley  | edited by Kass Ringo | design by Madeline Westfall |   Photos By DIMitrI TZOYTZOYROKOS