The Florida artist reflects on her recent sophomore EP.

This is the year of Rachel Prancer.

The Florida singer-songwriter released her sophomore EP i follow the deer to much excitement and curiosity following a complete overhaul of her name and image. “It’s about trying to find your place in the world,” she says. “It’s following your intuition and figuring out who you’re supposed to be while growing into an adult.”

Rachel has been on an impressive run since then, including her recent Lollapalooza debut as the opener for Matt Champion’s aftershow. “It was such an incredible experience. I got to hang out with my friends and meet so many cool artists.” She cites julie as a band who she was the most excited to see but adds that she was bummed to miss Nourished by Time due to an unexpectedly long line.

We connected a few days after this Lollapalooza appearance to talk about the show and reflect on the experiences that crafted the whimsical EP i follow the deer.

Photos by Sandy Ha (@yeongseo)

“Deer are these creatures that you don’t see very often. I changed my name to Prancer to honor the memory of a friend who passed away that was this incredible and talented musician. JD wrote a song called ‘Prancer,’ which was about prancing around until you figure everything out. I like to think that we’re all deer in that sense, kind of just wandering around the world to find ourselves.”

Rachel points to her constant movement across the country during her youth as a major influence behind the story of the EP. “Moving schools each year made me feel like I didn’t fit in certain places. I never had close friends because of how often I moved around, so I always struggled to feel at home anywhere. I follow the deer is about finding that place where you feel comfortable wherever you are.”

“We created a Pinterest board for the EP that was full of ethereal images of deer and swans alongside a ton of blues and other cool colors.” A lot of the doodles and drawings that were found on this board ended up being the inspiration for her website, which is as entrancing of a journey to explore as the musical content of the EP. “It was all heavily inspired by nature and Twilight,” she says.

The music videos that accompany the EP stay loyal to these inspirations. “The video for ‘see-through’ is my favorite of the visuals. We recorded it and didn’t know if we would use it because it was unplanned and filmed before the song was even finished. It was all very stressful, but I’m happy with the disorganization.”

Photos by Sandy Ha (@yeongseo)

Rachel is no stranger to being behind the camera as much as she is familiar with being behind a microphone. “Studying acting taught me a lot about being a person and communicating with others. It’s such a great outlet to be able to put my feelings into something separate and larger than myself. I love that I am able to knead acting with music and understand what I want to achieve with my art.”

She takes a lot of interest to the idea of composing her own movie soundtrack. “It would be cool to do a lot more sonically focused songs, like Cocteau Twins, where I experiment with using my voice as an instrument. I think it’s cool that you can feel emotions through someone’s actual vocals rather than the words they’re saying.”

“I had a lot more creative control on this project than on Ways Parted,” she says of her debut EP. “I worked from demos and recorded guitar on a lot of the songs. I loved experimenting with different instruments on songs like ‘see-through,’ where we messed around with the triangle and keyboards. I wanted to focus on what story I would tell with this one, so I experimented with making the lyrics more poetic, too.”

She goes on to reveal that certain songs were cut from the track list and may see the light of day in future releases. “I have this one song that I was debating on releasing instead of ‘don’t forget about me,’ but I tend to second guess myself and want to perfect everything, so I’m still working on that one for now.”

Photos by Sandy Ha (@yeongseo)

Rachel has been keeping up with her personal interests outside of music and letting them seep into her creative process. “I’ve been obsessed with my Switch. I started playing Life is Strange recently and I’ve been playing a lot of Overcooked with my friends too.” She even hosts Minecraft game nights with fans on her Discord server.

I asked her to name an artist she listens to that her listeners would never expect, and she admitted that she had a huge Drake era when she was younger. “I’ve been listening to a lot of ian and 2hollis lately, but I don’t think that’s as surprising. I do take a lot of inspiration from older country-esque rock artists like America, though.”

“I read this book called Big Magic recently that was about living creatively,” she says. “I’ve also been watching a lot of movies that are these heartbreaking stories about young women who are looking for a way out into a better situation, like Christiane F. and Lilya 4-ever. They have little beautiful moments amidst a horrifying reality, and the films have been a huge inspiration to me.

“It’s so hard to be patient and let life happen. Everyone has moments where they don’t feel normal or like they don’t belong, but you’re never alone in that. There’s always a place for you. Life has so many beautiful things for you that you can’t see yet. There are so many experiences that I am grateful to have stayed alive for, and it means the world to me that people find meaning from my songs and feel belonging in them.”

“It’s not always something I fully realize. A couple of people came up to me at a recent show and gave me a hand-written letter. Thank you to everyone who has ever listened to or supported me in any way, it means a lot to me.”