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Halsey is a child of wanderlust. She is a traveler of introspection in route to musical stardom. Her passion toward lyrical romanticism and the unconventional life are purely contagious. It is a condition that has attracted national intrigue and an extensive social media following.

Inspired by an existential poem by Roman Payne, the American-born novelist, now residing in France, Halsey pegged herself as “The Wanderess.”

But why?It is a term used to illustrate a woman

with an intangible lust for travel and an urge for self exploration. The phrase also provides the foundation for her first album, “Room 93”, a concept wherein every track is built around.

HAlseyWith an urban swag that fondles

artistic vulnerability, Halsey exudes an inner confidence that lives vicariously through her music. “Room 93” is a powerful adhesive to the pop music scene. While many EPs have a tendency to slide, Halsey sticks. She creeps in your ears and earnestly works into your heart.

Halsey’s laissez-faire attitude and contemporary songwriting make her culturally relevant for the youth-driven, hipster phenomenon that have populated Los Angeles and New York.

Currently on national tour with alternative-rock headliners, Imagine Dragons and Metric, these are some of the first big steps on her journey toward well-deserved fame and recognition.

Photographer: Julia Jack McCabeHair & Make Up: Daisy Dennis

Set Design: David Camarena All Clothing: No Seasons

Written by: Erica Nusgart

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Halsey is going places. Born in New Jersey, but artistically raised

in New York, Ashley Frangipane is only 20. Though young in years, she is shockingly well-spoken, cosmopolitan and artistically mature. A big chunk of Ashley’s old-soul mentality can be accredited to her earlier days taking the L train to Halsey Street in Brooklyn – hence the stage name.

Brooklyn fed an insatiable appetite for the artistic life. Giving a nod to the Andy Warhol-inspired lifestyle, she surrounded herself with a modern-day bohemian crowd. This is where Ashley stops and Halsey begins.

“They were people who were completely unapologetic. There were no parents around and everyone was an artist or musician,” she enthusiastically said. “People were studying spiritual healing or doing things that were completely unorthodox and out of the ordinary.”

Giddy with nostalgia, Halsey talks about her attraction to the kids of Brooklyn, “It was inspiring to be around people whose dreams were as unordinary as mine. There was no such thing as a weird dream.”

Aside from her peer-group influences, she accredits her diverse music taste to being a product of a mixed-race family. Her parents didn’t push classical or jazz to fine tune her ear – they brought out the grunge music of the early 1990s.

“In my adolescence, I liked the Artic Monkeys and the Kooks,” she said. “It was dark but also catchy and youthful. It was honest.”

Ironically, the Kooks were the first band she went on tour with, a band that compliments her indie pop vibe and punk mentality. Halsey explained how Luke Pritchard, lead singer of the Kooks, affected her live performance.

“He just exudes sexuality and a rock-star energy,” she said. “He is so confident in himself and really believes what he is saying by how he performs.”

Before being with the Kooks, she scored a record contract with Astralwerks, a New York record label with a reputation for signing electronic dance artists. Though many newcomers are naively eager to appease their record label, Halsey has not.

“If you are not strong enough of an artist, it is hard to get your vision through,” she said. “Astralwerks signed me because I was different from any other artist on their label.”

Initially recorded with an acoustic guitar, Astralwerks gave Halsey the opportunity to refine her sound in the studio. The sleek production style amplifies her already captivating music. While the acoustic version has a raw zest, the end product of “Room 93” is much more polished and crisp.

“In the studio, I have synesthesia. I am very adamant about certain songs being blue or red, or round or sharp, or soft and shimmery,”

“If you are not strong enough of an artist, it is hard to get your vision through,”

she said. “I use non-musical words to describe my music. By adding all the cool sounds and elements of production, it can paint an imagery in someone’s mind.”

The afterglow of “Room 93” shines the brightest when accompanied by visual elements. For each music video, Halsey tapped into her cinematic obsession with teen-cult classic cinema. “Ghost” and “Hurricane” give us a 3-minute glimpse into the self-indulgent mind of teenage angst and triumph.

“I wanted to create a universe that seems to revolve around them.” she said. “I think that’s what it’s like to be a teenager. You are so arrogant and self absorbed. You’re learning new things and making mistakes.”

Being in the post-adolescence phase, Halsey surely had her share of wrong doings but now the spotlight is focused on what she is doing right.

“I didn’t figure out what my path was until I found songwriting,” she said in retrospect. “I think it just clicked. The way I put it is that I have a teleprompter in me and I’m just struggling to keep up with the words and to keep reading and to keep getting everything out.”

And what she produces culminates with an innate passion to create tunes that are alluring, enigmatic and honest.

“I need to get everything out there or I would spontaneously combust, because it’s like

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science, I need to exert what is going on inside me or I can’t keep an inner balance.”

By songwriting “out of necessity”, every track on the EP is an apotheosis of lyrical poise. Halsey’s candor and openness make each track personal and engaging.

While “Hurricane” may be the best well-written song on the EP, it is “Ghost” that has more potential for progressing into the mainstream.

On “Ghost”, she sings: “You say that you’re no good for me/Cause I’m always tugging at your sleeve/And I swear I hate you when you leave/But I like it anyway.”

It is those lyrics that are completely relatable -- at one point or another we have all felt a need to indulge in self-destructive love. Halsey’s music orchestrates the backdrop to these intimate moments.

“I draw inspiration from real life and dialogue. There is something abrasive and raw that people cling to about my honesty - that people relate to,” said. “I think it can get me into trouble sometimes because honesty can sometimes shock people.”

This is where Halsey’s strengths come to the forefront.

She has an ability to take these themes (“It serves as a creative atlas for me.”) and wrap them in pastel paper, making the trials of adolescence

“I draw inspiration from real life and dialogue. There is something abrasive and raw that people cling to about my

honesty - that people relate to”

sound like a summer breeze. Her music has a tendency to speak to the millennial generation. She can easily be awash with the ability to be unique or different.

“I care a lot about capturing human moments, capturing the imperfections in a way that seems perfect, capturing the mundane and catching the seemingly irrelevant parts of people and of events and places and making them out to be bigger than they are and shedding an appreciative light on them.

Is she rock star? Is she a pop princess? Seemingly and spectacularly, she has the ability to be either.

This was never more evident than during a recent performance in Santa Ana, California. With indigo-blue hair flowing like a slipstream across her body, Halsey took the microphone and the theater shook with enthusiasm. It was a Roman candle performance with verses that started with a few slow sparks, but then unexpectedly ignited in diverse directions.

Amid screams of her name from the captured crowd, Halsey performed some new tracks off her full-length album, “Badlands”, set to be released in August. Some of the most impressive tracks were, New Americana and Castle, both of which border the neo-psychedelia and dream pop genre.

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But when seeing her on stage, you admire the connection she has with the mostly late-teen and early twentysomething girls who crammed the audience.

“We are coming into an era where females want to support other females,” she said. “Those are the people that make me want to get up in the morning and do this.”

At the end of the night, she even felt compelled to hop off stage to shake their hands, to press the flesh. It’s that personal touch that cements fandom.

“It doesn’t matter how many people you are performing to,” she said, “Your objective as an artist is to make sure that the crowd or someone in the audience feels something because of what you’re doing.”

And then she points to an intricate, upside down horseshoe tattoo on her shoulder.

“In tattoo culture, it means all the luck is spilling out. That’s why I got it because it means I don’t need luck because I work really hard.”

She’s right. She doesn’t need the luck.“There is no formula, there is no perfect

path,” she said, adding that if you imitate others “then you become a second-rate version of them. If you take your own path you can supersede them and go on to be things that are even greater.”

The work. The performance. The gypsy spirit and attitude speaks for her.

“My life has happened in such a rapid progression in the past year, it’s hard for me to not believe that there is some divine plan that’s helping me move along through my dream.”

This “wanderess” has finally found a home – a sort of heaven -- in her music.

Photo by Lexie Alley