INTERVIEW: IZZY REIGN @ UPHEAVAL – July 2026

According to a bio: “IZZY REIGN. A Dark pop/Metalcore artist from Grand Rapids Michigan. Twitch streamer. Spooky Queen. Dad joke expert and fluent in sarcasm. Aiming to grow community through music and bring back what it means to be human.” I was ableto sit down woith Izzy at Upheaval and discuss new music, touring, and much more…

Toddstar: We’re here with Michigan’s own Izzy Reign at Upheaval 2026. What’s it like playing a festival in your home state?

Izzy: Considering not only is this just a Michigan festival, but my first real, real festival is not only the coolest thing, but it is insanely mind-blowing. So I am very, very excited to be here. Super stoked, even though it’s hot.

Toddstar: Not only are you playing a Michigan festival, you’re headlining the stage you’re on.

Izzy: Yes. I found that news out the same time everyone else did. I indeed was dancing around in my room, super excited.

Toddstar: Awesome. Well, what can we expect tonight? What do you have ready for us? I know it’s harder on smaller stages to do any kind of real production or production you might be used to in a club and festivals are different. So what can we expect different from a regular Izzy Reign show tonight?

Izzy: We’re going to do our absolute best to give it the same experience as the album. I work with some really incredible people. I’m so lucky to have them be a part of it, but yeah, it should be great. I’m going to tell people to hydrate about 10,000 times during the set. Other than that, hopefully it’s a 10 out of 10 experience and it’s something that we can all experience together.

Toddstar: You mentioned the album. Reception’s been pretty good on this from everything I’ve seen. You’re a little more removed from it than the fans or anyone else listening to it. You wrote it, recorded, mixed and mastered, and then handed it off to the label. How fresh is some of the material still to you when you know it’s coming up in the set or when you’re planning out a set?

Izzy: For me, those songs are very personal to me, but I wrote them in a way that it would hopefully be able to connect with other people as well. Every single time they’re performed or I listen to them, it’s just me experiencing a past version of myself in some way or another that has led to the growth of myself. So it is always just a giant refresh of just who I am now. It is a new experience every single time.

Toddstar: What song or two from the album when you know it’s coming up in the set, you want to hurry up finishing the prior song to get to it?

Izzy: I would say “Into Oblivion” and “Lite-Brite.” “Sandman” too. There’s just something about those first two. I love them so much. And they mean so much to me and I just feel like the energy with them and they’re so very different. Yeah, I’m all about it.

Toddstar: “Lite-Brite” is my favorite, so I’m covered. That said, let’s get to know you a little bit. Looking back, what do you pick as that one moment where you said, “This is what I need to do”?

Izzy: I’ve said this quite a few times in interviews, but I stick to what I say because it is true. I grew up around music, but there was one moment, because I didn’t grow up caring about a lot of rock music or anything. I tried to be the opposite of my parents. And I remember watching the Enter Shakari music video, “Sorry You’re Not Winner,” and it’s like a basement show. There’s people crowd surfing, there’s lights, and people are sweating. And I’m like, “I want to do that.” As soon as I saw that video, I was like, “Got to do something to put out on MySpace.” And I was like, “I’m looking for band members.” And then sure did. I found some people in high school and I’ve been at it ever since. It’s just been everything for me.

Toddstar: As we talked about earlier, you’re working with great people. You’ve got great team around you that you’re happy with, always evolving. It’s the music industry. Who’s out there right now that you’d love to collaborate with?

Izzy: Oh man. There are so many good people. There’s artists that I love to death and would just love to just be a part of. Kim Dracula is such an interesting artist because they’re just as weird as I am, if not weirder. Or like Mangolia Park, who is here. Man, there’s so many. It’s a loaded question. There’s smaller artists too. Lyric Noel is a good one. I definitely encourage everybody to check them out. Rivals is a new one and they’re blowing up right now and I’m so excited by them.

Toddstar: What would be the one or two songs in your iTunes or Apple Music playlist that would shock your fans?

Izzy: Probably all of it. Most of what I listen to is not what I make in the ways that you probably view it. I tell people all the time that one of my biggest influences is Missy Elliot musically, which seems very odd until you actually take away the guitar and the drums and you actually listen to what I write. But I love Imogen Heap. I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t take someone who is as loud and chaotic as someone that listens to something so that’s real. I don’t even know. They’re just so chill and earthbound.

Toddstar: I agree. Looking back, what is one album that you would love to have been involved in? Either writing, singing, or just to be a fly on the wall?

Izzy: It’s going to sound like the ultimate scene kid. The first Panic at the Disco album is still one of my favorites. I think I want to know how they came up with 90% of what they did and why they wrote the things that they did. It is some of the most strangely written lyrics I’ve ever heard. I feel like that would’ve been an interesting thing to be a fly on the wall for.

Toddstar: When bands pull together all of their music for various releases, there’s typically leftover stuff. Did you keep stuff in the well so that you can release a bonus or deluxe edition or do you just kind of move on and keep writing and moving forward?

Izzy: I do have quite a few different tracks that I never put out, but they’re not finished. I feel like once I make something, if I come back to it, if it’s like a year or two later, I feel like that’s not who I am now and I don’t want to come back to it to put it out. As far as putting deluxe stuff out, so far I haven’t really had interest in doing that. I do have things for Patreon where I will be uploading unfinished songs and stuff for people to check out. So that is where they’ll end up.

Toddstar: Perfect segue – Patreon. How did you decide to go that route instead of just pumping yourself out there through the normal social avenues? What was it about Patreon?

Izzy: As a lot of artists can agree, it is a very saturated industry and it is damn near impossible to be able to get out there to be seen by people if you’re not sinking thousands and thousands of dollars into things. But Patreon is super cool because you’re not only building a community, but you’re able to give all of this other stuff to people specifically who are there to support you and help you grow as an artist. It’s a cool two-way street to create something like that. My Discord is also a massive, massive thing. It’s easily one of the coolest communities I’ve ever done because as an artist. My goal is to build community. I’m super grateful for Discord, but they’re involved in the Patreon and in the Kickstarter that I have going on. So it’s just a ton of really cool stuff and I’m very, very glad I went that direction.

Toddstar: Moving forward, but also looking back, what’s the one misconception or misstep that you’ve had so far that if you could go back and redo it, even if it gave you the same end result or answer about the music industry, what would you go back and just try and redo?

Izzy: That’s a tough one. Young me would definitely remember that quality over quantity is very important because I spent a lot of money going, “Well, if we put out a ton of music and it’s just okay, it’s better than putting out two really good songs.” I did learn that because even though I was only able to put out a few songs with sinking the money that I did, those songs got people’s attention, which led to labels, which led to funding. That was way more impactful than just putting out a bunch of stuff. So I wish that young me would’ve known that then, but that’s something I’ve learned over time.

Toddstar: Fair enough. Looking back, as you formulated who you were going to be in this industry, where are you now compared to where you thought you would be? Are you on the right track, the same track, or did you deviate and find something that suited you sonically, personality-wise, better than what you thought it would?

Izzy: My initial goal is exactly what I’m doing. A couple years ago, I feel like my thought was like, I just want to be able to pay my bills. I think with growing the community within Discord, it has re-ignited the flame in my head of why I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s not just for myself, but it’s to hopefully inspire other people to be human again because over the past six years, it’s been really crazy with COVID and people, their social life is just all on their phone and it’s very important to remember to be human. I think doing this kind of snapped me back into why. I’m glad that I’m on this track again.

Toddstar: Good. There’s so much work and push to place artists into genres and buckets. If you had to use your own words, forget taglines, forget PR press releases, how would you describe your music?

Izzy: It’s definitely weird. I would say it’s uniquely itself and not putting it necessarily in genres. The closest thing would be like a dark pop metal core, but it is so much more than that because everything that I write is so different from the last song on the album. You’re going to go to the next song and it’s not even close to the same thing, but it’s me. If it is anything, it is me.

Toddstar: I don’t know you that outside of our discussion here, but I used the word eclectic when I was trying to describe you to somebody because I hate genres. I chose eclectic because you never know what the next turn’s going to be.

Izzy: Exactly.

Toddstar: When you go back and read the reviews and all that stuff, has there ever been any that kind of spun you that you totally disagree with?

Izzy: I would say for the most part, I am very open-minded and I think music is very subjective. I don’t know if I would necessarily disagree with a lot of stuff. I think there was just one thing that I did get recently that was kind of more of an advice thing given. It was that you need to have a niche thing. For me, I guess I understand product placement, whatever. I do, but I do have my niche things. I do have that. I have my demon girls. I have my look. I have who I am and being fully themselves and mental health is dire. So I felt like I did disagree with that, but it wasn’t something that was so extreme that I’m like, “Screw you.” But other than that, that was the only bit I’d seen that they were like, “It would be better if they had a thing.” And I’m like, “I do.”

Toddstar: You mentioned mental health and I’ve seen that in bits and pieces from you. Is that a platform that’s very important to you?

Izzy: Extremely. Every single thing that I wrote, I like to call on this past album was Pre-Therapy Me. Mental health is something that was overlooked for a very long time and it takes either a massive toll or it can take a really good turn in life if you’re surrounded by the right people and you’re taking care of yourself the correct way.

Toddstar: If it’s pre-therapy you, how different will post-therapy you besonically?

Izzy: Very different. It has been literally life changing to not only be able to learn how to process things better and to actually deal with things rather than pushing it down and just posting all the time. Like I said, being able to be honest instead of just pretending like things are okay and then encouraging people being like, “Everything’s fine.” I was real. I was very blunt. I was very honest, and I realized it reached a lot more people. I will always continue to be that way. I have no thought process of ever changing.

Toddstar: That’s awesome. I appreciate that you have a platform and you stand by it and stand on it. Final thought – going through the songs you’ve written, and I’d like to kind of stick to what’s out there for the fans. If you had to put one of your lyrics on your headstone or as your epitaph, what would that lyric be and why?

Izzy: Of my songs? Oh man, that’s a tough one. I’m like, “What are my lyrics now?”

Toddstar: I didn’t know if there’s one that just sticks with you.

Izzy: Weirdly enough, I would say the first single I put out was “Broken by Design.” It’s a name and song and it’s in the chorus. I think that that is what I would put. The reason being is we all have our different things, but there’s a lot of us that either felt like we were supposed to be a certain way and then we weren’t, or we dealt with something and it ruined us and we felt like we didn’t belong one way or another. But to me, that meant a lot. I did, without getting into crazy detail, I grew into something that I was very upset at myself for a very long time thinking that I was wrong. Something was wrong with me all the time. There was nothing I could do. I felt like in that song, that was so important to me. That was the first song I wrote that was very genuine and very honest. I was scared to show people the song because I was like, “Oh God, they’re going to think I need real help now.” I would say that that is very important because it was a massive turning point for me. I was a making a big point about vulnerability, and I would like people to remember that.

Toddstar: Well, there you have it. Izzy Reign – Broken by Design. Well, thank you so much for the time.

Izzy: You are very welcome.

Toddstar: Welcome Home. I look forward to seeing you kill it tonight.

Izzy: I will. Hopefully I don’t die from the heat. Thank you, I appreciate it. Great questions.

IZZY REIGN LINKS:

OFFICIAL SITE

FACEBOOK

INSTAGRAM

IZZY REIGN – APPLE MUSIC

Category: Interviews