Attis

The Rock Angel is Spreading Their Wings

Interview By Bailey Meyers

Photo Credit: Jeremy Salazar / Clothing by HappyXLoco

Attis, or @a.ttis, is the “Rock Angel'' of TikTok and has swept up MusicTok with their massive wings and pop-punky music. Self-described as “energetic”, “kooky”, and “I don't know, I think I’m like, badass,” Attis spoke to us about her journey in TikTok, music, and fashion, and where she’s headed next!

What first catches the eye on Attis’s page are their many handcrafted wings that they sometimes adorn, shown off in the pinned videos. We asked them about the masterpieces, and got to hear a bit more about who Attis is and how the fame came about:

So, I’m a musician, and when I was first learning how to make music, I was like, “Oh my God, it would be so cool if I had a dark angel aesthetic.”

I’ve always been obsessed with the supernatural so I really wanted angel wings. I went to look them up on Etsy, and I was like, “Uh, I’m too broke for this.” Cause who the fuck buys like five-foot angel wings if they dont have a couple hundred or a couple of thousand dollars laying around? Which I did not. But, I was determined to have them so I decided to learn how to make them. I looked up tutorials on YouTube and I tried different methods to get the weight right and everything like that – I just made them for fun. Now, they’re sort of a thing I make to decorate my apartment and use casually. I actually had the pair that first went viral for me for around two years or so before I even put them online, I was just making them for me.

As an artist, Attis started self-teaching herself music four years ago, learning how to produce and experimenting with her sound. TikTok, though, was integral to her growth as an artist. “After gaining a TikTok following, I was able to connect with more people to begin to do music in a more professional manner.”

Photo Credit: Nicholas Delieto @actuallynicholas / Styling - Willyum Beck @willymbeck, assisted by Nat Miller @babyboynat.jpeg

Attis’s initial draw to TikTok was the music community that exists on the platform, where artists and creatives come together with their expression:

I joined because I saw so much cool stuff coming out of the app, so I just said, “Oh I want to be a part of this community of people,” and then things sort of took off. It's given me a really cool platform to begin telling people, “Oh hey, here’s the music I’ve been working on and learning how to make.”

 The plan worked, and Attis told us more about their involvement in another music project with other TikTokers:

It's not out yet, we’re not sure when—or if—but I auditioned for Song House Live, which is this competition where we had to make new songs and do music challenges every week. We met producers and all these great people in the music industry in general. It was great to be able to work with professionals for the first time.

The show, once it comes out, will showcase Attis alongside other artist-influencers like Tyler Brash, Alec Chambers, and Klondike Blonde. She explained it as a hugely impactful experience for her creativity, and said, “I think coming out of it, I was so sure of what I wanted to make, to put out, and it’s been great since then.”

Attis’s influences come from punk, pop-punk, ska, and alternative music in general. They mentioned the Gorillaz, and “camp pop, like Marina and the Diamonds and Gwen Stefani,” as specific artists they idolize. They reflected, “how do you marry pop with alternative to give a nice blend in-between?”

As perhaps the perfect marriage of pop and alternative, Attis recently collabed with Hot Topic, the teenage hallmark of the alt-pop scene:

That was so cool. I was like, “This is super on-brand.” They basically said, “Hey, we really like your style, we want to send you stuff.” Wanting to do more fashion-related content,  it was awesome working with Hot Topic because I thought, “okay cool, I can do this and people are looking at me for this.” I really love fashion, so that was another aspect of myself I’m aiming to post more about.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Salazar / Clothing by HappyXLoco

So we asked Attis about some of her favorite places to get clothes:

I am addicted to I.Am.Gia and namilia. I haven’t shown this as much, but I like to buy some of my clothes from sporting stores. So like actual motocross pants or actual snowboarding pants, things like that because growing up I played a lot of BMX and snowboarding games and I wanted to look like those video game characters.

We can attest, Attis definitely looks like a video game character when decked out in her eclectic brands. And just because of their good looks, Attis has dipped into the beauty world too. “I actually have a campaign coming out sometime this year with Urban Decay,” they said, when we asked about their modeling career.

Attis’s success and followers aren’t for nothing. Although she called her blowup somewhat accidental, she also let us know that it takes more than a chance to secure collaborations and succeed in advancing a music career.

I think that I am very, very, analytical. Everything feels very casual, but I tried to put a bit of thought into how I’m branding myself consistently. I try to stay aware of what’s hot, what’s trending, how does TikTok actually work? You can never expect something, but sort of learning visually what tends to do well in my niches and learning sonically what sounds are cool in the group of people I hang out with and groups that tend to follow me. So I think I did a lot of studying. I’m always questioning, how does this app work? What does it like in order for people to push content? It wants people to scroll endlessly through eye-grabbing content that gets you quickly. It wants you to post what’s relevant to the different niches you’re categorized in, so I kind of broke it down like a video game and I was like, “Let’s play.”

Outfitted in video game character drip, Attis tackled TikTok like your favorite protagonist. And she made accomplices along the way:

I met Tati (@illumitatiana), she's really cool and because she’s a photographer, she knows everything and everyone and is super helpful, like, “here are some things you can try on your page.” and really understand it. I worked with Caroline Carr (@yeahimcaroline) on the Song House show, and that was really cool. It was odd how many things we had in common. She was one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I haven’t met a whole lot of people but there’s a whole lot of creators I love.

While a fan of other creators, as for now, Attis is focused on 2022 and what’s coming next:

Now I’ve been kinda hunkered down a bit working on more music. I've been trying to figure out what type of content I'm going to be posting this year so I can get some more of a structure from TikTok. Definitely, more fashion will be coming from me, music will be getting released, and I'm going to have a heavy focus on those two things and then I’ll do more modeling again later this year.

As Attis continues to put out new content from her new New York apartment, there’s no doubt her wings will bring her to even higher heights than before.