LOS ANGELES, CA- I’ll admit it. When I first saw the press release for Rivkah Reyes’ new single “Menace,” there was one line that immediately got my attention: “School of Rock’s Katie goes from bassist to frontwoman.”
Wait. Katie?
I had to look up Rivkah Reyes just to remind myself exactly who she was. Sure enough, there she was: Katie, the soft-spoken bassist from Jack Black’s 2003 comedy School of Rock. Reyes was only a kid when the film introduced her to millions of people, and realizing that sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. What happened to her after School of Rock? What had she been doing all these years? And, perhaps more importantly for my purposes, what did she sound like now?
That curiosity ultimately led me to “Menace,” the latest single from Reyes’ forthcoming debut EP, Fan Favorite, due November 6. And knowing a little more about the person singing it completely changed the lens through which I heard the song.
Because “Menace” feels remarkably personal.
There’s a diary-like quality to Reyes’ writing, but what really makes the song work is its specificity. These aren’t generalized recollections about a bad relationship or regrettable decisions. Reyes fills the song with little details: cool blue Gatorade, a red bikini, a rooftop, black jeans, a new truck, a cigarette, driving into the sunset with Billy Joel playing.
They’re the kinds of details that make you wonder whether you’re listening to a song or reading somebody’s journal.
As it turns out, there’s good reason for that feeling. Reyes has explained that “Menace” was inspired by a rooftop encounter with an ex, and she has spoken openly about the song in the context of recovery and the tendency to replace one addiction with another. In this case, the addiction becomes another person.
That makes the chorus hit differently.
Reyes jokingly casts herself as a “menace to society,” but underneath that bravado is a much more vulnerable question about whether returning to this person represents another kind of relapse. There’s humor in the way she describes the chaos, but there’s also self-awareness. She knows what she’s doing. She knows she probably shouldn’t be doing it. She does it anyway.
One lyric particularly caught my attention: “I’m battling my silhouette.”
I’m not entirely sure what Reyes intends the silhouette to represent, and maybe that ambiguity is part of its appeal. I hear it as battling some shadow version of yourself, the person whose habits and impulses keep following you even when you’re trying to become somebody different. Within a song that repeatedly blurs romantic desire and addictive behavior, that image carries some weight.
Then there’s Billy Joel.
The reference to “Vienna” initially appears almost like another photograph from Reyes’ memory, a song playing in the background of a drive. But by the bridge, it becomes something more. Reyes invokes “Vienna” again while telling this “devil child” to slow down, only to immediately acknowledge that it may already be too late.
And then comes the escape: “Let’s run away, Vienna waits.”
It’s a clever inversion because “Vienna” is famously associated with the idea of slowing down. Reyes, meanwhile, has written a song about doing almost anything but that.
Musically, she makes the contradiction feel exhilarating. “Menace” has enough crunch and propulsion to keep the song from becoming weighed down by everything happening beneath its surface. Reyes has said she wanted the messiness to feel enormous and euphoric, citing Hayley Williams and Olivia Rodrigo as influences she was listening to at the time. You can understand what she means. This isn’t regret set to somber music. It’s regret with the guitars turned up.
And perhaps that’s what I like most about “Menace.” It’s messy without wallowing in its messiness.
Reyes describes her forthcoming EP, Fan Favorite, as her truest introduction to who she is as an artist, a six-song collection exploring the desire to be chosen and the realization that being somebody’s “fan favorite” isn’t necessarily the same thing as loving yourself. That feels particularly significant for someone who became recognizable to the public at such a young age.
More than two decades ago, millions of us first met Rivkah Reyes as Katie, standing behind a bass guitar in School of Rock.
I clicked on “Menace” because I wanted to know what happened to that kid.
By the time the song was over, strangely enough, I felt like I knew a little bit about the person she became.
That may ultimately be the best compliment I can give “Menace.” I hadn’t kept up with Reyes. I didn’t know about the music she had released in recent years. I didn’t know much about the life she had lived since School of Rock. But within the span of one song, through a rooftop, some blue Gatorade, a red bikini, a questionable decision and Billy Joel playing somewhere in the background, Reyes manages to tell us quite a bit about herself.
If Fan Favorite is intended to introduce Rivkah Reyes as she exists right now, “Menace” makes a pretty convincing introduction.
And when the EP arrives November 6, I’m pretty sure I’ll be listening.
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