The Hudson Valley might be all mountains and quiet rivers, but for Scout Paré-Phillips, it’s the backdrop to a comeback—both to music and herself.
After years away working as a clinician, she returns with Lupine Daughter, an album born from grief, chronic illness, and family loss.
Trading her classical soprano for a raw chest voice, Scout channels the emotional weight of Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Jeff Buckley, and Leonard Cohen.
Recorded with longtime friends, the album feels lived-in and intimate. From inventive instrumentation to a music video that mirrors struggle and triumph, Lupine Daughter is a powerful meditation on survival, resilience, and finding small sparks of joy amid life’s hardest moments.
HAPPY: What have you been up to today?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: Today my bassist and his wife visited us to go out to lunch in Beacon, which is the hub near where I currently live in Hudson Valley.
HAPPY: Tell us a little about where you’re from, and what you love about it.
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: I am from Brooklyn and Hudson Valley. Being an Italian girl from Brooklyn, that city’s frenetic atmosphere will always have a place in my heart, and I’m still there all the time for rehearsals and gigs. But Hudson Valley is where I feel most at peace: the climate of my childhood lulling a nostalgic, familiar tranquility, with verdant, foggy mountains always on the horizon.
HAPPY: Who were some musical inspirations you drew from for this project?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: This project was inspired by all of my primary influences: Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, Roy Orbison, Beth Gibbons, Rowland S. Howard, Neko Case, Richard and Linda Thompson, Grace Slick, and others.
We paid careful attention to the production of my favorite PJ album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, to prepare to go into the studio.
HAPPY: You explore singing in your raw, low chest voice instead of your signature soprano on this album. What motivated this vocal shift?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: I had taken a few years away from music to build a career as a clinician.
I believe during that period, my chest voice got overdeveloped from conducting talk therapy ten hours a day; I was no longer touring or training in the soprano range that classical vocal coaches had cultivated for me as a teen.
The voice is like any muscle – you lose it with disuse. When I returned to singing in 2023, the stories I was telling were no longer delicate.
I felt the delivery of blending into my chest voice fit the narrative meaning of the songs much more congruently, reserving my soprano for flourishes.
My father was a country singer, and I channeled some of his croon.
HAPPY: The project delves into physical and emotional struggles with lupus. How did your diagnosis influence the album?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: I wrote Lupine Daughter in the frenzied course of about three months in 2023.
My grandfather and father both died throughout the pandemic, leading to my body being crippled by grief and trauma, and what I did not realize at the time was undiagnosed lupus (and a few other health conditions).
I had a lot to process about that massive, soul sucking grief, and what the implications of observing my father succumb to complications of his autoimmune condition meant for my quality of life.
I vividly remember a phone call from my father when I was in college, during which he dejectedly told me he couldn’t play guitar anymore because his rheumatoid arthritis had disfigured his hands into stiff claws.
Lupus causes a lot of pain and muscular issues in my hands, so I needed to adapt the way I played guitar – back to the way my father taught me how to play as a young girl.
Broadly, the message of this album is to adapt and survive in the face of loss and your own body failing you.
HAPPY: The album features your full band from New York City. What’s the collaborative process like?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: My collaborative process began with showing my field mic demos to my drummer, Sam Lazzara, and working out the grooves and vibraphone parts with him through many rehearsals.
The album was born between the two of us in those sessions (and I am always encouraging him to take more credit).
Then I brought in my old bandmates from The Sterling Sisters, George Cessna and Eric Paltell, to join us in the studio; those boys really made the music feel like home.
I played bass on the record and layered my own backing vocals for the first time, which harkened back to our old band’s sound.
My longtime friend and cellist Angela McJunkin also took the initiative to layer many cello parts, and even viola.
The mixing and final guitar overdubs were done by Jeff Berner, who recorded my second LP on Dais Records, Door Left Open. Overall it felt like a family band of old friends, which for me, was a necessary homecoming after a hiatus.
I shed the imaginary pressure I felt as a “solo artist” who didn’t tour with a band that I needed to be able to carry my studio arrangements by myself onstage.
HAPPY: Can you discuss the creative vision behind the “Claw” music video?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: My background is in photography, so the video was conceptualized as a series of still photographs telling my story of lupus, loss, and returning to music. I’d never done a music video with contextual B-roll imagery spliced in, so that was a challenge.
I felt it was important to emulate the actual, high-contrast rhythm of my life: periods of rest, recovery, and medical or self-care, oscillating with periods of the tremendous effort of performance that leave me both drained and fulfilled.
Luthier Cindy Hulej of Carmine Street Guitars made me a custom baritone with a short, thick neck to alleviate the hand issues I was having playing with lupus.
It was important to me to feature Cindy (who I feel rescued my playing) in juxtaposition to recreating my father’s arthritic hands seizing up, similar to what mine do when spasming.
Throughout the whole album, I am asking myself “Can I play music anymore – or how long will my body allow me to”?
My close friends Erica Hohf and Ian Herbert play in my live band and appear in the video, both of whom I’m so grateful for.
Eleen Halvorsen who designed my custom leatherwear and dress also has a cameo.
HAPPY: What do you hope listeners take from Lupine Daughter?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: I hope anyone struggling with chronic illness, family dynamics of addiction, caregiving, grief, or general trauma finds some catharsis and validation in this album.
Although these songs are full of love, they are not love songs, for the first time in my musical career.
The thesis statement to myself is that I need to take care of myself first – and sometimes make sacrifices which are painful – to keep functioning, showing up for the people I love, and doing the things I love.
HAPPY: If you could summarise the sound of this project in one word, what would it be?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: Anguish.
HAPPY: Lastly, what makes you happy?
SCOUT PARE-PHILLIPS: Simple – being anywhere in nature with my two whippets and partner, or curled up on our couch together.
