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Name: Emilee Petersmark aka Lee Emi
Nationality: Korean-American
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current Release: Lee Emi's new album DESTROY EVERYTHING is out October 2nd 2026.
Things I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I feel like this project has been the first time folks have felt comfortable enough to talk to me about my adoption story, but I could go on and on about what it means to deconstruct the traditional adoption narrative and realize that the adoption industry largely relies on disenfranchisement to operate.
Over 250,000 infants were adopted internationally from Korea alone following the Korean war, creating one of the largest diasporas of international adoptees. So many factors contributed to that number– poverty, the cultural vilification of unwed motherhood, racism, sexism… in an equitable society, a lot of those barriers to parenting your own children wouldn’t exist and adoption would not be nearly as necessary.
Millions of dollars go into the brokering of adoption, which has inevitably led to shady practices and the outright trafficking of marginalized children. I could talk forever about the ways in which the adoption industry could be reshaped to minimize the need for familial separation.  
Also, I’m a big nerd. I love comic books, graphic novels, and cozy video games. I’ve reached perfection in Stardew Valley 3 times and have memorized big parts of the Wiki (if you know, you know). My favorite comic series is anything regarding the X-men (my favorite character is Rogue) but I grew up reading Batman comics and have strong opinions about the movie-versions of DC Comics.  

If you enjoyed this Lee Emi interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and bandcamp.  

Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

My first real foray into songwriting happened in high school, when my friends and I decided to form a ska band. Before that I’d written some pretty terrible poetry that lived unshared in a diary, but the ska band gave me an outlet that allowed me to reframe all those big, cheesy feelings with a more tongue-in-cheek delivery.

We weren’t a good band, and we mostly just played house shows and lost battles of the bands, but it was a great experience to learn about writing, co-writing, and how to say vulnerable things in new, creative ways.

Ska music in particular does a great job of combining happy melodies with incredibly depressing lyrics, and it was a really great first stepping stone into being able to say what I wanted without being too blunt.

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

When The Pawn… by Fiona Apple is the kind of poetry that can change your life.

The song “I Know” hit me like a bag of bricks, and became one of my favorite songs to sing and play alone in my room.



Everything she writes hits like that, like she’s voicing for the parts of me that I was afraid to give a microphone to. She’s far and away one of my biggest inspirations and I’m so grateful I was able to access her music at such a formative time in my life.

Another album that feels like a north star for my own writing is XO by Elliott Smith. When I was 16 or 17, “Waltz #2” came on after midnight on NPR as I was driving home, and I had to do laps around the block to let the song finish because the chorus was so gutting.



Something about being able to capture those lonely feelings so well has continued to move me every time I hear Elliott’s voice.

I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

Sometimes, a melody can say more than lyrics can.

The Crane Wives have really maximized the emotional impact of a harmonized “oooo,” and I think starting my songwriting career in this place of valuing the feeling wordless melodies give you has definitely impacted the way I write for myself.



I love that music can create a whole environment for your feelings to live in without saying a single word. I love how songs in languages you don’t understand can still have an emotional impact.

Sometimes the things we feel don’t need words to be recognized.

The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it? How far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

For me, music and songwriting has always been the safest place for me to explore scary, ugly feelings.

A lot of my favorite songwriters write about stuff that would get you institutionalized if said aloud at a therapy session, but in the context of a song, it suddenly becomes something relatable and almost healing to see yourself reflected in. I don’t think half of the things I write about in songs could have been explored as deeply through other avenues, simply because no other place feels safe enough for that level of honesty.

Maybe it’s the distance of metaphor, or the space left up to an audience’s interpretation. Either way, I feel like I can dig much deeper into vulnerable places through songwriting than any other media.

What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

I feel like every song I write is trying to say the same thing in vastly different ways. Sometimes it feels like I’m going to be struggling to find new ways to say the same thing for my entire life.

I think there’s a part of me that keeps needing to self-destruct to come back better, and so a lot of my metaphors focus on themes of fire, smoke, cigarettes, and the desire to run instead of rebuild.

Things that break you down and create ghosts that follow you.

On the basis of a piece off DESTROY EVERYTHING, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.

For as simple as it is, my latest single “Smoke In Empty Rooms” had several lyrical iterations before it reached its final form.



I tend to struggle with writing about specific moments in time. I prefer songs that feel a bit more timeless, and so when I write music I often try to utilize language that doesn’t emulate a specific timeframe.

Even songs with more modern instrumentation, like “Destroy Everything” and “Black Hole” were careful to avoid any language that would prevent them from being applied to different eras.



However, “Smoke in Empty Rooms” leans hard into the time period that inspired it, making reference to quarantine, ventilators, and zoom calls. I let myself reference plastic tombs and screens because those were the icons that felt most relevant to the feelings I was trying to express.

There’s something specifically lonely about the modern era, and I wanted to reference this feeling of being alone despite having so many ways to connect.

Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics? The chorus? At a random point? What are the words that set the process in motion?

I think it depends on the song. Some songs, like “Clean Slate,” start out with the chorus hook and the rest of the song eventually blooms out around it. Others hit you like a lightning bolt and come out hard with the first line, like “Never Love an Anchor,” a song that was written from top to bottom in one session.

For me, songwriting is a practice of leaning into instinct, finding a phrase or melody that just feels right, and expanding from there. I know some songwriters excel with more structured writing practices, but letting the song go where it wants to has always worked best for me.

I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

I don’t think there are any rules to how to make or arrange an album, but my personal preference is to try to think of an album or EP as its own universe. The songs that exist within it show different corners of that world, and I appreciate when an entire record feels cohesive.

That said, my first solo-record feels like it’s connected through vibe alone. Some of the songs on the album are more folk/singer-songwriter focused, while others hit a harder, gritter tone.

I like to think they all live in the same world because they paint a picture of the past decade of my life.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

For a long time, I really hated the texture of my voice.

It felt too classical, too theater. I wanted to be a Bonnie Raitt, a Tom Waits, a Janis Joplin. Instead, I felt like my voice was out of place singing angry songs.

I definitely leaned into harder words and edgier deliveries to try and make up for the lack of texture in my voice. In that process, I definitely found that some words just felt right to use while others felt awkward. I try to lean into what instinctively feels good.

When it comes to singing someone else’s song, I definitely always feel like I’m making a cheaper version of the original, because no matter how deeply I may feel the lyrics someone else wrote, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to deliver them the way that the artist originally intended.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

I’m always so impressed at how listeners can find their own meanings in ambiguous lyrics.

I’m usually not very shy about discussing the meanings behind my songs, but there have been a few songs I’ve written for The Crane Wives that have had deep analysis by fans that don’t always align with my intentions for them (and that’s okay!).

The top example that comes to mind is the song “The Crooked, The Cradle,” which I had written after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I’ve had fans of the song ask if it was about anything from an abortion to Harry Potter.



Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Music is cathartic for me in ways I don’t always have the words to describe, and it’s healing to be able to communicate that through other sounds and textures, through layers and layers of metaphor in songwriting. Music is simply the language I understand the best.

If I could cook worth a damn, maybe I’d find more joy through creative expression in the kitchen. I’m grateful to have any kind of outlet, though, which is why I also spend a lot of time making visual media as well.