Punk Provocateur Sarah Herrera Explains Why She Pulled Her Music From Spotify
by Thomas Bedward
May 14, 2025
On 18th April 2025, just twenty minutes after her latest album hit Spotify, punk bassist and vocalist Sarah Herrera pulled every one of her songs from Spotify. A collection of seven albums and eleven singles, encompassing over one hundred songs she had recorded and released with her bands and as a solo artist, disappeared. Her life's work, much of it written in her youth, including lyrics penned when she was just eleven, was gone with a few clicks, an act she says took just three minutes.
This wasn't a move made on a whim, but a calculated protest against the "predatory services" that she believes are "ruining the music industry in exchange for short-term profits for a handful of high-level executives." She's since pledged a radical new approach: refusing royalties, offering music only on free public platforms, selling physical media at cost, providing free digital downloads, and even renouncing her publishing rights, moving her work towards the public domain.
Hailing from The Bronx, NYC, Sarah is an artist known for her uncompromising sound, controversial approach, and unshakable passion around music. We recently caught up with her to dig into her history, the punk scene that shaped her, the inspiration behind her often-shocking lyrics, and what comes next.
It’s amazing to have the chance to speak with you today, Sarah. Thank you for taking the time. Let’s take things right back, when did you first start making music? Where did it all begin, and what inspired you?
“I grew up in The Boogie Down (The Bronx), in New York City, which is pretty much the birthplace of hip-hop. I loved the rebellious spirit and challenging of authority behind some early hip-hop, but as an art form, I find it generally pretty lazy, especially now - it all sounds like the stuff that belongs as background music in a strip club. I mean, if literally anyone can do a particular thing with a laptop and working vocals chords, is it really art?”
“Anyway, I started going down to the city, mainly the Lower East Side when I was a kid, and quickly got into the punk scene. I was a 10-11-year-old kid, and there was a bass player, to this day the best I have ever known, everyone just calls him MAHHHH BROTHA! because that's how he greets everyone. He kind of took me under his wing, taught me progressions and walking bass lines and the right fingering. My first band, when I was at I.S. 95 in the Bronx was called Vomitsemen, which is, I guess, the type of name that a 14-year-old would come up with. So between the ages of 14 and maybe 19, I was in Vomitsemen, Taking It In The Ass From John Holmes, RAPE!, The Fabulous Starfuckers, I was in Fentanyl Testers for a while, Miguel, Matt and I wrote a bunch of songs that eventually were released when we formed Pancreatic Cancer much later, most of them are on the one album we put out, ‘Yelling Freebird! at Funerals’.
"In my 20's, I was in Exploited Cocks, Pancreatic Cancer, and then we kind of broke big with the Tommy Lasorda Experience. That band broke up last month - we no longer have a record label, so I've just kind of continued with solo work. The guys in that band are still mahhhhh brothas, but they had to walk after my music pull down and I understand that and respect their decision.”
"As for inspiration, it comes from the standard things punk musicians find inspiration in when they're young and haven't really formed an identity yet and are still trying things on, so to speak. Drugs. Sex. Alcohol. More sex. Crashing on other people's couches. Waking up covered in vomit with obscene words written all over you with a Sharpie. Breaking into studios at night to try to get recording time. Sex. Pawning your equipment. Selling your plasma. Stapling up flyers until your hands are bleeding. Sex. You write about what you know. You write about what you've lived. These are the inspirations behind what goes into music, or any art. Unless you're some shitty pop singer singing about sunshine and lollipops, but that's not worth my time or yours. Have fun at the halftime show at the Super Bowl playing a duet with what’s left of Aerosmith, I'd rather be broke.”
You have a new project on the horizon, more of a solo project. Can you tell us a bit about it and what it means to you?
“Yes, it's a live recording, my own solo project, it's called ‘I Never Make Mistakes Because I Never Do Anything (Live)’ and it means a lot because it's possibly kind of a farewell - I don't know if Jimmy (Cullen, guitar) and Miguel (Estrada, drums) and I will play together again, we may, we may go our separate ways and into separate projects. I kind of fucked us when I took everything down from all the streaming services, but I couldn't live with the fact that bands I was in and bands I was friends with getting financially and creatively screwed so that some executive at Spotify could own a third vacation house in Aspen or something.”
“Other than that, what this release means is hard work. It was recorded over the course of two nights down in Philly in February, and mixed and mastered over the course of two months. It is raw and unpolished, and absolutely faithful to what our live shows are like. The only thing added was that the producer (me) thought it would be funny to dub in audio of small children crying, so you will hear that here and there on the album. That's an inside joke, when I released ‘Song For My Niece’ on my first EP, which is thought by many, and people who would know, to be the most profane song in the history of streaming services, the song ends with the words ‘Goodnight Katarina’ and actual audio of my niece crying.”
“I won't leave you hanging, just Google Sarah Herrera ‘Song for My Niece’, I'm sure the lyrics are out there. They damn sure can’t be printed here. Actually, don’t use Google, friggin’ company tracks you every time you go to the bathroom and sells the info to advertisers.”
Being a live album, are there any particular moments or experiences that help influence you when it all came together?
“Well, yeah. I mean, less so than a studio album, because this is a live album, you're not really writing anything, but my other mentor is a drummer who has been in some really big bands. An unbelievable drummer, he goes by the nickname Jam, which is short for ‘This Is My Jam’ (that's a whole 'nother story, we actually did a song called ‘This Is My Jam!’ about something he said to me in a pool hall once in Jersey which was the single funniest sentence I have ever heard in my 25 years on this planet).”
“Now I suffer from pretty bad anxiety, generally in social situations, I'm the first one out the door. More than 6 or 7 people in a room, after a while, I get the heebie jeebies. This guy has no anxiety whatsoever; he was interviewed on MTV back when MTV meant something, and he was cool as a cucumber. Guy was a natural in front of the camera. Of course, he's kinda stoned fairly often (as in 24/7), but he has really mentored me into being able to perform in public, talk in interviews, answer the phone, that sort of thing. I'll tell you, he is my jam, on a personal level.”
You’ve spoken about the new album being something of a farewell, but was there a central message or theme you were looking to convey in it?
“Yeah, there is. As an artist, I need to fully express myself and push boundaries as far as they can be pushed. I already discussed the fact that I have written the most profane song ever. I also wrote what is most certainly one of the most offensive songs ever, ‘Is It Really A Stereotype If It's Actually True?’. Anonymous death threats came in after that was released, I’m dead serious.”
“But here's a better example: A few years ago, I was trashed, I mean blackout drunk, and I think someone showed up with angel dust at some point, not 100% sure, but that's where my memory of that night ends. I woke up on the floor around 5 PM the next day, and there were 20 pages written in my notebook, single-spaced. My handwriting, no recollection whatsoever of any of this. It was sentence after sentence, and every single sentence, apparently, had to have one of six words/phrases in it: stealing, lawyer, taxes, rape/molest, politician, or drink and drive. There are a few exceptions, for some reason I wrote "I am a skinhead because my penis is a skinhead" somewhere in there, but it generally adhered pretty closely to the rules I must have made up in my stupor. It has become known as ‘The Ungodly Document’, it's the most bizarre thing you'll ever read in your life. I would love to publish it someday.”
“We've used that document as lyrics for three songs, ‘A Collect Call From Nowhere’, ‘What's Yours Is Mine’, and ‘I Drink and Drive Because I Want To Be A Giant Pinball Going Down The Road’ (which I think is the first line of ‘The Ungodly Document’). Actually, our last studio album was supposed to be called that, but our label stepped in and made us just call it 'A Giant Pinball Going Down The Road'. I'm standing topless with my back turned in Times Square in NYC on the album cover, which was pretty nerve-wracking, and I certainly wasn't going to try to get a permit, so it was done pretty quickly. I think those Black Israelite guys always yelling about white devils on that corner got a kick out of it.”
“We did all three of those songs on the live album, so coming full circle, yeah - those songs kinda capture what I'm trying to convey. Don't play it safe. Don't do things just because they're socially acceptable. Know who you are, be comfortable in your own skin, and work from there.”
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations as an artist? Where do you see yourself in the next few years, both musically and personally?
“I always figured I’d be dead by 30. Kinda hope so sometimes. I’m bored. As an artist, I want to finish my novel, which is about 5% completed, haha. The music, we’ll see. Will probably fade into obscurity, just another Latin girl from the Bronx working a hump job.”
What's next after this live release? Do you have any new releases or shows on the horizon?
“I dunno, man. I’m burnt out. I really am. We’ll see. I work full time, I’m in two bands and kinda in a third, and I squeeze in at least an hour and a half of pool a night. That’s the one thing I love as much as or even more than music, I’ve been playing since I was a kid. I play my manager in 9-ball often, I give him the 6 out and he still can’t beat me, he gets so angry because he’s a tournament player and thinks he’s hot shit.”
“We also wrote an absurd number of songs between 2022 and 2024, but never had a chance to record them until I made an arrangement with the head of a recording studio here. I won’t tell you how, but let’s just say I often feel kinda dirty and shower a lot. So we recorded at a breakneck speed between last November and March, just every free moment rehearsing (occasionally) and recording.”
Live releases can always be kind of divisive. What sort of reception have you had to the album so far?
“Reception has been very, very minimal. And I could not be happier. How many actual fans of my music are there out there? I dunno, a few hundred tops. Probably less. We had a lot of streams and followers on Spotify, but that was our label doing promo work.”
“For this album, that was a decent-sized venue we played, definitely the largest ever, but a lot of people were looking at their phones, there were probably a lot of people who just show up to random live music events, and then there are always a bunch of guys who see the band photo and show up to stare at my tits. We released this for those fans who have stuck with us. Do we want to make new fans? Of course. But I’m not going to change my artistic principles or sacrifice my artistic integrity in order to reach a larger audience. I’m not going to try to reach the Latin American market by making a friggin’ salsa song.”
“That’s a joke. I did make a salsa song (‘This Is My Salsa Jam!’), which is on my EP, ‘I Give To The Poor So I Can Have Something To Steal’. My label threatened me with breach of contract if I didn’t, and I just didn’t want the hassle, so I did it. Not my finest moment.”
“You can go on Spotify right now, and it’s on there, but it’s greyed out, as are our all of our releases as of last month. There’s still an artist profile. In this case, be thankful it’s greyed out. You do not want to hear it.”
Is there anything you would like to say to our audience? How can they connect with you and help support you?
I don’t have social media. I don’t have a website (anymore, there was one at sarahherreramusic.com, but I took it down when I took down our music, I don’t know why – the whole thing was a very self-destructive act). If you’re in the Kingsbridge section of The Bronx and see me, say hi. That’s all. I’m not solipsistic, it won’t be a conversation about me – I’d like to know about your life. If you’re crazy enough to want an autograph, I have a tattoo pen somewhere.”
“That’s it, other than thanks to anyone. You don’t have to love or even like our music. As long as you don’t vomit in your mouth when you hear it, we love you.”
A force of nature pushing back against the tide, Sarah Herrera is an artist living on her own terms. Her decision to erase her digital footprint is a potent, arguably self-destructive, statement against an industry she views as fundamentally flawed. It’s a powerful statement, and one we hope the world takes notice of.
Connecting with Sarah means taking your chances in Kingsbridge, The Bronx, or perhaps seeking out that elusive tattoo-pen autograph. Regardless of what the future holds, Sarah remains fiercely committed to her artistic principles, asking little more than that you hopefully don't "vomit in your mouth" when you hear what she creates.
For more from Sarah Herrera, you can find her on her recently resurrected Facebook page, or on her website.