Music girls are the inspiration for Pinterest boards everywhere. Remember “rockstar girlfriend”? or the “messy girl aesthetic”? The vision: she’s aspirationally aloof, and her whole artsy vibe happens without ever having to try. 

IRL, the music girl is much more than a muse. She’s someone who does care — deeply, actually — about making music. The effortless cool is backed by genuine creative expression, hard work, and all the times she pushed herself out of her comfort zone. 

Rock singer/songwriter Francesca Tarantino is the perfect example. Yeah, she has that natural cool girl energy (you can find her jamming out on a black electric guitar in vampy makeup or softly strumming her acoustic with space buns on her head. She’s got layers.). 

But she’s doing the work behind-the-scenes, too: letting new songs flow through her, prepping for gigs across the country, and learning everything she can about the music she loves. 

That makes her cooler than any accidental vibe. 

When we catch up with Francesca on Zoom (she’s on our Sunnie advisory board, so we’re already besties), she tells us her favorite things about music: that it can be about anything, and that it brings people together. These sound general, but are actually super real. Hear her out:

“Writing about things that have actually happened in my life keeps me going. I could write about anything. I could write about a dream, a friend, whatever,” she says. “That's what makes it fun.” 

She tries to keep her lyrics up for interpretation because she knows that feeling when a song feels right for your exact situation is unmatched. Fans tell her how their own personal stories connect to her music, especially her song Hold On To Me. It reminds Francesca that music is the OG invisible string. 

“It's like this unspoken language that no one ever thinks about, but in the back of our minds, it really brings everyone together,” she says. “Something as simple as finding someone else who likes the same artist or the same band as you links you with that person.” 

Francesca grew up in a musical family, so she picked up on it naturally. And while her love of guitars and classic rock are pretty unique for her age, that’s what she was around the most. 

“Classic rock music was always played in my house, in the car, everywhere. It became a huge part of my life,” she explains. “I fell in love with it. My ear just grew a liking to the older things.” 

When she heard new music, she wondered why that sound seemed to disappear. So she made it her mission to revive it in a way that felt authentic. 

The problem? She was terrified of singing around other people. 

So she enlisted the help of a vocal coach to push her out of her shell. You know how there’s always that one teacher who just gets you? This vocal coach was that for Francesca. She taught her about affirmations, which felt silly at first, but helped Francesca relax and get used to the idea of being on stage. 

The vocal coach also pushed her to perform in front of people through musical theater. It was intimidating at first, but the repetition made Francesca feel comfortable pretty quickly. 

And once she felt like it was time to find her own sound, she picked up her guitar and her notebook, and let her heart do the talking. 

The first few songs actually happened by accident. 

“I started writing random things down. I loved putting my emotions down on paper, and then when I started putting music to it, it just so happened to sound like a song,” she explains. “And then I just created this blend of classic rock and more recent modern rock, and that became my own sound.” 

She lets the lyrics and melodies flow through her naturally instead of pushing herself to write songs when she has a blank Word doc and a weird feeling that she needs to get something done. 

As soon as Francesca started performing, that annoying stage fright started showing up again. What if it’s not perfect? What if people don’t like it? What if I make a song of my own and it flops? 

She’d practice her songs so much that she was exhausted by the end of the night. And she’d beat herself up when she made little changes in the moment, feeling like this signified imperfection. 

It’s hard to balance wanting to create something amazing and protecting your peace. It can feel impossible to keep up switching from grind culture (girlboss!) to “soft life” vibes (banana bread and no responsibilities). Those of us who want to chase our passions and be happy? We’re left somewhere in the middle. 

Luckily, Francesca is learning to embrace something different entirely: a balance between passion, hard work, and real rest. 

“I never try to overwork myself,” she says. “That will end up with me tired of making music eventually, and I don't want that to happen. I love what I do, and I never want to get tired of it.” 

Plus, a lot of the time, what she first thinks of as mistakes end up making her songs cooler and more creative. 

“There are so many times hearing great soloists like Jimmy Page [of Led Zeppelin] and David Gilmour [of Pink Floyd], you think you hear perfection, but it's really them just putting their creative emotions into their playing,” she explains. “Occasionally, you can hear a wrong note, or a different bend, and that’s what makes it so cool. That's what I try to put into my work now — doing those little twists, or putting my own spin on it.”

The messiness (the real stuff, not just the aesthetic) is what makes things interesting. It’s what makes music feel like you, even if it’s not perfect or curated for an algorithm. It’s hard work, it’s real, and it’s always evolving. And Francesca knows authenticity beats perfection every time. 

“You don't want to be the same robot over and over again,” she says. “It's more fun to be different.”