Look out for Peyton Shay’s “Dashboard Lights” and its music video—an ideal track for anyone looking for something fresh beyond Taylor Swift. The video captures a late-night car ride through empty streets, setting the tone for Shay’s vocals as she reflects on a relationship gone wrong. “I randomly wrote the beginning of ‘Dashboard Lights’ in my room, alone, on my piano,” Shay shares. “It’s like speeding through red lights, ignoring warning signs, and realizing too late that I was driving us into trouble.”
Shay, from a small town outside Los Angeles, began songwriting in middle school after recording her first breakup song. “I don’t come from a musical background,” she says, but she found inspiration in artists like Blondie and Paramore. Her new Daydream Police EP captures the rawness of her early music with a deeper sense of self. “Writing this EP brought me back to my 12-year-old self,” Shay says. “It’s honest, daring, and just me.”
