Back on the scene with even more bite

Reneé Rapp launches her sophomore era with a new album, tour and force of will.

- BY MALIA MENDEZ

ZORA SICHER

"BITE Me" is Reneé Rapp's second studio LP.

In the music industry, the term “hiatus” has historically been used to describe artists who take extended breaks between releases. Most often, they do so in the name of creative restoration — and to their fans’ chagrin.

Such dry spells have marked singer-songwriters like Fiona Apple and Lorde, who throughout their careers have sustained several years-long periods of radio silence between albums.

Hence why Reneé Rapp was perplexed when, after going less than two years without releasing new solo music, people started saying she was on hiatus.

“Everyone's like, ‘Oh, after her break,’ and I’m like, “You mean doing festivals every other weekend? And making an album during it?’” Rapp said on a Zoom call in early October.

An hour or so later, the artist would head to sound check at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, where — despite a fever she was downing antibiotics to temper — she'd be playing later that night in support of her Bite Me Tour.

“It’s whatever, I've performed through worse,” Rapp said, recalling a Christmas Eve show she’d pushed through despite a bout of food poisoning.

In the years since her widely praised Broadway run as “Mean Girls” villain Regina George, which she embarked on when she was just 19, Rapp has had a stint in television, reprised her role as North Shore High School's apex predator for a movie musical adaptation of “Mean Girls” and released and toured an EP and two albums’ worth of music.

Rapp’s debut album, “Snow Angel,” arrived to much fanfare in 2023, and her sophomore record, “Bite Me,” dropped in August. The next month, she kicked off her Bite Me Tour, which landed at the Kia Forum last week.

In other words, Rapp has been busy.