In 2022, you couldn’t escape the song “Leah” by Seeing Double on your TikTok For You Page. With its dreamy harmonies and catchy surf-rock guitar, the track felt like it was pulled straight from an unreleased ’60s demo. Seeing Double was a hit. Now, three years later, the band’s lead singer, Allie Sandt, is setting out on a solo journey—one that captures the nostalgic spirit of “Leah” while carving a path all on her own.
“We were a TikTok band,” she laughed, remembering the explosive success of the song through the app. “[TikTok] was the reason Seeing Double was able to go on tour, and the reason that I’m starting to meet people and have listeners from outside New Jersey and upstate New York where I have been living. It’s the reason I’m able to sell tickets at shows a lot of the time.”
Sandt has performed various shows across New Jersey and New York, but now, she is able to perform music from her own personal catalog. “I’ve been working on all these songs for a few years, while Seeing Double was going on,” she said.
“I’ve always been writing by and for my own stuff since I was about 15,” she began. “When I started college, I knew that I wanted to have a solo career down the line; I just didn’t really know what it would look like. Seeing Double just kind of ended up happening naturally while I was in school. The Seeing Double stuff was really fun to write for and sing for because it was kind of like bringing me into this indie rock world that I had never been a part of, a little bit heavier for me. Then I got back to doing my stuff, which has a little bit more of a jazz focus/folk,” she explained.
With clear inspiration stemming from ’60s and ’70s songwriters and artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, and Steely Dan, Sandt’s songwriting channels some of the greats, and her discography nods to the past while carving out its own lane to show for it.
As of now, Sandt has four released songs by herself: “The Flood” and “The Right Time” in 2024 in addition to “Ace” and “Jack’s Song” in 2025. All four tracks contain different vibes and aspects of Sandt’s musical talent, but they are all undeniably hers. Although Sandt admits these songs will remain singles and not be part of her larger project, she enjoys being able to play them live and have them out for fans to hear.
2025 saw two of Sandt’s standout tracks in her catalog. Sandt reminisced on the making of these songs and what they represented in her journey as a solo musician.
The inspiration for “Ace” stemmed from Sandt hearing Madison Cunningham’s track “Pin Down” and being inspired by her exceptional performance in that song. “She has her guitar and this drop tuning, and she’s playing a riff while singing over it the whole time. I was so enamored by the multitasking, like playing this riff and getting so used to it and getting it under your fingers where you were able to sing on top. I wanted to challenge myself; I wanted to try to do something like that,” Sandt explained.
“Ace” is nothing short of indie rock excellence, with passionate vocals and a guitar line that the song embodies. It is a sound perfect for Sandt’s voice.
But with this next project, Sandt admits that the album will be geared more towards her latest release, “Jack’s Song.”
“So, this one that is coming out [“Jack’s Song”], I played the acoustic guitar and I sang on it,” she said. “The percussion was done by Pete Dunphy, whom I actually know through my dad. My friend Logan Slansky played piano on it, Teddy Holly did the Nylon guitar solo, and Jack Piccirillo, the namesake of the song, played triangle.” She credited her friend Joey Farrell, who helped produce the song, and Rave Rajan, who played piano and worked as the nylon guitar engineer.
She continued, “Jack is my friend from high school. We met when we were 14. He is also a musician, but he is more on the audio side of things. We have grown up together, especially in the summer of 2020, when a lot of things were locked down. We lived pretty close to each other, and we would just hang outside all the time and just drive around when there was just nothing else to do. It just inspired the song.”
Sandt’s musical process includes many of the people closest to her. As an independent artist, she records with whom and where she can. Sandt admits that her method of recording is “very DIY.” From Mission Sound studio in Brooklyn, to her friends’ studios in NYU and her friend Teddy’s basement, she’s learned to make the most of every environment.
“All of the songs I have out I have written by myself, but I would be remiss to not credit the musicians that play on them because all of the musicians that have played on my songs have been close friends of mine that I either went to college with or met post-grad or just have always known,” she said.
Although Sandt has come a long way from Seeing Double, she still credits her success to the band and the social media fanbase behind it. Now, Sandt hosts solo shows with her own band and can make a name for herself.
“It’s so much fun to get up there [on stage] and sort of tell stories through the songs, and then have people resonate with it,” she said. “When I have a song that’s finished and recorded with other people, and we go out and play it live, that’s just like the cycle I want to be doing for the rest of my life. Success to me, as a career, would be the ability to do that full-time. I’m not at that place yet, but I am happy to keep doing whatever it takes during the day to support this passion because getting the chance to do it… that sounds like the life.”
You can listen to Allie Sandt anywhere you stream music.
Image taken from Spotify | Interviewed on July 8, 2025
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