St. Thomas sophomore Penny Groethe has racked up over 200,000 streams on SoundCloud and signed a record deal under the stage name Penny Mae, which all started in an attempt to prove her dad wrong.

Groethe started making music in the summer of 2020 after her dad said she couldn’t make an original song every day. With this challenge came the birth of Penny Mae and the release of the songs “The Fawn” and “Scooby Doo,” which combined have garnered over 100,000 SoundCloud streams.

“I realized I was getting a huge response from my friends and strangers,” Groethe said. “When I finally saw that people were appreciating what I was creating, I realized that this is something I should do with my life, whether that be a career or just a lifelong pursuit.”

Groethe said after her dad challenged her during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, she wrote 26 songs from that day on.

“I just had a complete creative spiral and I just wrote song after song after song,” Groethe said. “That’s when I was kind of like, ‘Hey, I got something.’”

The push from her dad to make music wasn’t something out of the ordinary. Groethe said her family has always challenged each other musically.

“(Music’s) always just kind of been a thing in our family,” Groethe said. “My grandpa was actually a jazz teacher. And then my dad and all his siblings played instruments, and so did me and my siblings.”

Groethe started singing as a way to combat a phonological condition caused by ADHD that makes it harder for her to read.

“(It) basically means that you don’t think in words you almost think more in sounds,” Groethe said. “My parents’ trick was to start me on karaoke, because then I was singing, as I always loved to do, but then that way I had to read the words on the karaoke.”

This trick helped Groethe continue her love for music and inspire her to want to become a singer.

Groethe explained her music as a mixture between R&B and Hip-Hop, with spoken word mixed in. She said this range of genres comes from listening to different types of artists like Amy Winehouse, Arethra Franklin and Megan Thee Stallion.

Groethe said that her music and message has evolved over the past year.

“When I first started writing, it was really just experimenting,” Groethe said. “I am more sure of what I want to share… when I’m writing, I think a lot more about what messages I’m putting out rather than just having fun.”

In this year of music making, Groethe has been able to gain a following of over 11 thousand on Instagram and sign with Savannah Street Records.

“They reached out to me when I was making music, but it was ultimately my decision to sign with them,” Groethe said.

The signing came after Groethe had worked with producer Ben Obi, who works for Savannah Street, when she was 14.

“I recorded a song with him just to kind of get myself working in that area and get myself comfortable with being in a booth and singing,” Groethe said. “Once I started writing music, and my dad was posting it on his Facebook, he came over and he was like, ‘this is really good.’”

Groethe then worked with Obi to reproduce the songs “The Fawn” and “Scooby Doo.”

Groethe said she plans to make an album this summer and do more interviews, photoshoots and music videos.

“That’s kind of going to be the jumpstart on my career,” Groethe said.

Groethe is excited to keep pushing and growing her music and fanbase.

“What the people need to know about Penny Mae is that she’s here right now,” Groethe said. “She’s here for you. And she’s here to stay.”

Scout Mason can be reached at maso7275@stthomas.edu.