She grew up listening to artists like Jack White, Beck, and Madonna, becoming interested in filmmaking and composing music at a young age.

Wallsocket specifically was inspired by artists such as Imogen Heap, Bruce Springsteen, and Sufjan Stevens, as well as country music, 2010s pop, and horror films.

Her style has been noted as diverse, playful, but precise, encompassing genres such as hyperpop, pop-punk, dubstep, indie pop, rock, and Midwest emo.

[4] As a child, Grey wrote short stories, created films using iMovie, and ran a YouTube channel with Let's Plays of the video game Minecraft (2011).

[4][5][6] Growing up, Grey listened to artists like Jack White, Beck, Lucinda Williams, and Van Morrison,[5][7] as well as pop stars like Madonna, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake.

[6] In the early 2010s, Grey discovered Skrillex and the dubstep genre and was attracted to its sound design possibilities, akin to "rocket science".

[2][5][10] For years, she released a stream of "one-offs",[4][11] such as her 2015 single "Mild Season",[2][9] but she eventually became bored of "using the same sounds" and began incorporating other influences.

It features appearances from 8485, Gabby Start (formerly known as Knapsack), and Maxwell Young, and was preceded by the promotional singles "Second Hand Embarrassment" and "Kinko's Field Trip 2006".

[23] The Wallsocket album and its release date were announced in July alongside a third single, "Locals (Girls Like Us)", which features Gabby Start.

[27] Alongside the tour, it was promoted with an alternate reality game (ARG) involving websites of a fictional Wallsocket, Michigan, town.

[4][5][35] Elias Leight of Rolling Stone highlighted Grey's liberal citing of influences, specifically, the U.K. garage of PinkPantheress and the Madonna–Nicki Minaj collaboration "Bitch I'm Madonna" (2015).

Grey gained the confidence to use her voice from how Laura Les, another trans woman, manipulated her vocals in alignment with her identity.

These included The Raconteurs, Sky Ferreira, Jason Isbell, Kwon Jin-ah, and Gillian Welch, as well as artists she listened to during childhood.

[37] Grey's early dubstep music experimented with structure due to her perception that the genre was traditionally limited to filling in a template.

[8] Her debut album Fishmonger is a hyperpop record with elements of rock, emo, pop-punk, indie pop, ambience, and dubstep.

[3] Fishmonger's follow-up EP, Boneyard AKA Fearmonger, is a fusion of pop-punk, dubstep, drum and bass, and new wave, also containing ballads.

[4][6] Grey's second album Wallsocket is primarily pop, rock, folk, and country, with punk, shoegaze, trap, and emo influences.

[2][32] Likewise, The Line of Best Fit's Noah Simon and Matthew Kim wrote that Grey's "stylistic range is vast" and that she "has always been known for eclecticism".

[3] Nico Tripodi for Pigeons & Planes thought that half of her appeal was her refreshing production, yet "behind the turbulent sonics, there always lies a song that would sound just as good stripped down.

"[13] Similarly, i-D's Frankie Dunn called Grey's sound nostalgic and playful,[37] while Leight of Rolling Stone described her as "precise about process".