Last year, after a journey to Morocco, actor Madison Bailey helped discover the pirate Blackbeard’s lost treasure. She notched that belt on the hit Netflix show Outer Banks, a coming-of-age adventure drama that explores teen angst as well as the eternal appeal of crop tops, cutoffs, and beachy curls. She also traveled back in time to head off her sister’s killer in the horror movie Time Cut. A fifth and final season of Outer Banks is in the works, but for the moment the 26-year-old has turned her imagination to her first love, music. And she’s started writing songs. So far she has released two singles, “The Grey” and “Honestly,” which both probe emotions that are not quite as sunny as the beaches where we’re used to seeing her.

Allure sat down to chat with Bailey at one of her favorite local restaurants, Jon & Vinny’s, before the Los Angeles fires wreaked destruction on the city. We talked about New Year’s resolutions, acting, music, fragrance, and love, and how she hopes to find a balance this year with all of them.

Allure: When you walked in here, I could tell you are a regular!

Madison Bailey: I discovered this place—why am I saying I “discovered” it? A friend told me about this place; I didn’t discover shit. I’ve been here, like, 60 times. Six-zero.

It’s wonderful to be a regular somewhere. Your routine must change a lot since you’re usually on an island for months and months of the year hunting for TV treasure.

That’s my goal for the whole year, to get a routine of some sort, even if it’s just my water bottle, taking my vitamins, journaling. I’ve been trying to get a schedule that’s maintainable for travel. I‘m canceling my gym membership because I had it all year and I was gone the whole time. And I want to expand my talent for music and listen to new artists every day. I’m already discovering so many people; [my taste] is all over the place.

How are you finding time for music, which had been part of your life before you became an actor, right?

I just started making music, but I’ve been singing my whole life. Aside from Outer Banks, which is in the schedule, a known thing, my focus is music, and I am reading scripts constantly. I won’t make time for what I don’t want to do. It's determining where my creation is flowing. If I read something I love, I put anything else on pause. This is the year where I will find the balance.