WORDS // EMILY WHITCHURCH
PHOTOGRAPHY // MALLORY TURNER
STYLING // GEMMA CROSS
From posting covers on YouTube throughout highschool to constructing an in depth world neighborhood of followers – or associates, as she affectionately refers to them – 23-year-old singer-songwriter Rachel Grae invitations listeners again into her head and coronary heart on her upcoming sophomore file, “Turned Into Me.” It’s a becoming title as she embraces new-found emotions of empowerment, celebrating her private development whereas honoring the journey it took to get there. Regardless of the thousands and thousands of streams and followers Grae has racked up throughout platforms, she maintains a directness and emotional intimacy in her lyrics that make it really feel as if she’s singing to you, for you, with you.
Talking with Grae, it’s no shock that her music is so deeply rooted in authenticity and vulnerability, as she chats overtly about her relationships with social media, her listeners, and herself.
For individuals who aren’t acquainted with your music, are you able to share a bit about your journey as an artist up to now?
I’ve been singing my total life. The primary cowl I ever made that I can bear in mind was once I was ten years previous so I’ve been at it for a fairly very long time! After I was youthful, all I wished to do was assist individuals. I believed I used to be going to enter psychology or remedy as a result of I craved therapeutic individuals, and once I realised I may do it by means of music, that’s once I began taking it critically. I’ve been taking vocal classes since I used to be 12 and writing in my diary till I realized the best way to truly begin writing.
After I was a senior in highschool, I began posting covers each Tuesday on YouTube. It was like a homework project for me, and that’s how my supervisor discovered me. I flew out to LA and that was my first time truly writing in a studio and it was a dream. I’d go on this [anonymous video posting] app known as YouNow and I’d dwell my greatest Hannah Montana life and go dwell on that in highschool to sing for individuals.
You’ve solely been releasing music for a number of years however have already gained nearly 300 million streams on Spotify. With the subsequent album and the singles we’ve heard up to now, is there a strain to maintain that preliminary momentum going or are you cheerful to simply journey the wave?
I feel I felt extra strain once I first began as a result of I truthfully cared extra concerning the numbers, and the extra I do it, the extra trustworthy I really feel like I might be in my music. I’ve realized that what resonates with individuals is what I wish to resonate with individuals, and there’s at all times a life for a music. Like the entire concept that while you put out a music, you need it to explode instantly from social media and also you’re anticipating on the spot gratification. However the music’s out perpetually and it may blow up in a 12 months, it may blow up in two, and that’s completely advantageous. I simply need it to hit the right individuals, and for the individuals who hear it to like it. That’s my essential precedence, and simply to be genuine.
TikTok has performed an enormous position in your profession up to now – I like that it’s not nearly selling your music but additionally exhibiting your persona and interacting with individuals. Do you ever really feel any sort of obligation or want to write down issues with TikTok virality in thoughts or, such as you instructed earlier, are you cheerful enjoying the longer sport?
The longer sport! I really feel like I’d undoubtedly be mendacity if I mentioned I didn’t play into it a little bit bit simply because that’s what I knew. I began writing and releasing music in that point when TikTok was large, and it nonetheless is. Now, with this album, I put my telephone away and stopped listening to the highest 100. I requested my mother and father what music they hearken to, I fully cleansed my mind and simply went in with precisely what I wished to write down with the individuals I wished to write down it with. I truthfully didn’t assume for a second about TikTok or socials or how different individuals would really feel, however I feel that’s why I wrote a few of my greatest music.
Past TikTok too, your music appears to have actual world resonance – your Spotify profile, you will have large audiences throughout Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and so on. What do you assume it’s that pulls individuals from around the globe into your music?
I feel music is a common language. That’s the best half – you can communicate to each single individual on this world and it doesn’t matter what language you communicate or the place you come from. If individuals hear my music and it resonates as a result of they’re going by means of a breakup or they’re having household issues or a friendship breakup, it’s only a common feeling that everyone latches onto. I feel it’s so particular and that’s half the rationale why I like writing.
Loads of your songs final 12 months leaned into sadder, ballad territory. “Raised by a Lady” and “Protected With Me” undoubtedly sound extra carefree and empowering. Does this shift in sound mirror a private shift for you too?
A hundred percent. Like, a million %. I attempt to be genuine with what I write and once I launch it primarily based on the place I’m mentally. I’ve launched songs once I was unhappy and within the actual second, and I’ve launched songs after writing them and feeling the braveness to really launch them. Now, I’m on this part of my life the place I really feel assured and I really feel extra empowered than I do unhappy. I see issues otherwise and my perspective has shifted so it solely felt pure for my perspective to shift in my music as properly and the message that I’m making an attempt to get throughout. At first, I wanted to write down these unhappy songs. Now, I want that there have been extra songs to empower individuals and I’m completely happy to be a type of individuals to do this.
“Journal No.1” was so private and weak, which I feel allowed quite a lot of listeners to attach with you as an artist and likewise as an individual. Has your songwriting course of modified from that period to “Protected With Me” and the remainder of the brand new file?
Unhappy woman Rachel won’t ever depart! I’ll at all times have a little bit ballad woman in me. I feel the method has considerably stayed the identical – I’ve at all times gone into periods making an attempt to be genuine and actual and simply say what’s on my thoughts. Have I change into a greater author? A hundred percent, follow makes good. So I’m certain that I’ll change 1,000,000 different instances, however the best way I write hasn’t actually modified.
One thing that does appear to have modified is the visible aesthetic. The duvet artwork for the singles feels very company stylish! The color scheme is so robust and highly effective too. Are you able to inform me a bit concerning the inspiration behind the visible facet of issues for this new chapter?
With the expansion of the music, all the things else is rising with it. That’s how I really feel once I hearken to my songs, very empowered and like a girlboss in a method, in order that’s the place the inspiration comes from. My music additionally leans a little bit extra soulful and deeper now, in order that’s the place I acquired the color from, it’s simply the way it made me really feel. All of the visuals stem from who I’m and the way my music makes me really feel.
You’ll be acting at Lollapalooza subsequent week after which again on tour in a number of months too – how are you feeling about enjoying “Protected With Me” and “Raised by a Lady” dwell for the primary time since its launch?
I really feel wonderful about it. There’s a distinction in writing for my present self versus singing songs for my previous self – it’s much less about having to step into the place I used to be once I wrote them, and extra about singing precisely how I really feel now. I feel that’s so particular as a result of it comes off so genuine, simply because that’s precisely the place I’m at in life. I’m so excited and this new period of music feels so me.
Does it really feel tougher enjoying these older, sadder songs now in comparison with while you had been truly feeling these emotions? Or does it change into simpler now that you simply’re in a unique headspace?
That’s an excellent query – I wrote this new album for youthful me and present me and future me on the identical time. It’s a conceptual album the place each different music is youthful me versus older me and the totally different views I’ve on the identical issues. Virtually like a manifestation kind of factor. So it feels in-theme to trace again to who I used to be, and nonetheless who I’m, however I at all times really feel each music deeply simply because I do know once I wrote it and who I wrote it for. Generally singing for youthful me is even sadder! So it does assist generally that I’m not fully feeling that method within the second.
Do you will have a imaginative and prescient for the dwell exhibits? What sort of environment are you hoping to create?
I simply wish to have enjoyable and I wish to meet everyone. That’s my largest purpose! I name my fanbase my “friendbase” as a result of that’s genuinely how I really feel and all I wish to do is simply hang around with my associates. All of us really feel the identical issues so I simply need it to be a celebration. And since it’s a tour for my album, it seems like a launch social gathering each single evening and that’s the power I wish to deliver to it.
I like the thought of a “friendbase” and that additionally jogs my memory of what we had been discussing earlier with the best way you employ TikTok to have interaction with individuals.
I like going dwell, I like the entire FaceTime really feel. I don’t even textual content my associates, I FaceTime them. I feel it simply unintentionally occurs that method, the place I simply get pleasure from speaking somewhat than posting one thing and having no face-to-face contact. If I’m not on the highway, I’d wish to get as shut as I presumably can to face-to-face, even when I can simply see mine!
What’s the response to “Protected With Me” been like inside your neighborhood on-line?
It’s been unimaginable. Folks have been calling it the older sister of “Outsider,” which is my largest music. I feel that’s so lovely as a result of once I wrote it, I didn’t write it for that objective. It got here from a unique perspective, however once I listened again, it actually felt prefer it. It was fairly cool to listen to individuals resonate with that and name “Protected With Me” a extra mature model of “Outsider” as a result of we’re all sort of rising up collectively too.
That’s so particular that you’ve an area the place individuals really feel like they’ll share their very own views and interpretations of your work too.
I like listening to everyone else’s tales. I wish to see the totally different angles that individuals come at it with. Generally individuals assume I’m simply writing about boys however half the time, I’m not! There are occasions the place I can perceive the place individuals are coming from. Like with all breakups, regardless of who it’s with, that feeling of harm can come throughout in so some ways.
To wrap issues up, what do you hope listeners take away from the brand new album, and what have you ever taken away from the method of making it?
The method of making it for myself was extremely therapeutic. I wrote the entire album about youthful me and older me, like I mentioned, and I feel once I was writing about present me, I used to be unintentionally writing about future me on the identical time. I nearly really feel prefer it units a purpose for me to get to and I like that as a result of it’s so highly effective for me to need to step into that individual.
For the those that hear, I wrote it that method so that you’ve each frames. Should you’re within the ‘earlier than’ part proper now, you will have the music after that as a future part as properly. I feel there’s a music for everyone on the album. I simply need individuals to get what they want out of it. I don’t count on them to really feel a sure emotion, I simply need them to have the ability to really feel one thing and to attach with it and discover therapeutic.
CONNECT WITH RACHEL GRAE:
TOUR TICKETS // INSTAGRAM // TIKTOK // SPOTIFY
