You just mentioned Elton John very casually. Are you guys, like, pals? Do you talk often and all that?
Yeah, we do. I’d love to just hang out with him more but we’re so busy, but wherever we get the chance we’ll FaceTime each other and just catch up and just talk about boring stuff, you know? I think people would love to think that we just constantly talk about art, but it’s more like, “Hey, how are the kids doing?,” just little normal things.
Have you read his autobiography? It’s got amazing stories.
No, I really want to — but yes, I hear so many stories. I’m so lucky, I went on holiday with him last year and he has so many incredible memories. He was telling me about… is it his birthday? I think it’s his birthday when he goes really crazy with the costumes and concepts, and he was saying how one year he had to be transported because his wig was so heavy.
Did his cosign of your music just come out of nowhere?
Yeah, it was on his [Apple Music “Rocket Hour”] radio show, he featured a couple of my singles, and then by the second single, he wanted to talk to me. So we had a FaceTime video interview, and it just kind of went from there. We really got on, it seemed really natural. And even though he’s so famous, I just saw so many similarities with my queer friends and the kind of chats that we have, and the humor that we have. But yeah, he just finds a lot of music on his own — he scours, scours YouTube, and finds all this stuff that’s new to me — he teaches me about new music.
He’s just so genuine and so generous. At first I thought, Oh, he’s gonna give me a shout-out and that’s gonna be it, but he calls every two weeks, checking in. And he introduces me to people and he’s helped me so much behind the scenes. He’ll just be like, “Okay, what do you need?” And then he’ll call the person you need, and two minutes later you’ll get a call back from him. He makes dreams come true, it’s incredible. He’s like Santa Claus. Actually — strike that. He’s more like fairy godmother (laughter).
Is there anyone else who has really helped you along in a similar way?
Charli [XCX]. She’s done 10 records — only five full-lengths, but she’s done mixtapes which are basically as long. I ask her about a lot of business stuff. I think people don’t realize that behind every pop star is a business — they have a touring business and merch company and publishing and commercials and so much. I’ll ask her, “Hey, is this normal? Hey, how did you feel a month from the record?,” things like that.
It’s a very, very strange feeling to have fans. It’s not something relatable, it’s not something I can talk to people outside of the industry about. And it’s been really nice just to be able to ask her, “Hey, how do you feel when this happens?” And I always get reassurance and she always makes me feel like, “Oh, that’s totally normal,” or “I can help you with this.” She’s just been incredible. And she’s really kind of set the blueprint for collaborations between female artists. Before, it was always like Britney and Christina or whoever always pitted against each other, and she’s one of the people who’s really shown that it’s fine to collaborate with other female artists — it’s not a competition.
I wouldn’t necessarily say the new album is happier, but it is less angsty and intense than the first one. You’ve said in other articles that it’s the effect of good therapy?
Yes, and also, I intentionally didn’t want to do the first record again, at all — I did it, and if I want to have that feeling onstage, I’ll just perform those songs. This record was written during lockdown, so I couldn’t do some of the experimental stuff that I did in the first record, my brain wasn’t in that headspace. So it was, yeah, a lot of introspection, quite a few ups and downs, which is what I was going through at the time.
It seems strange, but your one of those artists whose careers didn’t seem to be impeded by the pandemic — your album got a lot of attention and praise, even though it was released in April of 2020 and you couldn’t tour. Did you feel that?
Yeah, it was ****ing weird! (laughter) I’m on an indie label, right? And especially because it was my first record, there wasn’t this conversation of, “Oh no, we’d given 10,000 copies of your album to Sainsbury’s and no one can actually go to Sainsbury’s!” so there wasn’t that kind of [commercial] pressure. So it was just, it seems like people are going to really need new music, because so many people were postponing their records, and I’m so happy that it resonated. But it was still really, really surreal to have had that experience throughout lockdown.
It’s strange that so many dance records came out during that time, Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga and Jessie Ware.
Yeah, it was just like, okay, we’re all in a situation that we don’t want to be in, we can’t go to clubs and we can’t be with our friends. So let’s just imagine that we are, through “Chromatica,” through “Future Nostalgia,” through “What’s Your Pleasure.” That’s definitely what I was listening to during that time, for sure.
The “This Hell” video is so different that it’s almost like a different artist, much more sexy and in-your-face and partying, which is something you hadn’t really done before. Is that the direction you’re going in now?
I guess I realized that on my first record, I forgot to look hot in my videos. (laughter) Like, I just sort of forgot that I was supposed to be doing some pop-star **** and looking hot. So I was like, “Right, okay, ‘This Hell,’ let’s look hot.” I wanted to tell a story, but visually, I just really was like, “You know, I’m ready to be kind of hot and get some really amazing lighting.” And it’s funny because I said to Ali Kurr — who also directed “XS” and “Bad Friend” and so many of the videos from the first album — “Babe, I need to look hot this time.” And she was just like, “Oh, for god’s sake, fine.” And me and my creative director would be like, “This shot needs a light on her face” and the directors and everyone would be rolling their eyes like, “Oh, god.” Because cinematic videos and looking-hot videos are very different things. I think with “Hold the Girl,” we really struck that balance, but with “This Hell,” I just wanted to look hot.
How was it working with Keanu Reeves on “John Wick”?
I really love the process of doing something I’ve never done — learning to read scripts and getting into a character. But I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing myself onscreen in that way, to be honest — it’s a very different vibe to “I need to look hot in my music video.” The camera gets so close you can basically see your pulse, it’s crazy, crazy close. I watched a preview and I freaked out because it was so ****ing weird.
But Keanu was amazing, and exactly what you think he’d be like, so chill. But he looked after me in loads of different ways, very much behind the scenes — not telling me that he was doing something for me, but making sure that it was done. Although him being one of the executive producers means that he had a hand in casting me, so that was really crazy to comprehend.
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