Audrey Hobert isn’t clowning herself anymore. She was meant to be a pop star.
“I had been sitting on all of this music lengthy sufficient that there was like a tiny man in my soul beating down the door of my soul,” Hobert, 26, mentioned on a latest wet morning at Swingers Diner in Hollywood.
This week, the L.A. native units out on her Staircase to Stardom tour throughout North America, Europe and Australia. Intimate venues will see her carry out from her debut album, “Who’s the Clown?,” launched through RCA Data in August. She stops on the El Rey Theatre within the coronary heart of Miracle Mile on Thursday, earlier than performing the following day at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome for Jingle Ball.
Although the “Bowling alley” singer has “so immensely” loved her whirlwind 12 months, music wasn’t at all times within the playing cards. After graduating from New York College with a BFA in screenwriting in 2021, she fell into place behind the scenes, working in a Nickelodeon writers’ room for the since-canceled “The Actually Loud Home.”
All the pieces modified when she began penning tracks with childhood good friend Gracie Abrams for the 2024 album “The Secret of Us.” Hobert signed a publishing take care of Common Music Group quickly after and participated in songwriter classes for just a few months earlier than setting her sights on one thing extra private. Initially writing for herself, it grew to become clear her confessional lyrics couldn’t be confined to her bed room partitions.
She teamed up with producer Ricky Connoisseur to pin down the right degree of bubblegum pop and decide when a tune was in want of a great saxophone solo. Regardless of by no means being forged in a lead function throughout her “theater child” tenure, Hobert’s music exudes principal character power. The primary single she put out, “Sue me,” a high-voltage pop anthem about hooking up with an ex if solely to really feel needed for a glimmer in time, reached No. 26 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay Chart. The music video accompanying the discharge — directed by Hobert, as all her movies are — launched listeners to an artist not afraid to bop like no one’s watching.
Regardless that she’s carried out solely a handful of reveals, she already has a devoted fan base on the able to belt her most self-aware lyrics at her high-profile reside reveals — whether or not that be an expletive-laced refrain in “Sue me” or a line a couple of forgotten pizza pocket in “Intercourse and town.”
Over French toast and black espresso, Hobert mused concerning the profession she by no means noticed coming.
This dialog has been flippantly edited for size and readability.
Audrey Hobert fell for songwriting when she collaborated with Gracie Abrams on the latter’s “The Secret of Us.”
(Annie Noelker / For The Instances)
As somebody who likes to be at residence in her lotions and nightgown, how have you ever tailored to the lifetime of an up-and-coming pop star?
I simply nonetheless really feel like a lady who likes to be in her lotions and nightgown, and I additionally, along with that, actually benefit from the feeling of working and form of working on fumes. I feel in case you like that feeling an excessive amount of, it dips into harmful territory just a little bit, but it surely doesn’t … really feel very like partying. As an example, I’ve been taking pictures a music video for the previous 4 days, and final night time I used to be up till 3 within the morning with what we had been referring to because the skeleton crew. It looks like I’m not even virtually fully there but, and I’ll innately know, “Oh my God, I’ve arrived.” However you possibly can form of shield your self from it if that’s what you need.
How are you feeling about performing in L.A.?
I feel I’m gonna be extremely nervous as a result of it’s gonna be nearly all of my family and friends there, and I’ve made the choice to maintain all particulars of what the tour is gonna be a secret from all of my family and friends, simply in order that they’ll see it. I simply really feel like I’m going to get the most effective suggestions from them if I’m not tipping them or giving them a touch as to what it’s going to be and in the event that they’re simply witnessing it for the primary time. And that’s sort of what I’m [in] with this primary tour, as a result of it’s so brief and it’s virtually an underplay, and I simply am wanting constructive criticism and what labored, what didn’t.
Do you get extra nervous performing in entrance of family and friends?
Nervousness and pleasure are the identical. It’s a really comparable feeling. I feel it’s extra pleasure than nervousness. In my expertise over the summer time, going to locations around the globe and performing, I at all times was extra excited for the reveals that I knew I had people who I personally knew at. Performing in Australia and Amsterdam and Berlin, it was form of a stress’s off feeling.
How had been the opposite reveals?
It was such an amazing first crack at singing my songs to a crowd of individuals. I by no means actually pictured myself as “lady with guitar on stage alone,” however it’s how I wrote quite a lot of the songs. So it didn’t really feel like I used to be cosplaying, essentially, however I’m additionally a theater child, and my deep intuition is to be on my toes sans devices for sure songs, and so I don’t know the way it’s gonna really feel. I did “Jimmy Fallon,” and that was form of a style, but it surely’s not what performing to a crowd full of people that like my music is gonna really feel like. But it surely was actually, actually enjoyable, and it did get me excited.
How does it really feel to listen to individuals singing your lyrics again already?
Fairly wild. I can suppose again to the writing of those songs, and keep in mind so effectively how arduous I labored on each single line, as a result of I cared and since I knew that there was a finest model of each line of each tune. It was yesterday, somebody requested me if I had been nervous to carry out my unique writing, and I’ve been keen for the reason that second I wrote it, as a result of I simply labored arduous. So when individuals sing my lyrics again to me, I’m like, “Rattling proper, yeah. Took me some time to determine find out how to say that factor, and it was all within the hope that you just’d be both alone gobsmacked or on this room with me eager to scream it again at me.”
Audrey Hobert compares songwriting to getting into “a 3rd dimension.”
(Annie Noelker / For The Instances)
In your tune “Phoebe,” you open with, “I went to New York / ’Trigger a person in a go well with advised me / You’re gonna be a star.” From a listener standpoint, it felt like “Sue me” dropped and all the things took off. Are you able to inform me extra concerning the strategy of writing and pitching?
I had simply found that I like to jot down songs. It was merely that, and it was like a pastime. I had written all these songs with Gracie and signed a publishing deal consequently, and was form of on this limbo of … I used to be a baby who knew precisely what she needed to do, and now I’m an grownup and am technically a signed songwriter, however I’ve not spent any of my life eager to be a songwriter, so I can’t think about that that is the best way my life goes to abruptly go, that I’m going to launch myself right into a profession that I haven’t needed my complete life in the identical manner I needed to be a tv author.
However on the similar time, the best way that all of it unfolded felt so cosmic and I knew that songwriting felt very fascinating. In order all of it unfolded, I simply by no means, for a second, questioned it or let myself really feel even a sew of imposter syndrome as a result of I knew higher. I knew that to carry myself again from no matter this journey was going to be can be me doing myself an enormous disservice.
Gracie and I had been residing collectively on the time, and that was sort of within the thick of her intense touring. So she was gone. I used to be residing on the Westside of L.A., which isn’t a really younger space, and located myself form of feeling like I used to be this Rapunzel sort, residing on this cement townhouse and really remoted. And I simply began writing songs, and I discovered that it was like a 3rd dimension, form of “Twilight Zone”-style, that I might go to and exit my physique fully. Neglect that I used to be perhaps feeling just a little bit lonely, neglect that I missed my finest good friend, neglect that I needed a boyfriend and didn’t have one, and simply write.
There’s nothing as mystical as songwriting to me, as a result of it’s two sorts of writing — melodic writing that’s utterly unexplainable, after which lyrics, that’s form of the most effective puzzle. It’s like math, which I’m really very dangerous at, however I can see a sentiment come collectively in my head earlier than it really does. It was simply eight months principally of manic writing. And through that point is after I … advised Common Music Publishing, “I feel I wish to strive an artist venture.” It was form of a technique to get out of doing songwriting classes, after which [I] met Ricky and knew that I didn’t wish to spend all day, day by day, making one thing with anyone else. It was simply the purest, most best enjoyable of my younger life.
You mentioned you wakened at some point with the title of the album and the quilt artwork, and also you thought it was unusual at first. Have you ever gained any extra readability on what meaning?
I do know that the quilt particularly was born out of me form of assuming that I’d put this venture collectively on my own. I simply by no means thought of {that a} label may get entangled. And I assumed, as a brand new artist, I’m going to must intrigue individuals with the quilt of this venture, no matter it’s. And I simply felt like a white lady making pop music hasn’t finished horrifying imagery. I simply [wanted] to scare somebody and to make somebody go, “What sort of music is that this?” And then you definitely discover out it’s simply pop. That was the intention.
Take me to the discharge of “Sue me.” What was that second like?
The date of the discharge received pushed again just a few instances, and each time it received pushed again, my coronary heart broke just a little bit. I simply couldn’t wait. I used to be extra keen than I’d ever been to do something … and the second I put one tune out, I felt simply far more free.
By way of the response to it, you simply by no means know. You possibly can have an amazing tune and do all the things proper, and it simply doesn’t work. It’s not like “Sue me” is a “Million Greenback Child,” Tommy Richman-style viral hit, but it surely did catch hearth and that felt nice. Additionally, I had most likely, by the point that “Sue me” got here out, listened to it upwards of 800 instances. So I wasn’t like, “Individuals just like the tune.” I used to be like, “I like this tune.”
How was the transition to writing songs about your personal life?
It simply didn’t really feel prefer it was an energetic change. Writing with Gracie was the identical sort of bliss because it feels to jot down on my own, but it surely’s sweeter differently. It feels good differently as a result of it’s completely shared. And one among my best joys in life is sharing in one thing together with her. It at all times has been since I’ve recognized her, since we had been youngsters. We by no means deliberate or thought we’d collaborate in a higher manner, as a result of it felt like hanging out was a inventive collaboration; I can’t actually describe it. Once I began writing on my own, it’s a bit extra grueling, however then it’s the identical form of drug-like rush that you just get if you really feel such as you’ve written a great line.
Your sound feels very nostalgic to me, however then there are lyrics like these in “Thirst Lure” that might solely be from this digital period. You’ve mentioned you didn’t have any direct references for this venture, however are there any artists who have influenced your method to songwriting?
I feel that might grow to be true for my subsequent album, however I felt like I didn’t know the principles of songwriting. I at all times would hearken to pop music and … was at all times asking myself, “Why is that this the most effective tune ever? Oh, it’s as a result of this, this, this.” However after I wrote these songs, I keep in mind having the energetic thought early on of, “There aren’t any guidelines.” I’ve far an excessive amount of of a slant, and it was so recent and new that I’ve artists who I look as much as by way of songwriting, but it surely got here all simply from deep inside me. I keep in mind really having the considered, “I don’t know if that is basic, typical construction, I simply know that that is what’s retaining me . So I’m gonna simply go together with it.”
Your music movies are wonderful. Is there a dream director you’d wish to work with or do you wish to direct each Audrey Hobert music video?
When you had requested me after I was going out to labels and pitching myself as an artist, I’d have mentioned I’d by no means work with a director. However the extra I do them, clearly, the extra I like to direct, but in addition the extra that I’d really feel fascinated with being directed. I actually, actually like this man Dan Streit, and we really are utilizing his digital camera for the music video that we simply completed taking pictures. I simply suppose he’s tremendous cool, and he’s the one man that I’ve ever been like, “Huh, I’m wondering if he’d ever direct one among my movies.”
Your video for “Thirst Lure” was impressed by the Japanese horror movie “Home.” You additionally reference “Excessive College Musical 2.” What’s your style in films like? Do you’ve any consolation watches?
I’m simply actually into seeing films on a regular basis. I’ve been training retaining the social media apps off my cellphone and simply tuning in to one thing. I had by no means seen a Robert Altman film, and I simply watched “The Participant,” and I actually loved that. And luxury watches … “Frances Ha,” “Mistress America.” I simply named two Greta Gerwigs, however I simply love her as an actress. I imply, I like her as a director, however I actually love her as an actress. And “Home” was one thing that I simply stumbled upon after which watched twice in a row. I like it. I really feel like my style is fairly eclectic.
Is style an vital a part of your creative imaginative and prescient?
When you had requested me in fourth grade what I needed to be after I grew up, I’d most likely say “clothier.” I at all times felt impressed by the garments on the Disney Channel. I’m , I do prefer it, however to ensure that me to really feel snug going concerning the beginnings of this pop-star life, I have to be wearing my very own garments or else I freak out. I simply did a shoot for Vevo and I wore my very own garments, didn’t actually spend a lot time on my look. I keep in mind seeing the images and being like, “Typically it’s value it to only put in just a little bit extra of an effort, lady.” However that being mentioned, I have to really feel like myself.
Who was your Disney Channel style inspiration?
Selena Gomez. All the best way.
Have you ever been writing extra or are you taking a breather now that the album is out?
I’ve been pondering loads about author’s block and the idea of it, and I don’t know if it’s actual, however the conclusion I’ve come to is I don’t have to fret about if I’m a author or not, as a result of I’ve felt like a author my whole life. Some individuals swear by writing a tune day by day and ending it, even when it’s dangerous. Some individuals take 4 years off from writing in any respect. How I really feel this morning is when I’ve a tune to jot down, I do know I’m gonna write it. I strive to not waste my time worrying about why I’m not writing on a regular basis in the best way I used to be after I wrote the album. And so I suppose to reply the query, not likely.
What’s been probably the most rewarding a part of this expertise? Does all of it return to [opening track] “I like to the touch individuals”?
That’s very astute. Yeah, it’s probably the most thrilling a part of all of this. It’s extra thrilling than the flashing lights of the L.A. Instances photographer at Swingers Diner and it’s extra thrilling than somebody who I respect following me on Instagram, and it jogs my memory why I’m doing all of it. It’s the best factor of all time.
