- Having my debut album finally out into the world
has been an incredible journey.
It's been more emotional than I thought it would be
and kind of a full-circle moment for me
and how far I've come in my musical journey.
When I was going into making music,
when I was 14,
my intention was that I wanted
to connect my personal life to music
and connect the music to my fans.
And I've always listened to music to connect with artists
and understand my own feelings better.
It's really nice to have the opportunity
to provide that for other people as well.
Hey, MTV News.
I'm Loren Gray,
and these are my top five musical influences.
My first musical influence is Eminem.
He's been my favorite artist my entire life.
I grew up with his music.
I feel like he was the first artist that I heard
that unapologetically,
fully, wholly expressed himself
and his life through his music.
And there were so many things that I connected to,
and I couldn't believe that someone could make music
that was so authentically them.
I really admired that.
So I'd say he's always been my No. 1 music influence.
- [Interviewer] So we should expect a rap album?
- (laughs) Definitely not a rapper,
but if I could, I would.
But I can't. I'm not a good rapper.
(laughs)
My next musical influence would be Taylor Swift.
I feel like everyone knows this by this point.
She is my biggest inspiration,
not just in terms of what she does as an artist,
but who she is as a person.
I've never met someone who carries themself
so beautifully and humbly,
and it's really inspiring to see someone
who's such an incredibly talented songwriter,
musician, artist, performer,
but is so true to themselves,
and that's something that I really admire.
My favorite Taylor song?
You cannot ask a Swiftie
what their favorite Taylor song is.
I would say my top three albums would be-
I'm an 'Evermore' girl. I'm a 'Folklore' girl.
Both of those, together in my head,
they just go. They flow.
And then I (clicks tongue)
would have to say
'Red.'
Right now it's 'Red.'
I was going down a '1989' path for a while.
I came back to 'Red."
'Fearless,' 'Speak Now,' always a special place in my heart.
It's really hard to pick.
(laughs) I’m sorry.
And 'Midnights.'
I mean, 'Midnights' is incredible.
But yeah, no, I just named all of her albums basically, so.
Another one that I feel like is usually unexpected,
but I have tattoos for him all over my body:
Lil Peep.
In 2019, I was going through probably
one of the most difficult periods of my life,
and I was in such a low place.
And I discovered him at that time in my life,
and it was something that I really connected to
because I felt like the feelings that I felt were so deep
and sad and raw
that no one would ever understand what I was going through.
And here was this guy
who was very different than me
but was feeling a lot of the same things that I was.
So I really connected to him,
and I'm really sad that I never got to see him live.
But I have all kinds of tattoos
and I still love him.
Lana Del Rey.
The first time I came across her music
was around the "Young and Beautiful,"
"Summertime Sadness" era,
and dug really deep into her music
and who she is as a person.
And I've sat behind her and been in her presence
on multiple occasions
and I've always been too afraid to say anything.
But she's stunning.
And again, just another person
that's unapologetically herself and very inspiring.
And my final musical influence would probably
be My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way.
This is another one that I really, really dove into
during 2019
but was introduced to My Chemical Romance in fifth grade
'cause I had a friend
who was older than me and cooler than me,
and she was really into, I guess, like, My Chemical Romance,
Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco.
So I was kind of a poser.
And then now that I'm older and I can appreciate it,
I got super into My Chemical Romance.
Went and saw them in concert.
It was amazing.
And I love how they perform.
I think it's so bold, and (laughs) I don't know,
I also just love Gerard Way, so.
So the title of the album is 'Guilty,'
which was the first single that we released from the album.
But for me,
it was the most pivotal song
during the songwriting process
because it was the first song
where I felt like I'd really connected and drawn that line
between my feelings as a human being
and what I wanted to say as an artist.
I feel like I always struggled to put my thoughts
and my emotions into words, into music.
And that was the first time
that I was able to articulate something
that really, really meant something to me on a deep level
through music and songwriting.
When I was choosing singles,
I wasn't even necessarily choosing the songs
that I thought were the strongest
because that's usually how the single process goes.
You choose the songs
that you think are going to perform the best.
But for me,
I wanted to choose the songs that connected this story
that I wanted to tell through the videos.
There's four videos.
Everyone asks about the bear.
There's a bear who appears through all of the videos,
and there's sort of a reveal that happens.
And I have my own version of what that story is,
but I wanted to leave it up to interpretation
because I feel like there's so many different ways
that that story can be interpreted
depending on who you are
and how you sort of listen to the music
and what you get from it.
That's one of the things
that I was looking forward to the most
on the visual side of things was seeing
how people interpret it themselves.
So there is a lot of symbolism through the visuals.
It took a lot of self-reflection,
and I also felt like I was confronting a lot of parts
of myself that I'd never confronted,
which was scary,
but it was well worth it.
It's incredible to have sort of a tangible representation
of that period of my life that I can look back on
and share with people and connect with people through.
So it's been a really incredible process,
and the visuals definitely represent that part of it.
The song that I'm most excited about
would have to be "Misery Loves Company."
I'm a huge fan of country music,
and "Something in the Orange" came out,
and when I heard it,
I had just gotten dumped.
(laughs) And I was like,
"I need to write a song like this right now.
"I need this."
I loved sort of the dark country,
mysterious, ominous vibe of it,
and I wanted to create something telling the story
that I was experiencing in that moment.
And it was me and my two friends,
and we wrote the song.
It was less than 24 hours after I got broken up with,
and it ended up being the last song on the album.
And I'm really excited.
I love country music
and I never thought that I would be able to,
I guess, dive into that side of myself
because I've had to jump through a lot of hurdles to have,
I guess, my creative freedom
and to tell the narrative that I wanna tell,
which is my own.
Those aren't necessarily freedoms I had being signed
to a major label.
So to finally get to do this independently and freely,
in the literal sense and the metaphorical sense,
is a really good feeling,
and it's nice to finally have my own story
come through my music.