I just think maybe, like,
it's rocking some straight people as well.
It's a little bit like... "Whoa! Wait... No! Stop!"
Hey, guys. It's Troye Sivan...
When I was younger, growing up in Perth
in the super-tight-knit Jewish community
I kinda felt different from the boys in my year
but I wasn't necessarily like one of the girls either
so I sort of had a bit of a hard time finding my place
and I turned to the internet.
That's why I've had a YouTube account for as long as I have, I think,
because I was searching for a community
for personal reasons,
that sense of community, of belonging somewhere.
It really pulled me through.
I was watching your GLAAD acceptance speech.
The 2017 recipient of Stephen F Kolzak Award,
the youngest ever... Troye Sivan!
One of the things you did describe
was that until you came out to your parents
you described your queerness, your gayness as a monster,
as something that loomed over you.
For people who haven't had that experience
how do you go about communicating
what that sense of weight feels like?
Never had to explain that to anyone. How did it feel?
For my childhood, it felt like something that maybe...
like I had dreamt or something.
It was just something that I hadn't confronted.
But it was like this very vague thought
always in the back of my head that as soon as I thought about it
and brought it to the forethought of my brain
I'd immediately push it right back and try to ignore it.
It's almost like you have to come out to yourself
so before I did that I'd play tricks on my brain.
Like, I'd think about a boy and then try and justify it in my head
and be like "No... that was a one-time thing"
or "I really want to be friends with him" or...
You did one-man gay conversion therapy.
Completely, eventually, I just confronted it head-on
because I... not accidentally but I really wasn't ready
and my best friend and I were talking in the park
about deep dark secrets
and after three hours of coaxing me
I came out to her as bi maybe, I said.
She coaxed you or you were coaxing yourself?
- Both - Yeah.
And I couldn't believe that I'd said it,
I felt absolutely sick cos I was like...
it was something
that I'd constantly pushed to the back of my mind and so not ready to deal with.
But what it did is it forced me to...
I was like, I've told someone this now.
This is information that exists somewhere in the world.
That was the really tough part, that once I realised it myself
and come to terms with it and I hadn't told my family,
cos we are a super-close family that...
It was just so weird to be dealing with something alone.
And it was scary, it was super-super scary.
And any time I was alone with either of my parents,
my mind was going a million miles a minute.
Is this a good time, a bad time?
What are they going to think, what are they going to say?
I couldn't shut my mind up
and eventually it became too much
and I just did it one day.
Writing music has always been
the real place where I'm happiest.
- So, here we are. - Yes.
Why were you nervous about putting out 'The Good Side'?
It was more nerve-wracking than the others
just because it was directly personal to someone else.
At the end of a relationship
somebody gets a better deal than the other person
and in this instance it's you reckoning you got the better deal.
What do you learn about yourself in the process
of taking that experience
and compressing it into a three-minute song?
What do discover about who you are?
It's cheesy to say cos I think everyone says this, but...
music is 100% like a therapy for me
and songwriting is literally in the way that a therapist
helps you put things in perspective
and helps you realise how you feel about situations.
And songwriting does the same thing,
it really forces you to ask yourself questions.
How do I feel about this situation?
And I had a lot of guilt about the way things worked out
because I never want to hurt anyone
and it was rough to feel like I'd messed someone over.
When I hear the opening beats of 'My My My'
the instinct for me is to strut.
And I understand that's how it started for you too with that beat.
What happened?
- I was in Sweden. - The home of all great pop music.
I'm so in love with Sweden.
That explains the new blond haircut.
Soon I'll change my name to Oscar.
I was getting breakfast before going into the studio
and I heard... I couldn't really hear the song
but I just heard the kick drum.
I Shazamed the song, brought it in
and I was like, this is the tempo I want.
And it made me want to...
- So, those are my legs strutting. - Got it.
It's always fun to listen on big speakers.
Step, step, step, step...
The first thing that you hear is a vocal pad
and it's my voice, so I just sung a bunch of different notes
and then the producer was playing them on keys
and made me want to be sweaty with the wind machine and...
rub against walls and stuff.
- There is a strong 80s vibe. - Yeah.
I think that there is some real timeless classic imagery
that was made at that time.
I'm such a sucker for the beautiful light and the soft focus
and for me personally, such a rich time as far as visual imagery goes.
A strong androgyny that ran through that time for men and women
because you had Grace Jones, who's this very masculine woman.
- Annie Lennox. - Exactly.
Beautiful shoulder pads and things like that
which just works with the strutting vibe of that song.
It feels powerful for me so I wanted to channel that
and find out what a 2018 version of that looks like.
You've been out for a very long time.
But was there a moment when you realised
there was a sense of responsibility attached to it?
Where you meant something to people, that you were out, you were proud?
Maybe when I uploaded my coming-out video.
I'm gay.
As soon as I posted the video online it kind of took on another life
and it wasn't really about me, that moment,
for me it was about reading comments and hearing people's stories
and from that moment on I realised that was what my purpose was.
What goes through your head when you see a roomful of people
that are there for you, that have been moved by you,
either your music or your story or just how you carry yourself?
I know what it feels like to look online for community
and so the fact that they have found it
and that they're here in person,
I've grown up with them since I was like twelve
and they were there when I needed them
and I'm now trying to be there for them whenever they need me
and I get to say thank you to them for everything.
It feels like a friendship.
It's a journey that takes a lot of time and active effort, I think.
I still totally get really embarrassed
but in the gap between your comfort zone and too far,
that's where I think the really special stuff gets made.
Troye...
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.