After releasing her brand new single “Green Light” this morning to overwhelmingly positive reviews, Lorde sat down with Kiwi-born DJ Zane Lowe to discuss her new album and what it means to escape the bright lights and big city, and come home to New Zealand.
“[When you want to get away from everything], you can just be like ‘I’m gonna go back down that end of the world’ and everyone’s like ‘I couldn’t reach you if I tried’”, she said.
“I just dived off the grid and it was wonderful. I didn’t come back to this part of town for a while and it was good for me I think. It’s crazy when you are so young to be spending all your time in LA or New York. I think it can kind of f*ck with you if you’re a kid. It was important to me to kind of step back from that and go to Golden Dawn and go to Peach Pit and go to these amazing bars in Auckland and live my life there.”
Lorde, born Ella Yelich-O Connor went on to admit why it was that she took such a long hiatus in between albums.
“Everyone has that first year that feels like the first proper year of adulthood. I moved out of home and all of a sudden I was kind of figuring out who am I when I’m alone? Who am I when I’m doing things just for myself?
“For me it’s been a couple years since I’ve put anything out and really at least a couple years that I just dropped off the radar. And for me it was kind of about processing what I want to say next and I knew it just couldn’t be any old thing. “
“It had to be really special and really singular and it couldn’t sound the same as the old stuff and there was a lot of discovery that went on.”
During the interview, the 20-year-old revealed that she’s spent the past year looking back on her life and her incredible rise to fame and stardom.
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“It was a real year of reflecting on the dichotomy of my life. I have this life here and I have this life in New Zealand and figuring out what that meant. But just generally every time I go home I’m so pleasantly surprised that nothing has changed with the people that I love and the place where we live. My relationship with the city and the country is so strong and I know that I’m gonna live there for a long time.”
After splitting from fellow Kiwi, photographer James Lowe last year, the pop star reveals her new single “Green Light” is about overcoming a breakup.
“The song is actually about heartbreak. And it’s not something that I really am used to writing about. It took me a while to be able to figure out how to write about that. It was my first major heartbreak. And the song is really about those moments kind of immediately after your life changes and about all the silly little things that you gravitate towards.”
