Note: Content in this interview with RØRY touches on mental health (depression), drugs and alcohol – if you or someone you know needs help, please immediately call your respective emergency hotline, and seek support through these services: DoH (Australia), NIoMH (U.S.), NHS (U.K.) and MHCoC (Canada).
RØRY is a pop artist out of the U.K. and recently RØRY released her new single ‘fuck fame‘, a song she tells Eat This Music is actually about losing someone to fame. “There is this quote I read that says ‘fame is a mask that eats away at the face.’ That inspired the song,” RØRY explains. “In the entertainment industry it’s easy to believe your own hype and get lost in the money and the adoration and I think we can so easily lose our humility, our humanity, it’s a call to arms about that.”
The namesake of “RØRY” is an interesting concept in its own right, it is the start and end of her birth name.
“I missed out on a lot of living in my 20’s,” RØRY reveals. “I suffered depression, the loss of my mother, and alcohol and drug addictions took hold of my life. I felt like a failure as a musician, and as a person.”
After getting sober and deciding to dedicate myself to music, I wanted my name to represent the new start. — RØRY
“So I kept the beginning and end of my name and cut out all of the shit in the middle,” RØRY continues. To me, it means that that post-decade doesn’t define me.”
Music has always been the thing that made RØRY feel most alive. She gave up singing for a long time, convinced she was a piece of shit destined to fail because she didn’t have what it takes. “[T]o come full circle and be releasing music I absolutely love in the healthiest place I have ever been being a priceless gift for me,” RØRY expresses.
“In total honesty, I had to re-write quite a lot of it for personal reasons because it really upset some people in my family,” RØRY reveals on the initial creative process of her new single. “So I took out some really personal references. But I’m happy with that decision. The core of it means the same to me.”
At the time of creating ‘fake fame’, RØRY was still drinking. She admits that she may have been pretty messed up when writing it for the first time: “I found it hard to access my own emotions sober,” RØRY tells Eat This Music on that time in her life. “But writing for others I could show up sober in the studio and help them.”
“I’ve had to learn how to feel my own shit and express myself since getting sober. That applies to real life as well as music.” — RØRY
If it hasn’t been made clear, 100% of the song and lyrics come directly from RØRY’s life. Every word and lyric in the song means something to her personally. As a songwriter, this is the type of thing that differentiates the songs RØRY writes for herself and the songs she writes for other artists – in fact, like no one else could sing this song and it that sentiment means the same for RØRY. The song is personal and very honest.
“That guitars are back,” RØRY says about what she wants listeners to take away from her new song. “And to have some goals in life that aren’t related to money and fame.” Also, RØRY would like fans to take away from this song that being emotionally mature, and having close relationships is a beautiful goal. And starting there will ultimately make you happier in the end.
2021 looks to be a busy time for RØRY, as her next single, which RØRY is so excited about, is called my “Chemical Romance” and is coming in May. “It details my time as a heavy drug user and what that felt like,” RØRY reveals about her next release. “I could never have written it in the middle of addiction. But I can now. And that makes me so proud.”
Essentially RØRY’s next release is a story she really wants to tell, and hopefully, it encourages people that sobriety is possible and actually an amazing life choice.
“I just want to write. I feel so so inspired.” I’m writing for so many exciting artists right now which is an absolute blessing and for myself too,” RØRY conveys. “I want to write a song about my mum’s passing and my bisexuality. Those are stories I want to put out there.”
