Last week, pop star Conan Gray released his third live album Paradise found — and just before that, he stopped by Billboard News to discuss everything from falling in love for the first time to working with Max Martin to bring that feeling to life.
“It really influenced the way I made music,” says Gray, who also shares that “the whole album is highs and lows.”
He says he started the ideation process during his Superache tour almost two years ago. As he recalls, after every performance he would retire to the basement “because there's always a piano in the basement of these theaters that I played in… that's when I noticed these different subjects that I was writing about.”
He later used the MXM songwriting and production crew of Max Martin, ILYA and Oscar Holter to help solidify these various themes, saying it “really opened my eyes and wings to all the different sides of myself that I could try . … They wanted to push me to do something that was all my turn.”
And while Paradise found Boasting power-pop hits like 'Never Ending Song' and 'Lonely Dancers', the album also includes more intimate songs like 'Forever With Me', album closer 'Winner' and standout track 'Alley Rose' . As Gray says, “When I first recorded [‘Alley Rose’], I recorded it in the same voice as the rest of the album, a little more dynamic. And then I said, “Wait, I have to not Do this. I have to sing it as calmly and tenderly as possible — each song requires a different part of me. … I feel lucky that people give me the space to do both.”
Gray also spoke about the love that inspired much of this album—and the heartbreak he had to process in the immediate aftermath. As she says, after flying to London for their planned meeting, she landed on a text that ultimately ended the relationship. And yet, he wouldn't change a thing about his experiences around him Paradise found — and his necklace with a star within a teardrop is a reminder of just that.
“In all the things that make you cry, the happiest moments of your life and the saddest moments of your life, there's a magic in the fact that you can experience it at all,” Gray says. “I've spent so many years of my life hiding in my room, doing nothing and being so afraid of being hurt or rejected or feeling bad that I ended up not living. I kept that in my throat the whole time I was making this album [as a reminder] that I have to live my life.”
To hear what else Gray had to say about his latest album, watch the full interview above.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/conan-gray-found-heaven-billboard-news-interview-1235652808/
