GAYLE talks 'Internet Baby,' touring with Pink & Taylor Swift

Out: Your career is popping! How do you feel about where your career is at this moment on tour with Pink, especially at just 20 years old?

GAYLE: Well, I just said goodbye to being a teenager, which is really exciting and a bit scary at the same time. I find it very exciting [to become] an adult, but also like saying goodbye to your childhood and coming to terms with that is a little bit… not shocking, but just the growing pains of life. And I'm again excited to become an adult, but it's a little bit scary.

It's been really fun being on the road. This is my third year on tour, and I haven't really been home longer than three months. This year is the most I've ever been home in the past three years. So I'm really, really happy to be on tour with Pink after touring with [her] last year and after the Eras Tour dates, I didn't necessarily know if I was ever going to play stadiums again, and I was very comfortable with that and in my career. I never really thought I was going to be playing stadiums. So, the fact that I was able to at all with such a blessing in my life.

So, when Pink came back around and asked me if I wanted to tour with her again, I was like: 'Yes, absolutely. Thank you.' It's been so much fun to be on this tour. It's been such a light in my life. It's interesting when it comes to my career because, when I do interviews, people tell me [about] my career and I don't see it as myself. Obviously, it just feels completely different when it's you.

I definitely am really scared all of the time, and I don't necessarily feel like I'm always doing enough. But I'm very happy with the things that I've been able to accomplish. It also feels like I wasn't the one to accomplish them either. It feels like a video game. It was the hardest thing to comprehend when touring with Taylor Swift and Pink… that life was real, and I was that person living my life.

You were a special guest on The Eras Tour and you're now touring with Pink for the second time. How does it feel to be embraced by veterans in the industry?

It's such an honor. It definitely verified a little bit to me that I was on the right path in music. Something that I love and hate at the same time, when it comes to music, is [that you kind of] have to make the decisions for yourself, and there's no rulebook or blueprint that you have to follow to be able to 'make it.'

So, it definitely helped me feel like I was making the right decisions in my career. To be able to have the honor of being able to open up for these people and have my own relationships with them. It's very motivating to see people who have built their careers… for Pink, over 20 years; for Taylor, about 15 years. And to be able to play these huge venues and have such dedicated fans and have so many hits in their career. I definitely find it very inspiring. It's also a bit terrifying and intimidating at the same time.

​Have Pink and Taylor Swift given you any pointers? And now that you're back with Pink, is there something that you learned from the last tour that you're bringing into your performance this time?

For both tours, I very quickly noticed the stamina they both have. For Taylor, being able to throw a three-and-a-half-hour show in the pouring rain in almost any environment. And Pink literally does backflips on stage, and it's like in the sky.

[They're] very athletic and strong people. And so, it definitely inspired me to be able to try to build my stamina as a performer. You don't necessarily want to be out of breath opening up for these two people, because there's definitely a big difference. They're both just such talented and incredible songwriters [who] definitely inspired me when it comes to working on my craft as a songwriter. Taylor and Pink developed such beautiful relationships with their fans and the people who like their music, so [they] definitely inspired me to try and do things to connect more with people that like my music.

They also do such a beautiful job at drowning out negativity. Obviously, for both of them, there's so much more positivity than there is negativity. They just kind of don't listen or let anybody bring them down. And any negativity, they both fuel it into determination and it only motivates them more. And it only makes them more and more successful. That was very inspiring to me.

They also have such incredible bands — like Pink's guitar players, drummers, bass players; and the same for Taylor's crew. They're just so incredible at playing their instruments, so [they] definitely inspired me to become a better guitar player and a bass player.

Let's talk about your new single, "Internet Baby." What's the inspiration? What's it about?

I wrote the song [almost] two years ago. I wrote it the day after I lost the Best New Artist at the AMAs, which I fully expected to. [The other nominees were] such incredible artists that I've watched. I mean, I grew up on Liv and Maddie, so watching Dove Cameron win was the best thing ever. The fact that I was even in the same category as her, and she just had such an incredible year with "Boyfriend." I was just so excited to even be in the same category as her.

I grew up on the internet. I have a godsister who is, like, 13. She really has grown up on the internet compared to me, but there wasn't really a time that I remember not having an iPhone, and I grew up on Vine and TikTok or Musical.ly. There are so many apps that I've been, like, chronically online for. I wrote this song called 'Z' when I was 15, and it kind of jokes about our generation. It kind of makes fun of the way that people make fun of Gen Z. And the older that I got, I wanted to write a song that kind of is the older sister of that, I would say.

When it comes to music and songwriting, I'm a very sarcastic person. Naturally, it's just like, unfortunately, a huge part of my personality and a sense of humor. So, I wanted to say something that is pretty silly and doesn't really take itself too seriously. ["Internet Baby"] is just poking fun at the way that I grew up and the way my generation grew up. Almost everything we say becomes a phrase on the internet, or everything we say is driven from a phrase on the internet.

Any time I'm around people who are older, they ask questions about half the things that I say because my friends and I's vocabulary changes every six months, and it's most likely from a TikTok.

Is "Internet Baby" a taste of what to expect from your upcoming album? What can we expect from your debut?

The reason why I sing is Aretha Franklin. I love Frank Ocean and I love soulful music. And I specifically love power singers. I also love Alanis Morissette, Joan Jett, and Avril Lavigne, and raw music. Julia Michaels as a songwriter is like my queen. I also love Phoebe Bridgers. Boygenius actually changed my life.

Obviously, I love Taylor Swift and I loved 1989, but I also love Folklore, and The Tortured Poets Department. She has so many diverse songs and genres in her career. My goal is to be able to experiment with genres and kind of have a consistent line with my lyricism, hopefully. But my goal is to not [just] do one thing. [I want to] have it be a little chaotic, but consistent, if that makes any sense.

What's your creative process when writing songs? Do you come up with melodies first and then the words, or is it a little bit of both? Also, how has being in Nashville influenced your creativity?

[When] I was 10, I would visit every once in a while and I'd just watch writers' rounds. I moved when I was 12. I was very lucky to have a mother who worked from home, so she was able to completely relocate, literally for my music. I do think she's a little crazy for that, but crazy in the best ways possible. I'm so lucky to have a mother that just wholeheartedly believed in me.

One thing I love about Nashville is it really emphasizes collaboration and songwriting, and I think [there's] a bit of a misconception. I think it's happening less and less now that it's just country music, but there's R&B, there's Americana, and there's pop music. There are so many different genres. And when you play, I've probably played over 100 writers' rounds from the age of like 10 to 14. I would do writers' rounds and try my best to go once a week, possibly twice a week, and there's a bit of an unspoken rule, in my opinion.

General songwriters' rounds [are] when three to four people go on stage and sing an original song, and like one person plays, and they genuinely play for an hour. I'd watch all these people sing, and after [they] would play, I would go up to them and I'd just be like, 'Hey, I really love your music. I'd really love to be able to write with you.' Sometimes, because I was so young, they wouldn't. I understand not wanting to write with a 12 year old, but there are some people who cared to write with me, and that really means a lot.

I started writing songs in my bedroom with random people. Or we'd go to a basement, like you literally just pull up to a stranger's house, and you just go to write music with them. For a solid couple of years while I was in Nashville, I'd just write songs that would live on voice memos, and then I'd go on play in writers' rounds, and nothing more would kind of happen with those songs other than playing them in bars when everybody's talking over you.

I met my best friend when I was 12. She was 15, at a writer's round, and we started writing songs because of that. And then, when I was 16 and she was 19, we wrote "abc" together, which changed both of our lives. But we started writing songs in my bedroom with an acoustic guitar or piano, and we only knew like five different chords.

I feel like I was really, really lucky at a young age to have an emphasis on songwriting. Also, Taylor Swift, our queen, moved to Nashville, was a songwriter, and that may or may not have quite a heavy influence on my best friend and I wanting to move to Nashville and become songwriters. Taylor always emphasized in her career how important songwriting was to her. Maybe it was a possible inspiration to really emphasize songwriting and my best friend and I's careers, and I think that just seeped into my songwriting, and I think the most powerful thing a writer can bring in is their perspective.

"abcdefu" was featured on Bridgerton. Can you tell me about that moment?

My mom and I love Bridgerton. We don't particularly watch it together because it gets a little steamy at times and you might not want to watch that with your mother. We definitely watch it separately and come back and talk about it. I have loved all of the seasons. I actually waited to watch all of the third season because I knew it came out in parts, and I can't handle things emotionally when I can't finish it. So I'm in the middle [of] finishing this season, but it was so cool to hear. I think it's slightly hilarious to hear such an aggressive song be played and scored so beautifully with these strings.

I didn't tell my mom. My mom was just watching it, and she ran into my room and she was like, 'No, no, no, like, no!' And I was just so excited. It was so cool. I didn't tell my brother, [and] my brother's girlfriend absolutely adores Bridgerton. So then she called my brother and was like 'I think your little sister's song is in Bridgerton.' It was just such a cool moment to see a show that I love so much and have a song of mine [in it]. I wrote "abc" with my best friend, and she also loves the show, so it's really exciting to be able to have something that I love with somebody that I love and have those things exist at the same time. It was just so fun, it was so cool. It was ridiculous.

How do you approach songwriting now that you've seen success? You have a Grammy nomination, your songs were on the Barbie soundtrack, and you're seeing all of these accolades coming your way. So, how do you approach your artistry now?

I wanted to be a singer since I was 7. I've always been trying to do music in some aspect of my life, and I think I would have almost done anything to make it happen, and I think I would try and think about what would work, what works… and there's not necessarily anything guaranteed to make a song a hit or to make something happen. But I was really trying to think like, 'What would people like? What is the thing that's gonna work? What's the thing that's going to be successful?' I think I was so lucky to really like "abc," because if I didn't like that song and had that much attention on me because of that song, I think I would have really been miserable.

I think people definitely tested my love for that song, and I'm really lucky to love the people that I wrote that song with as well. So, nothing could make me hate that song just because I really love the people who wrote it with me. But now, obviously, I want the people who like my music to like the things that I make. But I really have found that I have to really love the things that I'm making, especially once you get to a specific point in music. People are going to be negative no matter what, and if there's something I'm even slightly insecure about or slightly don't like, if one person comments on it and I'm like, 'You're right. You're right, and the song's terrible, and you're right.' People can just break me down in seconds.

So, if I can really love the things I write and I can stand by all the words that I'm saying… this is dramatic, but if I would die for a song, then to me it's worth it to put it out. And with "abc," you know, the first videos I posted, it didn't do what it did right away. It took around five or six months to kind of have any trajectory or have any success. You also have to be willing to put work behind the songs that you're doing, because nothing's ever guaranteed for you. And you always have to work at making a song have any type of success.

For me, it's just really important that I'm willing to work on a song and not have to see success for it right away… to love it and just be able to stand by the production and all the words that I'm saying.

Now I need to know who your pop queens are.

Chappell Roan. I have loved Chappell Roan for years. When "Naked in Manhattan" came out, I knew the day that it came out, because I was streaming it. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, I streamed the album the day it [came out]. I knew "Casual" before everyone knew "Casual." I'm not trying to be that person, but I swear I have the receipts for it. I have the concerts that I went to. I went to two concerts. I saw her at The Basement. I saw a King's Bowl. I have consistently been loving Chappell Roan.

I don't know if this person would consider themselves a pop girly, I do think they're technically more of an alternative lane, but I love Lola Young. I think she is so talented. I love the music she makes. Obviously, Gracie Abrams. I love Sabrina Carpenter. Being tour-mates with them is also the coolest thing in the world. My queen Taylor Swift, of course. I mean, she's many queens, though. She's done so many genres of music.

Tate McRae, of course. I was also lucky to go on tour with her two years ago. Right as "abc" started going on the radio. I went on tour with her for a week, and it was so cool to just, like, meet the people and meet her fans and to be able to open up for her. [It] really meant a lot to me. I also love MUNA. I think they're an incredible band, and I love their music, and Kelly Clarkson.

I don't know if she would consider herself a pop girly; she's more like alternative R&B, I would say… but Remi Wolf. There's this girl named Upsahl, she's incredible. I love her music. Blu DeTiger, Wet Leg, Charlie XCX, and the combination of Lorde. Dead, deceased.