[Music] this is all too familiar I'm sure for you this kind of environment this rehearsal space this safe space where you can come in and work out what works and what doesn't and not be judged but at some point you have to leave this space Demian you have to go out there and you have to sing these songs that people want to hear for people who are dying to see you again and this weekend
is a big moment it's the first moment really where the world gets to see you again for some time at the Grammys this this weekend and I feel like it's just gonna start again and I guess the first question is in the safe space how do you feel a few days out from leaving this place I feel really excited and I'm ready I feel like I've been waiting for this moment for so long and it's gonna
be hard not to like go on stage and just like word vomit everything you know like I just want to go up there and tell my story and I have three minutes to do so yeah so I'm just gonna do the best that I can and it's only telling a fraction of my story but it's still a little bit and it's enough to kind of show the world where I've been what's the name of the song you're gonna be performing the
song that I'm gonna be performing is called anyone now this is a really powerful song I mean this to me the timeline is so important and telling the story of this song I feel if the song was written after you got back on your feet it would mean something very different than if it was written before you got back on your feet which one was it so this song was written and recorded
actually very shortly before everything happened so I recorded the vocals for it four days before July 20th yes yeah so it was the lyrics took on a totally different meaning you know at the time when I was recording it I almost listened back and hear these lyrics as a cry for help and you kind of listen back to it you kind of think how did nobody listen to this song and think let's help
this girl you know what I'm saying cuz and I even think that I was recording it in a state of mind where I felt like I was okay but clearly I wasn't and I even listened back to it like gosh I wish I could go back in time and help that version of myself so he was Billington I oh you feel when you were singing that song definitely I feel like I was in denial but then a part of
me definitely knew what I was singing for his spirit was singing something that your mind couldn't really comprehend at the time right it's kind of like life imitates art yeah you know I was singing this song and I didn't even realize that the lyrics were so heavy and emotional until after the fact and that's what kind of brings us to this moment is you know I remember being
in the hospital and listening to this song and it was about a week after I had been in the hospital and I was finally like awake and and I just remember hearing back the songs I had just recorded and thinking if there's ever a moment where I get to come back from this I want to sing this song to be in you at that state of mind already to be prisoned yeah still so close to something that had been so
disorientating and terrifying for you and those around you but to be prison of mine to say I know how powerful this moment is even now mm-hmm you know a part of me was like looking towards the future because that's what I do when I'm struggling or when I'm going through a rough time I look towards the future for hope and to change my perspective on things and especially
when I go through something difficult I always stop and I think okay why is God putting me through this and sometimes it doesn't make sense in that moment but kind of like this song I recorded it went through everything and then it made sense later of like okay that's why these lyrics were so emotional when I was singing it is because they were actually so far deep in my soul of like
asking for help that you can really feel that when you listen back to it I think one of the saddest parts of the song for me is when you talk about the opening lyric which is I tried to talk to my piano I tried to talk to my guitar you know I tried to talk to my is it my imagination what's really sad about that is that music has been this great source of therapy of understanding for artists
to come to terms with something that can't communicate normally or they can't even understand about themselves and in their moment whether it was just subconscious talking or not it was like music couldn't even help you that yeah I mean I definitely feel that I feel like you can use things to cope in life and music has been a huge coping mechanism for me it's been very
therapeutic for me but there's only so much that means it can do before you have to take responsibility and you have to take the initiative to get the help that you need but the benefit of perspective now looking back on the moments leading up to July 24th can you recognize with more clarity the steps that were taken even when you were sort of clouded in judgment that got you to
that place where it got a serious as it did you know know you know obviously when I look back at I can put puzzle pieces together but I wasn't it wasn't conscious it wasn't in that moment that I could really go back and say okay I was aware that it was gonna lead to this never once did I ever think that I was gonna end up where I did are you ready to talk about what happened and and how it happened and
what happened on the night yeah I'm in the process of becoming more and more ready as time goes by you know I think it's taking me a long time to be able to even get this far which is performing a song that's so vulnerable to me on a stage in front of all of my peers and co-workers and even people that I look up to you know that's you know kind of nerve-wracking to think about but at the
same time I'm grateful that I have this opportunity to like sit here and talk to you until a little bit of my story I think as time goes on I'm gonna tell more and more about it with the next song that I have coming out I think I tell more of the story with this one it just kind of tells you a little bit about where I was right before and right afterwards yeah I mean I you know a
feast I'm gonna give you the space to come to the terms without yourself and not push any further than that but focusing on this particular song and and what it means to you in vocally what I love about it is the fact that it's still so raw with emotion and it's not like you went back in and tried to recapture that and kept that original vocal were you tempted at all to to go
back in and try to attack it again the perfectionist in me is always gonna want every record because the documentary and I've watched the way you handle your vocals and what's I mean I what thing I loved about super-complicated is in the beginning when you just like the Engineers like we got it and you like now he didn't and then I hear song like anyone and even in the in the opening
ad-lib I can hear you searching and for something comfortable in the vocal take that you're not there yet but it's incredibly compelling it draws you in immediately and I wondered how the perfectionist a new sort of sits with that well I remember I was in Montana when I recorded that song I did like a vocal cutting camp for my album that I was working on at the time little did I
know my life would take the the path that it did but um at that time I was just working on an album and I wanted to record vocals so I went away and and I recorded the song and I didn't spend a lot of time perfecting it just because it isn't one of those songs that I feel like if you were to hear anything like doubles or if it's over produced or anything like that I would take away
from the emotion of the song so I wanted to keep it very raw and we did and then as time went on and we realized how magical that capturing that vocal of that song shortly before everything happened you kind of can't recreate that and so there's no point I mean going back in the studio and trying to fix things or or trying to get a better take of this line or that you know it's like I I
would rather it breathe and live the way that it is that's a huge tip for an artist like yourself who's known for actually cutting vocals within an inch of their life in terms of the ability to reach the note hit the note others can't reach it must have been really kind of in a weird way must have been very liberating for you to not necessarily feel that urge to go back in and nail it
it was liberating it was liberating to be like okay I'm done with this song you know but it is hard because I even got in trouble when I was in kindergarten I would my mom got called to the principal's office because my my teacher told my mom Demi has this problem where if she doesn't get it right on the first try she throws her hands up and throws a temper tantrum and then she won't do it
and that's how much of a perfectionist say can I ask you what school choir was like for you because let me put it this way every kid at school thinks they can sing and school choir any parent who's been to choir night knows that with the greatest of respect that not the case so when you're in the choir next to your peers and you're hearing your friends sing out of tune was it
just absolutely painful for you I was always a solo artist no I was in the school choir I was actually choir president I was just like you know what give me my solo and I'll kill it you know what I mean like you know you raise an interesting point there to bring it back to today you know someone who's been so focused on what you can offer what you can bring out of yourself and
it's clear you have a very strong ambition what you wanted to achieve throughout your life but ultimately you found yourself after July having to rely on a lot of people that you knew and probably people you didn't yeah to help you come through the other side and I wonder how that affects you personally as someone who's been so focused and so independent but realizing at the end of
the day you need others in order to reach the next level well I would say there were more people that I didn't know helping me out than people I knew because had I had all of those people and my life already I probably wouldn't have ended up where I did yeah you know so the hopes that I thought was from people that I had met new treatment centers or new doctors knew new people like that that have been really helpful
and beneficial to the journey and the life that I'm living today can I ask you have you been have you successfully cut off environments and people around you that you recognize now we're not a good influence in your life yeah definitely and I mean I think that it's still a process I think that as you meet people and as people come into your life you still have to make a decision
every time of like is this somebody that I want around you know and if it's somebody that is a good influence on you and supportive of the life that you want to live then keep them but if they're not if it's not conducive to your journey that you want to be on there's no need for them to be in your life do you think you've had an error in judgment and that in that particular
area in the past I think I still have that error in judgment I think that it's just a part of going up you know you as people come into your life as you meet people you learn for your entire life red flags things to look for and see you're like a hundred years old with a bunch of life experience you're never gonna know right away who's good for you and who's not you know sometimes you get
fooled sometimes you get into relationships that you think are healthy and then you realize wow that actually wasn't healthy at all and it's not that you're not a cautious of it you're not aware it's just you don't realize that till later until they do something or you do something and it's like oh this isn't working out you know I kind of find that that continues to happen and
it's just a learning experience at each time you know there's a part of the artist psyche I've learned throughout my life that walks this this really fine line is kind of at times I think it's quite a precarious balance fed by this this sort of chemistry of insecurity and ambition this desire to kind of express themselves but equally this fear of doing it but this does this need to do
it and you know an audience validates that and you're an incredible performer and and you've probably in many respects use that as a coping mechanism in the past as well but I wonder now that you're stepping back out into the public eye in such a huge and high-profile way whether or not you acknowledge that that can also cause internal problems and whether it's change your perspective
towards performing in how performance what performance means to you I think that performance is really important for me because it gives me a platform to share my experiences you know the songs that I'm singing the lyrics that I've written for my album and everything it gives me a stage and it gives me like I said a platform to share that with people that need to relate need that to
look for as hope and inspiration too but I think it's important to remember that your self-worth doesn't come from the reaction of an audience and yet you're about to go onstage in front of millions and millions of people at the Grammys and you know that that reaction that bump of adrenaline you get from wow she's incredible or the bump of adrenaline you get from wow she's trash
yeah it goes both ways and it's the same bomb and you know are you feeling strong in the face of that or is there ways you can control your exposure to that because that's something I think artists are still learning now I don't think anyone's got an answer to how to deal with that right well for me something that I've done already is like take off the tags on Instagram so like I can't
see what people tagged me in I'm pretty sure I've taken off the comments on everything choose self-preservation self-preservation yeah and then also it's just like being aware of like okay something that I've dealt with in the past is like having these like really incredible experiences like the Grammys or like tor or concerts or things like that and I have to be aware of like okay
I'm gonna crash because my Adrenaline's gonna go all weekend and then I'm gonna have this performance whether it goes great or not my adrenaline is gonna come crashing down because good morning you were about to do Grammys in Super Bowl within the spaces and so I it's definitely something that like I've talked to my team about like hey we should be cautious like I might crash on
Monday let's take precautions to maybe I do more meditating on Monday or whatever it is maybe I have more therapy or support and then obviously the Super Bowl will happen too and that'll be really exciting but it's important to like plan ahead so that you're not come Monday after the Grammys I'm not sitting there like twiddling my thumbs like okay what am I doing with my life we don't
get this adrenalin yeah yeah yeah yeah where do I get this from how can I beat that high just like be prepared I want to stretch out in this conversation at a later date and talk about X I find it really fascinating and I'm very very darling to empathy for artists right now and the fact that we expect so much of artists and such a you know the trade is so beautiful you pull yourself out we
take it we absorb but we love it but it really takes it out of the artistic mentality the the idea of what you need to do to get this music out of you and you've been making new music and I don't want to go too far down that road but needless to say fans will want to get something out of this you know yeah where were you at with new music aside from anyone that we're about to hear and
it's gonna blow people away what's the future the future I mean I've got music coming out of my own that I'm really excited about like I said I mentioned the song that I have coming out after this and it's just so hard to keep dialing that you're teeing that up and I keep on I asking you the title but I'm I mean you tell me if you were gonna tell me I would tell you but I feel like him
tonight that's going we're on anyone right now yes we'll focus on anyone I'm really excited for the music that I'm really saying I also have some stuff coming out with other people that's really exciting so it's just it's gonna be a big year and I feel the momentum I feel the excitement and I'm ready for it how are you staying prepared I you you talked about meditation before you're
getting the benefits of that so I actually don't meditate that often but like when I think ahead of something you know then I can be like okay let's plan our meditation for this day I get it on a pot time meditate I meditate I wish I could actually master it but my brain goes too many different directions so I'm ADHD and I'm OCD he's just like I'll be meditating and then I'm like oh I
need to check so-and-so or yeah I wonder what happened on the latest episode of The Bachelor like you know what I mean it's like I need to be focusing on my well-being I'm excited to continue the conversation when the time is right you know I think it's amazing the journey that you've been on I spoke to many o contemporaries and someone who can relate to this he came up with at the
same time Selena about this and I was saying the kind of experiences that she has she has gone through and subsequently you've gone through so unique to have lived your life in the public eye to have chased something down as he use they that was so enticing and exciting and then recognized that along the way you had to experience all this stuff and experience it in the public
eye and experience it in the public eye during the time of the social media revolution we'll all eyes are on you well that's the thing is like yeah I've had people be like you know I'll be at the beach and someone's taking a picture of me in my bathing suit without asking and it's kind of like people are like well you asked for this life and it's like okay first of all I was like seven
or eight when I decided I wanted to do Barney and Friends you know so like no seven or eight-year-old can fully comprehend what life is gonna come with being on television no child can comprehend that no adult can comprehend no and then you add social media which came when I was about 15 yeah so just a time when you are at your most self-conscious and your most awkward here's a way for people to look at you all
millions of people comment about your body about the way you look your skin who your feuding with and you're just like can I be a teenager like no and so that was kind of yeah I feel like I've definitely like had a weird life and yes it was my choice but I also wasn't expecting for it to be what it is today and I think even the idea of celebrity is completely different than the idea of
celebrity 20 30 years ago celebrities could be themselves and not paparazzi wasn't huge nonsense like the Britney Spears days where like they started hounding her it wasn't a thing really until those days yeah there were definitely turning points that was one of them I think once people hear this song and they recognize that you're at a point when you want that were you
willing to share you're in a perfect position to start expressing yourself at the dawn of a new decade and focus on the positives and focus on this joy that you've been this chance you've been given can we talk about how you feel about the future and what you want your future to be this decade and beyond when I think of my future for the decade I think at some point in this decade I
want to start a family yeah that would be dope all of this is great and it's beautiful and I'm lucky and I'm blessed and I'm grateful but I've learned that clearly if all of this made you happy I wouldn't have ended up where I did my success is not measured measure my happiness exactly and so when I think about what makes me happy today I think about my family I think about my friends I think about
my team you know I think about people that connection so meaningful relations meaningful relationships exactly nothing will meaningful than starting your own family and a chest exactly exactly and I don't know what that looks like I don't even know if I see it with a man or a woman but like I just know that at some point I would love to do that list cade and if it doesn't happen this
decade maybe the next I don't know we'll see but I would love to start doing more things that make me happy and which we worry less about success yeah I was gonna say which will in turn renew this kind of joy you have in the process because it sounds to me what you're trying to get away from to a degree is result driven metrics and you process yeah you know for my whole career I
always was like oh I want to grab me so bad yeah or I want this or I want that and a number one here number one there you know and all that stuff is great and if you can accomplish that that's awesome but I just know personally it doesn't fill that hole inside of me yeah that only love and appreciation and gratitude can fill where are you right now at your happiest like what's making
you laugh what's making you really happy right now I love spending time with my family whether it's just time with just me and my mom or if it's with my sisters when they come over just being with my family and and that was what was so great about the holiday season is like you get to go over there to the house and like spend time with your family and lounge around and onesies and just be
lazy and eat holiday food and it's just like that was so awesome and so great to me you know another thing that like I started doing was I started going to church I was not really a big church person like even a month ago which is incredible because there's a very very powerful lyric on the song anyone which really questions our faith and why am i praying in a one particular moment you
know is a carefully worded emphasis in that yeah which was again a real kind of desperate moment of like I'm rock-bottom here and that lyric change actually happened as I was performing it it was just like I want to try something and so then when I was recording it I added it and was like hey you know what that actually makes it so much more impact so that's the only time that you ever used
that word and any performance ever I've never said that word I mean you've only ever sung that word once in that song you captured it you caught it you were like I got what I needed out of that moment I that's as the disparate as I felt about the concept of faith and prayer and what religion means and now to find yourself as of a month ago looking for that spirit within the community which is
what church is what are you getting from that how how are you getting healing from the experience you know what's really funny is I shied away from church for many years I didn't feel welcome I was also like questioning my sexuality and I just found a place out here in LA that like accepts me for who I am no matter who I love and and there's no judgement and that's what I needed was a
place of no judgement and I hadn't found that until about a month ago actually my manager Scooter was like hey do you I was having a really rough night and he was like hey do you want to go to Bible study I was like wait aren't you Jewish it was like you know what let's go if it's gonna help you let's go and so he took me there and I and I just like heard God clearer than I had heard him
in a long time and I was just like oh you know it this year is about I need to focus on myself and my relationship with myself and my relationship with God and I try to seek God through other experiences whether that's through other relationships or substances you know and it's like I had to realize the God that I'm seeking the God that I love and the guy that I want to be my god is
available 24/7 always at an arm's length and constantly with me and feeling that kind of that shift I don't know I just feel safer and I feel renewed as we're working this out in a real time I think honesty and transparency within a controlled framework your framework seems to be an antidote yes like you sort of let go of all the things you can't control and focus on the things
you can't yeah I tell you a truth yeah and you're gonna do that with anyone the song definitely hell of a performance I got to get too many people in this planet can sing this song maybe no why no no one can sing that song thank you it's some gonna be crazy and as first tips go it's gonna be a very powerful one so thanks for your time looking for the next thank you you