[Music] [Music] you know it's crazy to be here today because i'm so happy that we're still able to have conversations yeah we're still able to find really cool things to talk about but we always have such a human experience whenever we talk yeah and you're about to have the ultimate i know
i was just gonna say i'm actually really worried for this interview because we already have such like heavy emotional like kind of like philosophical conversations and i'm like extra like emotional like am i going to cry today am i that's not the intention
but you should feel as comfortable as you can to be as honest as you want to be i cried during this interview as always you know but i i do feel really sort of emotionally thrilled for you because from the first person i spoke was just figuring it out
yeah running around trying to make noise and seeing how far you could disrupt things and tell the truth totally to be so centered in such a beautiful home thank you you did it right yeah oh for sure the 1.0 you did it yeah your 2.0 starts in earnest yeah totally does it feel like
that for sure and also it's like cool because i got to maintain all those things that i loved about that original journey you know because it's like i still get to be disruptive and i still get to be you know like expressive in all those ways but not in a way that's um
self-sabotaging being able to self-advocate and like create kind of like a a safe environment and create i think every time i talk to you i've learned to create more boundaries so i was going to say that you know 100 because when i listened to this album
and i was that's what i was going to ask you because there's so much self-awareness in this record the most yeah i mean coming from a concept yeah to you know the idea of this romeo and juliet environment to the real truth this is me i'm actually i'm manic
to like wow it's almost like this is the the most important and final step before you're actually able to share your truth with someone else yeah totally oh yeah it's like it does kind of feel there's like finality in it in a way like this isn't true and this is like kind of
antithetical to like the whole point of the album but i'm gonna say it because it's a real thought but like the feeling of like i have to get everything off my chest that i won't be able to say once i'm somebody's mom you know what i mean so like all those like expressions of
like guilt or insecurity about being like i'm unlovable or i'm you know these stories of like sexual promiscuity or like you know sabotaging relationships and self-destruction like it's like almost like i'm like emptying my vault of all these
stories before i start over and it's like okay now i have to be responsible go and be a big girl yeah you asked for this you asked for this totally that song is such a good love reflection of it it's so funny too because it's so it's not satirical but like it's that
second verse that the who the hell is in your bed you better kiss good night and give some and the next the morning comes instead is this the life that lies ahead you know and like none of that's a reflection of like actually how i feel like my life's awesome i love my partner like
our relationship is so full of like love and passion and communication i remember having that moment when i was probably like five or six weeks pregnant and being like so what happens now like do i have to be boring right so many of the things that i self-identify with are not compatible
with motherhood well they're rooted in pain yeah well that's when you realize too that's when you take a step and you go oh i'm holding on to my trauma because it's part of how i define myself and i'm never really going to grow unless i really let go of that trauma well there
you go there's a massive realization right there talk about doing the work yeah i also had six weeks pregnant and i was like oh my god look at the heck but it brings it to the surface and you know i look i i can only speak from becoming a parent point of view i never truly
understand um the experience of of becoming a mother i can only admire it and as a part of a relationship right but as a parent as a parent yeah it brought a lot of things to the surface for me and and you know i i totally relate to this album on that level of
purging yeah there's a purging going on yeah yeah totally it's also like uh as all my albums are it's like kind of predictive of all the possibilities you know what i mean we're like on manic to have a song like more you know which is a song
we discussed in our last interview where i'm like singing to my to the the baby i'll have one day you know what i mean completely by the way unaware that this is the way my life would develop it was an emotional conversation because you were in the process of figuring out what
was possible yes exactly so not even knowing that this would could be a possibility or like a a potential path for me you know and certainly not thinking it would happen within the next two years you know to go from that and then you know on this record to have a song like darling
darling and then jokbirani the last song they kind of cover the basses cover the possibilities of like i'm singing to my child almost getting everything off my chest that i would want them to know god forbid something happened to me you know what i mean yeah because
there's moments in this record when i can't distinguish between the message that you're telling yourself versus the lesson you're teaching your child for sure there's a lot of lyrics that touch on that where i'm singing to i'm maybe singing to a child instead of
a lover yeah someone that's spurned or yourself or whatever yeah and also you know what's really what's super interesting about lyrics like that is that you know when you find yourself in a reflective moment like that don't you just kind of get closer to accepting that this is who you are
because i felt like in the first couple of albums you were searching for what's wrong with me what's wrong with it totally why am i like yeah yeah and then a manic it's like oh i've got the answer yeah bipolar yeah this is my unique chemistry i'm putting
it out for the world to see yeah no jokes this is who i am yeah but is this album to some degree about acceptance as much as it is about realization yeah it's the easiest album i've ever written literally everyone was like why are you writing an album you're pregnant well
that's what i was going to ask you at the very top of the conversation but we don't do intros know so we went off our attention and here we are so let me get me to the official introduction why do we even have an album right now uh because it was the easiest album i've ever written
and like in true halsey fashion the writing of the album always manifests itself in like a a complete juxtaposition to how i feel in my real life you know manic i told you was this album that i initially intended to be like an angry political pissed off
you know fem pop punk album and then i ended up with this like eclectic rainbows and butterflies simpsons and like yeah it was like you know this like um i got dominic fight doing beatles background vocals you know so the obvious psychedelic yeah and i
was pissed when i made that album but it you know it manifested itself in a different way now here comes me like totally in love uh the world's in shambles but i'm getting arguably the first break i've had in seven years you know i'm finally taking care of myself like eating my vegetables
and getting sleep and like i'm pregnant and everything's amazing and then out comes this fury and yeah and i called before i said it's deep and yeah and very aware and but there were times of absolute just unbridled fury which i love oh i mean it was you know i think part of it too was
almost like i no matter how old i get i'm always going to kind of be a brat in the sense that like i want to do the opposite of what people are expecting and like i think being pregnant in the public eye is like a really difficult thing because you know
as a performer so much of your identity is predicated on being sexually desirable being it's a risk to development is what it is we like you here stay here totally don't change don't have personal growth don't whatever you know and if you do do it in a way where you're sharing it with
us so that we can benefit off of it too especially if you're a female artist not to try and put myself into a conversation where i don't have the the appropriate um you know knowledge but damn i'm a human being and i see it's been tough year after year
after decade after decade for a female artist to decide to start a family and all of a sudden people expect you to hang your microphone on the door as you leave yeah so this is a really complicated subject and is actually kind of what the record is about and like
where that theory comes from which is like socially we've been reduced to two categories you are the madonna or the right so if you are sexually desirable or like a sexual being you're unfit for motherhood right like you could never be someone's mom um but as soon as you are like motherly
or maternal and like you know somebody does want you as the mother of their child or their wife or they're whatever you're unfuckable you know there's like that's your options it's like those those things are not compatible socially and they haven't
been historically for centuries you know so there's initially that and then there's this mentality of like you don't win because if you start a family like i'm 26 and i i tried very hard for this pregnancy and it was like i'm financially independent i'm pretty far along in my career you
know it feels like the right time for me to do it and i got treated like a teen mom a lot of the times you know what i mean where people were like oh my god like you're so young and you're like you have so much to do in your career and you're not married and you're this and
it like it triggered all these feelings of like kind of shame from when i was younger it like triggered a lot of like old feelings of shame in me where i was like how can you have an opinion that kind of opinion on me making this decision because the flip side of it right is
that if i don't and i wait until i'm in my 30s and i what i do snl for the sixth time and have my seventh number one album and whatever like guess what that treadmill is destructive for relationships totally i do the same stuff over and over and over again and i
have you know the career that people think is you know the the whole point you should be lucky you should feel grateful everybody wants you to keep working yeah yeah but then there's also she worked too hard she never had a family yeah what if she's gonna die alone
you know she was too obsessed with work she never found someone it's a shame she's not gonna have any kids her career's not gonna hold her at night okay so nothing so so um and i just was like i'm gonna do what i want to do you know what i mean i was like this is important to me
like you're not just going to do what you want to do ash you're going to make an album that's going to tell the truth about it totally right yeah there's a lot of really strong men and women who make decisions in their life to recalibrate the construct
of what people expect and what is they're supposed to do yeah and they take the narrative back yeah you've done that now you you're you're telling everybody what the new narrative is oh yeah based on what it was yeah and that's why this record is so powerful that's why i saw
like tradition as an opening salvo you know and so oh it's incredible and it says it really sets up the whole experience deep ruminations not just in all of what you just eloquently and beautifully said but also the complicated dynamic between x and y in the evolutionary state of mind
yeah it happened by accident it was it that i think the record became that way because i wasn't trying to do that i wasn't trying to make like a political record or like make a record that was like you know kind of drowning in its own profundity like i was just writing
about how i feel and i happen to be experiencing something that is very nuanced and very complicated so it kind of just like you know it manifested itself in the record in that way where you know with pregnancy there's this thing where it's like
this flowers and butterflies milk bath kind of i'm a goddess i've reached my full state of submission also this my feelings don't matter anymore because i'm doing the most selfless and most amazing thing which is having a child you know and i'm saying all this like facetiously
you know because then here comes along which is actually pregnancy for some women is a is a dream and pregnancy for some people is a nightmare it's a nightmare and that's the thing that nobody else talks about right is that is the the pain the blood the disease the fear
the fact that it's arguably the most dangerous condition a human body can experience and has been for millennia that like it kills people and to this day still kills people who don't have access to the right health care it's framed as this time where you should be
so grateful and you know me especially like talking about my loss publicly which i have like talking about lost pregnancies and my struggles with reproductive health and people saying you should be so grateful and i knew the whole time i made this
album and made the film that people were going to be like you know for someone like halsey who's had miscarriages and whatever like she shouldn't have been working so hard like would it have killed her to stay home and like relax for the baby you know i like knew
there was going to be that immediately and like again this is why i'm saying the conversation is so nuanced because you know the reason that the album is like sort of this horror theme you know what i mean is because this experience in a way has its horrors you know and i think everyone
who has heard me yearn for motherhood and yearn for this for so long would have expected me to write the album that was full of gratitude and instead i was like no this is so scary and so horrifying and my body's changing and i have no control over anything and
i do finally have this thing i want so i wake up and fear every single day that i'm gonna lose it you know i have this like everyone's like aren't you like just living a dream i'm like no actually i have nightmares about waking up in a pool of my own blood that's actually what it's like that's
happening at night and then you wake up in the morning and you have to call the ceo of xyz and say hey hi i'm just calling to let you know i'm pregnant yeah yeah i just want i didn't want you to find out on instagram i wanted to tell you myself personally it's still
business as usual over here though don't worry don't worry my personal choice isn't gonna affect your profitability or your productivity or your assembly line and also in what world would you ever have to call me to tell me that you were having a baby yeah but i have to call
you because it impacts your product yeah you are just stacking up one experience yeah it's awful i mean there was publications that were like you know you know we were looking for going out and like trying to set up magazine covers based around the album release
and they were like yeah but is she going to be pregnant cause like we don't want to do a maternity cover and i was like it's not a maternity cover it's about my album i'm just happened to be pregnant and they're like no it's a it's a pregnant cover and i was like so i can't go talk about
my album in what world is that even a conversation now it's not 2021 for anyone who's just experienced the last 18 months and has an eye on what we should be doing to build something that actually resonates where it's crazy we still have a long way to go
and also boohoo to me though you know what i mean like whatever like these are small but what they are is they're like they're seeds that are indications of like people who aren't as privileged as me or in the positions that i am like imagine what they're experiencing if me
at my level yeah but it's a micro of an overall macro it's not like that's unique only to to entertain as songwriters producers people in the entertainment business like everybody going through this in their own way whether it's dealing with the job that
they have to take maternity leave they don't have an understanding situation going on there or to your point they don't have the means to be able to secure the right everyone is experiencing their own journey yeah and what i i really respect about this album is that you have
not just you haven't made a pregnancy album this isn't a i'm going to have a baby out yeah this is a like i said this is this is more you know a a document about the dynamic of being a woman giving birth from your perspective at a time when there's still a lot of work to do yeah
about about actually making that a you know an experience that is as stress-free as humanly possible and basic human rights and that's one of the things i really love about this record is that you know you're making these songs at a time when they need to be heard