Hawaii well it's I'm good how are you I'm good it's nice to see you but I mean this is weird lovely to see I know it's it's not the same but you know we're lucky first of all it would be kind of sorry to see you are you too it's like really it's like it's so nice to see you I love you saying like I just I'm happy that we're doing this and I I think musics powerful
and I know you feel that way and I'm just super excited to talk to you oh me too I've been waiting for this moment because you know I think the world wants to hear this album I think the delay only increased the anticipation and I know that wasn't by design but it's funny how life works that way and and also because I haven't done anything like this yet and this feels like a kind of new frontier in
terms of this because we've been doing it via FaceTime the whole time but it just feels like this is like a major step forward for some reason I don't know why it must feel kind of nice to just to go into the studio and actually be doing something resembling work you know what I mean it's a super interesting time it's been a very difficult time for a lot of people and we stopped the the drop of
the record and everything that we were doing because I really wanted to be more specific at one point I wanted to do something to help the world that was very focused and working with World Health Organization and global citizen was a way for me to talk about kindness and the things that I believed in in a very focused way as opposed to a more abstract way which for me is what
gramatica is it's it's this beautiful abstraction of my perception of the world and I just wanted to wait for a second and do something specific and then when it felt appropriate I was like okay we can get abstract well it's funny as well because it feels weird to be promoting anything and it just feels like it should be a selfless time and we should all be outward looking and our
inward looking and find a way to kind of be more connected to people as a whole and I feel that that is very much a statement you made to I do think it's important to to look inside at all times as well you know self-care and taking care of your you know mental health I think helps you to take care of other people for sure and actually like I'm not really promoting III view this
conversation as something that I would want to do anyway I mean you know how I feel about about your perception of music and how it affects people in the world what I think is most effective right now for what it's worth is simple messaging that is either kind in nature or thought-provoking in nature that speaks to where we are as a society and as a culture where you know I really
believe that we're operating within a very rudimentary system and in the stupid love video red and blue are fighting you know could decidedly if you wish it to be a you know political commentary and it's very divisive I the way that I see the world is that we are divided and that it creates for a very tense environment that is very extremists and it's it's it's part of my
vision of chromatic a' which is to say that this is not dystopian and it's not utopian this is just how I make sense of things because crime Attica and I wish for that to be a message that I can translate to other people it is a world though I mean it like you say it kind of straddles both sides and it stands in the middle and it's absurd it's observant like you know chromatic arisen
is an observation but I feel like with the video and when you're drawn into the world your world but it's also a very you know it's like a sharing experience as well as a caring experience for you as both and and I wonder you know what you're hoping we get out of that because we're gonna talk about what you've gotten out of it but what do you want people to get out of listening to this
album right now you know I really I wish to go on a journey that I've been on with the world before which is when I know that I've opened my own creative portal to the other realm and made music out of my own personal experiences that is also related to how much I loved people and loved the world and what I want them to feel and experience you know I was just
talking to my friends and I was saying you know I can't wait to dance with people to this music I can't wait to just go into you know any space with a whole bunch of people and blast this as loud as possible it just showed them how much I love them and until then I hope that they listen to this record and go on not only my personal journey with me and dance through all the pain but also
go through their own journey and dance through all their pain and maybe there will be some arc within that sign that aligns us both and so from afar how can we connect you know you've danced before and in fact you made the world dance when you first came out and and started to release music officially and we've talked about this and how important you know putting four-on-the-floor back on a radio and
how it felt like people used to come to your early tours and dance and it was a release and I felt like until chromatic ah and since our part you haven't been dancing I'm sure you have but it hasn't felt like you have with us and I wonder why that was I don't know that I was dancing and my brain and my heart and my spirit I think I felt very turned around and life and
you know I'm always remiss to talk about like my personal experience with fame or my personal experience with it being an artist that's by-proxy because of pop culture also a celebrity right but the truth is I think that I was trying to make sense of my humanity within a system that is the music industry that decidedly is also objectifying I mean that objectification makes me feel like
a robot and that you start to act like one and once you start to act like that robot you lose a sense of your human and through writing this album I would be so sad and then I would hear myself sound happy in a song and I'd go wait a second this is completely in congruent and yet it came from me so how did that just happen which is so funny because it's often the subconscious goes the other
way in the artistic spirit often you're feeling happy on the outside surface distractions all the things you've built for yourself this world you created that tells you you're happy and safe and successful and the music is coming out of subconsciously sad and depressed it's very rare that I've spoken to an artist at this at your level that was having a subconscious joyful experience or
striving at least to find joy subconscious yeah and not forcing it you're dead on I was subconsciously experiencing joy and what I've learned about the brain is that while that's happening if you have extensive trauma or any mental issues like the ones that I have you're unconscious as you are becoming joyful goes no stop stop what you're doing come back to my me I am
your sadness if you become happy you are unsafe and this goes back to this idea of objectification where you know it's like one of these weird things ain't like I really do understand why people go like it's so annoying when artists complain about being mobbed at the grocery store right but I am also like just a person and what happened I think with me and this album is on a subconscious level I
was experiencing joy while consciously I was experiencing an immense amount of depression as a result of this objectification a lack of feeling like a human and then unconsciously my body was like stop like you're making a mistake if you don't brace yourself you will get hurt because I've developed a like a fear of the public but not a fear of people I love people so this
is about like how how did I get get back to people and how do I connect with people and go like hey I'm over here I'm a person I'm an artist like I'm not a celebrity whatever this thing is this a celebrity thing it's like I wish to like like I wish to eradicate its exact and that's an amazing observation because I think a lot of the reason why we as fans get confused about the trade because the
trade is you want this you put your put so much effort and so much attention and so much hyper focus into driving your narrative into a place where you become successful because what you really dream for and you focus on you get and then we take your narrative away and we tell you this is what you wanted this is what you asked for yeah cuz when you were a little girl and
you were good at piano and writing songs you decided you were gonna trade your talent with the world in exchange for us telling you who you are yeah it's proven to be challenging for me I'm not complaining about it to be honest when this super virus happened I did not want to put this album out I was like how can we do something more specific to help the world and how can I
use my humanity to focus on something that I believed to be infinitely more important than what even like I feel that I've been through which is what the medical community's done and it made me also think about those helpers to the world and how their mental states are and how they don't necessarily have the help that they need and after this is all you know over whatever that means or
gets better whatever that means who's going to be there to support them so I had to stop because I still do have the ability and perspective to put things that are bigger in before myself does that make sense what I'm trying to say I don't lack self-awareness I do understand that I'm not the only human on the planet that suffers and actually I think I have it pretty
good and I'm very grateful for what I have but I'm also honest and being able to say I you know I wrote a song on chromatic a called 911 and it's about an anti-psychotic that I take and it's because I can't always control things that my brain does I know that and I have to take medication to stop the process that occurs these the dolls and the diamond boxes yeah keep my dolls
and side diamond boxes save it till I know I'm gonna drop this front I've built around me oasis paradises in my hands holding on so tight to this status it's not real but I'll try to grab it keep myself in beautiful places paradises in my hands so that song arrives at a crucial moment in the album which is around halfway and at the start is a second at the second act and I love
how chromatic er is broken up into three acts yeah the first act starts with one of the most beautiful string arrangements that I've heard in a very very long time I mean thank you I get good I'm getting goosebumps just describing it it makes me so happy me and Morgan made that it's so incredible and the transition into Alice is so perfect what does that string arrangement it start chromatic alone
what does that symbolize for you I think that the beginning of the the album really symbolizes for me what I would call to be the beginning of my journey to healing and what I would hope would be an inspiration for people that are in need of of healing you know through happiness through dance and that's in it what I would call radical acceptance and radical acceptance is this concept that
for example I know that I have mental issues I know that they can be sometimes rendering me non-functional as a human but I radically accept that this is real right and so it goes right into this sort of like this grave string arrangement Morgan and I made together where you feel this sort of pending doom that is what happens if I face all the things that scare me and I say then for Alice I
say my name is Anne Alice but I'll keep looking for Wonderland meaning I'm not giving up I'm not throwing in the towel it's very early on and all of this you know there were I had some dark conversations with with blood pop about how I felt about life on the first Street lyrics on the album official is could you pull me out of this alive yeah I mean I I mentor and I still mean it I
know there were times when physically we reflect what's going on mentally and emotionally and it becomes a physical reaction it's called a panic attack but it all starts with this with this side unless of course you're under physical threat for the most part when we we suffer from mental health issues which I do as well it starts from something internal and is
that ultimately what you're looking to be pulled out of I mean it kids it's an evening meeting my boy but for me it was like pull me out of my mind pull me out of my stake I say I say could you pull me out of this alive meaning anyone right exactly or or me could you can i right where's my body I'm stuck in my mind when I when I am get stuck in that like that trauma response feed back in my
brain I have no concept of my body at all I'm completely in my head I'm and then I say I'm tired of screaming at the top of my lungs things I used to do upstairs before I'd come down into the studio with blood puffs I'm in the hole I'm falling down so down down my name is Anne Alice but I'll keep looking for Wonderland so it's kind of this it's it's this weird experience where I'm
going I'm not sure I'm gonna make it but I'm gonna try and that's where the album really begins and we put it together in this way but that string arrangement chromatic a one-act one is it's essentially it's setting the stage for like a more cinema experience with this world that is how I make sense of things how do I make sense of myself when I feel this way I make
sense of it by going this is a mental issue I radically accept that I have it and although I feel completely disconnected and offline I am still going to pursue Wonderland I'm still going to look for something that I do not have right now and maybe it's it is it through just simply trying I think that being brave is hard but it's it's synonymous in many ways with trying I
totally agree this album has so much yearning in it and that's what I love about it is that we're all on this path in our own way and yeah you know I think back timeline-wise to our part that was a big bowl massive artistic pop statement that at the time felt like it kind of divided it divided and fans loved it and critics were confused by it and it felt like such a huge step
towards the club almost a giant leap right the page is like whoa crazy crazy crazy soon it was true soon and that's I was gonna say in a weird way this feels kind of like it's related and you had another crack at it like I can actually nail what I set out to do last time is that fit I think culture was just like more ready now than they were then art pop was very rebellious
I would not adhere to one look I would adhere to every look I said my art pop could mean anything and when I as an artist raised my hand and go I will not subscribe to any archetypical behavior just because it makes the world comfortable they go seek you I'm not comfortable to be honest I went through a phase which I'm I stand by I stand by everything I've done like when I am an
old lady and I'm on my deathbed I'll know that my legacy is authentic because I've always made things that felt true to me and perhaps in that moment I knew in some type of way subliminally that we would be having this conversation years later that it would all be okay because it was real it happened and it is relevant and what I'm making now is a it's a reminder of the freedom that I have as an artist but
also my absolute love for electronic music my absolute love for the ability for a computer to make something that is soul is so visceral and soulful I mean the the bulk of this album was made inside a computer I mean I played with modular synth I played with real synth I gave blood pop you know what I would play on the piano you we'd put in put it as MIDI and then we would play with
inversions and and and produce the record and and make the song and then I mean I gotta say Zane I've been in this business a long time I've never seen so many producers be willing to pass around music and be like what do you think man and have it be a conversation and if we didn't use somebody's production it was no big deal it was like everybody was in
service of the song which made me feel so loved as the writer because when I write a song I wanted to sound the best that it could be I also wanted to interpret what I'm saying the best that it can interpret it and it was like this beautiful way of my friends saying I see you and me having this talk with them about how to get me out of this alive and a blood pop every
day I would I would I don't I quit smoking yeah you told me that last time like it was a big deal that me that would suggest you started again and now it's a quit I quit again statement no I didn't start again I fight I I hold up I'm not even one man because like yo quitting this so hard man it's hard man I cried for a long time yeah it's tough it's hard but you you know what I set on my porch and
chain-smoked all day and blood would be like let's go downstairs and you need to get off your porch and I was like you don't understand how I feel what I've been through and I was in this like and this endless state of like I I'm being attacked and I smoked the whole way through making this record and when we were done I stopped it was like the most bizarre beautiful thing that could have
happened that this music actually healed me and the end the the last act you know of the album is a song called sign from above as you know that I did with Elton and a song called Babylon and you know we use a sign from above si ne because it's a sound wave it's you know that sound sign from above is what healed me to be able to dance my way out of this album singing Babylon a song about
gossip and something that used to run my life like me and make me feel so small and so chained and and dance my way with the chains on I'm wearing them right now and I wear them proudly that I feel free and I had to go through all these various stages and in the middle of the record fun tonight which is a song that means a lot to me and every time I listen to it I get choked up because I
can't tell you how many nights that people that really loved me were trying to get me to smile or laugh or be optimistic and I just had no ability to to be happy it just wasn't there but then I would write this music and I would listen back and I'd go why it why is that so fun why is that so happy but when we spoke around Joanne and I don't mean to rehash you know old interviews
but I'm trying to create context you went home like you literally like artpop landed you were like q this is who I am now I'm gonna play with my friend Tony and then I'm going home and you went home and you made an album about home and when artists go home I think they're looking for some closure and I wonder what you found and why you came out of that space
when into a star is born which like is just art imitating life don't even get me started and then you sort of came out the other side of this whole era which is supposed to be healing and found yourself on a porch chain-smoking having this really deep dark conversation with yourself why well I think it's part of what what is still in my heart and was a beautiful experience with Mark Ronson
which is that you know the only album that Mark is interested I think in making with any given artist is the artist album yeah what do you want to say right I mean like mark mark is like he might as well be standing in front of any construct that's telling me what I'm supposed to be and likes like slashing at it and challenging me as I write every lyric to be like nope no what do
you really mean right and when I made you an when it was all done like traveling the world to end playing guitar learning guitar and going on tour I realized oh wow okay I I made an album from my dad I made a record trying to heal my family's trauma because my dad's sister Joanne passed away when he was 15 years old and he didn't know how sick she was and it was actually this really beautiful
and yet futile effort you cannot fix something that way and I had to learn that but it was an epic disappointment in my heart that drove me into a depression that I realized that no matter what I make no matter how big I become no matter how many so two out stadiums I have I can't fix my dad and then you're on the porch smoking and look it's like those are the things
that I feel like I go that who gives a if I'm a celebrity or an artist how many people on the planet are trying to fix somebody they love how many people on the planet are trying to understand how they can heal someone that is broken how many people on the planet are a messed with people that they love because they are pining for a greatness that will never be fulfilled like I I
had to detach from something that from childhood was built into me I mentioned epigenetics to you when I was on in our last call it's like the way in which my body expresses itself like on on a level with with proteins essentially is that there is potentially like I'm you know I don't want to be like a pseudoscientist but potentially the way that I behave and act has something to
do with what my dad went through and I made that record and then I realized that I couldn't fix my dad so I I kind of gave up cuz I was like well if I can't fix my dad what's the point so what puts you back the sound the music you know being being myself just seeing little glimpses of myself come alive here and there I'd like to say that in a way I was asleep and I was just sleeping through life and I was
just angry so angry and then you find gratitude look at what I have look at look at the love I have around me look at the friends that I have that cared a blood pop was like he would listen to me talk for hours and rant when I was like spiraling in shame for hours and then just just so that we could write one song and that love instilled in me a gratitude that grew over time and it
just made me more of a fighter and I just started to lean into the reality leaned into my mental issues and go I have them and I'm still going and so I kept going and then I kept going and then I kept going and I kept dancing and I kept writing and I didn't stop and I was honest every single time I mean when I tell you that writing the lyrics for this album and the melodies like they
were it was like that I mean that this is how I used to write music when I first started writing music someone would sit down with me and I would write it down on a piece of paper and hand it to them and go there it's that's that this is what it is this is how this album was made I love that you say that because it shows a real connection to your artistic spirit and the voice that
needed to come out but you but you're also in the same breath made mention of the hours and hours and hours and hours of work yes doing that you were doing to yourself not on yourself at the time doing to yourself you were beating yourself up to get to that place where you would have one single realization and that is work that is work yeah well I would just you know fight
through it and I had blood pop and a Benjamin Rice who produced shallow with me engineered the whole record he did all the vocal production and he's such a a beautiful force in my life and one of my favorite lyrics on the album as you know you know I heard one sign from above I heard one sign from above then the signal split into the sound created stars like me and you before there was
love there was silence I heard one sign and it and it healed my heart heard a sign so like that song and that was actually like later and the recording process that I actually was like and now let me pay tribute to the very thing that has revived me and that music and that was the very thing that revived me Zayn when I was a little girl and I was trying to heal my dad and I
would sit at the piano and write songs and my dad would go from being upset maybe or having a hard day to laying on the couch and saying my dad used to call me loopy which is funny cuz it's not unlike Gaga you know it sounds kind of crazy and you'd go yeah a loop I like that one that's a good one loop that's that that what is that is that a chord that's a chord play that chord again and
I love that I love that lyric I love that melody so like the very thing that made me an artist this this wanting to heal my father it's still with me but now it's this positive thing where I know that I can't actually do it but the way in which I responded to it it has actually made me who I am and I I love Who I am I love that my way of dealing with my father's pain is that I write songs you