Gracie Abrams: out in the open

Gracie Abrams is ready for the next chapter, but not before taking a long, hard look at herself first. “I think a lot of the songs feel like almost versions of an apology,” the singer-songwriter tells NME of her debut album ‘Good Riddance’ over video call from Los Angeles, sprawled on her front the way you might scribble in your diary or gossip with a friend. “It felt new to me to write from that place, rather than using a song as a place to throw blame and almost point fingers,” she adds. “There was definitely more to the story than just ‘I hate you’. I’m like, ‘Well, I actually hate myself’.”

It’s precisely this introspective self-awareness that has established Abrams as one of Gen Z’s most unfiltered storytellers since signing with Interscope in 2019 and releasing her diaristic debut EP ‘Minor’ the next year. Following it up with the beautifully refined ‘This Is What It Feels Like’ in 2021, this project possessed all the trappings of a debut album – from its bare-all storytelling down to the cover art, which depicts the singer laying pensively on a green lawn with the record’s name burnt into the grass.

But all these “fragments” didn’t feel like a cohesive work to Abrams, who recalls being too “chaotic internally” to think about a debut. “At that time in my life I was definitely sorting through a lot mentally and emotionally, that I think I needed to do some more work on myself before even having the intention of sitting down and starting something, [and being] interested in seeing it through,” the 23-year-old says.

The daughter of film director J.J. Abrams and producer/Time’s Up movement activist Katie McGrath – the latter of whom makes Abrams’ screen momentarily glitch when she calls during our interview – the singer is far more introverted by nature than a Hollywood upbringing might suggest (she recently insisted that she’s tried to keep her parents “separate” from her career). Rather, her wistful, delicate observations on life were penned down into notebooks and shared quietly online long before she had dreams of being a pop star.

It’s why Abrams’ songs often sound like you’re hearing her thoughts unravel in real time. Except on ‘Good Riddance’ – created in close collaboration with The National’s Aaron Dessner – Abrams established a practice that not only brought her most stubborn feelings to the surface, but allowed her to do the emotional work alongside it. “I found myself just being very relieved to be able to say ‘good riddance’ to a lot internally that I needed to outgrow,” she says.

First retreating to Dessner’s fabled Long Pond studio in a forested area of New York’s Hudson Valley about two years ago – which has most notably hosted Abrams’ musical hero Taylor Swift, who she will support on the ‘Eras’ US tour this year – Abrams found that her most confronting reflections arose in the company of a collaborator who both “respects” her as an artist, and equally pushed her to be the best version of herself.

It’s a deeply vulnerable record that feels distantly related to the indie-folk isolationism of Bon Iver’s ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ or the fragile intimacy of Swift’s ‘folklore’. Using simple but stirring beats, earthy acoustic arrangements and lots of “picking and strumming” on guitars which tenderly elevate Abrams’ wispy purr, ‘Good Riddance’ sounds as organic as the natural setting it was recorded in. “I learned through making this album, at least at this point in my life, [about] having real space from the noise,” Abrams says.

It was spring of 2022 when Abrams and Dessner really got to the “core” of what ‘Good Riddance’ would become. “Being in a space that fostered such honesty, it was never [about] guessing, ‘What are we going to write about today?’” Abrams explains, also finding clarity in therapy and through regular journalling.

Reflecting on past relationships (though it’s “definitely not all about one person”, and it’s sprinkled with “imaginations”, too) while making her own self-actualisations, ‘Good Riddance’ sees Abrams facing down her own bad behaviour. “A lot of what I talked about with Aaron was, ‘What do I need to do on my own in order to be the best possible version of myself, to then show up for anyone else, in any capacity?’” she explains.

It was a hard reality check that comes through strongest on album opener ‘Best’, a self-critical dissection of Abrams’ interpersonal shortcomings. “I never was the best of you,” she sighs atop a plucky beat. “Used to lie to your face / 20 times in a day / It was my little strange addiction.” “It’s why it’s the first song on the record,” she says. “It’s definitely a dramatic start.”

This vulnerability continues throughout, whether it’s admitting to being “codependent” on ‘Full Machine’, “spiralling” and overthinking on ‘Difficult’, or alluding to her “bad decisions” on ‘The Blue’. Elsewhere, she’s worried about growing apart from her family or pining for the golden days of a relationship she knows is beyond repair.

Then there’s the acoustic, mournful ‘Amelie’, which sees Abrams remembering a girl who “sort of ripped me open”. One of the singer’s favourite tracks on the album, recorded in one take, it could equally be about an old friend as it could be about herself. “For my own heart and soul, I know what the songs are about, and I love them for that. And I love them being what they are for anybody else, too,” she says.

But after the months of solitude and stillness that nurtured ‘Good Riddance’, Abrams is now preparing to share more of herself than ever before as she looks ahead to a huge year of live shows – both on her own headline tour and as support on 30 dates with Swift. She shakes her head in disbelief when we mention the latter. “The second I found out, I texted [Taylor] like, ‘Dude, what the fuck?’” she laughs, adding that there was also “lots of screaming”. “We’ll see if I survive night one,” she adds, fearing she might “slowly pass away”.

Spending her summer nights performing in stadiums is certainly a world away from her first ever ‘bedroom’ tour back in 2020, when the closest Abrams could get to fans was through a computer screen. “I remember speaking with NME last time [in 2021] and it was so at the very beginning of having played any show ever,” she says. “I think the biggest difference is that I have a deep love for shows now, not the being on stage part, but the connectivity. I feel like it allows me to be a part of this community that is so unlike anything I know anywhere else. Now that I’ve experienced that, I can’t imagine not having that in my life.”

But while fans might only just be getting to hear her debut album, Abrams says she’s already moved on from the time that it captures. “I think ‘Good Riddance’ leaves a big question mark in a fun way of, ‘What’s the next thing going to be?’ I’m so excited to make that already, and I’ve been writing things that feel like a completely different world,” she says. “It’s funny that this album is new for everybody else, because I’m like, ‘Next!’”

‘Good Riddance’ opens with a series of confessions, but it ends with the sense that everything is finally right where it’s supposed to be for Abrams. She mutters one final admission before the album drifts off into silence: “I feel like myself right now.”

Gracie Abrams’ debut album ‘Good Riddance’ is out now

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