When Lorde broke out in 2013 with Pure Heroine, her evocative ode to a tender and tough suburban adolescence, she was lauded for her "authenticity". That's a tricky concept for anyone to grapple with, but for a young woman on the precipice of mammoth fame it was a spiky badge to wear. After all, a beloved debut will always be hard to follow up. But infuse it with a sense of being deliciously "normal" and suddenly it seems impossible to mimic in the glow of fresh stardom.So what do you do when your every-girl status is punctuated by generation defining success? You go home. Lorde's return to New Zealand — where she is still known to her friends as Ella Yelich-O'Connor — has formed the bones of her follow up record Melodrama, a concept album tracking a night at a house party. It's arguably the first project of this scale inspired by Auckland ragers.That time at home not only informed this long awaited follow up, but also helped define the second coming of Lorde. Cocooned in her hometown, she was able to claw back some private space to reflect. After experiencing the strange reality of trying to work out who she was while the world spewed out countless hot-takes on what she meant, Ella found room to form her own ideas of identity.Now on the brink of another barrage of press, the kind she's spent years avoiding and arguably recovering from, we sat down with Lorde to talk about home and why we don't really know her at all.Can we start by talking about your return to New Zealand after the huge success of Pure Heroine? It is an unusual move considering how many young creative Kiwis are planning their exit route.
For me it kind of felt like the only thing, it didn't feel there was anything else I would do. I love New Zealand so much and I really depend on it to feel happy and normal. My friends are there, my family's there—my relationship with the place is so deep. Now that's where I live. It's very much part of the fabric of the way I am.I feel like my relationship with New Zealand is like, it's my cool older boyfriend that I'm just obsessed with and I just hang around with. I'm like, you're just so cool what music do you listen to? I wanna hang out with you.I read you tend to write mostly about experiences in New Zealand. Your life is so full, why do these more familiar spaces still inform the bulk of your work?
The thing about what I get up to in New Zealand is that it isn't interesting or exciting, it's super domestic and regular. There's a lot of just sitting in cars or sitting around somebody's kitchen table talking. I find of lot of my writing is inspired by just listening to people talk. The domesticity of life at home is really important.Also the record is kind of like this weird document about partying, and I definitely went to a lot of like fun, scummy house parties in Auckland which I feel like you can't really do in LA. In LA they're like, "We have a valet," and you're like, "mmmm not the same."Continue reading and watch our interview with Lorde on i-D.
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For me it kind of felt like the only thing, it didn't feel there was anything else I would do. I love New Zealand so much and I really depend on it to feel happy and normal. My friends are there, my family's there—my relationship with the place is so deep. Now that's where I live. It's very much part of the fabric of the way I am.
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The thing about what I get up to in New Zealand is that it isn't interesting or exciting, it's super domestic and regular. There's a lot of just sitting in cars or sitting around somebody's kitchen table talking. I find of lot of my writing is inspired by just listening to people talk. The domesticity of life at home is really important.Also the record is kind of like this weird document about partying, and I definitely went to a lot of like fun, scummy house parties in Auckland which I feel like you can't really do in LA. In LA they're like, "We have a valet," and you're like, "mmmm not the same."Continue reading and watch our interview with Lorde on i-D.