Gracie Abrams on Taylor Swift, Strength, and New Project “This Is What It Feels Like”

Gracie Abrams’ excitement is coming from all different directions today.

You can hear her beaming on the phone about the release of her first full-length project This is What it Feels Like, an emotional collection of personal anecdotes documenting exactly how she was feeling over a year of self-isolation and self-realization. But she’s perhaps even more excited about an entirely different album: Red (Taylor’s Version).

“When I think of tonight, I genuinely think about my project way later than I think about Red,” the 22-year-old singer-songwriter jokes with Teen Vogue. “My friend texted me today being like, ‘It's today.’ And I was like, ‘I know, I can't believe the vault songs are coming.’”

That feeling might be mutual. Gracie’s latest effort was likely also on Taylor’s radar, a fact that Gracie is still processing. Earlier this week on TikTok, Taylor told the Los Angeles-based storyteller—who happens to be the daughter of another storyteller, Star Wars director JJ Abrams— that she needed “5-7 business days” to recover from project highlight “Rockland.” (Not-so-coincidentally produced by her now frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner.)

Still, being recognized by those she admires, and ultimately inspiring an even younger class of songwriters, has taught Gracie about the cyclical nature of music. Her breakout 2020 EP minor gave Olivia Rodrigo some of the fuel to create “drivers license,” and simultaneously captivated a burgeoning Gracie fandom that finds strength in every one of her brutally honest words, just as she finds strength in jotting them down. It was also what made This is What it Feels Like, and whatever comes next for Gracie, possible.

“I now have these songs to remember that time really, really clearly,” she shares of the last year of writing. “And so my hope with the project was just that. If anyone felt any of what I did last year, that they know that they were not alone in that. Because that's what I've gained from them as a community and an audience. I very much have them, and they have me.”

Teen Vogue spoke with Gracie about her creating her new album, using writing as an outlet, and geeking out over anything Taylor Swift touches.

Teen Vogue: Minor was so personal and it was so well received. Does knowing how much that project was embraced for those personal moments help you in putting out something that’s a little longer?

Gracie Abrams: Personally, I feel like minor came at the time of my first real breakup, and it was very much in response to that situation. With this record, it was different because I felt like I was really focusing on my relationship with myself, considering we were in such wild bouts of self-isolation. I was lucky enough to know that even a handful of people responded well to me being honest about the way that I felt when I wrote minor. They've definitely created a pretty safe space for me, which is lucky, and I feel like it has seeped into the room with me whenever I'm writing anything with the thought of it coming out. The audience has been very sensitive with my feelings.

TV: The EP went on to directly inspire the biggest song of the year in “Driverss License,” and probably plenty of other music we don’t know about yet. Is that a unique feeling, not only to create work that moves people, but work that can move them to the point of creating their own art?

GA: It's super flattering. But I also know that that's the cycle, it's just kind of how it works. Like as a fan of music, I feel like everything that I listen to influences my writing, whether it's a song where I know it hits a certain emotion, where I'm like, ‘Oh, I haven't written something from that perspective yet. Wouldn't it be cool to try and go do that?’ Pulling like little pieces from things that we love is how we are formed as people, whether it's music or anything else. I feel like it's a really amazing time to be alive, considering how much exposure we have to all different kinds of art right now. And so it makes me feel very lucky to be a part of it in any way. From a community aspect alone also, it's pretty incredible.

TV: I saw your Taylor TikTok this week. She said she needed five to seven business days to recover from “Rockland.” I'm curious, what was it like to see a comment like that from somebody like her?

GA: It truly means so much to me and to so many young writers and artists having grown up with her music. Like I think that she is, for me, one of the blueprints for vulnerability as a young woman. I just respect the shit out of her with everything that she does. I've always been so inspired at every stage of my life as a fan of hers. And I definitely don't believe that happened. I had a crazy physical reaction where, [I was] like freezing all of a sudden. I don't know how to operate, or function ever again. But I'm her biggest fan. Everything that she does is f*cking unbelievably inspiring, motivating, it makes me want to do better and be the best version of myself as a writer and a person.

TV: When did you start writing material for This is What it Feels Like and at what point did it start to feel whole?

GA: I think the first one happened in February. It was the first time that I'd written something in a long time that made me feel like a bit of a person again, like I was just in a really bad place mentally, emotionally, last year and wasn't writing for a while. I didn't know what to do or say. One of the reasons that I didn't want to call this an album is because these songs felt like they were fragments of different times over my mental health recovery. I felt like I was grasping at pieces of myself that I was starting to recognize again, or being able to articulate things in a way that made at least some sense to other people.

So the project ended up feeling whole, I guess, two months ago. And it's fascinating because I kind of accidentally started making my album this past week, and I have a different kind of [feeling], being in a better place, being able to conceptualize something from the very beginning rather than what happened with This is What it Feels Like. I do [think] that they do all belong together very much, but it's funny, because I just know that I was kind of flailing while it was happening.

TV: You posted a meme on Instagram last week. It was of minor side by side with This is What it Feels Like, and the words, “I’m you but stronger.” I’m not going to get too theoretical about memes, but do you feel like there’s more strength that can be heard in the lyrics of this project?

GA: I didn't want to make minor twice. And I don't think that I did. I was trying to be conscious of adding elements to this project that made it feel like a bit of a step up or a slight departure from what minor was, but it's even funny, like, those were choices that I was making when I was in the headspace that I was in. And being in a different one, being in the middle of a new creative process with a clean slate, it genuinely feels like a study that I'm doing on myself and like noticing, just with growth and change over time, what I'm drawn to.

TV: Where would you say you find the strength to write your songs?

GA: I do it because it's been my outlet and coping mechanism since I was eight years old. It feels like just one of my senses. And I feel safe in it. It’s one of the only places that I feel like I can have it all to myself until I want to share it with someone else. It's helped me with communication. It just is such an integral part of who I am as a person that I feel like it's less about the strength to write, it's more that it gives me strength.

For someone pressing play for the first time, do you feel like This is What it Feels Like is a fair introduction to who you are?

GA: In terms of my anxieties and my intrusive thoughts that I've written about in This is What it Feels Like, I feel like it is more of a deep-dive a bit. I think that I'll continue to feel like whatever I'm making in the present moment is an even more accurate representation, a more accurate introduction, which is kind of just funny to be learning that, because I'm very new to this. In terms of my 21st year of being alive, this feels like it's definitely a good introduction to where I was at.

TV: What do you think the road to the project has taught you about yourself?

GA: Patience with myself was necessary when I was making this … I'll be able to remind myself for hopefully the rest of my adult life that there are highs and there are lows and that's OK. It's never one thing forever, and you can't have one without the other.

Also, just in terms of work environment, having done songs with a bunch of different people [has helped me with] figuring out what made me feel the best and where I feel like I thrived as a person and a writer. Just like every single part of making music, it feels either really, really isolating or very collaborative. So to have those extremes in a time where I wasn't feeling great, it was interesting having my collaborators who are generous enough to work on this with me, being like magical creatures that would tolerate my ranting or my quiet times. It taught me the importance of leaning on people and then the other side of it, being super alone. The fact that I got myself to write again eventually taught me that like, yeah, remind yourself that you need to do that in order to feel OK.

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