“I'm kind of waking up,” Lizzy McAlpine says over tea (hers) and coffee (mine) at a hotel lobby in Times Square on a Friday morning. She’s not talking about her jet lag, however, or the early call time of our conversation, or the fact that she’s spent the past week on a whirlwind press tour that included performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She’s thinking more existentially. “I feel like I've been doing things for so long that don't have any meaning just because people have told me to do them or that's what everyone does to get where they want to go,” she tells Teen Vogue. At 24, McAlpine is learning — and teaching her circle — how to do things differently. “I know that I'm doing the right thing, and I'm not gonna stop just because it's hard.”
For McAlpine, doing the right thing looks like: no openers so she and her team can get enough sleep during her upcoming tour, and taking a step back from social media in an effort to take care of her mental health. On the music front, she’s intentional amidst a content-obsessed zeitgeist so that her new 14-track album sounds and looks “organic” rather than “overdone.” She has the agency to do that now, in the aftermath of the viral success of her song “ceilings” and all the buzz it brought with it. She notes that “we actually made a music video for Older and it just didn't feel right to me.” She scrapped it. McAlpine and her team opted instead to chronicle the making of her third record with a forthcoming documentary. “It’s just about me as an artist,” she says. “I’m a real artist and I know what I'm doing. I'm finally finding my voice.”
Teen Vogue spoke with McAlpine ahead of her third album, Older, out April 5, about how she came to these realizations, and where she’s headed next.
Teen Vogue: I can't help but notice that we're right near the best part of the city: Times Square. We’re close to Broadway. You started in musical theater. Is that next?
Lizzy McAlpine: I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row for the next chapter of my life and career post this album and tour. It will probably center very heavily around Broadway, acting, theater. I love Broadway so much.
TV: What would your ideal role or genre be?
LM: In the acting world, I love Next to Normal. Natalie is a dream role. But I also want to take an older show and revive it.
TV: What excites you about that?
LM: I have so many shows that I’ve never seen on Broadway because they weren't on Broadway in my lifetime or I wasn't old enough to understand them or whatever the case. I gravitate towards things that are emotional and make people feel things, and I haven't really found that recently in the Broadway space.
TV: Aladdin isn’t doing that for you?
LM: Tea. [Laughs]
TV: You've said this album is a new chapter. How does it feel to have lyrics and albums out there that are time capsules of your life?
LM: It's definitely weird. I am still figuring out who I want to be, who I am, what I connect to, and it's kind of hard to have the old stuff out there. People latch onto it, but it's not necessarily that true to me even if it probably was at the time. I know that the right people will get the new album, but some people are gonna be disappointed because it doesn't sound like Five Seconds Flat. This music is the most me that I've ever sounded, and I just want to feel understood.
TV: It's so hard. You're not a product churning out the same sound.
LM: Growing as an artist or as any person in the public eye is unfathomable to some people. “Oh, you don't stay the same as you were when you were 16? That's crazy.”
TV: We grew up in a generation where a lot of us have digital archives of our lives. What compelled you to start vlogging?
LM: I just love editing videos. I started vlogging a long time ago because it was fun and I liked it. But I haven't vlogged in a while. I only wanna be creating stuff if it feels really meaningful and there's a why behind it.
TV: Vlogging was for you.
LM: Yeah. For me. I documented my first tour.
TV: God bless you for being on TikTok.
LM: I hate it so much. I think back to when I was sharing a lot more of my life on the internet. I used to love posting on Instagram and I was like, yes, validation. Now it makes me so anxious and I post and delete. I don't like to put myself on the internet anymore because people are mean and I'm sensitive. [Laughs] I hate Twitter but I feel like I need to know what people are saying about me so that I can make sure that everyone's happy.
TV: Even though you know that that's not possible.
LM: I talk about this in therapy all the time. I know it's not possible, but I don’t want anyone to hate me.
TV: Social media isn’t natural. We're not meant to have this kind of constant feedback.
LM: My therapist said, “you are an HSP, a highly sensitive person.”
TV: I think that your sensitivity is what makes you such an amazing and introspective artist. You notice things. That’s why so many people gravitate towards your lyrics.
LM: That is also why being an artist is really hard for me. Everything outside the music is so difficult. I've been coming into myself and growing and have realized this is the hardest part. I get overstimulated so easily. Talking to people's hard. I don't have energy after shows to go outside and meet fans, and then people get mad at me.
TV: You have some breaks during your tour right?
LM: Yeah, we're doing a couple shows a week and taking breaks. The way I routed this tour is for me and my fans’ safety, but mostly I'm doing it because I hate touring and I don't wanna hate it this time. I'm taking the band I made the record with on tour and we're not playing to any tracks so it's gonna be completely live.
TV: How does performing without tracks impact how you feel about the show?
LM: There’s much more freedom. During my last tour we did the same thing over and over again. With a live band with no tracks, we can do whatever we want, we can play whatever we want.
TV: It requires you to be present.
LM: This music is so special and intimate and vulnerable. I want people to come and hear the songs. On my last tour you couldn't really hear me because everyone was screaming so loud which was great for that album. It was that type of vibe. This time is totally different. And I don't wanna tell people, “don't sing” because obviously I want them to sing along, but I want them to listen and want it to be an experience for them.
TV: As an audience member, concerts can sometimes feel exploitative – taking, taking, taking from the artist.
LM: And that's what it felt like last time. That's why I was really unhappy on that tour. It just didn’t really feel like anyone heard me.
TV: Quite literally. How did you make this album?
LM: I started with a different producer. We got pretty far into it and at the end it just did not feel right so I pivoted and found the band.
TV: How did you find them?
LM: I went to a Ryan Beatty show and they were playing with him. And I was like, I want those people. And they were like, “our dream is to make records and then tour them.” It just all fell into place. I had to go through all the other stuff to get to that.
TV: How’d it go once you started working together?
LM: We got in the studio for two weeks, and re-recorded almost half of the record. Then Mason and Taylor and I–Mason plays guitar and Taylor plays keys–stayed for two more weeks to build the tracks.
TV: Are any of the songs recorded in one take?
LM: “Come Down Soon” was a full live take. The majority of the songs we did a couple takes. It felt really different from working with Philip on my past two albums where we were producing and mixing at the same time and so at the end of every session it sounded good. This time it was really hard 'cause we were recording raw and then leaving it and mixing later. I was so wanting this album to be what I heard in my head. I was like, it's never gonna sound good.
TV: Oh God. A panic.
LM: Then we found Andrew Sarlo who mixed it and is phenomenal. We only finished the mixes a couple weeks ago. I had to let go which was hard for me 'cause I like to be in control. It ended up being the best thing for the music.
TV: A theme on the album is lying to yourself and lying to other people. As you've gotten older, do you feel like you have a better intuition?
LM: I am very sensed into my body and my feelings. For a while I didn't always trust myself. I had gut feelings in relationships and I thought, maybe it's just anxiety. I was like, am I broken? And it always just ended up that I just didn't like the person or I just wasn't in the right place. It was never anxiety. In regards to my career it's an immediate yes or no.
TV: That’s the best feeling.
LM: I trust myself way more than I did before. I wrote this album about my college boyfriend. We dated for one month and then for the next four years we were on and off. It’s new for me to write a whole album about one person. I wrote a couple of the songs after not being in the relationship, and I had to put myself back into that head space. “Drunk Running” was written after the cycle ended when I was reflecting on it. And “Older” was written half in it and half after.
TV: That's so intense.
LM: I ordered the songs very specifically on the album. The first half goes through the relationship and the second half is about who is to blame.
TV: You get into gnarly parts of relationships that people don't always talk about.
LM: For this relationship in particular it was just hard to think, “maybe I wasn't good to him for a while.” He broke up with me the first time and then every time after that it was me. When I was writing this album and reflecting on the relationship, I was like, well it actually is my fault. I mean, not all of it. It's a mixture. This album explains all of the layers. It's about accepting that I also messed up.
TV: In “Movie Star” you touch on power dynamics in relationships and a lot of the album is about staying when you know you should go.
LM: I kept going back and hurting him and he doesn't— I don't think he hates me to this day. I'm like, how? [Laughs] Why not?
TV: I know your 13th tracks are always about your dad. This one is so beautiful.
LM: I never really write about my dad with anyone else, but I got into the studio with Ethan Gruska, who I love so much — he's so talented — and it felt really good to write that song with him. The song feels like a hug. It just envelops you.
TV: In All Falls Down you say that 22 “was a panic attack,” 23 was a “sold out show.” So what’s 24?
LM: [Laughs] I haven't really been 24 for that long.
TV: What do you hope it'll bring?
LM: Fulfillment.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
