Halsey: 'There's no girl power in this album'

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Halsey sits down with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 for an extensive discussion about the inspiration and creative process for her latest studio album and narrative film, ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power.’ Halsey shares what this album means to her as a new mother, being pregnant in the public eye, magazines not wanting to put her on the cover due to her pregnancy, her experiences in the music industry, working with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and more.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About ‘I Am Not A Woman, I Am A God’...
That juxtaposition was really intentional, because I think there's this through line as well of kind of archetypal femininity, you know what I mean? Which is why everyone's like, "Oh, it's like this is a girl power album," and I'm like, "No, it's not.” Also, not for nothing, but the lead single is 'I Am Not A Woman, I'm A God'. It's not a girl power album. From Jump, I'm like, "I'm not a woman," you know what I mean? I'm not saying any of that. There's no girl power in this album. There's actually no... And that's another thing too, right? Being pregnant, writing this album, people are expecting girlishness, you know what I mean? And any time where I ever talk about womanhood, motherhood, femininity, I'm usually talking about it with a taste in my mouth, you know what I mean? Like go be a big girl, a girl is a gun, all I can taste is the blood in my mouth.... All those moments where I am touching on those things are like... I think it probably can be experienced in that way, for some people, because the fact that I made it at all and the way that I made it is kind of like a girl power statement, but the record itself, I guess, it's not that. And so using those sweeter vocal performances were kind of essential.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Feeling Like She Needs To Get Everything "Off Her Chest" Before Becoming A Mum..
This isn't true, and this is kind of antithetical to the whole point of the album, but I'm going to say it because it's a real thought, but the feeling of I have to get everything off my chest that I won't be able to say once I'm somebody's mum, you know what I mean? So all those expressions of guilt or insecurity about being like, I'm unlovable or these stories of sexual promiscuity or sabotaging relationships and self-destruction. It's almost like I'm emptying my vault of all these stories before I start over, and it's like, okay, now I have to be responsible for someone else.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Deciding She Wanted To Have A Baby...
I'm 26, and I tried very hard for this pregnancy and it was like, I'm financially independent, I'm pretty far along in my career, it feels like the right time for me to do it. And I got treated like a teen mum a lot of the time, you know what I mean? Where people were like, "Oh my God, you're so young, and you have so much to do in your career, and you're not married and you're this." And it triggered all of these feelings of shame from when I was younger. It triggered a lot of old feelings of shame in me where I was like, how can you have an opinion, that kind of opinion on me making this decision? Because the flip side of it right, is that if I don't and I wait until I'm in my 30s and I do SNL for the sixth time and have my seventh number one album and whatever. I'd do the same stuff over and over and over again. But then, there's also, she worked too hard, she never had a family. She's going to die alone. She was too obsessed with work, she never found someone. It's a shame she's not going to have any kids, her career's not going to hold her at night. Okay. So nothing. So fuck 'em and I just was like, I'm going to do what I want to do. You know what I mean? I was like, this is important to me.

Halsey Tells Apple Music How Her Pregnancy Influenced The Album...
I wasn't trying to make a political record or make a record that was drowning and its own profundity. I was just writing about how I feel, and I happen to be experiencing something that is very nuanced and very complicated. So it manifested itself in the record in that way where, with pregnancy, there's this thing where it's like, there's flowers and butterflies, milk bath, I'm a goddess, I've reached my full state of submission. Also this, my feelings don't matter anymore, because I'm doing the most selfless and most amazing thing, which is having a child. And I'm saying all of this facetiously.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Magazines Not Wanting To Do A 'Maternity Cover' With Her...
I knew the whole time I made this album and made the film that people were going to be like, "For someone like Halsey, who's had miscarriages and whatever, she shouldn't have been working so hard. Would it have killed her to stay home and relax for the baby?" I knew there was going to be that immediately. And again, this is why I'm saying the conversation is so nuanced, because the reason that the album is sort of this horror theme, you know what I mean, is because this experience, in a way, has its horrors. And I think everyone who has heard me yearn for motherhood and yearn for this for so long, would have expected me to write the album that was full of gratitude. And instead I was like, "No, this shit is so scary and so horrifying. And my body's changing and I have no control over anything. And I do finally have this thing I want. So I wake up and fear every single day that I'm going to lose it." I have this ... everyone's like, "Aren't you just living a dream?" I'm like, "No, actually I have nightmares about waking up in a pool of my own blood.” That's actually what it's like. That's happening at night, and then you wake up in the morning and you have to call the CEO of X, Y, Z and say, "Hey, hi. I'm just calling to let you know, I'm pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want you to find out on Instagram. I wanted to tell you myself, personally. It's still business as usual over here though, don't worry. Don't worry. My personal choice isn't going to affect your profitability or your productivity or your assembly line. And also, in what world would you ever have to call me to tell me that you were having a baby? But I have to call you because it impacts your product.” I mean, there were publications that were like... You know, we were going out and trying to set up magazine covers based around the album release, and they were like, "Yeah, but is she going to be pregnant? Because we don't want to do a maternity cover." And I was like, it's not a maternity cover. It's about my album, I just happen to be pregnant. And they're like, "No, it's a pregnant cover." And I was like, so I can't go talk about my album?

Halsey Tells Apple Music That She Can't Think Of Anything That Would Make Her Life Better...
I feel super in the moment, super zen, super scared about all of it. About labour, about being a good mum, about protecting my child and doing the right things, and balancing everything. But I feel so full of gratitude at the same time. I can't think of anything that could possibly make this moment in my life better. And it's a subject that has long caused me a tremendous amount of pain, and now I get to feel this way instead, and sit here and talk to you.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Her Decision To Leave Social Media During Her Pregnancy...
I had to make a choice, especially in my pregnancy, where the girl who's been the open book for six years, this had to be mine. I was not going to put myself ... the consequences were too high. The consequences of letting social media stress me out or cause me grief. It's no longer just me being affected by it. There's a whole other person whose nervous system is being affected by the status of mine. So I had to kind of make that choice. I don't know what that means for when I'll be back to using it.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Her Relationship With Partner And Her Sense Of Self...
I love my partner, our relationship is so full of love and passion and communication. I remember having that moment when I was probably five or six weeks pregnant and being like, "So what happens now? Do I have to be boring?" So many of the things that I self-identify with are not compatible with motherhood. Well, that's when you realis too, that's when you take a step and you go, oh, I'm holding onto my trauma because it's part of how I define myself and I'm never really going to grow unless I really let go of that trauma.

Halsey Tells Apple Music That Her New Is The Easiest One She’s Ever Written...
It's the easiest album I've ever written, literally. Everyone was like, "Why are you writing an album, you're pregnant?" Because it was the easiest album I've ever written. And in true Halsey fashion, the writing of the album always manifests itself in a complete juxtaposition to how I feel in my real life. Manic, I told you, was this album that I had initially intended to be an angry, political, pissed off, fem pop punk album. And then I ended up with this eclectic rainbows and butterflies, synth like. And I was when I made that album, but it manifested itself in a different way. Now here comes me, totally in love, the world's in shambles, but I'm getting arguably, the first break I've had in seven years. I'm finally taking care of myself, eating my vegetables and getting sleep and I'm pregnant and everything's amazing and then out comes this. I think being pregnant in the public eye is a really difficult thing, because as a performer, so much of your identity is predicated on being sexually desirable.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About The Film That Accompanies The Album...
So there's a film that accompanies the record, an hour-long narrative film that people can see, and that's really what-It's a real film, yeah. And that's what really defines it as a concept record, in a way that I've never been able to pull off before, you know what I mean? And their experience with scoring, we were producing the album and filming the movie in tandem at the same time... So I was six months pregnant, five months or six months pregnant in Czech Republic, shooting a movie for six weeks, coming back while Trent and Atticus are waking up in America, on the phone with them finishing my album, shooting like 16-hour days, like back and forth.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About The Difficulties Of Being A Female Artist...
I think that the weight of that as a female artist kind of deciphering time is not your enemy when you've been taught for so long to think that it is. Don't get too old. Don't get pregnant because then you can't go on tour. It’s like running out of time, a kind of mentality where time starts to become your enemy. Then it's really nice to be able to look at time as an ally, where for me time has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's allowed me to grow and allowed me to heal and allowed me to develop. I do remember around 'Manic' being like, "I'm washed. I'm washed. 'Without Me' was a huge hit. I'm not going to be able to follow that up. I just put out this album. I'm going to tour it," and just being like, "What's next for me? When are people going to get sick of it? When are they going to whatever. I'll probably have to have a baby and start a family and then I'll just be done being Halsey.”

Halsey Tells Apple Music About People Disliking Her...
I think that for my whole career, my log line has been that nobody likes me. I think now my log line is nobody likes me and that's cool. I'm cool with that. I mean, it's like the cause is the effect in this situation where I grew up and I wasn't really well liked. I was a nerd. The award show feels like the lunch table now. It's the same feeling and it's like you get to a certain age, and this is more how I felt when I was kind of 24, 25 where it was like I looked around and I was like, "Damn, I'm so successful and I try to be so nice to everyone. I go around, I'm smiling, kissing everyone's ass, I'm supporting their projects and going to clubs and buying bottles. I'm trying to make friends and everybody still hates me. So if me being this successful and trying this hard isn't going to make me well liked, well then what the hell is going to?" Now I'm 26 and I'm like, "Yeah, I don't care. I'm super good." So I bought my big hideaway house in the middle of nowhere with my Bruce Wayne library.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Having Agency And Choosing Love...
The irony is that the most power I've ever had is in the agency I have and that I chose love. That's what has given me the most power. Is being able to say, "No, I don't want to do that, I want to be home with my partner." Or the agency in saying, "I don't care if it's not a number one record, I'm having a baby." Or the agency in saying, " Someone else can do that campaign, I don't need it. I want to go to Italy with the baby and my partner," you know what I mean?

Halsey On Why No One Can Surpass Katy Perry...
Anyone who is trying to make a perfect pop album is wasting their time anyway, because Katy already did it with Teenage Dream, so no one ever needs to do it ever again. It's so true, though, it really is.

Halsey Tells Apple Music About Working With Trent Reznor...
I've wanted to work with Trent for years....And I wanted really cinematic sort of, not horror specifically, but kind of just really unsettling production. It's something I wanted, and Anthony, my manager, knew that it's something I wanted and I had abandoned it, because I was like, "I'm not cool enough. They'll never do it. I'm not interesting enough. Like, I'm not even going to ask."

Halsey Tells Apple Music About The Songwriting Process With Trent And Atticus...

Trent said something to me that I'll never forget for the rest of my life, where he was like, "Hey, the record is great how it is." He was like, "So you could not do this with us and put it out." He's like, "Or, the way a lot of modern music is right now is it informs the listener not to pay attention. It says, this song is safe. You can put it on a playlist. You can listen to it in a car. You can play it on a party, and it's not going to fuck up the vibe. It blends in with everything else. It's a mood. It's chill. But it informs you not to pay attention.” He was like, "Your songs, I think, deserve better than that, and I think that they should make people pay attention to what you're saying." He said, "So I'm going to make some really weird choices." And I was like, please make weird choices. Make the weirdest choices. So he sent back two songs at first, him and Atticus, and they told me later on, they were like, "There's no way she's going-"And Trent and Atticus told me later, they were like, "As soon as you were like, these are amazing," they were like, "All right, it's go time. She wants to play." You know what I mean? Like, she wants to play. And I understand it, you know? They wanted to know if I was willing to take the risk, and I was. I was willing to take the risk, and I also felt like I had earned it, at that point, to be able to, where it's like, I feel like every artist on their fourth, fifth, whatever album, especially pop artists, are always like, "I really want to do something experimental. I really want to do something experimental."

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