{"id":36764,"date":"2025-09-25T08:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T08:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/36764\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T08:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T08:43:13","slug":"perrie-talks-liberating-debut-lp-taking-charge-of-her-solo-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/36764\/","title":{"rendered":"Perrie Talks \u201cLiberating\u201d Debut LP, Taking Charge of Her Solo Career"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor Perrie Edwards<\/a>, the studio can be both a sanctuary and a suffocating cocoon. Last autumn, six months after beginning her solo career, the singer and Little Mix<\/a> member pretty much resigned herself to life as a recluse, spending the majority of her time in her Cheshire house. Travelling to London for work would trigger her agoraphobia \u2013 an anxiety disorder characterised by a fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult \u2013 so her home recording space, named Studio 22, became a hideout whenever she felt overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

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\n\tIn April 2024, the singer (known mononymously as Perrie) released her strident debut single \u201cForget About Us,\u201d which was co-written by Ed Sheeran, and hit No. 10 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart<\/a>. From an outside perspective, as the summer rolled on, it seemed as though things were in motion: she was active on social media and delivered a series of radio appearances, including a set at Wembley Stadium as part of Capital\u2019s Summertime Ball, delivering a viral powerhouse cover<\/a> of Whitney Houston\u2019s \u201cI Wanna Dance With Somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAll the while, things began to unravel behind the scenes. Follow-up single \u201cTears,\u201d which swapped its predecessor\u2019s country inflections for smoky, \u201870s-inspired pop, dropped out of the U.K. top 100 after a week and was duly scrapped from the record she was putting together at the time. Edwards stopped posting to Instagram Stories and TikTok, prompting concern from her fanbase.<\/a> The distractions and drains of anxiety on her energy as an artist and a human being, meanwhile, led to her bringing her therapist to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Perrie\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPerrie<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe.twins.shot.this<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGetting an album out felt very untouchable for quite some time,\u201d Edwards tells Billboard U.K. over Zoom, her chestnut blonde hair scraped back, relaxed in minimal makeup and a baggy black jumper. She is feeling reflective about the journey to her self-titled LP, due Sept 26 via Columbia. \u201cI\u2019m glad I stuck to my guns and did what I needed to do to make it happen.\u201d She lets slip a chuckle. \u201cI\u2019m actually really proud, because I thought I wasn\u2019t going to get an album at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEdwards credits the shift in her perspective to therapy, patience and family. In the early sessions for Perrie, she asked for each song to be A&R\u2019d due to a lack of confidence in her own songwriting ability. Now she understands she was limiting herself; she has had to learn how to enact a fully integrated vision of pop star life, where fulfilling one desire inspires the next one.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a fresh start in the new year, she began drawing on her longtime relationship with footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (\u201cCute Aggression,\u201d \u201cAbsof\u2013kinglutely,\u201d \u201cBonnie & Clyde\u201d) and the transformative pleasures of the beach (the Sam Fender-inspired \u201cSand Dancer\u201d), both of which dissolved a level of self-seriousness in her writing. \u201cIf He Wanted To He Would,\u201d a barnstormer of a breakup anthem, kicked off a new era this summer, catapulting Edwards back into the charts and setting a precedent for the effervescent, high-tempo revelry that dominates much of her upcoming album.<\/p>\n

\n\tSolo projects are currently the focus for all three members of Little Mix, who won The X Factor in 2011 and enjoyed national exposure before any music had been released. The group \u2013 who started out as a four-piece before Jesy Nelson left in 2020, citing mental health issues \u2013 went on to make history on both the U.K. and US charts in their decade-long tenure<\/a>, selling over 50 million records worldwide. Following Jade Thirlwall\u2019s That\u2019s Showbiz Baby! released earlier this month (Sept. 12), Edwards is the second Little Mix member to drop a full-length LP, while Leigh-Anne Pinnock departed Warner Records in May to forge an independent career.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving faced her past insecurities head-on and uncovered some of her most emotionally honest songwriting as a result, Edwards tells Billboard U.K. about how Perrie is the \u201cliberating\u201d next step in her journey.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat kind of headspace were you in when you began working on Perrie?<\/p>\n

\n\tGosh, it was a completely different headspace to where I am now. I kept thinking, \u201cWhat can I do to please people? What can I do to make this worthwhile?\u201d When you\u2019re trying to be creative, that\u2019s the worst place to be in. You end up making music that doesn\u2019t feel authentic, fun or genuine. I was excited and was going with the flow, but I also felt overwhelmed by the fear of the unknown.<\/p>\n

\n\tI had to learn to not let outside voices and opinions guide my decision making. I am quite indecisive and I do get quite nervous; I need reassurance a lot of the time. At the start, I think I was going wrong because my gut and my intuition is normally right, like nine times out of 10. If I don\u2019t feel or believe in something, it\u2019s probably for a reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNow I\u2019m at a point where I\u2019m making the decisions. I set the track list and I\u2019ve kind of taken control of everything now, unlike at the beginning, when I just didn\u2019t have it in me. I was still figuring things out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWas there ever a moment early in your solo career when you almost gave up or thought it wouldn\u2019t work out? How did you push through?<\/p>\n

\n\tFor sure. I was having therapy every Friday, and in the majority of my sessions, issues around work kept coming up. I was just feeling pressure from everybody; I felt like there was pressure from the fans. It got to a point where my therapist was just like, \u201cCan\u2019t you just have a little break from it all then?\u201d And I was like, \u201cNo, I can\u2019t take my foot off the gas, this industry doesn\u2019t really wait around for you. I don\u2019t have that option.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe then told me, \u201cI think you could afford to step back a little bit, have time to think and chill out; go see Alex abroad [when he was playing for Turkish club Besiktas] and that might inspire you more when you go back in the studio.\u201d When the new year came, I started working with producers and people that I\u2019d not really worked with before. They brought out a renewed energy in me.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat lessons did you bring from years of group songwriting into your solo sessions?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you\u2019re in a group dynamic, it\u2019s quite tricky to get things across. When it came to Little Mix, there were four of us working with songwriters, topline writers and producers all at once. Sometimes there could be like, nine people in a room writing a song in a room. It\u2019s quite hard to get deep when there\u2019s that many voices contending with each other at once. What I\u2019ve since taken away from that is I probably write better in small groups, otherwise I just get caught up in the vibes. I learned how to take more control in my solo sessions, so I would go in with a song concept and lyric ideas straight away, which made a massive difference.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwitter was pivotal to the early success of Little Mix. As the social media landscape has changed drastically in recent years, was there a moment when you felt like the world you came up and knew had passed? <\/p>\n

When we were in the group, we were very on it with everything; we were so involved with every aspect of our work. But when I went solo, everything had changed so much. I remember when I released my first song \u201cForget About Us,\u201d I was like, \u2018Guys, where\u2019s the schedule?\u2019<\/p>\n

My team told me I had to do social media stuff and make content, and I was like, \u201cBut what do you mean? There should be TV [appearances], talk shows and fun events!\u201d I\u2019m used to a full-on release schedule, which would mean that for a month, you ain\u2019t got a life \u2013 you just work. Now there\u2019s not as many promo opportunities, you have to be creative and think outside the box. I think even for labels, it\u2019s a tricky industry at the moment.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Perrie\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPerrie<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe.twins.shot.this<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere do you draw the line of how much you\u2019re willing to share of yourself online?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a very open book, but at the same time, I\u2019m not a social media whiz. I\u2019m not good at making TikToks. It\u2019s really hard when you\u2019re trying to think of a million things to do when it comes to a social media post. There\u2019s an ongoing joke with the fans; they say, \u201cIf you want to travel back in time, go to Perrie\u2019s Instagram, scroll three times and you\u2019ll be back in 2017.\u201d I get the joke because I\u2019m f\u2013king useless at it. I don\u2019t see the point in it, but I get it\u2019s different now, and people want to see everything all the time, so I am trying to do better.<\/p>\n

\n\tSongs like \u201cBonnie & Clyde\u201d and \u201cCute Aggression\u201d don\u2019t shy away from the emotions that often, as women, we\u2019re told not to show in public \u2013 jealousy, obsession, being \u201ctoo much.\u201d How does the Perrie on record relate to Perrie IRL in that way?<\/p>\n

\n\tEverything you hear throughout the album is 100% me. \u201cBonnie & Clyde\u201d is very dramatized, but I do have those moments in my relationship where I\u2019m looking at Alex and I\u2019m like, \u201cI love him so much, I would kill for him.\u201d I think we all kind of go through that where we look at our partner and think, \u201cI\u2019m obsessed with you, but I hope you\u2019re obsessed with me as well.\u201d I just love letting it all out in a song, it\u2019s like doing therapy.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a crowded pop landscape, what do you think Perrie offers that\u2019s unique?<\/p>\n

\n\tHopefully the album just cuts through. It\u2019s music that I love so much and I just hope it\u2019s an escape for people. When I\u2019m feeling shit, when I\u2019m scared, when I\u2019m feeling anxious, SZA is my \u201canxiety artist.\u201d She just calms me. So hopefully when people hear the album, it does the same thing and takes them away to some place else. That\u2019s what I want the most.<\/p>\n


\n \"Billboard
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