Hannah Grae is ready to share her stories with the world

“The most important thing you should know about me?” Hannah Grae ponders aloud. “I will probably write a song about you.” She laughs. “I can’t help but write about everyone I know.”

When she first began writing music, Hannah was more accustomed to telling stories not about herself, but about others. She’d always fancied herself as a performer, but after being rejected from drama school she shifted focus, giving herself a more unconventional, self-directed education by making music for her YouTube channel in lockdown. As well as recording herself playing covers, she wrote reinterpretations of existing songs based on suggestions her followers would send in, such as a new version of Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 mega-hit drivers license.

Hannah was far more reserved about exhuming her own feelings for the purpose of music. “I literally was never, ever vulnerable,” she admits. “I never spoke about my feelings to anyone. I just pushed them down and ignored them. The idea of writing a song that was about me, and the idea of playing it to people, was so scary.”

Eventually, Hannah felt more able to tell the world exactly how she was feeling at a given moment, set to a vibrant alt.rock sound inspired by everything from No Doubt and Alanis Morissette to Taylor Swift and Disney pop-punk. Her breakout moment arrived in the form of her mini-album Hell Is A Teenage Girl, a diaristic expulsion of coming-of-age growing pains determined to tear to shreds the idea that your school years are the best years of your life.

Growing up doesn’t stop when you hit 20, however, as Hannah has learned. When Hell Is A Teenage Girl was released, she was still at home in Port Talbot, Wales, but then moved to London to grow her career. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a dream come true,’ and then I got to London and realised I had way too high expectations,” she says. “I really struggled for a couple of months and I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to write again.”

Fortunately, songwriting was still there for Hannah as a means of distracting herself from the awkward adjustment to leaving home, which forms the basis of her second body of work, Nothing Lasts Forever. The latest taste from that release is her fiery new single Better Now You’re Gone, whose fun and upbeat feel is contrasted by angst and regret. “It’s about that phase in a break-up when you’re convincing yourself that you’re fine and as the song unravels, it becomes more clear that I’m not fine,” Hannah explains.

The rest of Nothing Lasts Forever is a more ambitious, mature project than its predecessor. “I had so many ideas and I executed them all. It means it’s not the most concise, fluid project you’ve ever heard, but it really is just [going into] every pocket of my brain. There’s some very high-highs and some very low-lows on there, but it’s really honest. I’m really proud of it.”

Nothing Lasts Forever is due out March 15

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