Returning as an independent artist with new single Bitch, Hannah Grae talks brutally honest lyrics, learning to find artistic freedom, and why going viral isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
Some artists like to cast themselves as the hero in their lyrics. But not Hannah Grae – not this time around, anyway. For her new single, the rising Welsh star wants to confess that sometimes she… well, she gets jealous as fuck of anyone doing better than her.
“When I was writing it, I did go, ‘Should I say this out loud?” Hannah admits with a laugh, talking Kerrang! through her headspace at the time. “I just felt like it was really embarrassing!”
The song in question is her new single Bitch, and in it you’ll hear her singing self-demolishing lines like, ‘I don’t want to be a bitch but somehow you make me want to rip my own damn eyes out,’ over crunchy guitars. Or there’s this doozy of a line detailing 100 per cent artistic green eyed envy: ‘I want your aesthetic, I want all your clothes, I want better music, I can’t let it go…’
These are quite bold statements, but Bitch – for all its guilty admissions – has already won over two key fans: Hannah’s parents. They don’t seem too worried about her being so hard on herself.
“I played it to them and they actually love it,” she grins. “They think that it’s so ‘me’.”
Of course, some will tell you that jealousy is an ugly feeling, but that’s perhaps to miss the real point. Concealed within Hannah’s blunt-force candour is vulnerability. She’s not just being honest about a part of herself on this song, she’s doing so because the feeling is also wrapped up in questions about the artist she wants to be. And the artist she has been.
“It was one of those songs that, once I’d written it, everything clicked into place,” she continues. “Not only music-wise, but also story-wise and what I wanted to say. I haven’t released music in over a year, so I’m just trying to lock back in.”
The Hannah Grae locking back in is not the one you remember. The one you knew – who enjoyed a fast rise, scoring millions of likes on TikTok covering songs by rewriting verses from different lyrical perspectives – has been through some shit. Yes, she went viral with It Could’ve Been You, but since then she’s parted ways with her label Atlantic. She lost close relationships. She moved back home.
Bitch is her rebirth not just as an independent artist, but also one who is figuring out who she is for the first time. Is that person a bit jealous sometimes? Sure. But she’s also a lot more besides…
You were initially worried Bitch might be a bit too embarrassing to release, so what actually convinced you to say, ‘Screw it, I’ll do it anyway’?
“I’ve known that I’ve had this issue of comparison for a while, and it was only when I started to feel better about it that I felt like I could write a song about it. We had the chorus melody but it took us so long to get the right lyrics, because there’s a lot of syllables to fit. I just sat in silence for literally 20 minutes, and then I was like, ‘Okay, hear me out, what if it goes, ‘I don’t want to be a bitch, but somehow you make me want to rip my own damn eyes out.’’ Hunter [West], who I wrote it with, was like, ‘That’s great!’ It was the first time that I had been honest about how I felt, just generally. I had moved away from London back home to Wales and all I was doing was thinking because I didn’t have any distractions. I did a lot of self-reflection. It was only then that I was like, ‘I’m really struggling to be happy for people because I have been doing so bad in myself.’ I was in a rough spot. I really wanted to be happy for the people who are around me, but I was struggling. It was only when I had been home for a while and I could think and relax that I felt a lot better about all that, which is when I felt like I could write a song like that. There is a lot of ‘I’m the hero’ in music, but I think it would have helped me if I had more songs like Bitch to understand how I felt. It’s worth the risk.”
Why did you feel like you weren't doing well, because from the outside looking in you’re an up-and-coming artist with songs that have gone viral, and you’ve played with the likes of YUNGBLUD and Shania Twain?
“Well, 2024 was such a transformative year. I look back on it, and I did a lot of shedding. I came face to face with all of the things that weren’t helping me and weren’t making me very happy, and I got rid of them all. Relationships, friendships, industry people… All of it happened in the space of 12 months, which was great, and it’s great now, but at the time it just was like, ‘I’ve lost everything – intentionally but, still, it sucks.’ And I was in London in a basement flat that was cold and mouldy, and it was winter. It was shit… I have all of these friends in the industry, who I genuinely am rooting for – I want everyone who I’m friends with to do well, obviously! – but I would go on Instagram and every time I picked up my phone, I was like, ‘Oh my god, they’re touring!’ or, ‘Oh my god, they’ve just signed a deal, and I’ve just been dropped – this sucks!’”
In the lyrics, you speak quite candidly about coveting another artist’s aesthetic, clothes and music, which also touches on pressure you perhaps felt to be something more than just yourself. Was that self-inflicted, or was it applied by external forces, too?
“It was real. I started doing this so young, like, at 18 years old. In your teens/early 20s, you almost go through a second puberty where you just have no idea who you are. I met all new friends. I moved to London. I didn’t know who I was, so when I signed a deal, or I had managers or a team, other people wanted to try and help [with that]. Everyone had a different idea of what I should look like, what I should sound like, so by the time I got to 22, which was last year, it all got to a boiling point. I was like, ‘This is too much, I just want to copy somebody else now – I just want to take their aesthetic!’”
On top of that, you’ve previously had a viral hit, which creates its own kind of pressure. Many artists say if new songs they release don’t go viral, they start doubting themselves. Did that happen to you?
“Yes, it did. And the thing that I can see now in hindsight is that everyone’s trying their best to figure out how to navigate music now with social media. Generally, chasing virality is the goal for a lot of people in the industry, and I was encouraged to do it. And the trouble is that once it happens, it happens randomly – who knows when it will happen? If you don’t have the structure and the core underneath it, there’s no way to sustain it. There’s no way the next song is gonna have that same effect and it feels hollow because it’s passive. Whereas now I don’t care for a second if things go viral for five minutes. I just don’t care. I want the people who are here to feel like they’re in a community, and feel safe within my music. That’s all I care about right now: the community that I have. That’s the difference.”
You’ve said that Bitch was the first time you could hear the artist you wanted to be, and that’s quite a big statement not just on your future but also your past. What do you hear yourself becoming? What’s aspirational about this song to you?
“It’s so hard to explain outside of it just being a feeling. Even if I listen to my older music, I still love it, and I’m still really proud of it, but it reminds me of a time where I was just being told loads of things, and not feeling free. I’m not saying that is anyone’s fault. It was an unfortunate circumstance. But I think of Bitch, and I’m completely independent now. I went into the room and I was like, ‘This is how I feel.’ I had so much fun writing it. I think you can hear that in the song, even though the concept is a bit sad, but the song itself is so fun, and me, and free, and I hope that comes across in the music.”
So you’ve not had some epiphany where you’re no longer going to play older songs that made your name?
“I have definitely felt like, ‘I am taking these songs down!’ actually, but the thing is, people online message me and send me quotes from lyrics from those songs, and they’re like, ‘This song helped me so much.’ Or when I play shows and I see people screaming the lyrics to songs that I don’t listen to anymore because they hurt, it breathes new life into them. Now, I actually don’t associate those songs with that period as much. I associate them with the people who have listened and made me fall in love with them again.”
This is a bit of a different sound for you. Is it indicative of where you might be heading next?
“Yes, it is. I’m glad that you said that, because that was intentional. I’d say I’m moving away from the punk stuff that hasn’t really felt authentic to me – but guitars and bold, feminine rage is me. I’ve been listening to Alanis Morissette, Gwen Stefani, The Cardigans and Lily Allen – she’s fun, she’s cheeky, she’s herself. Her new album is so good.”
As this is your first independent release, what does independence look like to you now? Is there a concrete example of something you’ve done so far that you just probably wouldn’t have dared or thought of to do?
“I mean, I’ve just designed my own merch and my own posters and stuff like that! I didn’t even know I could do that, but I spent hours on YouTube and learned how to do it. The whole control of the world building that I have now is all in my brain, and it’s all I think about, probably to an unhealthy degree. It’s constant. But I love it, and I just feel I need this, to start again and have that literal one-to-one connection with the people who listen to my music. We all joke now that they are my team!”
Finally, what can you tell us about what’s next, beyond this single?
“Well, the story definitely doesn’t end with Bitch, and it’s one that I’m very excited to tell. The sound [of where I’m going] is so eclectic at this point, it’s so experimental for me. It’s very cinematic. There’s also a bit of a jazz thing going on in one of the new songs. There’s heartbreak, self-reflection, self-deprecation, but it’s all in a way that I’m so proud of. I hope that people are really gonna like it.”
Bitch is out now
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