RØRY: “The story of my life has been trying to find out, ‘Who the hell am I? Where do I fit in?’”

That was before sobriety. That was before therapy or their ADHD diagnosis. That was before RØRY and RESTORATION, the debut album that chronicles their life’s journey through serial trauma and recovery. On February 7, the indie production, released on their own label Sadcøre, landed on the UK’s Official Albums Chart at Number 10, mixing in the company of major label-backed pop behemoths almost half their age, including Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish. Partner Rich made Rox celebrate the achievement with a relaxing night in a swish hotel, complete with slap-up meal and the full spa treatment. But after chasing that kind of validation and such markers of success for so long, when it finally came the reaction was oddly muted.

“Honestly? It felt like nothing,” she reveals. “Not in a bad way. Top 10 is just a cool cherry on top of the whole thing.”

The real victory is in the celebration of ordinary everydayness. It’s in things that really matter when you lay your head down on the pillow at night. Rox’s story might follow a classic underdog arc, but the spoils aren’t shiny discs or sold-out shows. It’s not linear, simple or sanitised, either. Some of it’s downright brutal, in fact. But it’s a story of survival and sticking around to tell the tale.

“I’m winning because I've got my partner, my step kids, my doggy, I've got my mental health and I’m not in debt anymore,” they assert. “A Top 10 record pales in comparison. Winning to me is at home, loving and being loved. You can’t beat that, really.”

This was a sign that she couldn’t do it alone, seeking professional help to support for the first time. In 2019, they started trauma counselling, exploring everything from EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) to breathing techniques and talk therapy. Rox credits their first therapist with saving their life, but after going “pretty deep” there came a stagnation due to decades of unprocessed pain. Over the past six months they’ve been engaging in psychoanalytic therapy, trying to get to the nub of those issues, but only recently feeling comfortable enough to really let their guard down.

“I’m really good with who I am today. Like, I’ve found a place of, ‘I’m actually okay, life is pretty cool!’ But who I used to be? That’s still quite tough. It’s like I’m allergic to that person who was going out, cheating on people, stealing money for drugs from friends, and driving my car drunk. I’m like, ‘That can’t be me!’ but it was, and it isn’t okay.

“Thank God I never hurt anybody else in that situation,” she adds with obvious relief and gratitude mixed in with the guilt. “But to look back and reconcile that with the person I am today is really, really, really hard. I think it’s important work, though.”

Part of that ongoing work is laid out in full view for all the world to see on RESTORATION. It’s in the anguished performances and the unflinching lyrics of One Drink Away and SORRY I’M LATE. It’ll continue every night when RØRY hits stages for the emotionally charged sold-out headline shows around the UK in March. How she got here from where she was is remarkable. What put her there in the first place is the big question.

Though undoubtedly a major factor, it’s overly simplistic to attribute all of everything to their mum passing away after a four-year cancer battle when Rox was just 22. To the outside world, they had everything anyone could ever want in life before. Scratch the surface, however, and the truth belies a much darker reality.

“If I go back to childhood, the house I grew up in looked like the perfect family home,” they admit. “I had a mum, a dad, a brother and I was a gifted child. But behind closed doors, my family was torn apart by my dad’s infidelity, from before I was born to up until my mum died. Essentially, I was living in a house of lies, deceit, avoidance, repression of anger, repression of boundaries, and forgiveness to the point of self-destruction.

“As a teenager I became a ‘problem child’: shoplifting, drinking, running out to meet boys and girls, and all that jazz. I read an amazing phrase recently: ‘You’re not the problem child, you’re the child communicating the problem.’

“I became, in a strange way, a sort of mini-version of my dad,” she continues. “Even though my dad had been and still is the person who hurt me the most, historically, he has always been my hero. I think so much of my behaviour was [the result of] growing up in a very emotionally disconnected house.

“It’s almost like I had two options, and I’ve lived them both. I’ve lived my dad’s version, which is: no emotion, shag whatever you want, drink it away and be a bully. That was in my 20s when I wasn’t a very nice person. When I sanitise myself, I’ll be like my mum: forgiving, angel on Earth, seeing the good in everyone. But then you get walked over and abused and that doesn’t work out well. The story of my life has been trying to find out, ‘Well, who the hell am I? Where do I fit in?’”

The result of addressing their own latent shame plays out on the song hold on, a track which seeks to bridge that chasm between who she was and who she is, featuring a clever collaboration between RØRY and Roxanne.

“That felt really good,” they say beaming. “It was like I no longer had to be ashamed.”

It’s hard not to draw parallels with this spiritual act of musical peace-making and the healing work being done to find a place of acceptance for the misdemeanours of their troubled personal past.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do music again had I not done a lot of the real-life restoration stuff. I had to go through that first,” she admits. “I used to think that I was too old, I’d missed out and I hated myself for that. I felt like a failure. There’s part of me that’s like, ‘Oh, it’s cool to do music at 40 because music is really ageist.’ It was a real, like, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world!’ situation. I hope other old people – old-ish? Mature? Wise-ish? – go, ‘Well, if they can do it, maybe I can too.’ Because I was one of life’s absolute wrecks for a really long time.”

In reality, they’re already seeing that spirit inspiring members of The 37 Club – the name given to their fanbase – to follow suit, with regular messages flooding in, detailing how RØRY’s success has pushed people to go back to university or start the businesses they always wanted to, later in life.

“I was like, ‘Can I build a community that's the opposite [of dying young] where we think it’s cool-as-fuck, rock’n’roll and badass to get better, go to therapy and to survive?’” Rox says. “Now that community has grown to be really big and it’s the reason why gigs sell out. It’s the reason why the album did well and it’s really fucking amazing.

“We have a Facebook group – I think it’s at about 8,000 members now – where people post about their sobriety and about how they relate to the music,” she adds. “They meet up at gigs if they’ve got anxiety, and you really see the fruits of planting your tree on the other side of celebrating what isn’t normally celebrated. I love that. It makes me so proud to see that coming together.”