Acacia Evans

At 17 years old, singer-songwriter Gayle has ascended into the top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100 with her newly RIAA gold-certified single “abcdefu.”

The Nashville-based artist sat down with Variance's Ethan Ijumba for an intel interview on her upcoming tour plans, as well as overcoming the label of “TikTok Star” through the organic growth of her single and her debut EP, titled a study of the human experience volume one, set to release next week.

In addition to the music, Gayle will serve as a supporting act for AJR’s upcoming tour, along with support dates with Tate McRae. See the dates here.

Be sure to check out the full conversation below and be sure to stream Gayle’s EP on March 18, along with her latest single "ur just horny."

Ethan Ijumba:
At 17, you're one of the youngest artists to chart this high on the Billboard 100 and right now preparing to go on your first headline tour with Tate McRae and AJR. How does it all feel to go from singing since you could talk, to then being discovered by Kara, and to where you're at now?

GAYLE:
It's honestly interesting because I had this idea of what success looks like when I was 10 and when I started singing at seven. So even if we go back then I wasn't necessarily thinking I was gonna be huge. I didn't think it was guaranteed or anything like that, but I had an idea of what it would look like or what it would feel like when I had some type of success. It's interesting what happened because I put out “abc” like six months ago so all of this has been very new for me. I've been so used to doing what I'm doing for so long and getting no results and the fact that I got the results back, I'm like, huh? But I honestly don't feel like a different person, that's something I'm grateful for. I don't feel like I'm more valuable as a human being and in some ways, I'm happier and in some ways, I'm not. Even though everything I'm doing and my dreams are working out, that doesn't also automatically mean that my life is easy either. But I also don't feel different either like it was how I thought it would, I kept expecting this wave to hit me but it was more of just like, “oh I feel normal like I don't feel like a better person”. Now just a few more people are paying attention to me more than they were six months ago. Also, it’s so exciting because the last tour that I went on was my first tour with Winnetka Bowling League and it was so much fun. It was just me with my grudge and then I ran my stems, then it was just me and a guitar and now I get to revisit some of the venues that I opened up for and I get to do a headlining show.

EI:
To go along with that, what's been the biggest change as well as the biggest lesson that you've received since now being a full-time fledged artist.

GAYLE:
I feel like it's definitely that people aren't gonna like you and it's easy to say that when people are commenting on your posts or they're just saying things about you that aren't true or people are making up stories or just trying to comprehend how I got here. Especially people telling me why I do the things I do and all of that so it's definitely a new thing and also there is no good. I cannot make good music, I can make what people can consider good music but I can't make objectively or subjectively only good music. I think that’s the hardest thing, especially as a perfectionist and a people pleaser, you cannot just make good music that's impossible. You cannot make a song in the world that everybody thinks it's good, you just have to make a song that enough people think is good to where it's worth it for you. But even then more people don't have to think it's good that it is bad. Just as an artist, you have to be willing to stand by it, every song I put out I'm willing to stand by even if everybody in the whole world hates it.

EI:
So with that being said, speaking of producing, creating, and composing good music. Your debut EP “a study of the human experience volume one”, is set to release next month on March 18th. So what was it like to make and how does it finally feel to release your first major label project?

GAYLE:
Oh my gosh, it's so crazy, I mean some of these songs I wrote when I was 15, 16, and 17. There's one song I wrote, it was a love song and I wrote it when I was 15. It's interesting too because there are some songs I wrote about the same people, there's a song called “kiddie pool” and it's such a love song and I wrote that about the person I wrote “abc” about, you know, and then I have this one song that's called “sleeping with my friends” and I have another song that's called “ur just horny and they're almost complete contradictions of each other. It's basically about me being pissed off at my friend for sleeping with me and only wanting to use me for my body and then there's another song of me being depressed about the fact that I just slept with all of my friends and ruined friendships and it's because one thing led to another like I wrote: “sleeping with my friends'' in a place of just being so sad. From something that happened to me when I was younger too where when people touched me sexually or even just trying to be romantic with me, I literally felt nothing and anything if happened something in me just like absolutely like turned off and because of that I got into relationships, I shouldn't have, I ruined friendships because I literally felt nothing. I was just going through the motions and then I was self-deprecating on that. But then I also realized, wow, maybe some people just actually wanted to get into my pants the whole time, and then I was less interesting to them once they got what they wanted and that's what “ur just horny” was. But I had to be in this point of thinking I was the problem and being super sad and self-deprecating to get to the point of getting angry and holding someone accountable for their actions.

EI:
So particularly are there any records from this new EP that you're most excited for people to hear or just any songs that resonated with you the most that you're very excited people to hear as well?

GAYLE:
I'm so excited for “kiddie pool” because I don't think it's anything like I've ever released before, especially because I completely understand that a lot of people have never known me outside of “abc”. So they think that's the only thing I've done, but I've also released music before that and have been doing music for such a long time. Honestly, it's one of my favorite songs I've ever put out and it's also just because I wrote that with some of my favorite people to make music with and we just laughed the whole time when writing that song. I actually wrote, “orange peel” with the same minus two people I wrote “kiddie pool” with and I love and feel like it's a love song and it just kind of shows a new perspective; I haven't really shown off before, and I'm also really excited for “sleeping with my friends” to come out because I think it shows. I’m not saying that I had a healthy mindset in these songs and I'm not saying you need to do the things I do. I'm just saying what I did and it's okay if you did it too, these are things for you to attach to if you want to, you know? Also, it's not only my human experience, it's like a collaborative project, every producer of the song and every writer in the songs put a piece of themselves into this music as well.

EI:
And I think that is the closest thing you can make to good music, to touch on the subjects that everyone can relate and connect and resonate with. I mean everyone has their preference of genres and such, but at the end of the day, the lyrics of what they say, whether it's something witty or metaphorical or just overall a great piece of the chorus of the harmonies. As long as what's being sung is connecting with somebody to where it's their favorite song because it feels like a part of them emotionally is being touched as well.

GAYLE:
For me as an artist too, I'm not sitting here thinking my music is better than everybody else's, but I do think it's good and I will stand by the songs I've written and why I wrote them.

EI:
So speaking of the sides that people haven't seen from you because “abc” is your biggest record. At the same time as life goes on and time goes by. We've seen artists now surpass the platform title that they receive like Tori Kelly and Justin Bieber as Youtube stars, Shawn Mendes came from Vine, and then we have people like Tai Verdes, Jxden, and Loren Gray with Tiktok. As of right now, I have that label of a Tik Tok artist, viral sensation, etc. Aside from that recognition and its quote-unquote, what do you look to accomplish and want to achieve career-wise despite the labels, industries, and audiences that have been trying to label and judge you as more than just a viral sensation or even the one-hit-wonder?

GAYLE:
Dude, thank you, I think it's so funny if people put the label of being a “TikToker” or even like “Tiktok star” or whatever because I've tried to figure out that damn app for so long. Literally, I posted on this app once a day or every 3-to 4 days for a solid year, just trying to figure out what the hell that app was.

EI:
But everyone puts you in the same box as the D'Amelio girls because you're from the platform.

GAYLE:
Also, one thing I think people get confused about is because I understand for a lot of people, even for me “abc” was just kind of like, here's a song. Nobody knows why people started using it just kind of started getting used and so I can kind of see where it was from the beginning and I didn't do anything to make people make audios to “abc” I just made a video just sitting in my bathroom.

EI:
So there wasn't a campaign, or a challenge, or anything like that in that sense?

GAYLE:
No, it was nothing, it was just me in my bathroom. I posted it a couple of months before “abc '' was even a thing and it took a second to produce a song out, there really is no production to it. I just posted it to post cause the thing with Tiktok too is, I thought if I posted every day it at least gave me a better shot of something doing well and that was at least something. So I just posted it to improve my page so I did it and nothing happened and I think it got like 300 views. I posted the same video again…nothing happened and got like 200 views. I remember I got fewer views and I was like, damn…and then I made a video with Dave, Sarah, and I was in the studio and we're dancing around. I was like, we made a lullaby and I was just being sarcastic and then I made this video where I dueted a comment and then that got like a million views, which at the time for me was huge. Then I reached out to people and I was like, “Yo can you make a video to my song”? But I could never get anybody to do anything crazy because the thing about Tik Tok and the trend is that people do crazy shit, but I couldn't pay anybody or get to talk to their ex, or I didn't even think about breaking a plate. I tried to get people to like, show off their exes and their family like show off your exes and then your mom and your sister and their job.

EI:
So you tried this systematic way of going about, that everybody tells you that you need to do this right.

GAYLE:
And it's like, especially like, my label tried, like, we did what we did and within three months of it being out, it got like three million streams, which for me again, that was awesome for me. I was so stoked I got a fucking smiley face tattoo because of it. Then people started putting sign language to it and I remember when you're trying to make a song go viral every artist in the world is trying to make their song go TikTok viral too. It's like I had this list of whatever I could do to promote the song and somebody said, “oh what if you did like sign language with it”? And I was like, you know, that's not a language I speak that is not like my personal experience to try and use that.

EI:
Yeah, it's got a deep meaning to it and it could also receive backlash to it as well.

GAYLE:
Yeah, it just felt wrong to try and use that to better my career or my song, but then people started just naturally doing it on its own. People just started doing that on their own and I was like, wow! Then people in the caption started saying this trend made me learn ASL and then people started putting their different languages and sign language and then people started doing tutorials and people started learning it. Then I remember I was on the phone with my best friend and I was like, oh “abc” has like 1,000 videos under the audio. That's so cool. And she was like, that's weird. It says like 3,000 for me. I was like, huh? And then the next day it was still 1,000 for me, but it was like 5,000 for her and it just started jumping. Then all of a sudden people started breaking plates, people started exposing their exes, and all of a sudden people just started making video after video. Even then I remember at one point, I reached 255,000 streams in one day and I was with my best friend and I was like, we need to appreciate that. That's amazing, that is incredible, especially to get on the radio you can't just put a song on the radio.

Acacia Evans

EI:
Especially with the old format of taking requests and sending it to stations, it doesn’t work like that anymore.

GAYLE:
No, you have to show them that it can work on the radio and even then I didn't do anything myself, people just started using the Tik Tok audio. I tried my best to market it, I asked people to make videos for it, I did everything possible that I could do and so did Atlantic. After we did it, it was done, then I was on tour and I was going to come back and start doing more stuff like releasing more music, and then that's when the Tiktok audio just started doing well. I still can barely say that it's viral. It feels weird for me to talk about my song like that.

EI:
Personally, I think it's now just a genuine progression because of how you went about it. It was the most traditional aspect where you let the people make the hit and you didn't force it or you didn't try to take something that was trending. You didn't sing about something in a context that would create the song to do more numbers or you didn't go about crazily. You just had a great song that everyone gravitated towards and made happen.

GAYLE:
And I did not do and neither did my label and I understand that people want to think that like there's some special secret and I get it, they're always going to think that and that's okay because I know what I know and that's all that matters. But we did what we did and then that was it. I tried my best, I tried to market it, I tried to do all the things and that's it. Then all of a sudden at one point it had seven million streams. For me that was living big, I was so excited. Especially because before “abc”, the most my songs ever had streamed was like 500,000. From having 500,000 streams in a year, then in four months to having seven million that was crazy to me.

EI:
Which is crazy because 500,000 streams is pocket change in the streaming world when you break down the numbers, but people will look at it and think it sounds amazing. But when you're the artist you see it as we need more streams or we need to do better numbers.

GAYLE:
And even then I was still happy, I wasn't sitting there, obviously, I was always doing like this, I couldn't have a career or live off of that. But that was when I was 16 so I was like, that's dope. Then I also had the opportunity to sign with Atlantic. I'm graduating high school, I have a single mother that was trying to send her son to college, and she was financially backing my career for years. I didn't have a job because I was just homeschooled and doing music. So at one point I could either try and get a job and financially support myself because I did not want that to be a burden on my mother anymore, or I could be able to do this full time with the help of Atlantic and that's just what worked out best for me. But I also would never look down on an artist who decided to do anything different.

EI:
So aside from having the additional recognition as a “TikTok star” and you get labeled from these outlets and industries and audiences, What do you want to be known for and achieve career-wise overall? Whether it's within the next year or 10 years or anything in that sense?

GAYLE:
I really want to just be making the most honest and vulnerable music that I could make, I want to keep pushing my sound and at some point, I want to be able to have my own stadium selling tour. I also want to do things outside of music as well and hopefully one day I’ll get the opportunity to do that, but I just fucking love music. I've always just wanted to do this, this is just something I've been doing my entire life and I wrote “abc” as a joke with my best friend and Dave Pittenger when we're all just laughing around, and then I put it out. Overall, I just want to keep making great music that people can consider great, but also what you can consider great can also be terrible, but it's also just to make music that I know is pushing myself in a forward direction.

EI:
Do you feel the music you've been making now has been something that you've been proud of as well as just something that you feel is great music? Because as an artist you have to sit and contemplate and think is this good enough? Is this gonna sell us and not gonna sell? Is this going to be what my label wants or do fans want to hear, but right now with everything you’ve been doing lately is it something you’re proud of?

GAYLE:
I'm definitely proud of the music that I've been making recently and even just lyrically what I've been trying to achieve in my songs I've been proud of. Even with me too, I'm not sitting here thinking I have the healthiest mindset, I'm not saying that I'm the healthiest person and that my perspective is the healthiest thing. I never told my ex to fuck off and I never told his mom, or his sister, or brother, all of those people that was something I wish I could have done, and then I did it in a song. That's what it's like with my music to where it's sometimes saying the things that I wish I could do or the deepest darkest parts of my brain. That's the thing I'm acknowledging because we all have those thoughts at some point towards somebody or something and I want to acknowledge the darker negative sides of myself and the positive loving sides of myself too. All of those things make one person and there are a lot of bad people in the world in which trying to be a good person in this world is a really difficult thing. Because there are so many people in the world who aren't trying to be good and people who are trying to be good don't always understand that. Especially now having some experience of the internet and trying to do music and people not seeing you as a human being. It's very apparent when you see the behavior of how they treat you and they don't see you as a human when you are literally a human. There are so many difficulties that come with existing and I think people just need outlets for that as well too so that's also what I'm trying to do with my music.

EI:
No, and that's beautifully said because I feel like music is one of those outlets that allow you as well as other people to connect and also just let out the emotions that they're feeling, whether it's something mentally, they're going through something physically they're going through, It allows you as well as the person who's listening, whether it's a fan or just an audience, in general, to have that kind of connection to pretty much feel what they need to, whether they want to or don't want to. So I think it's great that you're giving them that opportunity as well as it's also helping you to use this outlet and this artistic way to just bring how you feel onto whether it's musically or paper just write it out and let it out. But I agree 100% with everything you said, it's completely true.

GAYLE:
Also, the world is so divided some so many people who disagree with each other and there are so many opinions and there are so many fucking terrible people in the world with such crazy-ass opinions that my brain can't even comprehend sometimes. But when you're at a show and everybody is in the room nobody knows how much they disagree with each other because they're all coming together in the place of liking something. But when you're at a show you don't think about the things that you could disagree about, the things that you could not like about each other. You're coming from this place of already liking something, so you're all here to enjoy something and have a positive experience and I also believe that that's a unifying thing.

EI:
No, I completely agree and that’s completely true, fingers crossed that everything gets better and we come together because these times we really gotta hope for.

GAYLE:
We're gonna hope.

EI:
But I appreciate your time. It's been great and a pleasure talking to you. You’re a beautiful soul and I hope everything with your career is nothing but the best. I hope you have a safe tour and hope you have great reception from the release of this EP as well.