Interview girl in red: “There’s some crazy shit going down on this album”

This year’s first taste of the record, August single ‘rue’ (inspired by Zendaya’s character in the show Euphoria), captures Marie’s grapple with her mental health best. “I had to sleep in my sister’s bed for weeks because I was so scared of sleeping on my own,” she remembers. “The song is about how I felt like a burden to my family, even though I know they don’t feel that way - but sometimes, I’d make myself believe that. It’s also about choosing to not give up and trying to get better.”

Meanwhile, for the first time, Marie has worked with a producer, Matias Tellez, to realise her ambitions for the project. “There are a lot of construction sounds in the production,” she says. “I put them there because working on your mental health is just as hard as working physically. It’s the hardest fucking shit ever. I guess ‘rue’ is about saying to yourself, ‘OK, I’ll do the work’.”

Yet though her forthcoming debut represents an emotional progression from her earlier music, the journey, she says, “tells a bigger story”. “I’ve already started to get new ideas that I see in a whole new body of work that has a totally different sound to what I’m making now. Even the songs I’ve sung a million times still make me feel how I did when I wrote them,” she smiles. “Those songs still mean so much to me, and I’m so proud of them. They document my change - I hope I’m forever changing.”

Tags: girl in red, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews