‘Hold The Girl’ Tour, Finding Success & More – Billboard

Catching her breath as she opens a Zoom call, Rina Sawayama is quick to offer an explanation.

“I’m sorry if there’s a little background noise,” she says as a soft rumble of muffled conversations echoes behind her. “I’m currently in rehearsals trying to get out. Everywhere else is too cold, so I have to sit in the corner of the rehearsal room for that.

It’s indicative of the British pop star’s life lately – when she spoke to billboardshe’s putting the finishing touches on her Hold the Girl Tour, an international set of live dates that kicked off on Wednesday, October 12 in Glasgow, Scotland, which will see her perform in the UK, North America, New Zealand and Australia until January 2023 Mr.

The show simply continues the momentum that Sawayama has been building throughout the year – along with the completion of her long-delayed US tour of her debut album sawayama, the star works hard to promote and release Hold the girlher critically-acclaimed sophomore album, which deals squarely with mental health and childhood trauma through the lens of alternative pop songs.

For Sawayama, however, the release of Hold the girl felt more like releasing two albums at once – since COVID-19 effectively halted much of the promotional work surrounding her 2020 debut (as well as her initial European tour), the star has been working double time when it comes to unveiling the new project .

“Fans who couldn’t come and get their records signed the first time now come with two vinyls,” she explains. “They talk about their experiences of how both albums have helped them through tough times, so I really feel like I’m promoting two albums in a way.”

A lot has changed for the singer since the debut Sawayama — then, for example, the star says that since she hasn’t had a chance to interact live with her fans, she’s found herself diving deep online to find out what the reaction to her work looks like.

“It was all online, it was all tweets, and then I was reading every tweet and comment on YouTube and all that stuff,” she says. “I read every review and comment and I did that for the first entry – I read so much and I really cared what everyone thought. I’m very happy to have moved on from that.”

The subject matter has also evolved – on the new full-length album, Sawayama explores parenting his inner child and coming to terms with the traumatic events of his childhood. Songs like the title track and “Forgiveness” seek to create reconciliation, while others like “Your Age” and “Frankenstein” seethe with anger that they went through pain at all.

It’s an album peppered with personal truths and revelations that Sawayama was willing to share after several years of therapy. The therapy process itself was “really hard,” she says, as she was encouraged to “realize that your whole world is turned upside down.” But once she got through that, the process of writing and producing her album “was very good for me.”

Then it was time to promote the project, which came with its complications for the singer. “I talked about the very deep, emotional parts of the record to too many people, and I felt like I was kind of re-traumatizing myself every time,” Sawayama says. “I think I did 120 interviews for this record and I really thought I could handle it emotionally – but it was a lot. I’ve never been specific, but even just hinting at the trauma, your body creates this little reaction inside of you as it prepares for fight or flight.

But instead of succumbing to the emotional exhaustion of reliving some of his darkest moments over and over again, Sawayama chooses to find the silver lining in the promotional push. “I think it was a lesson that you can be limited about what you talk about; you can share it with the people who understand, but you don’t have to share it with everyone,” she says, relief hanging on every word.

As a whole group of excited voices begin to rally behind her again, Sawayama is more than happy to refocus on the task at hand – creating a show that fans will love. “This is my favorite part of what I do,” she says excitedly.

The Hold the Girl tour promises to be a spectacle in itself, with Sawayama describing everything as “bigger.” She partnered with production company WFB Live—which helped produce Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia Tour as well as Post Malone’s 12 Carat Tour—to get the same number of people on stage (two band members, two backup dancers and Sawayama). and make it feel more extravagant.

Sawayama is quick to point out just a few examples of the beefed-up production—new lighting rigs, stunning choreography, interesting set pieces—before reaching his own conclusion about what they’re accomplishing. “Now we’re maxing out the volume, maxing out the kill,” she says, before laughing at her own joke.

It’s a strange experience for the star, especially since her US tour will kick off on November 1 in Brooklyn, New York – despite spending the earlier part of this year touring the States, Sawayama is back just six months later and concert venues doubled in size. Plus, she adds, they travel to states they didn’t make it to the first time.

“There are cities like Nashville and places in Texas and North Carolina that we’ve never been to, and we have to scale the show down quite a bit,” she says. “Even if we think about it, if we walk five steps in the New York show to get from one end to the other, let’s say you have to take it down to two steps in these other places. It’s a weird puzzle and it keeps things exciting.

That excitement remains in the singer’s voice throughout the interview as she remains ecstatic about the task at hand. “For a UK artist to be able to tour the US and find success doing it is a dream,” she says. “I feel so lucky to be able to do multiple tours and festivals in the same year.”

“Success” is an important word to associate with Sawayama right now – after the reveal Hold the girl in September and debuting at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart, the singer officially became highest ranked Japanese artist in British chart history.

This is particularly important for an artist who is publicly fighting for recognition as a British artist in 2020, prompting the BRITISH to change eligibility rules regarding British citizenship. “When I heard that, it was like, ‘Oh my god, maybe I’m helping this happen for someone else right now,'” she explained, adding that BLACKPINK earned the No. 1 position on the chart that week, fittingly. “Just to see all this East and Southeast Asian representation is something I never would have thought could happen five or six years ago.”

With her tour-to-album-back-to-tour schedule whipsawing, Sawayama takes a moment to catch her breath as she lays out her plans for the future. “I’m allowed to take my time with my third record,” she says, visibly relaxing. “It was a very crazy, very fast ride; with the first and second albums I felt like I was working with a lot of limitations in terms of writing and promoting it. I feel like I made a lot of different mistakes with the first and second records—I’m incredibly proud of them, but on the third record I want to consolidate and take the time to really focus on what I like and love. ”