She’s done it again. Carly Rae Jepsen has admitted she over-delivered and wrote hundreds of songs in the process of crafting her latest album. She’s nothing if not consistent, I guess.
The Canadian disco-pop icon spoke with PEDESTRIAN.TV about her creation process, becoming a viral moment again, her upcoming Australian tour for Golden Plains festival and, of course, her beloved cat Jupiter. We caught her in the midst of her birthday week, so we wanted to know what she wants to achieve with her 37th year on this planet.
“Honestly, this is gonna sound like a lame answer, but the one thing I wanna enjoy the most this year is the work-life balance,” Jepsen said.
“Because I kinda go all or nothing. And with COVID it was a little like ‘nothing’ and then it’s back into the world and it’s ‘all’. You know, I gotta figure out my flow.”
Despite this wish, Carly Rae Jepsen kept up one of her most notorious songwriting traditions when creating her sixth studio album, The Loneliest Time.
While she didn’t do an official count, she admitted she wrote hundreds of would-be songs and half-baked ideas in the process of forming the record, a habit that she’s made peace with.
“I kinda need to do it,” she said.
“It’s how I process a lot, it’s sort of how I celebrate and how I heal when I’m going through things. It is — when I’m doing it right — like journaling for me. I think it’s just part of my life.
“I’m just kind of constantly writing, I’ve written lots since I turned in The Loneliest Time and I don’t know what that’s for yet.
“I always end up with a lot and it’s intimidating and then I ask the friends who love me the most to listen and help me figure it out together.
“I definitely would say that in terms of all the weird neuroses in my life, overwriting is my top weirdest thing for sure.”
Jepsen said she’s not sure if her musical journaling will result in another supplementary album filled with b-sides as she released with 2019’s Dedicated.
“I think it’s definitely a maybe,” she teased.
“I just have to decide if it fits together in a body of work. I wouldn’t do it just to do it. I kind of need to like revisit those songs and make sure that it feels like it would be a strong thing to share.”
The album’s title track — which shares the record’s name and features Rufus Wainwright — shot to virality on TikTok in October as creators used an audio snippet of Jepsen gleefully singing “I’m coming back for you baby, I’m coming back for you!” to narrate their daily habits.
@maddy_macrae_
Although it’s not the first time she’s shot to fame for her music — lest we forget how she exploded into our view with “Call Me Maybe” in 2012 — Jepsen found going viral online to be a whole different beast.
“It couldn’t have happened to two more unassuming idiots,” she laughed.
“If you know me or you’re one of my girlfriends [you’d know] I have the abilities, when it comes to my phone and any form of technology, of a 90-year-old guy. So TikTok, I was definitely a little bit surprised, to say the least.
“I mean, both Rufus and I were just giggling. And he’s like, ‘I think we’re TikTok famous!’ and I was like, ‘I don’t even know what that means!’”
Her technological fumbling aside, Jepsen ended up joining in on the viral meme with her own TikTok of her singing the line to her beloved cat, Jupiter, via FaceTime.
@carlyraejepsen Me also reminding him that MY ALBUM COMES OUT IN ONE WEEK!!!
It’s not the first time a chat with CRJ has turned to her love for cats. When we spoke this time around, Jepsen said Jupiter wasn’t doing too well and she’d been in and out of the vet with the big guy to treat his illness.
“We’re doing all that we can to make sure that Jupes is doing good,” she said.
“But he was actually an adopted street cat. So he came in a fighter and now he’s a big softie so I feel either way like, I won this cat over and truly having a cat has gifted me life. Love them. Not afraid to be obsessed.”
The next time we’ll see Carly Rae Jepsen is on her three-city Australian tour at the top of next year, which includes a huge set at the deeply special Golden Plains festival in rural Victoria. It’s only her second headline tour down under in her extensive career but if 2019’s sold-out run is anything to go by, these shows are going to be a hell of a party.
Jepsen’s heard the hype of the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre, which has only fuelled her excitement to be part of the Golden Plains lineup. While she hasn’t got a full set list locked in yet, she definitely has some ideas swirling.
“Word has gotten around that this is the best of the best, so I am very, very excited,” she said.
“I always want to make every leg its own special thing so it’s not just a repeat of something that becomes in any way stale. I know the [songs] that we have to do… for the feeling that you don’t want to disappoint. I think the rest is sort of dealer’s choice.
“We’ll sprinkle in a bit of new ones, a bit of old ones and a few b-sides because it’s always fun to bring to life some of the b-sides at the live shows.”
It would have been remiss of me to not let Jepsen in on the sacred Golden Plains boot, a long-held tradition of punters holding their shoes in the air above their heads in appreciation of what they’ve tipped as the set of the weekend.
“I’m glad that you told me that so I didn’t think that people were trying to throw their boots at me,” she laughed.
You can catch Carly Rae Jepsen at her multiple shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne next year or at the annual Golden Plains festival in Meredith. Her latest album, The Loneliest Time, is out now wherever you listen to music.
