LA-based electronic pop artist Gleume Harlow is often approached by fans after his shows and whispered to him. “People come to talk to me about childhood trauma for a while,” she says. “Some people come to me and tell me their deepest darkest secrets at the merch table.” Sometimes a young girl quietly confides about her volatile relationship with her mother. “I’m totally scared,” she says of when she finds the courage to speak up. “Now I know why you waited decades.”
Groom’s second album, Main Character, is a record of melancholy electronic synths playing alongside a large cinematic orchestra, and speaks to the listener’s personal experience of such. What started out as a deconstruction of her love life has become a deeper reflection of her own childhood trauma. “I think it was more open and personal.” [than 2021 debut ‘The Internet’]And I think it was a little more specific,” says Grum. “I try to find the universal in the particular.”
The former child actor, now in his 30s, spent his early years acting to support his family. Her first job was to play Shirley Temple on Broadway at the age of six, and her last audition was to play Hannah in the film. Hannah Montana, she remained until the final three. Throughout her childhood, Ms. Grumm’s mother gave her a variety of drugs to keep her working, resulting in a number of illnesses in her 20s, including lupus and the heart disease Prinzmetal’s angina. He suffers from a chronic illness and is still battling it. “Everyone experiences the joys and pains of growing up differently, but I think many people who were abused as children are expected to lie about it to keep the peace,” she said. To tell. “So I can’t tell all my stories and my experiences as a human being.”
Home-schooled in a “very sheltered” and religious family, the singer was not allowed to consume contemporary culture or spend time with friends, instead opting for classic movies. I watched channels and rented movies by Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Roger. VHS. “No one really said, ‘Have you heard of the Spice Girls?'” she says. Before she started writing her own songs around the age of 13, she listened to artists like Simon and Garfunkel with her father (who she said was “cooler than anyone”) and her We were discussing what good lyrics and storytelling are.
From an early age, the singer has tried to deal with issues with her mother, with whom the relationship remains strained. “I think the most important thing for anyone who has a problem with a parent or partner is to keep thinking, ‘Oh, let’s solve this, let’s talk about it, let’s have this magical conversation.'” says. “You have to let it go. Eventually you realize that’s what it is.”
Throughout the new album’s 14 songs, there are references to her difficult childhood. “Child actor, face the camera / It loves you / More than anyone / What you adore’” she sings on the melancholy, electronic elegy and album opener, “Child Actor.” About the bared hymn “Female Role Models,” she recalls when her therapist noticed similarities in Marilyn Monroe’s upbringing and gave her a book about Marilyn Monroe. “She turned out to be the most iconic woman of all time,” says Grum. “So I thought, ‘Wait, I’m not weird, is that attractive?'”
The singer’s childhood isolation fosters an affinity with classic Hollywood, which can be heard throughout the record, including the interludes and overtures you’d expect to hear in an old MGM movie. “I wouldn’t recommend keeping kids completely out of the world, but that’s a problem in itself, so I’m half grateful, because there’s so much my imagination has taken from old movies,” she said. say. She still loves La La Land. “It’s kind of like being possessed by a ghost,” she says, her gaze out of the frame. “There’s a magical feeling here.”
In 2009, when Grum was living in New York, another musician with similar old-school musical influences was present at one of Grum’s early shows. Grum’s manager was dating Lana Del Rey at the time, and he advised both artists to “get off old Hollywood.” She recalls: “He said, ‘You guys are never going to make any money with this weird obsession. So when she made it, I was just like, ‘I’m sorry, it worked.'” Now accustomed to the forward-looking arthouse sound, Grum says there’s more room to “take risks” in pop music than there was a decade ago. . “There are still parameters, but I feel like the environment is much more conducive to being creative than it was when I first started.”
“Main Character” was released on Chromatics’ Johnny Jewell’s synthpop-defining record label, Italians Do It Better, with which Grume said he was “scheming” to sign it. I am reminiscing. “In my opinion [a synthesiser] It’s the closest thing to the big sound of old Hollywood,” she says of her electronic roots. The record also features collaborations with some of Grum’s most musical inspirations, including Sean Ono Lennon and Rufus Wainwright. “The title ‘protagonist’ is supposed to be a bit of an inversion,” she says. “Growing up, I wasn’t the main character, so I wanted this album to make me feel like I was featured with these gorgeous people.”
Grum, who often laughs even when discussing heavy topics, exudes a calm, playful energy by nature. On her Instagram profile, she describes herself as “Walmart Marilyn” or “Twin” because she usually wears powder and ruby red lipstick and wears feathers, diamante and clear PVC.・Peak’s Barbie” is called. She also has cartoonish tattoos on her arm, including a tattoo of her love heart that reads “Brittany Murphy” (Grume broke up with her ex-girlfriend). The late Starr’s surname was added to the name when it was first released, also known as Brittany).
But today, after returning from a Metronomy tour, she’s naked and a little sleepy. So she spent most of her gigs fangirling and dancing in the back after the support slot. “Before the tour, I was so busy that I didn’t think much about it, but when I got on tour, they were playing and I was like, ‘Wait, I’m like a total fan of this band, and I already opened for them. !” she says.
Besides music, Glüme is working on two film projects. child actor – A younger version meets an older version of her, and the “Main Character” album art was also shot during filming – and american girl, and its teaser reads: “Every neighborhood store has a girl trying to get her big break…”. Grum will travel to Paris for four months this summer to shoot, before heading to Europe later this year.
It’s the lifestyle of a global star that a young Grum could only have imagined. “The tour has definitely tested the limits and that’s fine. My cardiologist is fine with it. He wants me to live my truth and the life I strive for,” she said. Talk about your tight schedule. “He said, ‘Sometimes you go out and do what you love and the bad things happen, and sometimes you sit at home in fear and the bad things happen. ’” She concludes that embracing the present moment is the only option in any performance endeavor. “For me, it’s all connected, so I always have my feet in both waters,” she says. “Part of me wouldn’t be fully alive if I wasn’t actively expressing myself in all these ways.”
“So let’s go,” she concluded firmly. “And I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Main Character is out now on Italians Do It Better
