'I'll Keep Going': RØRY on Sobriety, TikTok and Releasing Their Debut Album at 40
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Written by Will Marshall
Most overnight successes are anything but. Just ask RØRY. The alt-pop star’s TikTok-assisted rise might look like it came out of nowhere, but in reality they have been part of the music industry in some capacity for 20 years, whether as a performer or as a writer for other artists. Having given up on furthering other people’s dreams to chase her own she’s releasing her debut album ‘Restoration’ this month, having recently turned 40. Even then, they didn’t want people to know how long it had taken to reach this point. “I thought I should lie about my age,” she explains over Zoom.
Sporting their now-trademark blue and black wig, RØRY has become used to smashing expectations, skipping around labels who’d likely have preferred a younger musician to mold and shape to their designs and going the independent route. “Over the last few years, I’ve realised that the people that matter don’t care [about age] at all,” she smiles. “It was a beautiful lesson I learned [and] it is now something that I’m shouting about. There’s a certain magic in that.”
The past two decades have taught RØRY plenty about what to do and what not to do in music in a manner that a rapid ascent would not have. The songs on ‘Restoration’ are gutsy and dramatic, stitching glossy hooks to churning heaviness, and it’s taken a while for her to refine that palette. “My music today is built on the back of the last 20 years,” they say. “You learn so much resilience through failure. What I always thought was shameful and made me not good enough was making me stronger.”
Their first project was an “indie-folk thing” that presented her with many opportunities that, looking back, she’s glad she didn’t take. “I was a bit of a dick,” she says bluntly, following up with a laugh. “Drinking was way more important to me than making it in music. I thought I could live fast, do whatever I wanted, and that somehow a career was still going to happen.”
That it didn’t would have stung at the time, but these days RØRY views that within a wider context, suggesting that breakout success at that stage in their life would have been a problem added to another emerging problem. “Back then, the only thing that I had in my life that I cared about was music and alcohol,” they say. “I didn't have stability in my mental health. I didn't have stability in my family life. I was so desperate to make music work, and if it had worked, I don’t think I would have handled it very well. I wouldn’t have handled the ups and downs, the rejection, the stress, because I didn’t have stability.”
Duly, she credits her sobriety as perhaps the biggest factor in going from having nothing to her current spot, with ‘Restoration’ set to be followed by her biggest UK tour to date, including a stop at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town. “All of this can be traced back to walking, head held low, stinking of tequila, into my first recovery meeting and just giving that a go,” she says. “There are so many people out there trapped in that cycle who may not think it’s an addiction. But you don’t realise what it’s stealing from your life, and you could never imagine. They have this saying in recovery — if you get sober, you’ll live a life beyond your wildest dreams. It’s true.”
Reckoning with each aspect of her make-up is also a foundational part of RØRY’s approach to music. They have packed an awful lot of life-changing events into one stay on Earth and it’s added up to a sense of perspective. “That journey has forced me to look inwards at my own demons, my own story and some of the things I don't like to see about myself that I maybe would have denied once upon a time,” they reflect.
From drinking and drugs to debt and their relationship with ADHD and their mental health, the ability to take stock has brought more power to their songwriting than they’ve ever possessed before. “The more we’re okay with the shit bits of ourselves, the more we can show up in a more powerful way,” they say.
RØRY’s ADHD diagnosis also led to something she’d never expected: a second creative outlet in the form of a popular TikTok account where she reflects on its influence on her life and music. “It happened by accident,” they say with a grin. “Suddenly you go viral for walking into doors or forgetting your keys, and now there’s this version of me that, in my mind, is really uncool, being messy, chaotic, a calamity. Now, millions of people have seen the worst of me and said that they needed to know they’re not alone. It’s set me free…people really like when you are a flawed human.”
But, having gone from shelving her ambitions to living them out, there’s one thing she’d love to do to weave another episode from her past into her present. “I did a tour in my 20s supporting X Factor winner Matt Cardle,” she says. “He’d just won and had done a Biffy Clyro cover that got to number one. We played maybe 20 or 30 [shows] around the UK, including Hammersmith Apollo and Plymouth Pavilions, these huge venues. I've always had it in my head: wouldn't that be funny to one day recreate that tour? That’s a strange goal I have, to go back and do the same tour in the same venues as when I was younger.”
Having spun a decision to put on a wig and sing a few choruses they wrote to the internet into virality, a sideline as an author, and a “happier-ish” debut album with the potential to light a whole new fuse, this desire to go full circle doesn’t seem so fanciful. In fact, RØRY’s upcoming tour is set to accomplish a similar feat on a smaller scale. “My first gig was at Camden Assembly in August 2022,” they say. “I’ll be at Kentish Town in March. There’s lovely momentum. I don't know how long it will be here for but I’ll keep going with it until people stop coming.”
RØRY’s ‘Restoration’ is out on January 31 through SADCØRE Records.
RØRY Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon March 03 2025 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute
Tue March 04 2025 - CARDIFF Tramshed
Thu March 06 2025 - LONDON O2 Forum
Fri March 07 2025 - NORWICH Nick Rayns LCR
Sun March 09 2025 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
Mon March 10 2025 - MANCHESTER O2 Ritz
Wed March 12 2025 - GLASGOW SWG3
Thu March 13 2025 - LEEDS Stylus
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