More about: Abby Roberts

Abby Roberts has had a strange career. Blowing up on TikTok as one of the UKs biggest creators, her original selling point was crazy makeup looks and cinematic transitions. So when she pivoted to music early this year, people were quick to doubt. The latest in a long line of artists accused of being an industry plant, Abby’s been keeping her head in the music as she bonds with her band, releases track after track and preps for what is set to be a big summer.

With only a couple of shows under her belt, she’s about to head out on tour, into festival season then to a run of shows supporting Halsey stateside. It’s a lot, even for an established artist, so we checked in with Abby to see how she’s feeling about getting started in the deep end. The first of a two part instalment, we talked to the singer before her possibly career-changing summer.

GW: We’ve spoken once before but I was asking you about TikTok music and songs for transitions, so it’s weird now speaking to you when you’re the artist! How long was the music stuff going on behind the scenes?

AR: I've been doing music behind the scenes since pretty much exactly my 19th birthday. That was the first ever studio session that I had as a musician. And obviously I'd like wanted to do it for a long time before, I’d been doing it at my house, in my bedroom and stuff. But officially, it was my 19th birthday, almost two years

When your account started blowing up on TikTok, do you think you always knew that you were going to try and transition into music? Or did the opportunity arise and you grabbed it while you could?

I think I was always a creative person in a lot of different aspects. I do a lot of stuff off camera still that's not makeup or music as well. And it was just always something I was passionate about but I never knew people who knew about it to be able to really learn it or get into it. None of my family really did music, apart from the fact that my Dad was in like a brass band. I didn't have any friends at school who were really like music so I didn’t know how to learn and music lessons at school weren’t cutting it either. It was it was through TikTok that I made like contacts within the music industry. I made friends with artists who I had collabed with and used their songs on TikTok and met producers through Tik Tok as well and got the opportunity to start working in studios, which was really, really lucky. It’s a community.

Out of those collabs, who was really instrumental in giving you the self-belief and the push to start in music?

A lot of the artists that I collabed with on Tik Tok, I did their makeup and would spend hours talking to them. Zara Larrson was one and Liam Payne from One Direction. I've met some really amazing people and they just told me a lot about the industry and gave me some incredible advice. But of course Halsey, I love the absolute most, they’re amazing.

Where does like makeup sit in your life now? Do you think that's kind of like taking a backseat?

It's a bit weird right now, I feel like I'm in a weird stage. I still love makeup and do it as much as I can, but it has become a difficult balancing act type thing, trying to still do enough makeup but also fit in doing all my music stuff as well. But I think they feed off of each other which is nice. A lot of the performances and stuff that I've got lined up I want to do really fun makeups for and tie that into the whole visual aspect of music as well as we do more music videos and shoots and that kind of stuff.

I guess like you said, it's just all different sides of your creativity coming together. But do you think you’ve had to fight through a lot of people doubting you because your beginnings on TikTok were in beauty?

Yeah, I still think I’m struggling with that. I do see comments and stuff every now and again, people just not quite understanding it or they just think they know a lot more than they do because they see like, these little 15 second videos I put out. But there was a lot, a lot, a lot of work that went into making the music, it didn't just pop out of nowhere. Like, I have been making these songs for the past few years now and spending a lot of time on it that people don't know about.

When it comes to prepping for the summer you've got coming up with however many festivals and tours and all these big things - how do you make sure you stay at your most confident?

I spend a lot less time on social media than I used to which definitely helps - you’ll spend hours reading through the comments and see one nasty one and it just really stick with you. So I've been spending a lot more time in the real world which is nice. I've got a lot of friends in music now. And I spend a lot of time with my band and rehearsals and stuff so we're just hyper focusing on the music and getting that right.

As you’re spending more time with the band and in the studio, what’s been the biggest surprise or lesson you’ve learnt about music?

I think the performance aspect has been the biggest hurdle for me because I was just not a performer at all. Like I never imagined myself singing in front of crowds like this. When I was first starting out, I was doing a lot of secret gigs under a different name in small pubs around London because wasn't ready for big stage stuff straightaway as it was really terrifying. So I'm really glad that I got that practice in just to get used to like being in front of a crowd. I’ve still only done five shows though, and my UK tour starts tomorrow…

Doing five shows then going into a whole music summer is a LOT…

And a lot of big ones! The most I perform to right now is probably about 200 and the Halsey shows are gonna be like 20,000… I’m going to shit myself at the first one

I feel like people would assume that you wouldn’t be nervous at all because you have so many followers. Every time you post anything, it's almost like playing to the biggest stadiums, but it is like so different…

The whole live aspect I think is really scary to me because being behind a camera, you can refilm it as many times as you want and make sure it's perfect - I'm such a perfectionist. So I think I've had to learn to let go of that a little bit.

Fear aside, what are you most looking forward to this summer?

I'm really excited for the Hollywood Bowl, because that is just a dream venue for so many musicians. And I watched the Billie documentary of her performing there and it feels so surreal. Most artists don't get to do that until they're at this huge point in their career and I just feel like very lucky that I get to do this early. But it's also equally scary because it's such a big venue. I don't ever want to know who's going to be coming to the LA show, like the guestlist will be terrifying.

Who would you lose your mind over?

Billie Eilish would be the big one. But then I know Halsey went to Harry’s LA show on guestlist, and I might die if they return the favour.

Obviously, there are massive things coming up, but when you look back, what’s your proudest moment so far?

I think it was probably like the moment that Halsey asked me to go on tour, I didn't really believe it when it was happening. And it wasn't something that set up by management or anything like that which I think a lot of people might misinterpret is as. But they just knew me from makeup and TikTok and invited me over to do their makeup, and which already, I was like, what the fuck what's going? How does Halsey know that I exist? But I went over and I was like, “I just want some feedback - I'm gonna play my music. It just would mean a lot to hear any thoughts or whatever.” And it was in that moment that she was like, “I love your music. It's so fresh and light”. I was like, wow, what's going on? And she just said; “I don't I don't do this a lot. But I really want to ask you to come on top of me and open up for my West Coast shows.” I know a lot of people who are big in the industry can say things and not follow up, so I was very sceptical, but they really stuck to the promise.

It sounds like you've had so much like good advice and mentorship from huge names. What’s it like being around such big players as a new artist?

Sometimes I don't feel deserving of like everything that's happened to me, and I'm so grateful for this platform that I have and I know I’m in a really lucky position because of that. But sometimes I can't help but feel like people have to work for so many years to get to this point, and I forget that I have done that, it's just been in a very different way. Like, it's taken me years to get to this point.

But I still wanted do things at my own pace and not rush into anything. And it took a long time for me to develop an artistic style. I know I could have like, easily gone and made a song with a lot of big artists and stuff, but I just didn't want to do that. I want people to respect me as an artist first.

As you grow as an artist, what kind of music direction do you see yourself taking?

I’m definitely going with a rocky vibe right now. And I think I've just grown in confidence quite a lot since the first songs when I was really scared to do something that was too big for me, but now I'm working on stuff now that's a lot more upbeat and suits a like a live audience a lot more as well. When I was first writing the initial songs, I didn't even consider how like an audience would respond to that live, and people love festival bangers. So I'm working on some stuff for that…

Abby's UK tour kicks of 04 May in London, find tickets - here shop abbyroberts.co

Issue Four of the Gigwise Print magazine is on pre-order now! Order here.

More about: Abby Roberts