Gracie Abrams on being inspired by Phoebe Bridgers: “I didn’t really feel awake to the human element of music until finding her stuff, and then immediately a light switched.”
“I felt similarly toward her music how I felt about Joni’s. I feel like these women are just talking to me — it felt so conversational and also so colored in detail in a way that I hadn’t experienced with anything else before,” Abrams says. “I didn’t really feel awake to the human element of music until finding her stuff, and then immediately a light switched.”
That necessity and urgency to express emotion is immediately apparent in Abrams’ music. She sings with a kind of soft yearning, her whispery voice revealing the true pain behind lyrics in a way that indicates the immense amount of courage it took to say them in the first place. Take “Camden,” for instance, from her most recent project “This Is What It Feels Like,” in which Abrams details her struggles with mental health.
, with their first show on April 5 in Portland, Ore. Not only is Abrams a fan of Rodrigo, but the two share a true friendship. “She’s an incredible friend,” Abrams says of Rodrigo. “There’s a specific sensitivity that writers share, and she’s a really empathetic person and I’ve felt that from her. I’m super grateful and can only hope that I’ve done the same for her. Our careers look very, very different and I feel lucky because she has insight that I don’t, so that’s definitely something that I don’t take for granted.”