A CONVERSATION WITH... RØRY
One month after The Great Escape, we look back on the iconic artists we met during that bright weekend. Here’s RØRY, a pop-punk artist proving that change is always possible and how powerful music can be.
credit: Dawbell PR
“I’d like to think I’m the person I’d want the alternate version of me to see now. I made it, you know? I’m the person I always wanted to be, with a safe and emotionally connected family. But, sometimes I’m still haunted by the wishes of what it could’ve been.”
As we sip matching mermaid matchas in a cosy cafe in Brighton during The Great Escape, pop punk icon RØRY places their heart on the table right next to our iced drinks with that admission.
Their latest song, ‘ALTERNATIVE,’ opens with a genuinely vulnerable voice note that sets the tone going forward — it’s heartbreaking to think that the alternate version of you is happy somewhere else. They didn’t have the pain you have, the nights spent crying you did, and they have all the people you lost still in their life. Where that alternate version had love instead of deceit and abuse, and the patterns they formed were different — where everything was different.
It’s an autobiographical ode that could make even the most emotionally constipated person open the floodgates.
While the song was written nearly a year ago, its late April release meant that there was a lot of time for things to get even a little better for RØRY.
And thankfully, they have.
She has instant sell-out headline shows across the UK, featuring at The Great Escape, viral TikTok fame on an account with her loving partner, and recently hit over ten million streams on various platforms. They’re no stranger to fame, as the electrifying 2018 invention of RØRY led to her writing for the likes of Charli XCX, NOAHFINNCE, and Sam Feldt (most notably with the dance-pop banger ‘Post Malone’).
All of this started with “a wonky little kid writing songs for her friends for assemblies” with her friends years down the road pushing her to do some open mic nights. After her fourth gig, she got signed and started touring.
“But then it all fell apart.”
After her mum passed away and things with her then record label fell through, RØRY started finding ways to escape what was going on and landed on a path she discusses openly through her music. “It hurt so much and I couldn’t do music anymore. I couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t just drinking on the side of doing music… It was like drinking and drugs switched with music, and suddenly the drugs became a bigger part of my life than ever before.”
She pauses.
“Music was always there, but it wasn’t the same. I’d be writing dance music and doing the odd bit of songwriting, but I’d still finish a party at 9 am drunk off my face crying because I missed music. So walking into an AA meeting at 34, it changed things. I’ve been sober since then.”
And that’s when she combined her first and middle name (Roxanne Emery) and became RØRY — cutting out the middle of her name to represent the time she’s lost to addiction and mental health struggles.
The realisation of the power that her music has to change herself and others has built as she’s performed at more gigs. Specifically at Camden Assembly last August, which she recounts the indescribable feeling of finding your people.
“I saw people with coloured hair like mine, some older, and so many younger. I realised chatting with people after the show that we can become so obsessed with being perfect, especially in the music industry. And I felt like I had to prove myself because I was worried that I was too old or not cool or whatever… but hugging so many people and seeing what my music has done, it was like breathing oxygen for the first time.”
And for an industry event like The Great Escape, her people once again filled the crowd for her show. The most professional-looking music executives stood alongside colourful-haired fans headbanging to her songs like ‘ALTERNATIVE’ and ‘UNCOMPLICATED,’ and getting teary-eyed at songs like ‘FAMILY TREE’ and ‘this is a song not a suicide letter.’ The nervousness that was growing throughout the day before her show dissipated mere minutes into her set, as her passion and energy on stage had even the back of the room engrossed in her every action.
It was a unifying experience, and that’s exactly how RØRY intended it.
“I realised that this pain I’m feeling… thousands of other people, including some of them much younger than me, are feeling and it tore me apart. But it also made me realise that I have to do something with what I have. I have to.”
Because her message of processing what has been done to you and how you can break that cycle is one she practices and preaches. “It’s up to us to break the cycle, but it’s also so important to know that you’re not a bad person. No matter what people, especially your family, project onto you, you can heal. You can find the family you’ve always wanted.”
She has that family now, and she sings high praise of her partner and the family they have together. Because while she has the grief and pain of what happened to her and because of her in the past, she embraces that the painful cycles have ended with her.
Known for their split-dye hair (currently half blue, half black), soul-baring lyricism and Paramore-esque instrumentation, RØRY could make anyone believe in themselves again. She, like everyone, is more than just her past pain and grief. She’s a really cool step-mum, she has 20 pairs of the same socks so her socks are always matching, and she’s finding reasons daily to love the version of herself in this universe.