British pop star Griff has played just about any size venue you can imagine.

The 24-year-old, who released her debut studio album Vertigo in July, has toured stadiums supporting the likes of Taylor Swift (who urged her millions of followers to listen to Griff before inviting her on The Eras Tour), Ed Sheeran and Coldplay. She’s played arenas opening for Sabrina Carpenter and Dua Lipa. And, of course, she’s played theaters around the world, filled with thousands of her dedicated fans.

“Honestly, there’s [something] more fun about doing theaters,” Griff tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom from her temporary L.A. abode. The singer-songwriter is spending some well-deserved time away after months and months of touring to work on new music in a new environment.

Griff is in a bit of a transitional period, something she seems to be revealing in. “It’s kind of what’s nice about right now. I’m not really being like, ‘Buy my single or stream my song,’” she explains. Fans on TikTok have been discovering, or rediscovering, her latest single “Last Night’s Mascara” — an almost left in the graveyard track that didn’t originally make her debut album. “People can go back to the album and understand me a bit more,” she says.

Below, the singer-songwriter speaks with THR about the bittersweet nature of being online, her songwriting process, finding inspiration from fashion, how brutal touring can be on an artist and more.

This past year has undoubtedly been a big year for you in terms of exposure and putting out new music. It seems like a bit of a turning point for your career — how are you feeling about it all?

I feel really excited that it’s happened. I don’t know, basically I love songwriting, so I’m currently in a point now where I can take a breather and start writing songs again. To me, that’s the most exciting thing. All the other bits around being an artist, I feel a lot more awkward doing, so really the last year has been doing all the kind of bits of the artist stuff that’s a bit more awkward to me. As much of a whirlwind as it’s been, I definitely feel way more in my groove now that it’s over, and I can look back at it fondly, but not in the midst of it. Touring, it’s a brutal thing. As incredible as it is, it’s just like, it’s not real life at all.

After a year of touring, Griff says she’s ready to take a moment and work towards her next project: “I’m currently in a point now where I can take a breather and start writing songs again.”

Courtesy of Warner Records

Does a crazy busy year of touring and doing all of these other parts of the job help you in terms of inspiration for songwriting? Or is it two separate things in your mind?

I wish it helped me. I feel like we’ve all been conned by — there’s the old video of Ed Sheeran just writing “Shape of You” on a tour bus, and then everyone suddenly thinks like, “You go on tour and you’re super inspired.” For me, I’m just not. It’s very separate things. I think especially nowadays with how demanding touring is on an artist and then how demanding being online and social media, it’s just like something’s got to give. I actually haven’t written anything really. I was so used to writing a song a day, basically, until I fully went on tour. Then I think that element of the craft is the first thing that gets taken [away], ironically, because then you have to be so present for your tour and your show. Obviously, the digital world that we’re in now just takes so much more time. I find them very, very separate. It is almost like a muscle that’s been dormant for a second that I get to retrain again.

You’ve been posting about being in L.A. now. How has it been to change your scenery? How are you feeling in terms of songwriting now that you actually can focus on it?

I feel excited. I feel a lot about it is really terrifying. I think being a British person coming to L.A. is a real culture shock. I’ve brushed off the cobwebs or whatever. I’m settling into it. There’s a few things that just take a second to adjust to, but I don’t know, I think you have to throw yourself into a new environment to see what your sensory system reacts to and hopefully it triggers new awareness and new observations in your writing. For that, I’m going with the social experiment of just, I’m in a completely different place. Let’s see what it provokes me to write. I also think here, there’s such a bigger pool of talent, and I think there’s something about just being around a really high tier of songwriters that’s really challenging and exciting.

Would you mind taking me through your songwriting process?

My process has changed quite a lot. It’s kind of two-pronged, where there are the songs that I write on my own, which I usually start just sitting at piano and writing a chorus. Then will develop into me making a beat around it and doing that on my laptop. That’s in my own time. It’s usually after hours when I’ve actually had something else on that day, and then at 2 a.m. I get to just sit down at my laptop and figure out an idea. When I do sessions, it’s a bit different. A more collaborative process. Usually, you write it in a day weirdly, and you improvise with melodies first and you get to know the person, and the whole session thing is a lot different. I kind of like doing both. I think both things feed into keeping my brain inspired, but also a lot of my process for the first album was hiring an Airbnb and taking myself away and just locking down and writing in that sense. I really enjoy doing that and just removing myself from the world for a second and focusing on writing.

In December, the 24-year-old singer released a tour edition of her album ‘Vertigo,’ which featured her new single “Last Night’s Mascara” and five live versions of songs.

Katja Ogrin/Redferns

Going back to the digital aspect of this. Are you listening to [what is said] online? Are you trying not to take in a lot of that in? Where do you find that balance?

The online thing, it’s so bittersweet because something like “Last Night’s Mascara” was so empowering and such a positive element to being an artist that can just post online. Because “Last Night’s Mascara” was completely overlooked. I got to a point with my writing process where I was sending in songs to my team, no one really knew what was good or not. It got to quite a confidence-hitting spot where I was like, “I don’t know what’s good. Or it doesn’t feel like anyone’s connecting internally with these songs.” That’s why there are so many songs like “Last Night’s Mascara” in my songwriting graveyard.

The fact that the internet was kind enough to demand that song to come out was really empowering because it almost cut out the middleman and just meant that I was talking directly with fans, which was really cool. Then on the other hand, it does just take so much time, and I do think there is a shift where artists just aren’t honing their craft musically anymore, because we just have to spend every single day putting yourself out there, teasing the same clip of a song. I do think it is sacrificing a quality of songwriting, and it’s fine. I think with all changes in the industry or tech changes, it will just swing in pendulums and it’ll balance out. But I do think the last few years have been really weird, where as artists we’re these introverted people that just want to observe the world, and suddenly it’s like, “Hey, you listen to my song this summer.” It is super weird. It is a weird, necessary evil, I think.

How was it getting to perform the songs on your first album live? You can see TikTok comments, you can see Instagram comments, but getting to see people react to it in real time is certainly a different experience.

It’s kind of crazy, especially because I really got going [during] COVID, so I’m not used to the tangible people in the room kind of experience. It’s still quite shocking to me. Touring this album, it was crazy. It’s also crazy because you actually see what lyrics people connect to and stuff, and it’s never what you really expect. You never really get over driving overnight to a random place that you’ve never really heard of and going, “OK, I think I’m supposed to be selling 2,000 tickets tonight. Who knows?” Then people actually come, and it’s like there is something really encouraging about it. It’s the first time I felt I’ve gotten to know who’s listening to my songs. It’s felt like a really special relationship that way because otherwise it’s just online. You can’t really feel it as much. All of my fans are really, really sweet. I feel like everyone says, if you come to any of my shows, everyone’s just so respectful and sweet and just loving the vibe.

Can you talk about the decision to release a music video for “Last Night’s Mascara” recently? It does go back to the power of a song becoming big online, which is interesting. What was that experience like?

I think music videos are a really weird thing now. It’s not always something you get the privilege of making. Weirdly, the practicalities of it were “Last Night’s Mascara” was still growing and it kind of felt like, sick. Why don’t we just put a visual? Again, in the age of content, it’s just cool to just keep creating and putting new imagery to music and seeing what that does to it. It was kind of as simple as that. It was, on paper, a simple music video, but I always feel confident in a performance-led music video. It means the narrative is more on how well I perform than any other external factors I can’t control.

As you said, touring is pretty brutal on an artist. How do you find moments of self-care?

On tour, it’s different. I think the self-care thing starts from just who you’re touring with and I have really good relationship with everyone I tour with. If you can enjoy these places with the people that you’re on tour with, it makes all the difference. Tiny things like being able to just wake up in Milan and find a cool coffee shop and have some local food is really fulfilling for me. Also, it’s just going easy on yourself, when there’s always going to be so much to do and so much pressure with everything, just knowing to take your days off and also planning your time off. I knew that I was going to be touring for ages, and then I was like, do you know what? I’m going to take all of January and pretty much February off. It’s really hard to do. That’s less of a daily thing and more just an actual life decision.

How are you about actually disconnecting from work?

I don’t know. It changes, I think in the midst of the last two years, I haven’t been able to disconnect from it at all. I’ve barely taken time off because you feel like you’re in the middle of the treadmill. Honestly, I think it just got to a point where I toured for so long, and by December, I was like, I actually will happily [take time off]. Again, the online element of it makes it easier to switch off. I actually am happy to leave my phone off because it’s just that part of being present online is so stressful to me. It’s becoming easier, so I don’t know. I wonder whether the longer that I do this, I’ll find it less stressful to just pause for a second.

What are you creatively drawn to outside of music?

I’m not really a films girl, I’d say. I don’t really have the attention span for films. I love fashion imagery, and just looking at editorials on Pinterest forever, that really inspires me. Fashion really inspires me. Again, that ranges from keeping an eye on fashion weeks to being on the Tube in London and analyzing everyone’s outfits, just street style in that sense. I’ve tried to start reading in my later years. I’ve never been a book girl. I hated English. I couldn’t stand it, but I feel like I’ve tried to just get myself into books a little more just to, it sounds very dumb, but just expand my vocabulary and just get myself into other people’s stories.

Have you read anything lately that’s inspired you?

I read a book called The Vanishing Half, which I thought was just really beautifully written. It’s a whole conversation about white passing and race in America, but it was so beautifully written. As someone who’s mixed race as well, I think it really spoke to me. It was really beautiful. That was the last thing. I felt like the nice feeling when you close a book and you go, “Oh, I need to sit with this for a second. I really felt that.” Bits of poetry like Courtney Peppernell. It’s very conversational poetry that I think helps lyrics and makes you think about love and relationships and stuff.

What’s that next goal you’re trying to work towards as an artist?

What do I want? I don’t know if I’ve ever had real concrete, “I want to headline this festival.” My next album, I want it to feel sonically and culturally impactful. I don’t really know how I measure that, but you want to release music that your peers really love and that inspires people. I think I’m less driven by, “I just want to radio hit” or “I want to sell stadiums,” and I’m more like… You want to just create art that inspires more art in a way. I think that to me, it is a bit more ambiguous. I would love to, practically, in my head, be able to tour theaters again and go to the next level of theaters and do 5,000, 6,000 caps around. [It’s] not that I want it to stop there, but I’m excited that that would be the next step. Other than that, I would love to start writing some songs for other people as well. That would be a fun thing, to just get my head out of my own world for a second.