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Photo: David Bates

Singer, songwriter, producer, and DJ Rebecca Black is finding salvation and, in her new project with the same name, is bringing us along for the journey. The seven-track project, including pre-released smashes “TRUST!” and “Sugar Water Cyanide,” explores the intricacies of Black’s life, experience in the music industry, and love for pop music that takes you all the way (and then some). We chatted with the certified pop princess about the new project, its origin, and what the word Salvation means to her. 

OnesToWatch: Hi Rebecca! I’m so excited to chat about your new project SALVATION. The intro, which is also the title track, pulls from a nostalgic sound while staying futuristic and fresh. What were some of your sonic influences making this track? And what made you choose it as the first track on the project? 

Rebecca Black: The song really started off the word. I was in London, doing a show for the BSG Hyde Park festival and anytime I go to London, I hunt down these two writers and producers, Lauren Aalina and Marcus Anderson. They're a big part of this project, they're all over it. I met Lauren a few years ago and we just have the easiest creative synergy and our references are always aligned. As I was on the tube, the word “salvation” – this is so annoying – but the way I describe it is it literally just popped in my head. I love the tube because when I’m driving, I zone out because I'm so bored. When I'm in London, the ability to just sit and absorb the world around you and watch the train go by is the most meditative thing to me. 

So I was just sitting and thinking about the project as a whole, because I had started to kind of get some ideas of where I wanted to go sonically and I knew that Marcus, Lauren and I would be aligned there. I was still trying to find the overall theme for what the project would be about. I just felt connected to that word, so I started digging in as I was on the train and when I got to the studio, we started the track and just wanted to make something really fun, danceable, and cunty. Lauren and I came up with the gravelly, whispery verse thing that went over the synth that Marcus had put in as the main base for the verse.
It felt a little bit like Madonna, a little bit Prince, a little retro thing that I hadn't heard in a while, which I was really excited by. It felt like the opposite of anything I'd ever done and we ran with it.

“TRUST!” and “Sugar Water Cyanide” were both released before the full project. What is it about those tracks that felt right to introduce this project to listeners? 

I live in a really fun place in my own part of the industry right now because I know that my audience, the real ones, are there and they want to go hard. They will take anything I give them. I could give them a 10-minute track of me doing spoken word and they would be like, “Yes, girl! Do it.”
We have the same niche influences, we grew up in the same sonic world and they live for that. I also know that pop is having a giant resurgence and what has been really important for me, from the beginning, is taking ownership of what I make. 

Sonically, I want to go as far as we can and push the barrier, but it cannot be without the song itself being a good song. When I look back on the Madonnas of the world who have been all over the place in terms of where they've sonically lived, the Gagas and Gwens, the pop songs that really shaped who I am as a pop listener – there was always a strong song there. From the day that we wrote it, I knew that it’s the right way to introduce the project. And what better to introduce it with a really strong pop song that has an identity and is one of the craziest songs on the project? Being able to give my fans those sneak peaks and be like, “This is where we are. Here's the two extremes. Now let's complete the story.” It always felt the most natural, even though “Sugar Water Cyanide” was definitely a risky single. I knew that it would work, I just had a gut feeling. 

I think it’s safe to say the risk paid off! Let’s talk about “Sugar Water Cyanide," that song is laced I swear. Can you talk about the title? It’s so visceral and memorable. I wonder what came first, the song or the title? 

I was at the end of the writing process, in the studio with nightfeelings and Jesse St. John. I’ve worked with Jesse a million times, he's another person who is all over this project. The reason we had that session was actually to bring another song to nightfeelings called “American Doll”. We decided to get the vibe going and it was an almost immediate land on something that felt really exciting: doing this Janet-esque verse – really sweet, sugary, and then complimenting that with the exact opposite. “Sugar Water Cyanide”, the title, it felt like what we were making. We started that song in a way that I normally don't, just talking about a feeling and exploring where our heads are at. It was literally almost exactly a year ago that we wrote that song, so it was the dead of fucking winter. It felt like putting a name to something that didn't have one. The song really is about experiencing someone as if it was poison, as if it was a drug, and how addictive, beautiful and fun that can be. But also how dangerous it could be. 

I think what I love the most about “Sugar Water Cyanide” is that it takes a word that has a very obvious, pure connotation with something that's obviously, very bad and encapsulates death. To me that is the experience of the club. And really the song, at the end of the day, is about being in the club and feeling yourself. 

Tell us about a night out or party that comes to mind when you think of the inspiration for this project.

Honestly, if there were nights that inspired this project, it were the nights that went so wrong. It was the nights where I drank way too much and made bad decisions and maybe let out a version of myself that is not my favorite. That was such an important part of this project, because this is my own freedom into allowing and acknowledging that side of myself. Salvation is, to me, the accumulation of the worst parts of myself, or things that I've deemed as “bad”, and allowing them a voice so that I can actually work through them – which gives it such a serious connotation. But at the end of the day I also had to allow myself to not take myself so seriously and realize that the more freedom I give myself, the more freedom everybody else allows me to have.

We have to chat “American Doll.” Every pop diva has a moment like this in their discography and it hits every time. How did you approach this track and where did it come from?

I wanted to make a song about the experience I've had as a young woman in the industry, but I wanted to make it something that felt really empowering and emulative of the emotions I've had around it. I’m definitely, again, tapping into some of the parts about myself that were more dark. Like the anger that I've experienced as a young woman in the industry and the mistreatment that I've experienced. The song isn't only about that, it's about the universal experience that we have as women – of this unattainable version of ourselves that we feel like we have to be. That was actually probably one of the bigger “ah-ha” moments. Once I had that song, looking at and personifying this thing that I've always been, which is trying to be perfectly well spoken and never showing up late, being kind and all of the the things that we do and aren't given the grace that maybe others would be given in the industry. That was really important for me to talk about and this was the right way to do it – in a way that felt like the fiercest, angriest version. 

“Tears In My Pocket” and “Do You Even Think About Me?” both go so hard. How do you decide on a direction a song is going into, what comes first for you - the lyrics, concept, beat? Or does it vary track by track? 

Those two songs were written back to back and were the first two songs to make the project. Those were also written with Lauren and Marcus, and the producer Chris Leon. Those songs really were some of the ones that took the longest to finish, “Do You Even Think About Me?” especially, my god. What's funny is that the more that I think about them, they were finished in completely different ways. “Tears In My Pocket” felt like, from the jump, we had found that very succinct, very brash synth melody within the chorus that Marcus came up with. And from the jump, we were like, “This is the song.” We just need to complete it to make it a full journey and we took our time doing that. 

With “Do You Even Think About Me?”, we struggled to find the right identity for it and it lived in so many different versions. There was a rock version, there was an electro version, and we landed in this 80s wave. If there is one thing I learned from my last project, that was when you're scared to go there – just go there. Just take them right down the line. That moving synth, baseline thing that happens on the bridge kind of happened by accident. Chris and I were in the room just like, “Whoa, this is exactly where it needed to go.” And then added the whispering over it. I just love when something feels really obvious.

This project touches on how you grew up online (which many of us can relate to), was that an intentional through line or did it reveal itself through the process? 

That's good. I don't think I even realized that, but you're right. I think that it just happened from the truth of the songs. I write about my experiences and my world, and so much of my life has existed on the Internet and my relationships have existed in the context of the Internet. It's no coincidence that they both landed there. Those aren't necessarily things that I haven't written about before, this time they were just portrayed in a slightly different way that was maybe a little bit more literal to explore.

"Twist The Knife” is such a powerful closer, what about that track do you want listeners to take away the most?

I mean, I love a dramatic ending. Honestly, it's the theater kid in me. That song is the most direct view of that version of myself. I mean, the inspiration of that song was literally “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago.
I found it so much fun to create a concept around the idea of a feeling that would exist around a story of murder, of someone who could be the villain and also the martyr of a film. This project was also inspired by my favorite films. “TRUST!”, and also quite a few songs that didn't end up making the project, were very Tarantino-inspired sonically. “Twist The Knife” again, inspired by Chicago, Showgirls – those are my favorites of all time. It felt as if I was exploring this larger-than-life version of myself that definitely doesn't exist in real life, but exists within these songs. It felt like the right way to go there within this project and maybe is something that will never exist again. It just felt right. 

I would love to know what it is about dance music that keeps you coming back. You could explore so many different genres and I feel like you've really found your calling. It's so beautiful to witness. What is it about dance and pop music that you just love so much?

I think it evokes a version of myself that, again, doesn't exist anywhere else. The version of myself when I am alone in my car full volume is so close to the version of myself that exists on stage, but will never exist in any other light. I am someone who was raised around dance culture, theater culture and pop culture. It’s just in the blood of who I am. It felt really fun to finally explore that in a way I never had and it's definitely something I'm not done doing. 

Listen to Salvation! here: