Molly Grace’s Sapphic Soiree
BY STEPHANIE HARO
Last month during the peak of Pride Month, Molly Grace visited Chicago for the penultimate show of her very own Sapphic Soirée. ‘Dance, Love, Flirt’ was the message of the night, where lovergirls were invited to be unapologetically themselves, while belting alongside music’s newest pop princess. The Limelight’s Stephanie Haro sat down with Molly Grace before her show at Subterranean on June 24th, where she touched on her cheeky lyricism, standing out as a pop singer in Nashville, and keeping herself centered throughout the music making process.
All Image Credits: Bella Sgarlata
You're currently touring throughout Pride Month, do you have any queer musicians whose work has made you feel seen or has inspired you & your own journey within the industry?
Oh wow, so many. A few that I'm kind of coming up with right now that I love so much, I really love Maris, if you know her. One of my best friends, Michael Stolar, is incredible. Isaac Dunbar, Avery Cochrane, Caroline Kingsbury, lots of my peers here in queer music that are coming up really, really inspire me because we're all working real hard at it.
Your lyrics hold a lot of story and cheekiness. What's a standout lyric or song that encapsulates your style and lyricism to a T?
A fave for sure, in my song Bow Wow, ‘Acting like I keep you on a leash or something, Not my fault that you can't go out without humping something’ It's just real poetry over here.
So you surpass the label of a singer with you're dancing, and dancers (lovergirls) adding another level of performance. Do you self choreograph? We do a lot of our choreography ourselves. Typically, what it'll look like is I'll come into rehearsal with kind of an idea of what I'd like, and then we usually workshop it kind of all together. (My Lovergirls) McKenna and Bella are both incredible dancers, so a lot of times they bring ideas and help choreograph. We have Pride in Nashville this weekend, and Bella's making her complete choreography debut for that one, which is really exciting! Every now and then we do work with outside choreographers. Like for Heaven Sent, I worked with this girl Courtney Poe, who's incredible. And then for a lot of the cleaning of the choreography, I worked with a woman named Solis, who I love so dearly.
How much say do you have in the physical and theatrical part of your sets?
Oh, all of it. All of it. I have like a lot of people that I collaborate with, that I can trust, and a lot of friends that have great taste that I can just ask and run things by. But yeah, it's all us over here.
If you had to describe the ideal person that you find yourself writing music for, what are they like? Who do you imagine listening to your music, and what do you want them to take away from it?
I imagine my ideal listener, and honestly, I think this is the truth when I look out at my audience, is someone who loves to feel empowered & confident. My audience is really kind. My fans are really lovely people, and they like to make friends with each other and me. I see someone kind who just loves pop music and loves to have a good time, who doesn't have to be queer but oftentimes is!
You’ve lived in Nashville for a while, what was it like performing there and how did you stand out as a pop artist in a sea of country?
I have lived in several places now. I'm from Massachusetts. But, I lived in Nashville for the last like five-six years, and actually just a couple weeks ago I moved to LA fully! (Congratulations!) Thank you. It's crazy.
(On performing in Nashville) Well, yes and no. I never did like the Broadway thing, which is really, a lot of people do that, performing on that strip and singing. The people who sing on Broadway are beasts, as I'm sure you have seen. They will sing for four hours straight some of the hardest songs you've ever heard. So it's crazy. But honestly, that kind of is what makes me stand out. I feel because Nashville definitely has a rich music scene. It's not just country music, but it is largely country indie folk Americana. That's kind of the bread and butter of Nashville, and so naturally, pop was a smaller subsection of all the music that's in Nashville. I feel like the way that I stuck out was honestly just really leaning into my queerness. I feel like my aesthetic wasn’t a huge thing in Nashville, and so finding my people around Nashville was kind of what made me find my lane there.
I really want to talk about your fashion. All the pieces you wear look so intricate and pretty, just in general. You've come a long way. How has your fashion sense evolved from your very first gig to the present day?
It's so funny you say that because I was actually just looking through pictures because I was on the airplane and you know the classic airplane camera roll swipe. One of my first gigs, it was funny. I was wearing black, which is funny because I'm wearing black tonight. It was like a little black dress with a denim jacket, and I'm like, that is just so no sparkle, no nothing. It was crazy, and so it's funny how my style has changed. I feel like I've just gotten more playful with it. Like I said, I'm really inspired by disco, and so I really like to lean into that kind of aesthetic and like big hair. Another thing is that I've started wearing my hair curly. I used to blow my hair out every single night, so my hair is thanking me. Yes, I am a curly girl. Not a natural blonde, as you can probably see, but I am a natural curly girl. I feel like I've just gotten a lot more playful with it and leaned into my hyper-fem aesthetic too, which I love.
You're super active and fun on all your socials. When you became an artist, did you expect social media to be a part of your career, and was it a skill you had to learn?
Well, I'm a little bit chronically online. So, it definitely was something that came kind of natural to me. When I first started releasing music, it was 2021, so I think I had already kind of accepted the fact that like TikTok is really like running the music industry, and so I've never really had too much of a problem with the fact that social media is a big part of my career. I think it's allowed for me to have a very close connection with my fans, and like a lot of times I've kind of documented my journey on social media in a lot of ways, like all of my side hustles and eras. So it's funny, like people will come up to be at shows and they'll be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I've like been following you since you were writing songs about men’, and they'll be like, ‘I've been following you since you worked at that deli and you were posting about it.’ I don't know, it's like a diary almost, and it's a cool way to be close to my fans.
Even as an accomplished pop star, you've described yourself as ‘almost famous’ in the past. I want to know, what keeps you going and motivated, especially while on tour?
Oh well, I mean, what keeps me motivated is centering myself on the things that matter. At the end of the day, the music and the fans are like the two things that, whenever I start feeling kind of like I'm losing my sense of direction and like the numbers and the accolades, I just try to remind myself that I'm here to make amazing music and that I'm here to just like create community and create these spaces for people and for myself that are just really special. Honestly, making music is really expensive and hard. Everytime I'm privileged enough to be able to make a song or go on tour, I try to remind myself to treat it like it's possibly the last time that I'm gonna do it, even though I have no plans of ever stopping. Yeah, it really is a gift.
That's such a great mindset! Any final messages?
My final message is Happy Pride Month! I love you, and I'll see you at the next show. (Beautifully spoken.) Thank you!
Molly Grace closed out her Lovergirls: A Sapphic Soirée Tour back in Tennessee on June, 27th at Nashville Pride. Thank you to Molly Grace and her team for taking the time to chat with us!
Follow Molly Grace on her socials!
Instagram: @mollygracemusic
TikTok: @mollylikestosing
