Gross: “I am a woman, but in me there is a really real masculinity”

A femininity to discover, an identity in continuous movement. With Virgin, His fourth album, out on June 27, gross wants to develop an act of re -appropriation of herself. “I decided that I needed to fully enter my body,” he tells the Courier The New Zealand singer -songwriter. An urgency that arises from that common feeling in the twenty years, “suddenly find yourself not understanding what is happening”. But for her, awareness came Chiara: “You can spend a whole life not to feel inside your body and I decided that instead I wanted to hear everythingboth what is beautiful is what is grotesque ».

Virgin It is the title chosen to tell this rebirth, but virginity, at least in a traditional sense, has nothing to do with it. “The Word Virgin has various meanings and I would say that that of sexual purity was the last of my list». The reference, he explains, is rather to a new version of himself: “I was looking for a metaphor for the feeling of rebirth that I was living, of feeling new and getting to a very essential version of myself, in which I bare everything”. Also the cover – The X -ray of his pelvis with the Navy Spiral clearly visible – Take part in this story: “I found my portrait beautiful in which you can see the bones of the pelvis, jeans and belt, simple and iconic clothing, and then you can also see this technology that allows me to be a completely free woman”.

The theme of the body is inevitably intertwined with that of gender identity, which gross explicitly explores also in the song Hammer: “A few days are a woman, others are a man.” And he explains: “I am a woman and I feel like a girl, but at the same time there is also this very real masculinity that is part of me and has been part of it for life», He says. And he specifies: «Even when I think about me that everyone knew when I was 16 with Royals, I was often in male clothes, there was this androgynous quality in me ».

This complexity crosses the whole album: “There is Man of the Year written at the end of 2023, and then Grwm that I think it arrived in the same week: in that period I felt my masculinity and then two days later I was on the other hand, I thought: “I never felt more woman than that“» And precisely in keeping the opposite poles together, gross has found his truth: «I believe that explore my masculinity allowed me to be the woman who really are. This record is a document of my femininity and I said to myself that if I feel like this in this way, I will certainly not be the only one ».

The theme of the image, especially in relation to its early notoriety, is a lorde node knows well. But he refuses the idea of ​​having been more exposed than others: «I don’t think I have suffered pressure from the ordinary, I just think it’s quite difficult to be a woman, point». And he adds: «We have to do with the pressures that come from standards always and in any case patriarchal and then I think I have been algorithmically destined to be fighting with my image, also because The technologies that we all use are like a magnifying glass that amplifies the sense of inadequacy of young women».