Free, fresh and full of life, London-based rising star Rose Gray is carving out her own place in the cosmos with her euphoric debut album Louder, Please, and she wants to bring you with her.

“Can you play it a little louder, please?” a voice calls out from the quiet. Whether in the studio, the club, on the decks or at home, singer, songwriter and DJ Rose Gray wants music to take over, to feel it deep in her bones. For her debut album – aptly titled Louder, Please – she’s ready to pass over that feeling to her audience too. From childhood days of composing songs on her Casio piano whilst on bedrest, to school nights spent vocal training, to daydreams of being a pop star, Rose’s path to her reality right now has been as capricious as it is fated.

 

Born in east London’s Walthamstow on New Year’s Eve, it’s no wonder that the club has long been calling Rose’s name, and it’s no surprise it’s where she also found her calling. “Honestly, thank goodness for club culture, because I’ve met my people on the dancefloor”, she smiles, “I’ve found the music that I feel like works with my voice on the dancefloor.” Carving out a space where euphoric highs and late-night catharsis collide, Rose Gray’s sound is formed by and for its sonic home.

 

“In my late teens, before I’d started properly releasing, I had to take some time to figure out what I wanted to do”, she recalls, “I guess it was the days before Shazam, so I would honestly go out and ask the DJ, ‘What is this song?’ because I wanted to go home and write over the beat. I was just taking it all in.” Drawn in by the freedom and release of club culture, Rose leant in, blending her classical training, euphonic vocals and lyrical prowess with everything that dance music had to offer her.

 

“I think a big part of the music I make now is because of some of the incredible nights I’ve had out and songs I’ve heard and thought, ‘I’m going to do something like this’, discovering this crazy music repertoire. It’s so vast, dance music; that’s also something that I learned. I came into dance music from a classically trained angle: I grew up idolising Amy Winehouse, at school I started singing at jazz clubs to earn a bit of money. And then I found the clubs. I found this amazing subculture of music.”

A real-life eureka moment, Rose Gray felt the pieces fall into place and hasn’t looked back since. From doing odd jobs like roleplaying illnesses with medical students to (rather more aptly) working the door at London’s Fabric, Rose dove headfirst into the city’s realm of electronic music. Dropping ‘Same Cloud’ in September 2020, she well and truly entered the dance-pop sphere, transporting us to the dreamlike scene of a night out, fondly remembering the pre-pandemic freedom. She sings, “My head is out the window / I promise I won’t cry now / Colours start to blur out / I watch my city slow down”. Poetic and visceral, Rose’s EP that followed – Dancing, Drinking, Talking, Thinking – paid homage to the ‘90s dance scene, with Fatboy Slim-esque beats and Massive Attack-style arrangements. The opening track ‘Save Your Tears’ spotlights how much of a skilled vocalist Rose is – soaring, technical and flawless – whilst capturing the carefree essence of escapism that the dancefloor offers.

 

By 2022, she’d taken a step further, dropping Synchronicity featuring tracks like ‘Last Song’ where the rising star teamed up with producers Krystal Klear and Nick Sylvester, walking the line of pop and dance in a genre-blurring rapture. “Being at the club really helped my mind explore different sounds,” she muses, “I’m very thankful for the people around me for always sending me stuff. My manager John had a club in Coventry and was a proper little ‘90s raver. He’s like, ‘Listen to this vocal’, and like, ‘Check out Opus III’… I took in all these amazing artists and bands, I got comfortable with their music and then started to try and, not replicate it, but use parts of it.” Playing with ethereal synths with producer Alex Metric on the titular song of the EP, Rose captured the sound of the underground in her very own way. From goosebump moments of word painting – like the beat dropping out as she sings, “Don’t stop now when the beat drops out” – to the pleading mantra – “Let go, let go, let go with me” – it’s hard not to fall headfirst down the rabbit hole into her hedonistic world.

 

Fast forward to Louder, Please and Rose is exploring this decadence with a fresh perspective. “I feel like I’m quite a pure soul but there’s a lot of madness in this world,” she explains as we talk about one of her new tracks – and my personal favourite – ‘Angel of Satisfaction’. “I’ve experienced being on the outside at parties and have just looked around the room like, ‘What is going on, what is my life?’. I definitely value simplicity but it’s very tempting to dip my toes into that sometimes. ‘Angel’ is a bit of a battle: it’s all I’ve ever wished for, but are you sure that this is all you want?”

 

A theme throughout her debut album, Rose Gray is well aware of the angels and devils in life. From the trials of fame and success to the plights of heartbreak and the pain of grief, the project bravely delves into the darkness. Working with the iconic artist and songwriter Justin Tranter in their LA studio, she explained that the two are “deep souls… they gave me a whole new perspective”. “We were pulling apart Hollywood, fame and fortune, telling all our wildest stories when they said, ‘I think this isasong’.Iroughlybased[‘AngelofSatisfaction’] offof–Ican’trememberifitwasadreamora vision – when this angel came to me, warning me about always striving towards something which might not be what’s actually for the best.” The song acts as a cautionary tale, she explains, but it’s also playful and “kind of slapstick”. “The lyric ‘whoring for the glory’ reminded me of 2010s Lady Gaga,” Rose smiles, “I feel like if I was solely a songwriter I would try and get that song to Gaga.”

Whilst serving as an ode to rave culture, the club and the epoch of the dancefloor, Rose knew that for Louder, Please she wanted to define who Rose Gray is as an artist and not be defined by her influences and inspirations. “Everyone I’ve worked with on the album – all the music makers, the producers – are DJs. They really are in the club and they play great dance music; they have all the synths and the original ‘90s acidy chords that I’m obsessed with. But as an artist myself, I’ve always known what I want to say, and how I want to write a song. The combination of these wizards mixed with my melodies and voice I think – I hope – that it’s created something quite original. It’s a fine line: I used to talk so much about loving the ‘90s dance music scene – and obviously I’m still in love with that era of music – but I do feel like on this album, I have found my own sound as well, my own place. I’m not completely taking from that time, it’s a new thing.”

 

Still drawing from the classically trained education she grew up in, Rose explains how a lot of her songs “have these elements hidden in them”. She explains, “I love to do an ethereal, high-pitched melody. Or I might sing the string section, and in order to sing the string section, it’ll be very operatic.” The coming together of all those unique influences, skills, experiences and feelings which make up her world, Louder, Please embodies Rose Gray’s delightfully restless spirit: where the echoes of classically trained vocals, the raw edges of ‘90s dance, and the allure of electronic grit join in a state of utter symbiosis.

 

Growing up, music was just as important to Rose then as it has become: “The older I’ve got, the more I realise how big music was in my house. I feel like music is quite big in a lot of households, but it was the way that my pops played music that I think is a bit different. He plays albums over and over and over again. I don’t know why, it’s quite odd,” Rose laughs. “We were always driving, going up to see my family or to see my dad, my real dad. He would play a CD on repeat the whole way to Birmingham: as soon as it stops, he’d start again. There are so many albums that I know basically every word to, it’s ingrained in my brain because of my pops. We would listen to everything from Zero 7, to Prince, Dr. Dre, Amy Winehouse and my mum loves Madonna. There was a lot of Madonna in our house!”

Making up who Rose Gray is today, Louder, Please operates as a culmination of her 28 years on the planet, an entering of the next stage of life. “I grew up listening to like coming-of-age albums,” she remembers, “I felt like this was the step above coming of age. It’s very much the adult experience of being in the world, having heartbreak, falling back in love, finding my people, my chosen family.” Full of empathy, Rose’s work offers a glimpse into her universe, rawly her yet relatable and universal: this is a project ready to stand the test of time.

 

“I want it to feel timeless and classic. I really hope that in, 20 or 30 years, people will still be listening to it. I don’t want it to feel like it’s from, I don’t want it to be too, like, internet-y or sign of the times-y. I want it to be classic.” Taking us on a ride through four- on-the-floor escapades and anthemic crescendos, Louder, Please is more than just a soundtrack to a night out, it’s Rose Gray’s own vivid, euphoric odyssey through highs and lows of these nights themselves. “‘Free’ is definitely the most feel-good, pure song,” she shares, discussing the album’s second opener. “But the way I’ve tracklisted it takes you on quite a journey: towards the latter half it gets a bit darker and then I bring you back up again, which is almost like a night out. It all starts cheery, clinking glasses, doing your makeup, and then sometimes we can end up on the way home, the sun’s coming up, maybe it’s not as rosy and sunshiny…”

The title, of course, captures all that and more: “It was born in the mic”, Rose laughs, “I was asking for Pat [Alvarez], who I recorded most of the album with, ‘Can you play it a little louder… please!’ As a joke he kept editing together me saying, ‘can you play it louder please’ and it stuck. I’m always asking for music to be louder, so it mirrors my personality a little bit: I love to escape, I’m always looking for a little bit more adventure, I never leave a stone unturned. But I’m also painfully polite: maybe it’s myBritishnessorjusthowIwasbroughtup,butI’m always asking ‘please’. Even if I’m in a fierce mood, I’m probably gonna say ‘please’ at the end of it and that personifies itself in the record: there’s real grit and edge, its electronic and it’s underground and dark, but it’s also light and ethereal and fun and warm.”

 

Having wanted to be an “albums artist” from the get-go, the release itself is as rhapsodic a moment for Rose as the project she’s dropping feels. “I had to convince my team and everyone around me that I am ready to put out an album. We’re very much living in a world of EPs and mixtapes, but I just make so much music – so much music – that it was almost impossible for people to say no to me. I would honestly hand over links to three different albums monthly. I was on a mission; I made so much music that I just didn’t give anyone a choice.”

 

“I feel like I’ve got to really explore my sound and tell more of a story than on an EP,” she explains when we discuss how this debut feels different from her previous projects. “I love an interlude, so it’s allowed me to make interludes. I think if it was my choice, it would’ve been about 18 tracks because there’s a good 6 or 7 tracks that I’m still gutted aren’t on the album. But I think 12 tracks is good for now.”

 

Both a tribute to Rose Gray’s journey and a bold statement of her own musical identity, Louder, Please is about more than just beats and melodies – it’s about creating something lasting, something that reflects both her roots and her dreams. With her heart in the party and her mind on the future, Rose is leading a new wave of artists redefining what it means to connect through music, with a call to embrace every beat, every emotion, and every euphoric moment life has to offer.

Listen to 'Wet & Wild' now: