Rose Gray returns with the euphoric ‘Club To Your Arms’: ‘I’ve got big pop girl dreams’

Rose Gray has returned with enormous new single ‘Club To Your Arms’, a powerful and sensual ode to hazy late nights.

The song, and its superb accompanying music video, track the urge of finding yourself with a lover after a night out. In the video, Gray dances around London at daybreak on her way home from the club. It’s an atmosphere replicated in the song’s huge chorus and euphoric synths.

“It feels so familiar,” Gray tells Rolling Stone UK of the song, which she reveals is a song she has always wanted to write since the start of her career. “When I was writing it, I was convinced that it was already a song. I was meant to write this song. I can’t explain – I don’t know if it’s written in the stars or if it’s just the number of songs that I have written and the hours I put in.”

‘Club To Your Arms’ follows a recent Demi Lovato collaboration and deluxe edition of debut album Louder, Please, and comes off the back of the singer’s first headline tour and roadblock of a pop-up performance at last week’s Primavera Sound in Barcelona.

With the new single and video out now, Gray discusses the creation and inspiration of the new song, as well as where it points her to next.

Watch Rose Gray’s video for ‘Club To Your Arms’ and read her interview with Rolling Stone UK below.

You’ve said ‘Club To Your Arms’ is the song you’ve always wanted to write – why was now the right moment?

I’ve been making music for a long enough time that I’ve learned a lot about myself as an artist, as a writer, as a woman and as a person growing up and figuring stuff out. I’ve got to a place where – and I definitely feel this with all the new music I’m making – I put out Louder, Please so I can make these songs. I’ve done my grind, and I feel like I’m making the best music of my life now. It’s coming very naturally.

What’s the idea behind the song?

I hadn’t yet [written] about that space between being out and coming home. That phrase, “club to your arms,” when I first wrote it, I was in the room with Justin [Tranter] and Zhone, who I work with a lot, and I was like, ‘That doesn’t make sense, “club to your arms”’? Then I was like, ‘No, no – of course, that makes sense!’

Tell us about how the brilliant video for the song came together…

I wanted to do something that was super London and represented that movement from the club to home. I didn’t necessarily want to do anything in the club – I wanted it to all be outside. We had this idea very early on of this red car traveling through the city, and it almost representing sex. The car was the act of lovemaking.

I worked with this amazing producer and director called Tess Lochanski. She’s French, and she’s so passionate, and she heard the song really early on. She had never made a music video before. She said it’s got to be sexy and it’s got to be fun. I felt like an actress! I was in a trailer and we did two 16-hour days. The video captures exactly what I was writing about.

At the end of the video, you realise that you actually had your keys all along, despite ‘losing’ them – was that just an excuse for the whole hedonistic evening?

I’ve definitely been there! You think you’ve lost your keys, but you’re just prolonging the night. Especially when touring, you lose things all the time, but I kind of secretly know they’re not lost. I enjoy it. I have it right now with my straighteners – they’re not lost, but I’m gonna feel it out for a couple of weeks until I find them hidden.

You’ve just come off your first headline tour – did it change your ambition of what you want your music and live show to be?

I have a lot of ideas. I’m always about 10 steps ahead of where I am, mentally. I’ve added little costume changes. My headline show [starts with] the beginnings of the night, and it moves through the night. I start in my bedroom, and then I get ready for the night, and then it becomes the club, which is actually really simple idea.

I grew up as a bit of a theatre kid. The last year and a half, I’ve been playing clubs, and it’s very much just me and a PA, which I love, but I feel like I am moving into a different stage of my career now. It’s bigger rooms, and I want to tell more of a narrative with my show. I have big pop girl dreams! Being at Primavera and seeing the Addison [Rae] show, I’m like, I wouldn’t necessarily do that, but I know what I would do on those stages.

Has that ambition been feeding into the other new music you’ve been writing too?

[‘Club To Your Arms’] is a big entry point. I’ve been making music every moment I can in between touring, and I’ve really found my people. I feel very lucky that I’ve got the crew that I just know I can write the best music with. Last year I learned so much, and I went to so many places that I didn’t ever think I’d really go to with my music. There were a couple of weeks, maybe months, when Louder, Please had come out, and I was in the promo thing and it was all very new to me, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, how am I gonna write another album when I’m just so busy?’ But the experiences I’ve had over the last year have really informed all my next music, just having a lot of fun meeting incredible people. It’s been very good for me as a writer as well, just having so much more to write about.