Rose Gray Is Still Forming

In approximately 30 hours, Rose Gray will make her grand entrance — one that involves being carried on two men’s shoulders through a crowd of 700 adoring fans — into her sold out concert at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. One problem: Her luggage is still in London. “I can see it; I’ve got an AirTag. It’s in the airport on the tarmac,” Gray tells NYLON.

She’s surprisingly calm given the circumstances (the suitcase was filled with clothes that she got on loan for tour), though she’s fully aware that she might be “canceled from the fashion world” if she can’t get the clothes back. From the outside, you wouldn’t even know she’s in the midst of a clothing crisis; when we meet under the red lights at Chelsea Studios, Gray sports a mini denim skirt, black pumps, and white half-sleeve button down covered in hand-drawn designs and phrases, including one that reads “Made in Italy.” She bought it while on tour in Paris.

The pieces were cleverly packed in her personal suitcase, which did make it to New York, but she still might need to do some shopping before she hits the stage tomorrow to supplement the missing pieces. “With the show, there’s a whole little through line,” Gray explains. “It starts off in my bedroom getting ready for the night out, and it goes through the whole night, which is why the fact that my clothes are missing is quite important because there’s some real key changes that happen on stage.”

Prior to losing her luggage, the electro pop singer was in Los Angeles, where she joined Demi Lovato on stage at the Kia Forum for a surprise performance of “Joshua Tree” during Lovato’s It’s Not That Deep tour. Gray was understandably nervous — it was the biggest venue she had ever played to date — but at least she got a taste of arena life before her upcoming supporting stint on Tove Lo’s Estrus tour later this year. “It was mad,” Gray says of the experience. “I grew up on Demi. I was a Camp Rock girl. I’ve always loved her, and I love her new record.”

She loved it so much, in fact, that she DM’d Lovato to get on the remix. “She didn’t follow me, so I was like, ‘She’s never going to see this,’” Gray recalls. “I just asked if I could be on [‘Joshua Tree’] because that was my favorite song on the record. Quite a while after, she replied and was like, ‘Oh, my God, Rose, love your work.’”

Given that we’re meeting at a recording studio, I have to ask the question on everyone’s mind: Does she have any new music on the horizon? The answer is yes: On June 12, Gray will release her new single, “Club to Your Arms,” a maximalist house smash in which she delivers a powerful, anthemic vocal performance unlike anything else in her discography. It’s a new direction for her, one that Gray, a former jazz singer, has been sitting on for a while. “I’ve always been a vocalist,” she says. “I was a little bit mute for a while; I love to speak-sing, and I love a very chill vocal. But this next single, and my next record, I’m channeling my big pop-girl voice.”

The song will be Gray’s first drop following the release of her 2025 debut album Louder, Please and its deluxe edition, A Little Louder, Please. It’s a solid proof of life for Record No. 2, even if Gray is a bit cagey about what’s to come. “[The new record is] like my little baby,” she says. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet, but it’s coming.” One thing fans can expect, however, is more of the same Rose Gray you know and love. “A lot of people said, ‘For your next album, you’re going to do another era,’” says the pop star. “I’m like, obviously it’s going to be a new phase, but I’m not going to completely leave behind what I’m doing because I’m still forming it.”

Photographs by Jillian Giandurco