Some interviews stay with you because of what someone has achieved. Others stay with you because of how much of yourself you unexpectedly hear in their story. Freya Rose was very much the latter for me. I first came across her through Instagram, checked out her music, loved the indie-pop feel of it, and reached out for an interview. She sent her answers back as voice notes, neatly organised question by question, and listening through them felt oddly personal in the best way. The more she spoke about never quite fitting in, finding language through music and wanting other people to feel less alone, the more I understood exactly why her songs connect.
Freya grew up in Bedworth, near Coventry, and describes herself as a child who was always a little bit different. “I was super weird,” she laughs. “Such a weird kid. I have always been a character.” She would invent characters, act out soap operas in the playground and stage entire musicals with anyone willing to join in. She was naturally expressive, but that confidence didn’t always make life easier. Being ginger, neurodivergent without knowing it at the time, and generally standing out meant she was bullied heavily and often struggled to find where she belonged.
“I didn’t have that many friends,” she says. “I struggled to feel like I fit in anywhere, then music came along and I found that was a really good way of being able to word how I was feeling or what I was going through. Music helped me find my place and fit in the world.”
Her childhood soundtrack was broad and gloriously pop-heavy. Her parents constantly played 80s music, while CDs filled car journeys and artists like Lady Gaga, Jessie J, Wham!, The Fugees and Cheryl Cole became early obsessions. Freya had always sung, regardless of whether anyone wanted her to. She filmed herself performing in her bedroom, auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent at around ten and remained completely convinced that somehow, one day, singing would become her life.
The moment that belief became something more serious came through being a fan herself. Boy bands like One Direction, The Vamps and 5 Seconds of Summer opened another doorway into music, eventually pulling her towards emo, pop-punk and indie too. She still remembers standing at the front of a Vamps show in Glasgow during a slower song, turning around and seeing a room full of phone lights.
“I was like, yes, I need to do this,” she remembers. “I needed to do it rather than it being a fun hobby.”
That was the point where music shifted from something she loved into something she needed to pursue.
At 15, Freya started learning guitar, gave it up, then returned to it at 17 and taught herself instead. Around the same time, life had become increasingly difficult. School was hard, home life was complicated and she was dealing with severe depression. Songwriting became less about wanting to make music and more about needing somewhere to put what she was feeling.
“I’m a person that feels a lot of things,” she says. “That’s really when I started writing songs as a way of dealing with the quite severe depression I was dealing with.”
The songs became therapy. A way to create the feeling of being understood, even if the understanding was coming from something she had written herself.
The first song that made her think there might genuinely be something there was a fast, almost rap-pop track about feeling disconnected from the people around her – not wanting to drink, take drugs or have sex, and wondering why she didn’t seem to fit in. She laughs looking back at how young it sounds now, but at the time it mattered. She posted it online, her internet friends encouraged her, and she kept going.
That sense of emotional honesty still sits at the centre of her music now. Freya’s sound pulls from countless corners of her life – Paramore and Panic! At The Disco from her emo years, pop songwriting from artists like Lady Gaga and Sara Bareilles, years spent obsessed with indie music, and more recent influences like Phoebe Bridgers, dodie and The 1975. Somehow, all of it folds together into something distinctly hers.
“I really like when a song makes you feel something,” she explains. “My music first and foremost is always incredibly personal and draws on real experiences.”
She rarely writes about things she hasn’t lived herself. Whether she’s struggling with her mental health, thinking too much about the climate crisis or trying to understand something happening around her, writing helps her organise a mind that can otherwise become overwhelming.
“Songwriting is basically my main way of dealing with anything that happens in my life,” she says. “It helps me sift through all those thoughts and put them into something meaningful.”
Photo credit: @BobbiStudio
What once helped her feel understood now allows her to create that same feeling for somebody else. Some of her most meaningful moments have come when listeners tell her exactly that.
“People have come up to me and said, this explains exactly how I feel and no one’s ever explained it like this,” she says. “That’s the main thing I get out of music – creating stuff for other people to feel seen and to be like, look, here’s a space for all of us and you’re not alone.”
Her debut album Girlhood captures one particular version of her life with almost diary-like precision. Written largely between the ages of 19 and 23, it explores the strange reality of becoming an adult and realising you still have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. It also examines womanhood and the everyday misogyny that quietly becomes part of growing up.
“It really captures that period of my life where I was in my early twenties and dealing with the fact that I was growing up and life wasn’t anything like what I thought it was going to be,” she says. “I still didn’t know what the hell I was doing with my life.”
The record was created at home on a tiny budget, long before Freya imagined music becoming as serious as it has now. Listening back, there are things she would inevitably change, but that is almost why she loves it.
“It captures that period of my life so perfectly,” she says. “It’s like the little sister that you look back on and think, it’s still going to be OK, I promise.”
That journey has been shaped enormously by grassroots music. After growing up somewhere with very little visible local scene, Freya first learned how to gig properly while studying in Leicester. Moving to Northampton later became another major turning point.
“The Northampton music scene is incredible compared to other places I’ve lived,” she says. “People want to go to gigs and want to support local music. The talent is incredible.”
Small venues and promoters gave her somewhere to experiment, build a band and become more confident as a performer. “Those smaller venues and promoters are the main reason that I am where I am today,” she says. It’s why she remains so passionate about returning that support, continuing to headline grassroots venues and helping other emerging musicians where she can. She’s even begun bringing female musicians in Northampton together to share advice and encouragement.
Live performance is where that connection becomes tangible. Freya talks about being on stage with genuine joy, particularly when she can break down the barrier between artist and audience. During Hopelessly Weak, she often asks everyone to sit on the floor while she sits on the edge of the stage, singing directly to them. When crowds sing Enlighten Me back at her, she says the feeling is almost impossible to describe.
“The audience always comes first,” she says. “I know how important that connection and those interactions are because I grew up as a fangirl and being a member of that audience.”
But behind those moments is the reality of being independent. Freya has learned first-hand just how many jobs exist around the actual music. While releasing her Learning How To Live EP, she was simultaneously planning content, music videos and promotion while working a full-time job in London. At one point the pressure became so overwhelming that she ended up lying on the kitchen floor under a blanket, eating a plain wrap and crying.
It’s funny in hindsight, but painfully relatable too.
“You get these moments where you become so stressed and overwhelmed and think that you can’t do it,” she says. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is ask for help and lean on friends.”
Creative friends stepping into shoots, people helping with videos, or simply having someone to spend an evening with and talk about anything except music have become essential.
Photo credit: @BobbiStudio
Freya today feels a long way from the teenager who doubted whether anyone would want to hear her songs. She’s married, has built a life around her, understands herself far better and now writes with an entire band in mind rather than just an acoustic guitar. There’s still experimentation ahead too. She already has an EP and another album written, with one project moving back towards her roots and another leaning further into pop.
There’s no rush to force either into the world before they’re ready.
That feels fitting for someone whose whole journey has been about gradually finding herself rather than suddenly arriving.
When I ask what she would tell another young songwriter sitting in their bedroom, terrified to share what they’ve made, she doesn’t overcomplicate it.
“Just do it,” she says. “I had so much doubt and so much anxiety. I was terrified to go on stage and terrified to play my songs to anyone. It took me a really long time to believe in myself.”
Then comes the part that really lands.
“The worst thing you can do is be incredible and be stuck in your bedroom, because then no one gets to experience how amazing you are or connect with your songs the way that you want them to. Life’s too short to not believe in yourself.”
Listening to Freya tell her story, I kept coming back to that younger version of her who couldn’t quite find where she belonged. In the end, she didn’t find a space waiting for her. She built one through music – and now, every time somebody hears themselves in one of her songs, she makes that space a little bigger for them too.
Listen and follow Freya Rose:
🎧 Stream the Learning How To Live EP and explore more on Spotify:
🔗 For socials, tickets and everything else, head to: https://linktr.ee/freyarose
