INTERVIEW: Grace Reveals The Meaning Of Songs On ‘FMA’ | Track By Track

It's rare when a vocal talent can reimagine a classic from the past, particularly one that's from the early 60s, and successfully introduce it to a new generation. That's what 19-year-old Grace, sister to singing sibling Conrad Sewell, did with Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me." After the G-Eazy-featured cover hit the blogosphere in 2015, it slowly but surely spread to over 45 million viewers on YouTube and hit the top 10 on charts in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Fast forward to July 2016, and the Aussie has finally dropped her debut album, FMA, via RCA Records.

Just last week, the Brisbane-born singer/songwriter stopped by iHeartRadio for an exclusive interview to discuss the collection, which includes 14 cuts written by Parker Ighile, Prince Charles, Progression and even Grace herself. In just 48 minutes, Grace hits all the right spots with soulful coffee-table ballads and even moody dream-like cuts. To get the scoop on the set, which stands for Forgive My Attitude, take a look at yet another installment of Track by Track with Grace.

Grace Breaks Down the Meaning Behind the Lyrics of Songs on FMA

Track 1: “Church On Sunday”

“’Church On Sunday’ is one of my favorites. It's just a fun, feel good record. It's basically about girls playing dudes, which is not something that girls really talk about that much. It's that point where you're kind of entertaining somebody, but you know that it isn't going to ever be anything serious and you don't want to lead somebody on. It's like ‘I should probably go to church. I'm a bad person for doing this.’ It's a cheeky twist on playing dudes and not really caring.”

Track 2: “Hell Of A Girl”

“’Hell Of A Girl’ is a classic breakup song. I didn't want it to be an angry, sad breakup song. I wanted it [to show] there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Everybody gets to a place in a relationship where that person no longer serves you in a positive light and you have to realize that you are moving on to bigger and better things and everything is going to be okay and everything comes back around.”

Track 3: “Hope You Understand”

“That's my favorite on the record. It's a super fun, feel good [track]. It's about having a crush on someone and not knowing how to tell them. It's very simple.”

Track 4: “Crazy Over Here” featuring Parker

“That is like another feel good [track]. It's not even about anything in particular. . . .It was more about the whole afro beat. [It] is very much influenced by Fuller, who is a really dark Nigerian producer. I did that record a year ago and it was just fun. The beat makes you want to move and dance. When we play shows we start the set off with it because it gets everybody hyped.”

Track 5: “You Don’t Own Me” featuring G-Eazy

“Nobody expected or had any plans for ‘You Don't Own Me.’ We just put it out. Everybody was excited about the idea of having Quincy [Jones] involved. Everyone was like, ‘This is [such an] incredible, such an amazing moment.’ I didn't know what it was going to do because when you do a cover people are going to love it or they are going to hate it. The fact that people gravitated to it and actually were into it is still crazy to me. I definitely think it's a very important record on the album because that's sort of my most memorable moment so far in my career ... definitely being able [to] work with Quincy and G-Eazy on it has been very, very cool.”

Track 6: “How To Love Me”

“I wrote that on my 18th birthday. I was in London. It's about one of my friends, who is a little bit older than me, and she was dating this dude, who was just like a total jerk, and she would call me. You know how girls are. We call each other. We gossip. We tell each other what is going on with whatever problems we're having. She called me and told me this story about Valentine's Day with this dude. She had done this whole spread, like, sprinkled rose petals and bought gifts and everything and this guy was like, ‘Oh, I didn't really have anything planned.’ He's just a jerk. She told me the story and I was like, ‘How can you not see what's going on?’ Sometimes, especially women, we get blinded by the fairytale and what we want to happen and you don't really see what's going on all the time. That whole concept of knowing your self worth and knowing you need to learn how to love me and appreciate me was something that always spoke to me. It was my 18th birthday and my dad had called me and I was away from home and we had this big soppy conversation and he told me how proud he was and I got all emotional. I went into the booth and I pretty much recorded the whole song bawling my eyes out. That was definitely the hardest to perform, to record, and then every time I perform [it] I get choked up on that one. . . .I think every girl can kind of relate to that message of always being misunderstood in a way and never really feeling like guys fully get it."

Track 7: “Coffee”

“I love coffee. I think I did that [with] Frazier T. Smith, who is a London producer, amazing guy. [He’s] done great work in the past. We kind of just started off very organic-like on a guitar and a piano and played around with the idea. It's that whole longing and needing somebody, but it's like a double meaning because I'm also talking about coffee. People don't know if I'm talking about coffee or a person.”

Track 8: “From You”

“That’s one of my favorites too. I have so many favorites. That was a cool song to create. I remember, I was in Atlanta, and I was with Prince Charles, who is a writer I've worked with since I was really little, like 14. We've done everything together, and he's like a big brother to me now. When we create it's super natural and organic and we wrote that song in like half an hour. . . .It just kind of fell out and it's that whole like story of being with someone. You know how you pick up little traits from people and you're always having some kind of guard up? If you listen to it, it's like, 'I'll never be the first to call, play with you like a Barbie doll.' It's kind of like that back and forth."

Track 9: "Feel Your Love"

"It's pretty much the exact same version. I think that was everybody's favorite off the EP. When we talked about putting a few records off the EP on there, [we thought] 'Feel Your Love.' 'We've got to put it on there.' It's definitely my favorite from the EP."

Track 10: "New Orleans"

"That was another one of those things where it came really quickly. I was working with this producer in L. A. and he had this song, but there was already a girl singing a whole separate record. I was like, 'No, no, no, stop it. Can you take her off for a second and play me, give me 8 bar loop of the chords?' I went into the booth and subconsciously mumbled out these lyrics and melodies and sat down in the studio and penciled it in. It was a song. It was like 20 minutes. I think all the best ones and the dreamy one on the record were like that. I just went into the booth and sort of free-styled and subconsciously knew what I was saying and just penciled in the parts.

Track 11: "Boys Boys Boys"

"That is a fun record. I like that one a lot. It's basically [about] boys and how annoying they can be, how great they can be, and how they can play with your head and all that good stuff."

Track 12: "Say"

"'Say' is dope. I did say with Manny Fresh, who's obviously like a legend. I remember he came to the studio one day and he played us a bunch of records, like backdated. He played beats for like two hours and everything was so sick. We picked like four or five tracks and 'Say' just stood out for me. Me and Parker went into the studio and wrote over it and just wanted it to be talking about different stories and different people's journeys. . . .The chorus is just a unified whole message to bring everything together. It's a groove track, just vibes."

Track 13: "Boyfriend Jeans" (Remix)

"The remix was done by Naughty Boy, who is super dope. I love Naughty. I met him around Christmas time last year and we instantly had great work and chemistry. We did a few records together and he had been working on the remix. When we first really started [on 'Boyfriend Jeans], it was just like a crappy demo on a voice note. It was really hard for us to find a new version of it. I think everyone had like demo-itis and loved the original so much because it was super raw and it was in the moment and it was recorded in my bedroom. To recreate that you don't always get it right, so Naughty's version was the first remix that we had heard that we were like, 'This feels good. It's different. It shows the song in a different light,' which was cool, and I love it. It's my favorite version done to date of the demo."

Track 14: "Song Cries and Amens"

"'Song Cries and Amens' was shouting out or letting go of [everything] that sums up the whole album. The whole album is me talking about personal experience or things that have happened to people close to me or around me, that I was influenced by, or that I felt like, 'Oh, wow. How would I feel if that happened to me?' The song just sums up the [experience of] screaming it out and letting it go and being free of it all."

Photo: Rachel Kaplan for iHeartRadio