Grace Davies is on the right side of twenty-five

After years of navigating the highs and lows of the music industry, twenty-eight-year-old singer-songwriter Grace Davies has a newfound sense of peace. With her long-awaited debut album The Wrong Side of 25 finally out in the world, she’s let go of the constant worry of ‘what ifs’ and embraced the joy of making music purely from a place of authenticity. It’s a “proper album”, as she proudly calls it — a start-to-finish listen where songs bleed into one another and are laden with “big feelings”.

Since 2020, Davies has forged her own path as an independent artist. She has released two EPs and earned her first Top 40 hit. She discovered her voice not just as a songwriter but also as a producer — a turning point that followed her early break on The X Factor. There’s something quietly revolutionary about creating music that endures (her influences pivot the timeless songs she grew up listening to), and something refreshing about Davies’ commitment to do just that.

I sit down with Davies after her release party for The Wrong Side of 25 — an aptly celebratory night filled with live renditions of singles from the album, themed cocktails and karaoke — for a candid discussion about the pressure of the pop industry, the process behind creating her debut album and the empowerment of making music that speaks to her truest self.

How was your night last night? Were you nervous?

It was incredible and amazing to see everyone. Since the album’s come out, I’ve felt a huge weight off my shoulders. It’s not like the work stops now, but I get to enjoy it a bit more and not constantly worry about ‘what ifs’.

What do you want people to know about the album?

It’s the proudest I’ve ever felt. It’s a proper album, not just a collection of radio edit singles, which I think is what’s happening in the industry at the moment. To have an album that feels like how music used to be created — back in the day, when songs were over five minutes long, had instrumental sections and were filled with real emotion — is something I’m really proud of. The songs flow into each other, telling a story and taking you on a journey. I could not be prouder of making a proper album.

Where does the name ‘The Wrong Side of 25’ come from?

It’s a sentence that my mum said to me on my twenty-sixth birthday, when she kindly pointed out that I was closer to thirty than twenty. I’ve always had such a fear of ageing and just general existential crises about time moving very quickly. One of my favourite films is About Time, and I often overthink conversations and situations I’ve had, wondering what I could have said and done differently. But it’s so useless because we cannot do those things. I also have the fear that right now is the youngest I will ever be, and that life is constantly moving forward. Particularly as an artist, you feel like you have an expiry date when you get to your mid-twenties if you’ve not ‘made it’.

What was the experience of co-producing the album like?

I loved it. I’ve never had more fun in my career than when I made this album, because I got to create music that didn’t necessarily fit radio moulds or would be a TikTok sound. It was just about making something really fun and experimenting. Paul (Whalley) has a wicked studio. He’s not the kind of producer who just works off a laptop — his space is filled with instruments of all shapes and kinds. That was a completely new experience for me. What’s great is that he understands I can produce, even though I have more of a producer’s head than an engineer’s hands. He’ll say, You just tell me what to do. Even if I’m not physically doing it myself, the idea came from my brain — so in that sense, I’m still producing it. He’ll say, I’m just your engineer for the day, which is refreshing, because a lot of producers have pretty big egos when it comes to that sort of thing.

Do you ever feel pressure to make ‘TikTokable’ music?

There is pressure. I think all artists feel it — it’s just a matter of whether you acknowledge it or not. In the past, especially when choosing singles, I’d always think, Oh, has this one got a lyric in it that could be a trend? And I just didn’t want to do that with this album. If something blows up on that app, then honestly, brilliant, because we know what a powerful tool it is, and, unfortunately, it is the only way a song can do well for an independent artist these days. You can have all of the Spotify billboards and the radio plays in the world, but it doesn’t move the needle anymore. So, [TikTok] is incredibly important, but I’ll never create something that feels inauthentic to me. It’s just not who I am. I have to be able to sleep at night, twenty years from now, knowing that I made an album that made me happy.

You have a beautiful song on your album, ‘Butterfly’. Can you tell us a bit about that?

It’s an emotional one. It’s one we’ve been performing live for about a year now at little acoustic shows and stuff, and it’s always the one that gets people. It’s been a real underdog in terms of the album because it’s so stripped back, so it’s been really nice to see the reaction to that. It’s a song that means a lot to me, and one that I debated writing for a long time because it didn’t feel like my story to tell. It’s about my grandparents, and I didn’t want to write something really sad about the fact that they had Alzheimer’s and dementia. I wanted to write something that felt like it honoured their memory and was a love song for them — one they would have sung to each other at the start of their relationship, and also at the end. It feels like a nice nod to that experience without being too traumatic. 

Do you ever feel like you suffer from impostor syndrome?

I sometimes feel like I don’t belong because of what the industry expects from me. When you think of a pop star, particularly a female pop star, you think of people like Sabrina Carpenter and Dua Lipa who are so sexy and so hot, and I love that for them, but that will just never be me. Maybe that’s a little bit of impostor syndrome, but it’s more feeling like you don’t belong. Then, if things don’t go how you would have liked, you kind of question whether your voice is not interesting enough, the way you look, whether you’re hot enough or interesting enough to look at. Or whether your name is really boring, because Dua Lipa’s a great artist name, and Grace Davies is a little bit bland. So there are always those kinds of questions that I struggle with.

Do you think those insecurities have become less prevalent as you have grown older and progressed in your career?

I only think that this album has been that turning point for me, because I very much saw this as my last hurrah. I had wanted to quit music in 2022, but I made a 180-degree turn and decided to create an album that reflected my vision. I thought, if people want to listen, that’s great. Otherwise, it’s just for me. The only thing that’s made me get rid of those doubts is that, throughout this whole album experience, I’ve been like, This is for me, and it doesn’t matter about any background noise. If people politely pass on interviews, radio plays or TV appearances, it doesn’t matter, because I’m doing it for myself. This is the first time I’ve felt that way in my entire career, which is really quiet, peaceful and nice compared to how I used to feel.

If you could go back to 2022 when you nearly gave up music, what would you tell yourself?

I honestly would say the best is yet to come, even though we’re doing things on a smaller scale in terms of the number of listeners, or the fan bases that you once had on a show like X Factor compared to now. It’s been eight years, but the enjoyment I got out of making this record has been like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve never felt prouder of myself and my music. 

What do you hope people might get out of the album?

To feel less lonely in big feelings. When you listen to the album, you can tell I have a lot of big feelings. I don’t talk about them often, so writing songs is very therapeutic for me. When someone listens to a song and says, I’ve felt like that, too, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, and you’ve just said it in a song, it’s like this reminder that it’s not an original experience. Someone else has lived and breathed this situation before and felt the same way. That’s a songwriter’s dream to hear. You sort of go, I’m really sorry you’re going through that because I know how hard it is, but we’re in it together. That’s all I’d ever want anyone to take away from the album — obviously to enjoy it, but also to feel something and know they’re not alone.

Who are your biggest inspirations?

There are very obvious nods to the artists that I grew up on in this album such as ELO, ABBA, Robbie Williams, Roxy Music and Earth, Wind and Fire. There are numerous references to the ’70s and ’80s. I’m very lucky to have had parents who had excellent music taste, particularly my dad, so I just wanted to make an album that felt like those artists who made me who I am. They made me so in love with music, and they made me want to pursue music, and if I really think what my younger self would want to do, it would be to make music like that. And that’s what I’ve done.

Do you have a favourite song on the album?

I love ‘Super Love Me’. I’ve loved it since the day that I wrote it, and I say that that song is a hit that was never a hit. I think I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for ‘25’ because it’s the album closer, which has this massive instrumental section at the end that gives me goose bumps because it feels like a ‘thanks, Wembley, good night’ moment where I’m walking off stage. I may never get to play Wembley Stadium in my life, but I’ve made that moment for myself on the album.

The music video for your single ‘Super Love Me’ features a lot of nudity. Where did that idea come from?

I had a conversation with my manager, and we were discussing the kind of things we say to each other before going on stage. There’s a classic phrase if you’re nervous, Just picture the audience naked. That instantly made us both laugh, and then we started imagining what that would actually look like as a music video — it was just hilarious. But at the same time, it turned out to be incredibly beautiful. You find yourself switching between really laughing because someone’s got their bits out, and then suddenly thinking, Wow, this is actually stunning. So yeah, that’s where the idea came from. It’s my favourite video I’ve ever done — I absolutely love it. And the people in it are absolute troopers.

Who are the artists that are inspiring you at the moment?

I make a playlist every month with artists that I’m listening to. Debbie Dawson I think is really wicked at the moment. She’s got clear ABBA references in her stuff. Nothing But Thieves are one of my favourite bands. I’m just constantly listening to music, so there’s too many to list.

Listen to The Wrong Side of 25 here.