The Kiwi artist is something of a rare bird, keeping a low profile since the 2018 tour in support of her 2017 sophomore album Melodrama.
On Tuesday (June 21), Lorde stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to break the drought with a rare live interview.
At the top, Colbert reminded his guest of their previous meeting in 2019, in the backyard of NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern. He pranked her with bogus peanut brittle, and she hasn’t forgotten.
To his question on whether all New Zealander’s know each other — a country with a population of about 5 million — Lorde was diplomatic in her response. “I think most of them do. I am kinda shy so I only know a handful, but I know the really good ones.”
The album Solar Power is slated to drop Aug. 20, and is the followup to 2017’s Melodrama, her first No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Zooming in from Los Angeles, Lorde told Colbert that she spent most of quarantine in her homeland, with the exception of a stint in New York to finish the new album. “For the most part, New Zealand felt like the place to be,” she explained.
CBS regulations are so prudish, however, Colbert wasn’t allowed to show his audience the cover art for Solar Power, which is dominated by Lorde’s butt.
And the inspiration behind that racy snap? “My friend just took it. It was just me jumping over a friend on a beach,” she explains. Perhaps it’s a little “hard core,” she admits, but “it was so joyful to me, it felt innocent and playful and a little bit feral and…sexy.” Anyway, she’s not the slightest embarrassed. “You’ve gotta do it while you’ve got it.”
The new LP, Lorde explained in a statement issued earlier this week, “is a celebration of the natural world, an attempt at immortalizing the deep, transcendent feelings I have when I’m outdoors.”
She’ll experience more of the outdoor life when she headlines Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival in June 2022. A full-blown tour will kick off in April 2022.
Speaking to Colbert, Lorde was amped about her new release. It’s “joyful and big and such a good thing to experience with a bunch of people,” she says. “I’m glad that the timing worked out that I can do a tour. It’s crazy.”
Watch Lorde’s interview below.
