Noah Cyrus Is Officially Here: Miley's Little Sister on Dropping Her Debut Album of Sad Songs (Not About Lil Xan)
Noah Cyrus is tense. The singer is dropping her debut album today-it’s just not the one she’d planned on.
For much of 2017, the younger sister of Miley and youngest daughter of Billy Ray had been talking up NC-17, a cheekily titled musical ode to her age and desire to subvert expectations. But she’s 18 now, and much has changed: She’s opened for Katy Perry, had NC-17 delayed for various unofficial (in a video interview this past January, Cyrus blamed her desire to get things just right-and continuously adding more material-as the reason for the hold up) reasons, released a slew of standalone singles, and went through a fairly bombastic public break-up with rapper Lil Xan.
But if you think this new record, the Good Cry EP, is about him, you're wrong.
“This record is not about Lil Xan,” she tells me with a chuckle this past Monday. We’re hanging around the stages at the YouTube Space LA, where Cyrus has spent much of her time doing interviews in promotion of the forthcoming EP. She arrives after a quick outfit change with her publicist and manager in tow, a few others from her team trickling in as we talk.
“No. I’ll make that clear-in bold and highlighted and underlined. I didn’t do anything for publicity,” she says of their three(-ish)-month-long relationship, which Lil Xan later claimed was a publicity stunt set up by their label Columbia Records to promote their music together. “I don’t even have anything to say about that. It was perfect timing, that’s for sure. I think a lot of people thought it was on purpose, but it truly was just perfect timing. I was going through a break-up with somebody I was with for two years, and my heart’s still broken over that, and then I let somebody in and got too comfortable too fast, I think, and it all blew up in my face, like break-ups do.”
Her relationship with Lil Xan was a digital whirlwind in every sense. Sliding into her Instagram DMs back in February 2018, Xan started hanging out with Cyrus in earnest in July. By August, they were making their meme-ified debut on the MTV Video Music Awards red carpet. Just days later, it was over, following a dramatic and accusation-laden he-said-she-said that played out over Instagram Stories.
But the way Cyrus tells it, it isn’t Lil Xan she’s singing about in lyrics like “I can’t wash with that soap anymore, ‘cuz it smells just like you” in “Topanga (Voice Memo)” or “I’m standing at your front door, wondering where you’ve been” in “Where Have You Been?”-got it?
“I went through a big heartbreak after being in a relationship for the past two years, and to suddenly have it end, when neither of us wanted that,” she says at one point. “But that was for the best.” In fact, the 22-year-old, face tattoo-sporting SoundCloud rapper-with whom Cyrus has a single and music video out right now-was a rebound.
“I broke up with someone that I’d been with for two years only to open up to somebody new and my heart got destroyed there, too,” she says later.
It’s no surprise then-I mean, the EP is titled Good Cry-that the album is full of moody songs, elevated by the emotionality in Cyrus’ vulnerable and impressive vocals. “I love writing sad songs,” she says. “Whenever I go into the studio, I’m like ‘Guys, we’re probably not going to get an uptempo out of this!’”
After the failure to launch NC-17-plus an entire album worth of tracks she recorded at age 14 with producer Jayson DeZuzio-Cyrus didn’t think these songs would necessarily end up on any album.
For her, it was much more about processing what she was feeling. “Every time I went into a session I had a new thing to think about. I didn’t go in thinking ‘Oh, we’re writing an EP,’ it was my escape. I was with my ex at the time and I would say, ‘you know, I wrote this song about the argument we had today’ and that’s how I would communicate. I didn’t know other ways to communicate. I write about so much personal stuff, it’s like reading my diary.”
Cyrus grew up in a musical family-obviously-but pop stardom was never the de-facto choice for her career path. Until it was.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, she was only 6 years old when Hannah Montana made her sister a household name. Very quickly, the younger Cyrus gained background and bit roles on her father’s show, Doc, and Miley’s Hannah Montana. “Growing up in that environment, I wanted nothing to do with music until I was 15,” she explains. She had many people around her who were supportive of her talents-she handily nabbed the titular role of Ponyo in the English-language adaptation of the Hayao Miyazaki film thanks to her ability to sing and act, for example-but no one wanted to push Cyrus into the business: it’s not exactly a kind and unscrupulous place.
“They were like ‘When you want to do music, I’ll help you. But you can do something else! You can be normal,’” she explains. “I cannot stress how many times my manager was like ‘You don’t have to do music!’ Literally begging me, like, ‘You’re going to get into some shit! Are you sure you want to do this?’”
Worries aside, the music holds up. The six songs on the EP have a lived-in air about them, created by someone who, subconsciously or otherwise, has pop musicality in their blood. Her voice is eerily similar to her sister’s-at times it feels impossible to tell them apart-but when it comes to content, Noah Cyrus is more confessional.
She found solace in the recording studio, working with an impressive group of songwriters who’ve crafted tunes with the likes of Charli XCX, Britney Spears, and Panic! At The Disco. “It would be like, ‘I’m dealing with this bullshit today, so let’s write about it.’ ‘This is my struggle of right now, so let’s write about it,’” Cyrus says of her process. “Every time I went into the studio there was a hunger to write because there was a certain burn of a feeling I was feeling that day.”
i love you so much moreee! @mileycyrus
A post shared by NC (@noahcyrus) on Mar 6, 2017 at 12:21am PST
She grew up fast, she says, but doing so gave her a realistic set of expectations for herself as she matured: “I think because of that, for the past couple of years, I didn’t know who I was, but at the moment, I feel like I have a good grasp of that and what’s going on. But that changes with everybody all the time!”
It probably doesn’t hurt that she witnessed her sister’s own tussles with the heavy expectations put on young female stars, giving her a bit of an advantage over those without. And while she did grow up fast, it’s very clear that she’s still an 18-year-old about to embark on the incredible period of change that is your late teens and early 20s. It’s a very particular sort of tension in which to exist: both wildly confident and wildly in transition, seemingly all the time.
“They say your taste palate changes every seven years, so maybe your personality changes every five, you know?” She’s probably right.
When asked if she’s spoken to her sister or father at all about the challenges of making music-and growing up in the public eye-she bristles almost instantly, sitting taller now and pushing the hair behind her ears. “Everybody thinks that I would go to Miley and my dad for advice and I get that they’re very successful and very big in the music industry,” she says, “but I look at them as my sister and my dad.”
“I’m going to my management for advice,” Cyrus explains, “and I’m going to people that I work with mostly.” Like Katy Perry, who brought Cyrus out on tour last year as the opening act. Put out singles, Perry said. People just want to hear your songs.
She stops for a moment, exchanging a glance with one of her five people sitting to the side of us, before declaring, “I think people get this idea that I go to Miley and my dad for permission whenever I have a record.” Permission, I counter?
She continues, “People say, ‘Oh what did Miley think when you played her this record before you put it out?’ I didn’t play Miley any record before I put it out because I don’t really… I don’t ask. I don’t look at her as Miley Cyrus. Of course, my sister and my dad, I respect as musicians and look up to them, but people kind of forget that they’re my family, so my first reaction isn’t always, ‘Let me see what my dad and Miley think about this record,’ It’s usually like, ‘Oh, what does my mom think about this record? What does my friend think about this record?’ Because their age ranges are listening to my music.”
She may be onto something here: “Guys my dad’s age aren’t listening to my music.”
As she prepares for the Good Cry Tour-a 19-stop headlining series of shows, kicking off this weekend, that’ll take her to cities like New York, Nashville, Chicago, Orlando, and Los Angeles and which Cyrus describes as a “sad dream world, like a sad girl’s escape of the night...I want it to feel like you’re lying in my bed listening to Alex Turner with the star projector on”-she’s already thinking about what’s next.
A post shared by NC (@noahcyrus) on Jul 9, 2018 at 2:01pm PDT
“2018 has been kind of a shitshow, personally, for me, so my trust level has been a little bit off this year, but 2019?” At this point she noticeably perks up-the promise of the future too good to be sad. “I just can’t wait to feel like, stronger than ever. I just have so much more music I can’t wait to get out.” Noah Cyrus will utilize what's been given to her, but she won’t settle for only that.
“It’s just like, you’ve got to be positive and move on from it,” she says. “If something’s not right for you-and you can quote Bebe Rexha here-if it’s meant to be it will be.”
Photographed by Camilla Armbrust. Styled by Donna Lisa. Hair styling by Michael Dueñas; makeup by Katelin Gan. Digital Assistant: Tigran Tovmasyan. Lighting Assistant: Donovan Novotny.
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