ROREY (press photo - used with permission)
ROREY brought bullet points to her own breakup. Typed up, annotated. One section read “chronic clash of empath”, which later became a lyric. Born Kelly, she took the name ROREY from Gilmore Girls and added the extra “e” herself. For the past two years, she has been writing songs about a relationship she was still in while the album was taking shape. The record reveals the things she could never quite say in the moment.
Lead single “Sudden Death” is out now. Jason Barnard spoke with her to talk heartbreak, songwriting, and the document that outlived the relationship.
“Sudden Death” is described as admitting defeat before the game begins, but also as obsessive memories you projected onto the present. How conscious were you, while writing it, that you were doing that projecting?
Very conscious. That was the fun of it! But I was also capturing the anticipation, the excitement and the yearning. I definitely wrote from our memories too.
You’ve said the album holds space for both people’s experiences and frames it as a shared ache. When you were still inside the relationship, did that generosity toward the other person feel possible, or did it only come in retrospect?
Inside the relationship it felt second nature. We were caught in an empathy loop and it was important for me to hold space for her humanity, but in retrospect I can’t write from that place anymore. There’s a lot of unresolved hurt there.
With “Temporary Tragedy” you wrote the chorus while you still had hope, so the lyric became a question rather than a statement. Did finishing the album feel like finally answering that question?
It became clear we were fully incompatible, yes.
You sent the song to your ex as your closure. Did they respond?
Nope 🙂 and I didn’t expect her to.
“Dying Fire” is about radical acceptance and “Temporary Tragedy” is about self-abandonment. Those feel like two different emotional positions. Did you write them in that order?
I wrote Dying fire first actually and then Temporary Tragedy a few months later.
They became interchangeable as I navigated a dynamic so cyclical. It’s interesting you ask that, because it always made me sort of laugh at human nature; how could they be so out of order cognitively.
You co-wrote “Temporary Tragedy” with Richard Orofino and the Dysphoria EP with Scott Effman. You’ve described working with Scott as a full collaboration. What was different or similar about writing with Richard and Scott?
Scott is a pisces and Richard is a cancer (sorry to astrology haters) so they both have this empathetic ability to place themselves inside my experience as if it were their own. Song write is vulnerable and it’s rare you connect deeply enough to be able to truly guide the narrative in a way that feels true to me
The broken children’s violin Richard found at Goodwill ended up defining the sound of “Temporary Tragedy.” How much of your production process is incremental and accidental?
I would say 50/50!
You’ve said much of your songwriting comes from discomfort, and that it’s a form of journaling. But journaling is often private. What happens to a lyric the moment it becomes a song someone else is going to hear?
That feeling and that raw emotion no longer belongs to me, it belongs to the listener, and there is something so beautiful about that.
Where does the name ROREY come from?
Gilmore Girls hahaha! I just added an e because my name is actually Kelly.
You mentioned writing a document where you’d mapped out the entire relationship breakdown, and one line from it became a lyric. Is that document-as-draft approach something you’d used before, or was it specific to this situation?
I plead temporary insanity. We joked we’d bring bullet points to the convo, so I literally did. But yes “chronic clash of empath” was section b of the document and became a lyric.
You’ve talked about losing yourself in relationships to keep connections alive, and separately said guitar is the one thing that makes you feel fully present in your body. Do you think the guitar holds something for you that relationships couldn’t?
Yes, because people aren’t always emotionally available on your timeline, whereas my guitar and lyrics are always there as a way to express what I’m feeling right in the moment when the other person might not be able to receive it then or ever. My entire album comes from everything I never got to say.
Both “Chronic Apathy” and “Hurts Me To Hate You” sit on Dysphoria, one about your father and one about your mother. Do those songs feel complete to you now, or are those threads still moving through your writing?
Totally. My mother and I have a beautiful relationship now where we respect and honor each other’s limits. Albeit it’s not perfect, but she’s become a huge part of my life. With my father to be blunt, his death is an irreplaceable loss. Writing “Chronic Apathy” was cathartic but there is no resolution to that kind of grief, you just live with it.
You’ve talked about “post paralysis” making it hard to post consistently, and yet your music is about as exposed as it gets. Is there a difference between the vulnerability of a record and the vulnerability of posting?
There is absolutely a difference! I don’t feel vulnerable releasing music. I feel a major release. But when it comes to social media I feel insecure and paralyzed about being perceived. I get caught up with aesthetics and send screenshots to my friends asking if my grid will look good with a specific photo, it’s embarrassing to admit, and exhausting. I do know it’s a universal experience for many.
What comes after “Sudden Death”?
The rest of the album, more direct biting lyrics, and a summer single independent of the album!
