Joining Audacy’s Bru in studio for a chat, Victoria Justice opened up about independently putting out new music, being content in the writing process, her plans for an EP or album, plus a whole lot more.
LISTEN NOW: Victoria Justice talks with Bru
After bantering about their go-to karaoke songs that included everything from Taylor Swift and Shania Twain to OutKast , reminiscing about MySpace and other nostalgic moments and music from the early aughts. Victoria and Bru brought the conversation to 2024, to discuss how the first half of her year has gone, and what she has planned for the other half.
“It's been good, I’ve been busy,” Victoria shared of her January through May schedule. “I've been putting out music which has been really fun doing it independently. I released a song, around my birthday, a song called ‘Tripped’, released another song recently called ‘Raw’, I’ve been writing a lot.”
Talking about her decision to go about her latest return to music independently, Victoria revealed, “You know… I’ve gone the label route. I had like a deal when I was younger with Columbia and didn't work out for a multitude of reasons. And then I kind of took a step back from music and focused more on acting. I did a show for MTV. But music is always… something that I love and that is going to be a part of me.”
She continued, “I caught the bug for songwriting when I was 16 when I went on my first writing session for Victorious. But I think like the label thing, unless it's the right deal, I feel like that hasn't made sense for me right now.”
Sharing that the process of making music “with people that I like” is “creatively gratifying”. Victoria went on to note, “if I write a song that I love and I want to put it out, like I just put it out, you know, and I can, there's no one to tell me like, no, you can't do this or you have to do it this way or whatever. So I think that's been really cool.”
“But at the same time, like being independent is a grind,” Justice added. “It’s tough because I’m fully self-funded. I don’t have the machine behind me that's going to get me at the top of these major playlists. You know, that kind of exposure, which would be nice because obviously I want people to hear the music that I'm making. But I feel like, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint and I'm in the building phase right now.”
Delving into her latest single “Raw,” Victoria shared the inspiration behind the track, and how it all came to be. “So I have been working a lot with this producer named Toby Gad who is incredible," she says. "He wrote ‘Big Girls Don't Cry’ with Fergie and ‘All of Me’ with John Legend and he's a pretty legendary songwriter/producer. We reconnected recently and we were going to do a writing camp in Baja Mexico."
“But before we went, I was writing in my journal…just mulling around, like — What do I want to write about? What do I want this song to be? And I started writing about what I'm looking for like in love… I want someone to love me for my awkward, my messy, my sad, and all my sexy, my anxious my lovely, my weird, and all my ugly. And I was like, oh… I feel like there's something here.”
Inspired by the song ‘B****' by Meredith Brooks and ‘Gotta Be’ by Desiree . Victoria shared, “I wanted to write a song that felt like authentic, but also empowering. I feel like it's, it's definitely something that I relate to, but I feel like it's a pretty universal theme of when you are starting to fall for someone or getting into a new relationship.”
It's exciting, but it's also scary because…I have to show this person, you know, all these sides of me and all these layers to me. And if I'm gonna let down those walls, like, are you gonna be someone who's gonna love me and accept me and stick around for all of it and not just, you know, want to see the shiny, pretty perfect stuff. But like, truly accept me and want to see me for the whole of who I am, like the raw stuff.”
Victoria didn’t stop there, sharing that while her aspirations are to “eventually lead up to an EP or a full album,” she’s comfortable currently being in the writing stage, noting “it'll come together.” Victoria also revealed what’s to come, what songs are next in line to drop, music video plans, and more. To catch it all, listen to the entire interview above.
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