Gigi Perez shot to stardom earlier this year with her breakout viral hit Sailor Song, which saw the Florida-raised artist secure her first ever UK No.1. Here, she speaks candidly about channelling her grief through songwriting, navigating the industry and taking centre stage as a caterpillar...
INTERVIEW: MIRANDA BARDSLEY
I spent a lot of nights looking up at my ceiling just begging for anything out there to allow me to do music,” Gigi Perez tells Music Week. “To be honest, I was literally wanting a miracle.”
That was the New Jersey-born, Florida-raised singer-songwriter’s wish just over four years ago when she found herself in some of her darkest moments. During the pandemic in 2020, Perez came to a juncture in her studies at Berklee College Of Music – “I was starting to feel quite lost and didn’t know if it was what I wanted.” Unsure of what to do next, she decided to leave. Then, in July of that year, her sister, Celene, tragically passed away.
“I was deeply hopeless,” she reflects. “I was just asking for a golden ticket, something to get me through – I just didn’t have the steps to get there.”
During this period of uncertainty, Perez started to share her songs on TikTok and one in particular struck a chord.
“I hadn’t expected anything to happen and I didn’t see it coming, but a song I wrote for my sister, a ‘letter’ to her, [named Celene, after her] connected with people who were grieving,” she recalls. “That was just glitter in my life.”
Perez started to grow a following and, in 2021, officially launched her music career with Sometimes (Backwood), an acoustic track that reached audiences worldwide and has since amassed over 126 million Spotify streams. She went on to release her brilliant debut EP How To Catch A Falling Knife via Interscope Records in 2023, before gaining momentum this year with tracks Normalcy and Please Be Rude, released independently after she was let go from the label. Recently, however, Perez has hit heights she never thought possible – “I have moments of denial!” – with her ballad Sailor Song.
With a number of big moments already under her belt, Perez released the track during her independent stint back in July. Sailor Song went viral on TikTok before climbing the UK Official Charts to become Perez’s first ever UK No.1 in November. The track has racked up more than 320m Spotify streams to date.
But Sailor Song’s impact goes far beyond the numbers.
“Releases like Normalcy and Please Be Rude were about love and relationships,” Perez explains. “With Sailor Song, even though it’s about a relationship, a lot of it was informed by grief and the sense of not having certainty in life, in my religion, with creativity… It was me channelling that as someone else.”
Sailor Song has also been embraced globally as a queer anthem, and Perez muses for a moment on the importance of a track like that entering the mainstream.
“It’s incredible to see representation and to empower people, that is really important to me as an artist,” she says. “I feel like I’m a drop in the bucket, and there’s a lot of work to do, but I’m so grateful to be a part of it. And I don’t shy away from it: I’m gay as hell!”
Following her independent success, Perez went onto sign with Island Records in October, a move she did not expect to make so soon, but felt more than ready for.
“I left the music industry for a year, I didn’t speak to anyone except my family and friends and I didn’t think [re-signing] was on the cards anytime soon,” she explains. “But I had a relationship with Imran [Majid, co-CEO] at Island, who I met years ago and had really connected with, so when we rekindled it was really serendipitous, and certain things helped me open my heart and lean into it.”
This time, Perez was also more prepared for navigating the industry itself.
“I’m grateful for my experience and that I was given this second ‘wave’ in my life as an artist,” she says. “The first time, I learned about myself and the business, but being an artist can be very lonely and a lot of us walk into this world fearful of not doing the right thing. This time around, I will always be respectful, but I have no qualms setting boundaries for myself and I always trust my intuition.”
It’s that exact instinct that guided Perez to pursue music in the first place. As a child, she was surrounded by Spanish music, but she also grew up as an avid fan of the big hits of the time.
“Every morning I’d listen to the VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown; I literally still listen to it to this day,” she laughs.
It was her older sister, though, who got her into musical theatre, something she describes as informing the way she’s listened to music from the very beginning – “my sister was drawn to it, she started getting lessons in opera and was winning state competitions at, like, 13-years-old, it was the craziest thing!”
Perez still recalls her first time on stage, too.
“I was the caterpillar in Alice In Wonderland,” she beams. “My mum has this picture of it on her Facebook where she’s like, ‘Gigi in Alice In Wonderland!’ It’s the funniest thing ever.”
A few years later, however, Perez dabbled with the idea of leaving the stage for the sports field...
“I wanted to do soccer but I didn’t make the team in the sixth grade!” she says. “I’m pretty sure everybody else did, but I couldn’t stop talking to my friend during the practice. So I was like, ‘OK, you know what, fine, I’m going to do the play…’”
After that, Perez joined the school choir and explored many other influences – “I went through every phase: dub-step, emo… I’d be dedicated to each one and would be like, ‘I’m this kind of girl now…’” – until one day, she realised that she could write for herself.
“I’d been writing poems and was on Tumblr – it was that whole period [laughs] – then I started piano,” she says. “As I was making music, I thought, ‘Playing other characters is fun, but I can make my own ones!’ It changed the world for me.”
To this day, Perez continues to do just that. With her latest self-produced single Fable racking up over 17m streams, her recent UK headline tour and performances supporting Girl In Red, Perez is rapidly paving her way to stardom. Not without a unique perspective on the idea of success itself, however.
“I don’t see myself as a star, it’s more beautiful to feel like I’m in a place of service,” she concludes. “Sometimes, this all feels surreal, but when I meet people who connect to my music, it’s so real. They’re crying, I’m crying, it’s emotional! Just knowing that my music is helping them, that helps me.”
