Lady Gaga: MAYHEM, Harlequin, Tour & New Music | The Zane Lowe Interview

Welcome back home. I mean, you you just spent the beginning of the summer down under in Australia, uh, running around doing Mayhem Ball, everyone absolutely loving it. Um, you how was that experience, you know?

I mean, what a year for you. But to go down under and have those concerts, huge shows. >> Oh my gosh.

Like, I've just had the most amazing time on this tour. I I can't even tell you. Like, just reconnecting with my fans is so so cool and um extremely meaningful every night.

I just feel like the community really like shines and is like just so special. And it's it's cool too like doing this show. Every night I try to find something different in the way that I'm telling the story.

And >> um >> it's you know through the music. It's through kind of the theatrical nature of the show. The um and doing like unique renditions at the piano every night too has been really fun.

And so >> bringing out Brooklyn Nights, doing things like that and everyone going crazy. >> Thank you. It's funny how like songs really change what they mean to you over time.

Whether you're a songwriter or you're just like a music listener, I feel like you can put a song on and it just changes and I just I felt really excited to perform it. >> Which ones have presented themselves to you different since you've been playing them live in front of people? >> Going back into Born This Way was really an interesting thing.

uh that music has for me such significance uh in the way it connects me to New York and I think I just you know I I haven't really lived in New York for a long time but it it really like formed me as a as an artist. And so I I think going back and playing them at the piano and exploring the the stories now has just been it's just been really interesting. You know, you you kind I I I find myself kind of learning over and over again about, you know, why I started to make music to begin with.

And I really feel like it it had so much to do with not feeling seen when I was in high school. >> Yeah. It's an interesting time in your life when you're trying to form the first the beginnings of your identity and and you're relying on others to help you show the way and when they ignore you or when you don't get that validation, you know, you you search so much more for those answers within you.

And I think it's pretty I think that's quite common amongst the artistic and creative community that that ultimately you're left to your own feelings and your own answers rather than seeking them from others. >> Yeah. and and like you know whatever you're going through with your family or you're going through with with friends or people that are not friends and whatever kind of is coming your way.

For me, music was always the way that I dealt with it. Um I wouldn't say it was was therapy. I don't I don't know why I've always had an aversion to that like to saying that.

I don't know why cuz it just it feels different from that to me. Um but yeah, like revisiting those songs, um it it kind of made me realize also how much it's still alive in me that kind of no matter how far I come, how much music I make, that that is just kind of ever that that that feeling of yearning for an understanding of self and for to find my own place that is like it's still very much alive. I felt that when we were in New York and uh and we we spoke at the very beginning of all of this and we went to the bar in New York in the Lower East Side and I'll never forget when you walked in that room and you were just somewhere else like you were instantly transported back to that place.

>> Oh yeah. I mean that that's has to be one of the most special interviews that I've ever done. And doing it with Yeah.

And I mean, man, you like doing that with you was so so like meaningful to me. And yeah, it's just one of those spaces even now as you bring it up, like I I have like a body memory and I can feel I can feel like that like lump in my throat of what the Lower East Side meant to me and still does and uh that bar in particular and yeah, that time. But you know like recently I I uh reconnected with Lady Starlight um on the tour and we were just like reminiscing and talking about it and it's just it's so important when you are cultivating your artistry you know and your life to find your people and uh that's that's what that really was was for me and yeah and when I when I tour I have that same feeling.

I just I have it with my fans and it's it's a it's another artistic community and I feel like we're having this like really long, you know, two decade long conversation, >> the longest and the greatest. It's just we're going to talk a bit more about the last the last 12 months and just how amazing this era I think when we were spending some time together just before the interview I said I think I was like this is your 3. 0 know, like who gets to that point where we're able to like be as successful at this point.

Um, but you know, it's speaking of the lump in the throat. I mean, Abel must be sending you into overdrive because what's that all about? I mean, that is unbelievable.

Did you see that? >> That photo that he posted. It's pretty cool.

I mean, what do you think when you see a photo of yourself by by a personalized license plate on the back of a Lexus, by the way, which is just so >> it's not even like, you know, you've made it to Mayback season. And it's like the back of Alexis at the very >> triumph for something that would have been like suitable, right? >> Totally.

Totally. >> Um well, first of all, I love Ael, so I mean that was so cool. Um and that picture, you know, I just see myself kind of deep.

I'm like deep in it, you know. And I when I saw that uh online, I actually remember, you know, kind of like the way I would art direct every photo and, you know, every moment that I wanted uh my fans to see. And that that was kind of like the the iteration of my persona that came came out with my with inner scope, you know, like I went through all these kind of different iterations of my artistry and that is where I landed for the fame.

So it's really special. I I sort of look at that photo and go, "Wow, you had no idea. " >> Yeah.

But you look like you knew exactly what you were doing. >> Yeah. I knew exactly what I was doing, but I had no idea what was about to happen.

And um but that's kind of like the way music is for me. It's you I'm I'm nothing without my gut instinct and you know whatever I'm hearing or whatever I'm seeing the the way that I want to create it. It's kind of it only comes to me really um by the end in one way.

So, you know, I just I see somebody that very much knows who they are, but also is is really about to find out so much more. Um, and it's it's pretty cool. It was it was it was really sweet that he posted that.

>> Yeah. And it got the fans absolutely cooking as well. I mean, everybody is just going crazy right now wondering like what it means, but to me, it just felt very simple and pure and just like a very simple thing.

>> Yeah. you've just finished the most successful 12 months. I mean, album number seven, Mayhem, just continues to to to feed.

It's a such a beautiful beautiful um experience to have seen how um that album has just been embraced and beloved by fans. And I mean, going into 2026, you're not done, right? You've got there's more shows to be done.

I mean, how is your spirit right now through all of this? >> I'm doing good. I was in the studio yesterday.

I've been like making a lot of music and um it's it's kind of the best making music while when you get to see your fans every night cuz you're kind of like you're energetically just right where you need to be. Um I'm I'm really really happy. I mean, this album, it's just so so cool the way that it is connected with my fans and like every night that we play it.

It's just it's just a very special thing. You know, you I've made records that have connected with like one part of my fan base. I've made the records that connected more with like the general public and then you make records that you know can connect with kind of both at the same time and that's really like a very special feeling.

It's a totally different type of show when you are, you know, you're taking the audience through, you know, some of your classics, but then also like uh they're just going up with a new record. And it's just it's awesome. It's a and and it it it's a what I love about this show is as for as heavily choreographed as it is, there's actually a ton of room for me to tell the story differently every night.

>> Yeah. To your point, it it must feel like this album is the great is the great understanding of everything you've done before. It's sort of it's sort of the great centerpiece at this point because it does tie chromatica and and all these different moments together, right?

>> I think so. I think so. And I think, you know, being a woman in music, like there's people are always trying to figure out how you did it.

They're like, you know, who who made her, you know, and and and how to sort of define what makes you good. Um, it's like it's a very strange race. I think that making this album, I sort of decided I was just going to completely own it for myself.

And you know, in a way, I'm yes, I'm doing it for the my fans and the public cuz it's, you know, I put it out publicly, the record. It's not like a private piece of music. But, um, I think I also was telling myself like, this is who you are.

And it's okay. It's okay to be sure of yourself. It's okay to um celebrate you and the the way that you create, the way that you see music, the way that you um the way that you produce, the way that you write it.

Yeah. So, it's it it was kind of this I think I think I really felt like I had nothing nothing to lose to to just to to own myself in that way. Did it redefine, even looking back on it now, a year on since it's been so successful, do you think you were better built for it for for it to be misunderstood?

You did it redefine the idea of the possibility of of it not connecting the way that you would have wanted it to like when you first came out and and and wanting that that sort of to be to some degree, you know, your identity gets defined by how people perceive your art, right? And and and and going and being so honest with yourself on this record and accepting who you are. Has it kind of redefined what you expect from your music and and and it's and the audience?

Well, I think you know what I know now without a doubt is that if you authentically give a piece of work your best and like you leave no stone unturned with every instrument, every melody, every lyric, every vocal that you don't you don't ever have to wonder um if you gave it your best cuz if it's authentic ally you and you don't look back. There's kind of nothing else that you ever really had to give except some like weird version of the truth, you know, like trying to manipulate the truth to um to help people understand you better is it's so backwards in a way because you're you're Yeah. you're like overthinking something that's so natural and you're like trying to you're trying to package it in this way.

I mean, my favorite music and my favorite artists have always, you know, it's been like doesn't matter kind of how much artifice or art direction or uh style or attitude there is, there's something that is really who they are. And so I think I think what I ultimately walked away from was like, you know, the only trick that you need to do in the studio is the one where you are yourself and you're exactly who you are and you and you and you just push yourself further than you've ever gone. But that that I don't have to um I don't have to manipulate it or um doesn't have you know Yeah.

so like silly with a song like Abracadabra, but like it doesn't need to be a magic trick in that way. It's like the the trick is being you. I think >> I mean that you know I I finally I I asked somebody because I've been very vocal about my um lack of interest in this kind of uh new sort of artificially intelligent development in music.

You know, this idea that we're going to we're going to solve we're going to solve music, you know, like it's really hard to learn instruments. So, we're going to we're going to we're going to we're going to solve music. Like, no one asked anyone to solve music, you know?

So, I've been quite vocal about that. Um, but I wanted to use it cuz I was like, you need to I need to understand it. Like, I I can't just be like the old the old man in the rafters who's just screaming like, get off the stage.

Like, I need to know what I'm talking about. Um, and I and I went and I finally used one of these things and uh, man, I got I just felt nothing. And then I knew it was fine cuz I was like, "Oh, yeah, it's it's cool.

It sounds fine. " But I I got nothing out of the experience as a human being, right? I I I I learned nothing.

I achieved nothing. I felt nothing. And that that authenticity like that that is the point that I think scale often misunderstands.

They think efficiency is key and they misunderstand know the learning and the time it takes and at times the pain that it costs is the point. And I thought, you know what, I think we'll be fine actually. Well, you know, being a human being, I don't think is going to go out of style anytime soon.

You know, I and I I certainly hope I certainly hope it it it's not, you know, it's that is that's at the the core of I think the way we understand each other, the way we communicate. Um, and you know, even in right in pop music where it's kind of can be it can be if you if you want it to be it can be this kind of like perfectly mathematical polished thing but it still has a ton of discipline and uh uh it's it's been so deeply informed. So I mean it's funny I think if I could like some this whole last year two years for myself in one word it would be craft like you know craft is like it's just where it all is for for me and you know how do you kind of um en enjoy the thing that you love learning learning about and let your let yourself like just be endlessly curious and um yeah I think I think the world is a um the world can in the space of music and otherwise be a very competitive place and it's very like more is more and what conversation are you having with yourself and and like for me when I'm when I it it helps helps me when I'm talking to myself to to keep things simple because when it gets overly complex or I'm trying to win at something, I'm I I always ask myself like what are you what are what are you trying to win?

Like where where where where are you actually going? And but if you can win I think in with you with yourself and for me winning with myself means like that I've learned something new or I found I found something new. Um so yeah I think that that's a that's a lot of what mayhem taught me.

Um and you know not every record teaches you everything but I do find that music is a is a for me my great teacher. uh you've been you've exercised nothing but the deepest curiosity both in in what it is that you're trying to understand about yourself but also in in terms of how you present it and how you share it with us. Um there are great artists who will sit behind a piano and you do this and sing a song and I will learn something about myself through the most simple of trades.

And then there are artists who can also go out there in front of two and a half million people on a beach and present the most elaborate brilliant theatrical interpretation of that of that experience. And I think that that's what makes you you LG is I think you can you have such a huge dynamic range. You can go from the most intimate amazing performance.

It feels like you're singing directly to one person to something that can make us beach that big feel very very small. >> Thank you. I I mean, you know, it's interesting.

I actually find myself struggling with that nowadays cuz I I have I've become like someone that really enjoys both sides. And I kind of have this like meditation of like an intimacy and a privacy with music all day long. And then I get on stage and oh like it's it all it feels intense.

And I I didn't used to have that feeling. I mean I I did but it was more like like I would get really pumped up. And now I be I become really aware quickly the number of people that are watching and um what's what's in front of me.

>> Is that a form of presence of being present? >> Oh yeah. I'm way more present now.

like and and yeah and grounded. I mean uh that that amount of applause like sends a surge in me, but it it makes for like a I believe a very honest and truthful performance. Um especially with the character I play at the top of the show.

I mean, she's not very nice. play playing playing that kind of like to totally narcissistic egocentric part of myself early on in the show. It's it's like, you know, it's not always my favorite thing, but once I get into it, it's my it's like it's my it's my religion of uh rehearsal that saves me cuz I I find the dance, I find the vocal, I find the performance, and then I I settle into the character and it's really fun and it's it's a way to, you know, yeah, tell it differently every night.

But but yeah, for for sure. I I mean I always used to say that you play a stadium like a bar, you know, and you play a bar like a stadium and that's how >> I love that. That's so good.

>> It's so good for the people at the bar at the back. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Um thank you for for touching base with us at the end of what's been incredible.

I always feel so like very honored that I get to to talk to to you at the start of these things. you've always been very very cool with me about that and welcomed me in and let me help you tell the story to f for fans. Um, and I really loved me being able to catch up with you at this point.

I know there's more touring to be done, but it is the end of the year. >> Um, you got you got the Grammys coming up, most nomination nominations you've ever received, which I know that we just talked about the competitive nature of music and the idea of authenticity and everything else, but I always think that they speak to the team. You know, it's not just about you, right?

It must it must be something you feel very proud of to be have to be honored like that even before the ceremony just on behalf of all the work everybody puts in. >> Oh yeah. I I mean to to be there with you know my partner Michael and all the musicians that played on the album and um you know everything.

It's I'm just excited to be there man. You know what I mean? Like I know it's a competition, but like I'm just really happy to be there.

And I feel really grateful to be celebrated for >> my musicianship after all these years. And it's also really fun because, you know, we started out last year, you and I, talking about Harley Quinn, my jazz record. And, you know, to be there for both albums is really cool cuz they are so vastly different.

They do kind of inherently thrive in chaos. Yes. and uh misunderstood ladies.

>> Um >> but yeah, there's and and we did a lot of really cool stuff with um with Harley Quinn that really kind of got me in the zone for the show that we put on with Mayhem. It really uh jazz music is like it's got it's it's a totally different animal. And um I I feel really grateful for all the different genres of music and all the different pockets I get to play in cuz it's kind of like you know dump jumping into different galaxies and you can really kind of like get lost somewhere else completely.

>> And if you can why wouldn't you honor that curiosity that we've been talking about? I mean to deny yourself the chance to show all sides of yourself through what? For what?

For fear. That's the thing I think that is is one of the things that we that you know when all this is said and done and many many many many many moons and we and everyone looks back on whoever's life and whoever left what uh you will go down as one of the great fearless artists. I think that I don't I I I know fear plays a role in your life like it does mine and everybody's but when it comes to the art man you are fearless.

>> Thank you. I you know yeah fear does play a role in my life as you as you see me sitting here rocking back and forth during an interview just s myself yeah you know jazz music is like you know what I love about it is it's kind of you're you're inherently breaking it the whole time I mean kind of your ability to love it comes from like how how much you're going to um how much you're going to explore it how much you're going to mess it up uh and break it. But I so I I think that that's a music too that I will kind of forever be a student and I can't wait to do more.

Um and yeah, Harley Quinn was my first moment without Tony. So that was, you know, and I don't know what Tony would have thought of it. I mean, I think I think he, you know, he was always so sweet.

Whenever I thought he wasn't going to like something, he would go, "Wow. " He was kind of like the most punk rock. He was like he cuz he was really into art and you know when yeah whenever I thought he was going to kind of think something was too much he would like really be fascinated by it.

And so you know that that that changes the way I approach uh jazz music for sure. Um so yeah I'm I'm excited for um the fans to eventually see you know more of what we had been cooking out. >> We have touring to be done next year after the Grammys which is great.

you're heading back out um uh until April 2026, which is great. Um I sat down with a couple of my friends. We're all monsters and everybody asked, everybody has these like these these um questions they want answered.

So, I'm going to hit you with quick fire questions. You can just no comment, yes, no, whatever you want. Da da da.

Um okay, here we go. So, they want to know, uh is April the end of the tour or will you continue on to add more dates or is it TBD? >> It's the end.

>> It's the end. You >> I mean until it's not >> until it's the end, but >> it's the end. Uh you you were very kindly told to us before you're making music.

Is the hope to release something new next year? Is that the plan? >> I mean I don't it really depends on how I keep going with with writing, but it's not out of the question.

>> Amazing. Uh all of this activity that Abel, by the way, that was only one. Abel's put like three or four things up right now.

He's definitely got no poker face right now. Everybody wants to know, is there something coming with you and Abel? >> I mean, I love Abel and that's all I'm going to say.

I mean, I'm a huge huge fan of Ael. >> That's beautiful. It's all we need.

Um, give, please pass on our love and certainly my love to Michael uh and and the team. You know how much I love him. Um, >> I will.

I know he loves you, too. We both love you and happy holidays to you and your family and we're just sending you the biggest hug.