Lorde Covers ‘Rolling Stone,’ Talks About Being Nervous

Lorde covers the new issue of Rolling Stone, ahead of her performance at the Grammy Awards at the end of the month. And if any other Grammy nominated teen pop starlet had been on the cover wearing a Cramps shirt, we would’ve assumed it was a stab at alt credibility orchestrated by a team of handlers, but with Lorde it’s probable that she just felt like wearing a shirt featuring the psychobilly band. Or maybe she didn’t make the call; it doesn’t matter, because the Lorde/authenticity narrative is already accepted as reality, so everything she does will be framed that way.

So how’d Lorde get to a place where she’s making her own career decisions and is a hero to artists who want to stick to their guns? She consciously chose strength. “I get paralyzingly nervous a lot of times, so I tried bravado,” she told the magazine. “The way I dress and carry myself, a lot of people find it intimidating. I think my whole career can be boiled down to the one word I always say in meetings: strength.”

The new issue hits newsstands on Friday (January 17).

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