Lana Del Rey Is Living the Secret Life of an "Instagram Baddie"

From Harper's BAZAAR

Lana Del Rey was set on a New Year’s resolution before January 1st: To live like an “Instagram baddie” in real life.

In December, she playfully tweeted what that lifestyle overhaul might entail, from spray tans and weekend girl trips, to expensive eyelash extensions and #sponcon fodder. In other words, being extra.

Del Rey’s new campaign for the Gucci Guilty fragrance fit right into her 2019 agenda. In it, she and Jared Leto run their errands while doing the most. Think groceries and laundry while wearing full Gucci gear, accompanied by live animals. At one point, they’re served by Courtney Love at a diner. Your favorite influencers could never.

In the realm of high fashion, what could be more extra than Gucci under Alessandro Michele’s lead? The brand that’s melded glamour and kitsch, from furry loafers to to fake heads on the runway is right up Del Rey’s alley, and a perfect match for her eclectic, retro-tinged style.

Shop Gucci Guilty

One thing Del Rey might actually be doing low-key is her upcoming album, Norman Fucking Rockwell, due this year. The follow-up to 2017’s Lust for Life is a “mood album” and “there aren’t any big bangers on it,” she tells BAZAAR.com, but perhaps we’ll leave the latter for her fans to decide. So far, she’s already teased the Jack Antonoff-assisted project with three singles reflecting her signature cool, dark imprint: “Venice Bitch,” “Mariners Apartment Complex,” and “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it.”

For those wondering, Lana has been sticking to her resolution. “Mission accomplished,” she tells BAZAAR.com with a laugh. “I am drinking so much wheat grass, wearing so much neon, going to so many spin classes that it's ridiculous. I'm just not posting any of it like I said I would. So, yes, I am living the secret life of an Instagram baddie quietly in L.A., so I've got the best of both worlds going on over here.”

Here, the singer opens up about her latest Gucci project, her evolution since Born to Die, and how she hopes the Grammys will do women right.

Harper’s BAZAAR: Your Gucci Guilty campaign with Jared Leto looks awesome. What was it like making that?

Lana Del Rey: It was really fun. We were shooting for five days in L.A. last year, and we got to shut down all the big locations. Alessandro wanted to shoot at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, so we shutdown that big cemetery, which is really famous here, and we had a grocery store that we were filming in the next day, and then we went to the valley and shot in an old laundromat there.

It was kind of funny, because all these places that I would normally go to by myself, or with friends just to hang out, we were closing down and putting ostriches in and tigers. It was definitely a trip, and when I met Alessandro to talk about this concept of "Hollyweird" and he wanted these two people to be doing all these regular everyday things, but with their diamonds on and their Gucci jumpsuits on, I thought it was cute, for sure.

HB: You’ve been wearing Gucci for a while now on the red carpet.

LDR: When we were kids, [Gucci] just almost seemed like out-of-this-world glamorous. So, to be wearing stuff for them now is really such a cool little experience, especially because some of the stuff I wore for the Grammys was custom. Alessandro sent a few sketches over, and even for me it was very dramatic with the halo and stars everywhere. I was like, "Oh my gosh. I was don't know if I can pull this off."

It's been really fun, going to the Met Gala with a headpiece on that weighed 25 pounds, and poking everyone's eye out if I did all my turns. He's definitely very much "more is more" on the red carpet, so it's been funny to step into that world because I think, left to my own devices, I'm really creative, but I'm a little more quiet, so it's been a fun collaboration.

HB: In addition to being involved with Gucci you also have an album coming out soon. Is there anything you can tease about it, or how it might be different from Lust for Life?

LDR: I am excited about this album. I finished it for the most part at the beginning of January, and I think it's a little bit different from maybe the last two records in the way that I just don't really have a plan for it. It sort of came about because I met Jack Antonoff last year up at the Clive Davis party before the Grammys and he said that we should get in the studio, and I told him I only had a few songs that I had already written.

If we hadn't sat down, I don't know if I would have planned to make an entire 13-track record. One thing I like about it is it has a really organic, I don't want to say an acoustic feel, but it has a kind of old L.A.-a little bit of, I don't want to say rock, but some of those rock undertones on the last songs on the record. It's like a mood album. There's not really any big bangers on it, it's just day-in-the-life mood music, which is some of my favorite stuff to drive to and listen to.

HB: Your latest single, "hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it" seems very prescient of the time we're in. Where was your head at when you were writing it?

LDR: If you read in between the lines so that you're listening carefully, you can tell there's a lot jam-packed into that song. I actually tried to do all my interviews before I released it, so that I wouldn't talk about it, because it's just one of those songs that is really personal to me for a lot of different reasons and that's often how my music is. I jam-pack a lot of Easter eggs, one-liners that only I know what they mean. Throw in couple of phrases that are significant to my group of friends, and then just put it out online and let it live.

But I put a couple of words in there in the last lines about collusion and confusion, and evolution, and perhaps a subtle nod to a bit of the women's movement. Also on a deeper level for me, having reference to family of origin and lineage, karmic lineage, and confusion that gets passed down through generational passages. I was trying to get clarity on a lot of my own stuff by putting it out. Actually the three singles-that, "Venice Bitch," and "Mariner's Apartment Complex"-I just kind of put them out because they were my most personal and I liked them the most. I said to the label, "That's my plan. I'm just putting out the stuff that's 11 minutes and that I want to put out." They were kind of like, "Okay, great."

HB: On the topic of hope, what is giving you hope at this time?

LDR: Knowing that it's okay for the culture to be in a bit of disruption, and that if we can just lean into that and try to find a uniting factor in it, that's the big takeaway. Things have been confusing for a long time, whether it's politically, culturally, personally. Down the ages, everyone's had their own trials and tribulations. So any time I get stressed, I just remind myself it's kind of supposed to be stressful. Life is stressful.

When I have the most fun is just when I'm with my friends, my girlfriends, who I value so much, just spending time with them and keeping everything super simple. When I'm not working, or when I'm not playing shows, I'm really just on the phone, full eighth grade-style chatting with my friends and catching up. I think just knowing that I'm on the same page with the people in my life who I'm the closest with gives me the most hope.

HB: Before you released Lust for Life in 2017, you released a trailer for the album, and you talked about how the music was a reflection of transitioning from one era to another. Was it any different this time around? Did you feel like you were still in that transitional period, or in a completely different space?

LDR: Yes and no. I think my biggest surprise is that I expected to feel like I was out of that transition. We're a couple years into the presidency and a couple of years into some of the cultural and political destruction we've all been experiencing. #MeToo is a year and a half old. We've got a lot of [huge changes]. I think I'm always expecting to wake up at the beginning of January and feel like a brand new person, and the same with the record. I'm always expecting to be the next version of myself by the time I'm done.

Actually I am feeling like there has been a continued shift throughout this record, but not in the way I thought it would be. I think I wait for this "aha" moment to dawn upon me, and things don't really work like that. Growth doesn't always happen in a straight line. It's not like you wake up one day, and you're like, "Now I'm gonna do disco!" and I'm a new genre. It's more like, progress is back and forth and I think it's just having the willingness to want, for me. My goal is for things to be really safe and serene and fun, just in my own personal life and in my music. For my music, my aspirations are for things to get deeper and smarter, and if the melodies can still be beautiful then that's a cherry on top for sure. They all of go hand-in-hand. They all sort of happen at the same time.

HB: Born to Die just turned seven years old. How do you think you've evolved since then?

LDR: I feel pretty lucky that I'm still making music and that people are still listening. I was singing and making records maybe six, seven years before that, and when that record even became visible and people were buying it, I was definitely in disbelief because I knew my sensibility was a little eclectic and different. When something hits, you just can't believe it. Everyone always said it was so weird when I was doing my first meeting when I was 21, 22.

For people to still be listening and to have gone on different tours was not something I thought I would be doing into my thirties. That is really awesome for me. Also to meet new collaborators, I definitely wasn't expecting to make a whole new record with somebody like Jack Antonoff. I think the recording process has been very dreamy and very easygoing. I always try to keep [my record releases] as quiet as possible and barely promote my stuff, just because that's the way I like it [laughs].

For that reason, I'm really lucky I still get to make music and see what comes to me, and exercise that little channeling ability where I'm trying to grab these more serial, beautiful melodies out of the ether and get them onto a record. I've loved to do that since I was 16. It's cool that I still get to do that.

HB: With the Grammys coming up, following the last year's controversy with the Recording Academy president saying that women have to “step up,” how do you hope the awards show better embraces women this year?

LDR: I forgot he said that; that was unexpected. I guess to begin with, Alicia Keys is hosting. So there's that, basic 101, female host. But as a whole, I think we're moving in the right direction by having the conversation about some of the perils of being a female in the workplace. I'm very grateful that it hasn't just gone away because that's what I thought was going to happen, that the whole issue was going to be raised that there are problems, and then people would be like, "Yeah we know," and then it would just sort of disappear. But it seems like there was a resounding response to the #MeToo movement and to some of these issues that have been brought up by people in movies and music that really resonated with a lot of women. I think the good thing about it was a lot of the good men in many fields have gotten to share these stories that they never knew about because a lot of women were too embarrassed to share them.

So now you've got a lot of players on the tune, you've got a lot of the good guys stepping in trying to give a voice to even more women who maybe haven't had a voice in the past, and I'm really grateful for that. I do feel like we're moving in the right direction, and I think the music business knows the value of its female singers. We can only go forward from here at this point, because I music is getting better and better.

In the last five years, there's been so many alternative voices coming through; not just pop music, but people sharing their stories through words, a little reminiscent of some of those old '60s and '70s records that so many people love. For music, I feel like we're going in the right direction by keeping that conversation open. I'm looking forward to seeing the Grammys. You don't know what to expect.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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