MANILA, Philippines — Heads up, fans of Sabrina Carpenter! The American teen pop star is set to visit the country in August for a series of shows.
“I’m coming very soon!” Sabrina told The STAR in a recent phone interview, happily adding that she is open to suggestions on how to make the most of her first visit. “To be honest, you tell me. You tell me what to do because I’ve never been there. Priority for me, of course, is to meet the fans that I haven’t gotten to meet yet. I think that’s what I want to do more than anything. But I’m also excited to see everything that there is to see.”
MCA Music (Universal Music Philippines) and Megaworld Lifestyle Malls have partnered in bringing in the 19-year-old former Disney actress to perform at the Uptown Bonifacio Mall Atrium (Aug. 24, 7 p.m.), Eastwood Mall Open Park (Aug. 25, 7 p.m.) and Venice Grand Canal Mall (Aug. 26, 6 p.m.). The singer-songwriter and actress, who started her showbiz career when she was only 10, is behind the chart-topping songs Why, Thumbs and most recently, Billboard Dance Club’s No. 1 single Alien featuring multi-platinum selling UK DJ/producer/composer Jonas Blue. Last year, she guested on previous Manila visitor The Vamps’ UK arena tour as well as Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman Tour in Brazil.
For the past months, Sabrina has been crisscrossing the world to drum up support for Almost Love, the first single off her forthcoming record Singular. A follow-up to her earlier full-length albums Eyes Wide Open (2015) and EVOLution (2016), Singular promises a “more confident feeling and sounding” Sabrina. For the album, she collaborated with a lot of people “I really admire and I think that’s what you do when you’re growing and trying to find your voice. I think you are never fully done growing, but I feel it’s the closest I’ve been in this album.”
Ahead of the Sabrina Carpenter: Live and Acoustic shows in Manila, she talked to The STAR about her new music under Hollywood Records and “life after Disney” as her hit show Girl Meets World ended its three-season run last year. She continues to juggle her time between singing and acting with two new films, The Hate U Give for Fox and the independently-produced The Short History of the Long Road, to be released in October and in 2019, respectively.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
On why Almost Love was chosen as the first single off her third record Singular:
“The song is the first single off my third record and it is inspired by the relationships that we feel like have a lot of potential but never really end up getting an ending to those relationships. More so, I wanted to create a really confident feeling and sounding record around this.
“I think, whenever there’s substantial change or growth in sound, and how you develop as an artist, I feel that this is a song that… people around me that I trust who heard about it thought that they heard — well, not even a new Sabrina, but another side of Sabrina, a very confident version of myself.
“I didn’t put any emphasis on it like, ‘Oh, this has to be my first single.’ I just wrote Almost Love because I was having fun and letting loose. This song came very late in the writing process and so, I had majority of the record done at that point. So, I kind of thought that I was just experimenting with something that was essentially where we wanted to start with the album. Again, I think there are so many surprises in the album because I don’t really feel like this song is the same thing as any song in the record. Every song is kinda singular on their own.
“I don’t think writing the album I had a specific theme or inspiration. I found it much later. Once I decided to call it Singular, it was very clear to me that I have done a lot of growing myself, I’ve started to become a lot comfortable with my voice and that I’m not really holding back in any way.”
—Photo from Sabrina’s Instagram
On the biggest challenge she faced while finishing the album:
“The most challenging part (is) letting your voice be heard and you always have to kind of get (through) those initial ideas to get to the point where people will listen to you enough to give you a chance and to hear you and want to work with you. I think it was something I struggled with and had to fight for, to work with the people that I ended up working with people in this album and so lucky to know and have relationships with. I think there are so many challenges creating something because we always want it to be our own creation and there are so many people who will have their opinions along the way. So, the main challenge is staying true to myself, staying true to my gut and to what I believe in, and creating something that is most representative of me.”
On life after Disney:
“I don’t really think of it as ‘Life after Disney,’ I wouldn’t even consider ‘Life before Disney.’ I think I was really, really lucky to be able to play a character on a TV show that I was passionate about for many years. I guess I’ve seen how people can label that as a very specific life, but I never really understood what it was and how that changed. I just know that I was able to do what I love and meet a lot of people because of it, and I was able to continue to do what I love after it and continue to grow and keep learning things. I’m still learning. I’m very lucky that the audiences who started watching me through that show are still following me. I’m very lucky and grateful for them, of course, and of the chance to be able to speak to them.”
On using social media to reach out to fans and followers (she almost has 15M on Instagram):
“I like to interact with them as much as possible because I feel like they’ve given me the opportunity to do everything that I get to do and what I love to do. A lot of my usage on social media is to interact with my fans. The teasing and special things that I can do for them — that’s what make it fun. There’s a negative aspect of social media as well, but then again we all use it and so there’s something we like about it. I just try to have fun with it and not taking it too seriously. Sometimes, it’s easy to do that and you have to think that we’re all teenagers sharing a part of our lives, and having fun.”
On the negative aspect of social media such as being the recipient of bashing or worse, bullying:
“I do believe it hurts more when you see things from people who don’t know you. There’s just a part of you that says, if they only knew me they wouldn’t be saying those things. But then you realize that’s why you’ll never be fully fulfilled with social media so I try to look at the positive comments and try to respond to people saying nice things as opposed to negative things. Then, I try to put attention to people who are doing good in the world… But it’s not just happening in social media but in real life, too, so in real life, you try to surround yourself with people who give a lot of love.”
On comments (good or bad) on her music and if she reads them:
“Uhm, I tried, yes, and I don’t like it (laughs). Again, those people don’t know you as a person, they’ve always seen you as their vision allows them to see. And for me, they can scorn you as much as they want to or they can say wonderful things about you but, at the end of the day, we’re all sort of more focused or should be more focused on our lives and selves. I’m only just trying to create things that I’m passionate about, excited about and that fans growing with me will be excited about. With comments, I think you really just have to take them with a grain of salt… we don’t know these people and if they’re real or what. There’s a lot of these opinions lying around and it doesn’t mean we should take them to heart.”
On what she enjoys the most — acting or singing:
“I will get asked this question until the day I die (laughs) but I don’t think I like one better, I love to do both, I believe I would continue to do both because they fulfill different things for me. But I would say that music was my first love and it is something I’m completely and 100 percent dedicated to. As for acting, it’s a little bit harder to consistently be working in that industry because you’re kind of working on separate projects, it’s not one consistent project. Me, as an artist, it’s one long journey that I never really will be done with no matter if I take a few days off, or what the case is. I love them both for different things.”
On her last year as a teenager, and what she looks forward to turning 20 and becoming a “grown-up”:
“My last year as a teenager? Oh don’t say it (laughs). I don’t really know, it’s a year difference. I feel like I’m just going to get more angry and scared when I order the kids’ menu (laughs). I don’t know, I think there will be things that become better and positive, and there will be things I’ve been used to for so many years that won’t be present anymore. I will deal with it when I have to but I’m going to be 19 for a bit longer as I can (laughs).”
On how she spends her downtime:
“Honestly, I am really lucky that I have some really fun people in my life. I don’t get a lot of downtime and I also don’t like a lot of downtime, and people who know me know that. So when I do get downtime, I just sit in my bed (laughs). I like to be creative, I don’t like to pause for so long.”
On how to stay grounded despite trappings of showbiz:
“I believe that I have a family that keeps me grounded. I believe that talking to people on the phone and seeing people in real life, and you know, kind of staying outside of the negativity, that definitely keeps me grounded as I can be. My parents really instilled that in my head ever since I was a girl before I started to do this.”
(Almost Love is exclusively distributed by MCA Music/Universal Music Philippines through Hollywood Records. It can be downloaded/streamed via Apple Music, Spotify, iTunes, Spinnr or Deezer. If you buy the limited edition fanzine, which includes a download code of her singles, at the Astroplus/Astrovision selling booth during the showcase dates, you get access to the Sabrina Carpenter: Live and Acoustic event.)