The Artist Explains: Ariana and the Rose - 'True Love'
Ariana and The Rose talks us through the visuals for her recent single ‘True Love’, which is a powerful song about the celebration of love. She goes into more detail for us.
Your track ‘True Love’ is out now, what is the meaning behind the song? What inspired it?
The song is a celebration of the resilience of love and optimism. My favorite lyric in it is “as long as we’re breathing, we still believe in true love.” It’s about the idea that no matter how many times you’ve had your heart broken or been through it, you choose to believe that love will come again. There’s a quote that says “love is inevitable” and I always hold on to that. It’s not about it being romantic love, it’s that, if you can hold on to the belief in the good in people, love in whatever weird, magical way, will find you.
What made you decide to release it around the time of Pride month? Do you have any personal plans for it?
The LGBTQ community has been so unbelievably supportive of me and my music, it felt natural to put a song out about celebrating love during a month that highlights that but more importantly I wanted to drive home that this song is for everyone, no matter how you identify or who you love, this is universal. Pride month is now such an amazing celebration but it’s important to remember that its roots are in protest and fighting for what is right. As an artist who has had so much support from this community, I just wanted to lend whatever piece of myself I could to give back in a small way.
The music video for the song features a number of couples, can you explain why? And how did you pick them?
The video is a visual extension of the message of the song, further driving home that the belief in finding love and being deserving of love is for EVERYONE. I had the idea for the video when I wrote the song and then the director, Scarlet Moreno, and I were brainstorming on how to make it compelling. We chose 6 real couples to be in the video because wanted it to feel like a slice of (really well styled!) life. We found the couples all different ways, some are friends of ours, others are people we found through other friends, one couple is our friends’ parents. The shoot was so full of positivity, its one of my favorite videos.
How do you feel the video connects with the meaning of the song?
The video is literally the visual manifestation of what the song is about. I’m a big believer in show don’t tell. We could have had me in a cute outfit singing to camera with glitter and what not but it would have been a lost opportunity to highlight something much more real. The internet is a big place, my hope is that someone somewhere that doesn’t usually get to see themselves reflected in music and music videos gets to see that love can exist in a myriad of ways and feels seen and hopefully, inspired.
Now that the single is out, what next? What are your plans for the next few months?
I’m very excited about the next few months! I have an EP, Constellations Phase 1 coming out on July 26th. I created an immersive event, called Light + Space which is a hybrid of performance art, a concert and a galactic rave and we’ll be bringing that back to Brooklyn on July 18th. And then I get to spend the rest of the summer play shows and festivals which I’m very excited about. We’re playing Warped Tour and touring on the west coast and I’ll be playing again in London in August.