GAYLE

17-year-old singer/songwriter GAYLE creates the kind of self-possessed Pop music that’s empowering for both the artist and the audience. 

GAYLE grew up outside Dallas, where she started singing at the age of seven. Soon after, she took up piano and guitar and started writing songs of her own. “I’d always have a notebook with me, and I’d write in it obsessively,” she says. “Because I was so young, I was mostly talking about emotions I’d never experienced — a lot of times I’d watch a movie, and then try to write a song that created that same feeling.” 

She made her first trip to Nashville at the age of 10 and soon began playing in bars around town. After nearly two years of traveling back and forth from Texas, her family relocated to Nashville, where she started booking up to five co-writing sessions a week.

Her boldly confessional debut “dumbass”, marked a major artistic breakthrough for GAYLE, landing on playlists like Spotify’s New Music Friday and TIDAL’s Rising: Pop, soon after its arrival in January 2020.  

Her breakout success quickly caught the attention of Atlantic Records, who signed the singer in May 2020, right around her 16th birthday. Her debut release for the label was the tongue-in-cheek breakup song, "abcdefu", which she explains, "came from a place of trying so hard to be the nice, respectful ex-girlfriend, to the point where it was negatively affecting me,” she says. “It’s about asking, ‘Why am I being so nice to this person who completely took advantage of me?’, and allowing myself to express my anger about that.” The Platinum-certified single reached #1 at Top 40 radio where it stayed for three weeks.

Fresh off the release of her debut EP, a study of the human experience volume one, GAYLE is intent on making music that offers her listeners a certain emotional freedom. “After "dumbass" came out, I had a lot of people telling me how brave I am,” she says. “I thought, ‘I’m talking about something that almost everyone has gone through at some point — is that really that brave?’ With all my songs I’m just writing about my own experience, with the hope that it’ll give people space to feel more comfortable with their own emotions. I just want everyone to do what makes them happy, and be more confident in who they really are.” 

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