Rozzi is entering a new chapter! With her upcoming album. Fig Tree and its second single “Hold Tight,” the Los Angeles-born artist peels back the layers of womanhood, love, and the emotional terrain that comes with choice.
Produced by Mocky (Feist, Kelela, Moses Sumney), “Hold Tight” is a reflection on the dizzying vulnerability of loving someone enough to need them. Written in the wake of Rozzi’s decision to freeze her eggs, the track captures the hormonal and emotional whirlwind that followed.
The video, shot on film and directed by Lucy Tamarkin mirrors the song’s momentum, moving endlessly forward but never quite arriving, like a storm caught in motion. Inspired by Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and its metaphor of the fig tree, Rozzi uses this era to explore the modern tension between freedom and stability, passion and comfort, choice and consequence.
Breathepop caught up with Rozzi to talk about the making of “Hold Tight,” the growing pains of adulthood, and how Fig Tree helped her enter this new chapter.
Hi Rozzi! You’re fresh into a new era with the release of “Fig Tree” and now your second single “Hold Tight.” Tell us a little bit about where you are in life with this new record.
Rozzi: Im really excited! I’m really proud of this new music. I feel like im becoming more like myself and you can really hear that in the music I think. It’s a really good feeling. I hope this song helps people feel liberated in their emotions.
Where did “Hold Tight” come from mentally in this writing process for this new record?
Rozzi: I wrote a piece in Bustle magazine alongside my first single ‘Fig Tree’ that talks about where I was for the whole record to kind of give a picture of the whole story that was going to be told. I mentioned there that I froze my eggs and “Hold Tight” is the hormonal shit storm that comes after.
If you know anyone who has frozen their eggs- you shoot yourself with a bunch of hormones for a week and then you just stop. There is a bit of a crash that happens after and for me it was a nutty feeling. This song is the apex of that feeling. You’re kind of losing your mind in this song.
I love the lyric “You and I talk it through the night / Do you still like my castle now that you live inside? “There is a maturity in this song about dealing with relationships and discourse. Are there similar themes on your upcoming album Fig Tree?
Rozzi: Thank you! That lyric is one of my favorites too. I took the demo of this song into the studio with Mocky, who produced the album. He suggested we turn the second verse [of the demo] into the bridge. So we had this empty verse I had to fill. I went home and wrote that lyric that you quoited. I agree, there is a grown up feeling to this song and whole album. I think something happens in the end of your 20’s when you’re in a really healthy relationship. No matter how fiery or filled with sparks the relationship is, it is also very secure and safe.
For me, that was kind of new. It’s a little scary to not feel mysterious all the time. There is an element of mystery and distance that is involved in more teenage relationships. As you become grown up, there is a coziness and somehow it becomes an insecurity for me. That is where that lyric comes from. I talk about that concept in many different ways on the record, definitely.
Sylvia Plath’s quote goes “From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.” Is this poem something you return to often as you grow?
Rozzi: I’ve never read The Bell Jar until making this record. So, definitely it inspires the whole record in an intense way. Since reading it, I return to it all the time. I think it’s a product of modern life to have so many options. Especially for women. We are the first generation of women who can sort of choose what life they want. Not all women, but many more than ever before. I think we have an ability to decide in a more substantial way. It’s a great thing but also a mind fuck. It’s like you open a door that you’ve never opened before and it makes you so happy, but you didn’t know it was ever there. How many doors do I not see? That expanded my mind and made me think more about that concept. I think of it constantly!
Being in the music industry is a unique branch of life. How do you balance being a young adult in this field?
Rozzi: One of my favorite by products about being an artist is I am surrounded by other artists. Because of who I collaborate with I end up having so many friends who are artists. I think that helps. It expanded my world because I just have people who get it around me.
I want to ask about the music video for “Hold Tight.” What was your inspiration?
Rozzi: I Knew I wanted to be driving. That’s all I knew. There is something about this song that is momentum. There’s a storm brewing. The whole song is one single chord, It makes you feel like you’re going somewhere but also going nowhere at the same time. Lucy Tamarkin, who directed the video, was really brilliant to have us not really arrive anywhere. That’s how I felt writing the song.
My creative director Willa Burton had such a creative eye and advocated to shoot it on film. I recorded the song on tape and recorded the video on film which I felt was poetic. There is a scene where you see me go insane, and that was insanely fun to film. It was 1 AM the night after my art show in New York and none of us have been sleeping. We just had a tiny crew squeeze into this car. It was very cathartic!
How are you feeling now just before the single’s release?
Rozzi: It is always nerve wrecking. These songs are so personal. I didn’t think I’d ever talk about freezing my eggs. That’s what I love about art. You just write about what you have to write about and hopefully someone out there feels understood as a result. Even if everyone hates it, I’ll always love it and that’s really powerful.
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