Exclusive: Skylar Grey Talks New Song ‘Cannonball’ & New Album

Skylar Grey discusses her new music! 

Five-time, grammy -nominated singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Skylar Grey recently premiered the video for her new single, “Cannonball”. The video was directed by Daniel Carberry and shot in a warehouse in downtown LA. Skylar has worked with various artists co-writing and being featured on songs with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, will.i.am, Zedd, Kid Cudi, Diddy, Moby, David Guetta, Kaskade, Cee Lo, T.I. and many more. Skylar’s most recent work was featured on the highly successful soundtrack for the hit film 50 Shades of Grey which included her song “I Know You”. It reached No.1 on the iTunes Top Songs chart while the video quickly approached 30 million Vevo views.

Congrats on your new song “Cannonball.” Where did the inspiration from the song come?

That song came from the X ambassadors. Alex da Kid had this idea for us to all work together to see what would happen. It didn’t really start with me. It started with them and I just filled in all the blanks. The song was empowering and uplifting song, which I think a lot of people can relate too. It’s such a competitive world out there and it’s a strong message to be the underdog fighting your way to the top with strong will power.

How was it working with Daniel Carberry on the video?

The video was super fun to make. Daniel Carberry and I got in touch through email and we sent concepts back and forth. We basically came up with this idea to have surreal battles. Just fights that you wouldn’t see happen in reality, where you wouldn’t expect to see the underdogs win. We just wanted to have a symbolic artistic video to represent the message of the song and Daniel was great. He had such a good vision, we really saw eye to eye and it was great.

Speak about working with the X ambassadors and touring with them.

Sam is awesome, as far as I can tell they’re very nice people and very fun to work with.

What can fans expect from your upcoming album? What was your favorite part of making it?

This coming album is very chill although very complex but simple. Musically complex but not over produced. I made the album thinking what do I like, what would I buy or what would I put on if I’m on a road trip by myself. So that’s how I made the album and it’s a little sad and introspective but that’s the kind of music I listen too.

You have been collaborating with Eminem for years. Speak about working with him.

He’s been super supportive ever since I started working with him, he’s been a great mentor. I don’t see him that often but when I do I always get a lot out of it.

You’re from a musical family how did that prepare you for your career today?

It’s been good and bad I’ve had so many musical influence my whole life and it’s like, “where am I going to go?” I grew up playing folk music with my mom and my dad was a barbershop Doucette singer and now I got to be a teenager and I listen to Nirvana and Eminem. I’ve just had so many influences it’s hard for me to choose a path as an artist and I didn’t just want to settle on one thing. With this album I’m really bringing my folk roots into it quite a bit. I’m realizing that the best way to figure out my path is to just do what I love and do what I think feels the best. So when I listen to something and it moves me or makes me feel great, that’s the only thing that I’m using to judge whether or not I’m going to do a certain record. If it feels good.

What has it been like to work with Alex Da Kid?

Alex and I have this love hate relationship and I think that’s typical for a lot of artists and their producer out there but it’s positive because it makes all the music better. We definitely argue but then we get to the next place and it’s always worth it. It’s only because we both care so much and we both want what’s best for the project and we both come from different worlds but that’s just how it goes.