Gigi Perez spoke about grief, faith, sexuality and her evolution as a performer during an intimate New York Fashion Week event for members of Gap Inc.’s Encore loyalty programme.
Perez, who recently toured stadiums with Noah Kahan, performed for a select Encore audience at the 150-seat Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village as part of “Encore After Hours,” powered by Rolling Stone.
The singer appeared in GapStudio and was introduced by Gap Inc. Executive Vice President and Creative Director Zac Posen. She later joined Rolling Stone deputy editor Julyssa Lopez for a conversation about her journey from making music on SoundCloud at her family home in Florida to building a following as a singer-songwriter.
Perez, 26, said performing has become increasingly comfortable for her, despite the anxiety she once associated with being on stage.
“Being on stage feels like being at home,” she told Lopez, describing the nervousness of performing as a feeling she has come to embrace.
Much of Perez’s songwriting has drawn from grief and longing. During the conversation, she also discussed growing up in a deeply religious household and the difficulties she experienced as a gay teenager.
She recalled struggling to reconcile her religious upbringing, her understanding of God and her sexuality at 15, describing the period as an especially difficult time in her life.
Loss became another significant influence on her life and music. Perez lost her grandmother and uncle in close succession before her older sister, Celene, an opera singer, died suddenly in 2020.
Perez said she has continued to experience survivor’s guilt over her sister’s death and views pursuing her own musical ambitions partly as a responsibility to honour Celene.
During periods of grief, music became an important outlet for Perez both as a songwriter and listener. She said, however, that she often struggled to find existing music that reflected the intensity of the loss she was experiencing.
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