Tate McRae's new era is a departure from her previous one where, she tells the Los Angeles Times, "I was really confused and lost." To emerge from that mindset and make her new album Think Later, Tate says, she realized she had to stop being "self destructive."
"People are just very critical of young women, they get attacked as soon they share their passions,” Tate tells the paper about her previous experience making an album. "They expect women to be perfect and also constantly be evolving and saying the right thing, dating the right people, putting out the right image."
"When I first started going into writing sessions, I remember people doubting me a lot, because they’re like, ‘What does this 16-year-old know?’" she says. "I would look at myself and be like, ‘Well, what do I know?’ There’s like, six 30-year-old men around me and I have no idea if I’m doing the right thing.”
That made Tate feel less than confident in her talent, she says, but she also came to feel less confident in her appearance.
“I hate taking photos, and I hate seeing myself on video,” Tate explains. "I would spend all day getting glammed up and have 50 people staring at me on a set, and then you’re filmed, and then I would always think I looked horrible."
"People are always looking at women and trying to see what’s wrong, and never looking at just the performer in you," she adds. "Guys go onstage, and they have the best time ever. A girl does that and it’s like, ‘Her outfit sucks, her hair is bad.’ I had to really get over that barrier of being so self destructive.”
It looks like Tate succeeded: She slayed Saturday Night Live and she's got not one but two songs climbing the charts now, "greedy" and "exes." Think Later is out December 8.