Audrey Hobert brings ‘Who’s the Clown?’ to the El Rey Theatre

Audrey Hobert isn’t clowning herself anymore. She was meant to be a pop star.

“I had been sitting on all of this music long enough that there was like a tiny man in my soul beating down the door of my soul,” Hobert, 26, said on a recent rainy morning at Swingers Diner in Hollywood.

This week, the L.A. native sets out on her Staircase to Stardom tour across North America, Europe and Australia. Intimate venues will see her perform from her debut album, “Who’s the Clown?,” released via RCA Records in August. She stops at the El Rey Theatre in the heart of Miracle Mile on Thursday, before performing the next day at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome for Jingle Ball.

Though the “Bowling alley” singer has “so immensely” enjoyed her whirlwind year, music wasn’t always in the cards. After graduating from New York University with a BFA in screenwriting in 2021, she fell into place behind the scenes, working in a Nickelodeon writers’ room for the since-canceled “The Really Loud House.”

Everything changed when she started penning tracks with childhood friend Gracie Abrams for the 2024 album “The Secret of Us.” Hobert signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Group soon after and participated in songwriter sessions for a few months before setting her sights on something more personal. Initially writing for herself, it became clear her confessional lyrics couldn’t be confined to her bedroom walls.

She teamed up with producer Ricky Gourmet to pin down the perfect level of bubblegum pop and determine when a song was in need of a good saxophone solo. Despite never being cast in a lead role during her “theater kid” tenure, Hobert’s music exudes main character energy. The first single she put out, “Sue me,” a high-voltage pop anthem about hooking up with an ex if only to feel wanted for a glimmer in time, reached No. 26 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay Chart. The music video accompanying the release — directed by Hobert, as all her videos are — introduced listeners to an artist not afraid to dance like nobody’s watching.

Even though she’s performed only a handful of shows, she already has a dedicated fan base at the ready to belt her most self-aware lyrics at her high-profile live shows — whether that be an expletive-laced chorus in “Sue me” or a line about a forgotten pizza pocket in “Sex and the city.”

Over French toast and black coffee, Hobert mused about the career she never saw coming.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Audrey Hobert fell for songwriting when she collaborated with Gracie Abrams on the latter’s “The Secret of Us.”

(Annie Noelker / For The Times)

As someone who likes to be at home in her creams and nightgown, how have you adapted to the life of an up-and-coming pop star?
I just still feel like a girl who likes to be in her creams and nightgown, and I also, in addition to that, really enjoy the feeling of working and sort of running on fumes. I think if you like that feeling too much, it dips into dangerous territory a little bit, but it doesn’t … feel much like partying. For instance, I’ve been shooting a music video for the past four days, and last night I was up until 3 in the morning with what we were referring to as the skeleton crew. It feels like I’m not even almost entirely there yet, and I will innately know, “Oh my God, I’ve arrived.” But you can sort of protect yourself from it if that’s what you want.

How are you feeling about performing in L.A.?
I think I’m gonna be incredibly nervous because it’s gonna be the majority of my friends and family there, and I’ve made the decision to keep all details of what the tour is gonna be a secret from all of my friends and family, just so that they can see it. I just feel like I’m going to get the best feedback from them if I’m not tipping them or giving them a hint as to what it’s going to be and if they’re just witnessing it for the first time. And that’s kind of what I’m interested [in] with this first tour, because it’s so short and it’s almost an underplay, and I just am wanting constructive criticism and what worked, what didn’t.

Do you get more nervous performing in front of friends and family?
Nervousness and excitement are the same. It’s a very similar feeling. I think it’s more excitement than nervousness. In my experience over the summer, going to places around the world and performing, I always was more excited for the shows that I knew I had people that I personally knew at. Performing in Australia and Amsterdam and Berlin, it was sort of a pressure’s off feeling.

How were the other shows?
It was such a great first crack at singing my songs to a crowd of people. I never really pictured myself as “girl with guitar on stage alone,” but it is how I wrote a lot of the songs. So it didn’t feel like I was cosplaying, necessarily, but I am also a theater kid, and my deep instinct is to be on my feet sans instruments for certain songs, and so I have no idea how it’s gonna feel. I did “Jimmy Fallon,” and that was sort of a taste, but it’s not what performing to a crowd full of people who like my music is gonna feel like. But it was really, really fun, and it did get me excited.

How does it feel to hear people singing your lyrics back already?
Pretty wild. I can think back to the writing of these songs, and remember so well how hard I worked on every single line, because I cared and because I knew that there was a best version of every line of every song. It was yesterday, someone asked me if I were nervous to perform my original writing, and I have been eager since the moment I wrote it, because I just worked hard. So when people sing my lyrics back to me, I’m like, “Damn right, yeah. Took me a while to figure out how to say that thing, and it was all in the hope that you’d be either alone gobsmacked or in this room with me wanting to scream it back at me.”

Audrey Hobert compares songwriting to entering “a third dimension.”

(Annie Noelker / For The Times)

In your song “Phoebe,” you open with, “I went to New York / ’Cause a man in a suit told me / You’re gonna be a star.” From a listener standpoint, it felt like “Sue me” dropped and everything took off. Can you tell me more about the process of writing and pitching?
I had just discovered that I like to write songs. It was simply that, and it was like a pastime. I had written all these songs with Gracie and signed a publishing deal as a result, and was sort of in this limbo of … I was a child who knew exactly what she wanted to do, and now I’m an adult and am technically a signed songwriter, but I have not spent any of my life wanting to be a songwriter, so I can’t imagine that this is the way my life is going to suddenly go, that I’m going to launch myself into a career that I haven’t wanted my whole life in the same way I wanted to be a television writer.

But at the same time, the way that it all unfolded felt so cosmic and I knew that songwriting felt very interesting. So as it all unfolded, I just never, for a second, questioned it or let myself feel even a stitch of imposter syndrome because I knew better. I knew that to hold myself back from whatever this journey was going to be would be me doing myself a huge disservice.

Gracie and I were living together at the time, and that was kind of in the thick of her intense touring. So she was gone. I was living on the Westside of L.A., which is not a very young area, and found myself sort of feeling like I was this Rapunzel type, living in this cement townhouse and very isolated. And I just started writing songs, and I found that it was like a third dimension, sort of “Twilight Zone”-style, that I could go to and exit my body entirely. Forget that I was maybe feeling a little bit lonely, forget that I missed my best friend, forget that I wanted a boyfriend and didn’t have one, and just write.

There’s nothing as mystical as songwriting to me, because it’s two kinds of writing — melodic writing that is completely unexplainable, and then lyrics, that is sort of the best puzzle. It’s like math, which I’m actually very bad at, but I can see a sentiment come together in my head before it actually does. It was just eight months basically of manic writing. And during that time is when I … told Universal Music Publishing, “I think I want to try an artist project.” It was sort of a way to get out of doing songwriting sessions, and then [I] met Ricky and knew that I didn’t want to spend all day, every day, making something with anybody else. It was just the purest, most greatest fun of my young life.

You said you woke up one day with the title of the album and the cover art, and you thought it was strange at first. Have you gained any more clarity on what that means?
I know that the cover specifically was born out of me sort of assuming that I would put this project together by myself. I just never considered that a label might get involved. And I thought, as a new artist, I’m going to have to intrigue people with the cover of this project, whatever it is. And I just felt like a white girl making pop music hasn’t done horrifying imagery. I just [wanted] to scare someone and to make someone go, “What kind of music is this?” And then you find out it’s just pop. That was the intention.

Take me to the release of “Sue me.” What was that moment like?
The date of the release got pushed back a few times, and every time it got pushed back, my heart broke a little bit. I just couldn’t wait. I was more eager than I’d ever been to do anything … and the second I put one song out, I felt just way more free.

In terms of the response to it, you just never know. You could have a great song and do everything right, and it just doesn’t work. It’s not like “Sue me” is a “Million Dollar Baby,” Tommy Richman-style viral hit, but it did catch fire and that felt great. Also, I had probably, by the time that “Sue me” came out, listened to it upwards of 800 times. So I wasn’t like, “People like the song.” I was like, “I love this song.”

How was the transition to writing songs about your own life?
It just didn’t feel like it was an active switch. Writing with Gracie was the same kind of bliss as it feels to write by myself, but it’s sweeter in a different way. It feels good in a different way because it’s totally shared. And one of my greatest joys in life is sharing in something with her. It always has been since I’ve known her, since we were kids. We never planned or thought we would collaborate in a greater way, because it felt like hanging out was a creative collaboration; I can’t really describe it. When I started writing by myself, it’s a bit more grueling, but then it’s the same sort of drug-like rush that you get when you feel like you’ve written a good line.

Your sound feels very nostalgic to me, but then there are lyrics like those in “Thirst Trap” that could only be from this digital era. You’ve said you didn’t have any direct references for this project, but are there any artists who have influenced your approach to songwriting?
I think that could become true for my next album, but I felt like I didn’t know the rules of songwriting. I always would listen to pop music and … was always asking myself, “Why is this the best song ever? Oh, it’s because this, this, this.” But when I wrote these songs, I remember having the active thought early on of, “There are no rules.” I have far too much of a slant, and it was so fresh and new that I have artists who I look up to in terms of songwriting, but it came all just from deep within me. I remember truly having the thought of, “I don’t know if this is classic, typical structure, I just know that this is what is keeping me interested. So I’m gonna just go with it.”

Your music videos are amazing. Is there a dream director you’d like to work with or do you want to direct every Audrey Hobert music video?
If you had asked me when I was going out to labels and pitching myself as an artist, I would have said I’d never work with a director. But the more I do them, obviously, the more I love to direct, but also the more that I would feel interested in being directed. I really, really like this guy Dan Streit, and we actually are using his camera for the music video that we just finished shooting. I just think he’s super cool, and he’s the only guy that I’ve ever been like, “Huh, I wonder if he’d ever direct one of my videos.”

Your video for “Thirst Trap” was inspired by the Japanese horror film “House.” You also reference “High School Musical 2.” What’s your taste in movies like? Do you have any comfort watches?
I’m just really into seeing movies all the time. I’ve been practicing keeping the social media apps off my phone and just tuning in to something. I had never seen a Robert Altman movie, and I just watched “The Player,” and I really enjoyed that. And comfort watches … “Frances Ha,” “Mistress America.” I just named two Greta Gerwigs, but I just love her as an actress. I mean, I love her as a director, but I really love her as an actress. And “House” was something that I just stumbled upon and then watched twice in a row. I love it. I feel like my taste is pretty eclectic.

Is fashion an important part of your artistic vision?
If you had asked me in fourth grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would probably say “fashion designer.” I always felt inspired by the clothes on the Disney Channel. I am interested, I do like it, but in order for me to feel comfortable going about the beginnings of this pop-star life, I need to be dressed in my own clothes or else I freak out. I just did a shoot for Vevo and I wore my own clothes, didn’t really spend much time on my appearance. I remember seeing the photos and being like, “Sometimes it’s worth it to just put in a little bit more of an effort, girl.” But that being said, I need to feel like myself.

Who was your Disney Channel fashion inspiration?
Selena Gomez. All the way.

Have you been writing more or are you taking a breather now that the album is out?
I’ve been thinking a lot about writer’s block and the concept of it, and I don’t know if it’s real, but the conclusion I’ve come to is I don’t have to worry about if I’m a writer or not, because I’ve felt like a writer my entire life. Some people swear by writing a song every day and finishing it, even if it’s bad. Some people take four years off from writing at all. How I feel this morning is when I have a song to write, I know I’m gonna write it. I try not to waste my time worrying about why I’m not writing all the time in the way I was when I wrote the album. And so I guess to answer the question, not really.

What’s been the most rewarding part of this experience? Does it all go back to [opening track] “I like to touch people”?
That’s very astute. Yeah, it’s the most exciting part of all of this. It is more exciting than the flashing lights of the L.A. Times photographer at Swingers Diner and it’s more exciting than someone who I respect following me on Instagram, and it reminds me why I’m doing it all. It’s the coolest thing of all time.