Empress Of Comes Home

On January 7th 2025, wildfires engulfed Los Angeles. By the end of the month, over 10,000 structures across 60,000 acres had been destroyed. Most of them were homes. Lorely Rodriguez’s childhood home in Altadena was one of them. Rodriguez is a lot of things. A lifelong Los Angeleno. A tarot reader. A daughter of Honduran immigrants. Most notably, she’s Empress Of—the ethereal, genre-defying musical project she’s been releasing music under for over a decade. As the fires burned nearly every home on the street she grew up on, her mother, Reyna, walked up and down, shouting to her neighbors amid the blaze. They could and would rebuild, she said. Alongside her daughter, she did. Today, beside a sea of empty plots, the new family home is nearly done. Empress Of began building something else, too. Her upcoming album, Dream House, set to be released later this summer by Giant Music, is coming together in harmony with her mother’s Altadena dream house.

Lina Abascal: Tell me the story behind your forthcoming album, Dream House.

Lorely Rodriguez: It's been so crazy to build a house and make an album at the same time. I think that's been the most surreal element of this whole process. I’ll be standing beside my mom as we're literally putting the foundation in and then I'm going to the studio and working on a song and then going back to my house. I'm seeing two things grow in tandem and it's very much in motion and that's been the beautiful thing about this whole experience.

The whole theme of this record has been rebuilding and thinking about what home signifies. Everything's kind of been in motion for the past year. It's very much reflective of my life in a way that's more apparent in the music than ever. I've never had an artistic experience that reflects life so much, so everything's just been kind of hand in hand, life and art, for the last year.

The constant motivation throughout my artistic project has been my mom. I've put her on another record, I've talked about her in interviews, but this has been amazing to see her perseverance and growth. My mom has a real presence in life that gives her a lack of fear. It’s an amazing thing to witness as an artist. I've tried to mirror that in my music and just be like, “Okay, I'm present in this process.”

She’s on the album speaking in two interludes. In the one in Spanish, she talks about how she might not have the experience to do this, but she doesn’t have the fear to do it either.

What was it like involving her? Were these just like natural moments you were recording?

There’s a mix. Some of the audio is literally building the house–you can hear like generators in the background, nail guns, and you can hear the environment of us rebuilding our house. I also invited her over and recorded her for like an hour and just asked her questions. I took snippets I felt I could weave between these songs because it's not her story but my story, which makes it kind of a generational story, in a way. As women, we've shared a lot of experiences, so I feel like I'm telling her story, my story, maybe my grandma's story that I've never met. It just feels very intergenerational in a way.

The rebuilding of your family home and the loss and devastation from the fire are such sensitive subjects. How did you decide who to involve in this project?

The beginning of writing this record was so intimate. I didn't really know what I was doing yet, and I just needed space to be vulnerable and ask myself questions. My closest collaborator on this album is Cecile Believe. She’s such a gift to the music community. She gives so much. She's an incredible writer and producer, and she has an incredible artist project. She's written like seven of the songs on this record. If you look up her credits, you're just gonna be like, “Oh yeah, she's impacted the sound of music for however many years.”

Amazing.

We started with the song Dream House. We wrote it together, and she produced it, and there was just so much freedom in the room.

I just wanted to work with people where everything felt like home. People like Romil from Brockhampton, Nick Leon, or Jessy Lanza. I went over to Jessy's house, and we made a song called “I Pray for You.” It's a dance song, but it's just so intimate. I couldn't have made that song with anyone else.

Everyone I've worked with is just like it, just feels close to home. I think that's the overall theme of this project: carrying home with me, because I have been in motion throughout this whole year.

Absolutely. I know that you were on tour opening for Lorde. How was that? What was that experience like?

It was an amazing experience. I learned a lot watching her perform every night, and all the other artists were incredible. Japanese House and Blood Orange opened the Forum show. It's just amazing to see an artist like Lorde keep transforming after so many years.

It was such a learning experience as well, like playing arenas. It was my first time playing arenas. I played with a band, which is really fun. But sometimes, when you play arenas, the fans are so far away. [Laughs] I mean, I say, “Sometimes when you play arenas,” like I've played them like a bunch now, but it's just like the crowd feels far.

I know you recently canceled some tour dates in Europe—including an opening slot for Addison Rae—to focus on the album. I can imagine that was hard. What was that decision-making process like?

I've been trying to trust my intuition more. I was really sad to disappoint people who wanted to see me, but I know that they would want to see a show with new music, and I wanted to give them a show that I could prepare with my whole heart. I just found it really hard to do while I was in the middle of mixing my album.

I hate hate hate canceling shows. But I knew that in my gut and my intuition that this album is gonna blossom, so I was like, let me just focus on this and like come back with this album, with new music, with a show that I put all of my attention and creativity into.

I know you are kind of, I don't know if spiritual is the right word, but you use tarot and different practices to maybe get inspiration or like find answers in your life and art making. Was there anything that you did in that realm as you were making this album?

I mean, I definitely had a connection to my intuition and myself on this record that is deeper than the others. When you have crazy life-changing things happen to you, you learn a lot from them, and I think that was sort of a spiritual experience. I also love tarot, and Empress Of is named after the Empress card.

I lean into the cards as much as I can. I do readings every day. It's very much like a part of my process. It's a way for me to speak to myself, you know?

Oooo, I like that.

Yeah, it's like I feel like I don't know, I'm having, I'm in conversation with like my subconscious when I'm pulling cards, so I really, I do, yeah, I love tarot, and I love being like Empress Of and I love that the Empress card is connected to my project.

If you could assign a tarot card to this album, which one would you pick?

That is such a hard question, but I will say I have been getting the Hermit card a lot throughout this record. The Hermit is introspective. He’s holding a lamp and kind of looking inward. I feel like this record has been like me looking in to rebuild myself and my house and just get my strength back so that I can shine outward.