Towa Bird is used to being seen. The 27-year-old British Filipina rock star has a sophomore album out tomorrow, 665,000 Instagram followers, and the kind of wardrobe that launches a thousand style TikToks the way Helen of Troy’s face launched a thousand ships. Being looked at is part of the gig.
The other night, though, at a restaurant in NYC’s Meatpacking District, Towa felt her self-awareness tilt a little closer to self-consciousness. “I was walking into the women’s bathroom and I was like, Oh, god...should I be scared?” she tells me the next day, draped across her chair and talking with her hands. “Sometimes I forget, because you’re just existing in your own body and not in how you’re being perceived by the rest of the world.”
Towa kept it moving. “I want to walk through the world as an androgynous person and be fucking confident and cool about it. And not scared,” she says. This mindset applies to dinner but is also, in many ways, the album.
Gentleman, out May 15 on Interscope, snaps the word in two—“gentle” and “man”—and stitches it back together as something queer and tender. It’s an 11-track follow-up to Towa’s 2024 debut American Hero, produced by Patrick Wimberly (coproducer of Beyoncé by Beyoncé and A Seat at the Table by Solange) and featuring a guest verse from Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna. It also arrives after a jam-packed career tear for Towa, including a stint opening for Billie Eilish; tours with her girlfriend, Reneé Rapp; and 1.3 million TikTok followers who showed up for her killer guitar covers and stayed for everything else.
“I feel much, much less constrained on this album, by myself or by the pressures I thought other people had of me that I put on myself,” Towa tells me. “Now it feels really exciting, because the work I produce from this point on feels cohesive and has the identity I have been searching for.”
Towa has built the voice and the confidence over time, sometimes in rooms (or even bathrooms in the Meatpacking District) that made her flinch first. Gentleman is the sound of her forging ahead anyway, and it starts, as everything does, with the word itself.
What does being a “gentleman” mean to you?
A gentleman, to me, is more feminine. The word itself is “gentle” and “man.” And that’s what I’m trying to embody in this album: to really be expressive of my androgyny and to be expressive of the way that I style myself and the way that I walk through the world as an androgynous-looking individual. There’s a lot of vulnerability on the album. Even in the more up-tempo songs, they’re still about things that feel emotional to me.
What are your favorite subjects to write about?
I love writing about sex.
You’re talking to the right publication.
We are raised in such a sex-oppressed society, especially around queer sex. People are scared to talk about sex. But people are so interested in and excited about sex! People love sex, and people love love. Even though people see that topic and say, “Oh, that’s low-hanging fruit,” I’m like, “Not really! I don’t think so.” People are so prudish, and that’s okay, because innately we all have that feeling of discomfort, but we all want connection and we all want to hear about it.
I love doing that because it’s really fun to be part of this generation who are openly talking and writing about queer sex. It’s so cool.
It does feel important, especially when there are so many narratives about Gen Z being sex-negative.
People have to remember that talking about sex is an active act of liberation and resistance, especially for lesbians, because it’s fucking rare. I grew up in places where we still can’t get married, we still don’t exist to the government, or you can get seriously harmed just by existing and being in your own skin.
So remembering that there is rebellion and protest happening as these songs come out is important. But also, I love writing about my childhood. I love writing about who I am.
There’s power in having cultural touch points in music discussing these things, especially for people who might be the only androgynous person in their school or family or town.
Exactly. I had that through Prince and Jimi Hendrix, but they are cis men. I didn’t have a person who I was like, “Oh my god, they’re doing the thing I want to do.”
I was like, “Jagger, cool. He can be my idealization of what my gender expression will be.” But I didn’t have anything that was actually real. I was forcing people into what I wanted.
You didn’t have it, so you became it.
I think so...which sounds a little bit arrogant, but yeah. It is really nice to be reminded that there are so many fucking kids out there who are the only person in their family who wants to make music, the only person in their family who wants to cut their hair short, the only person in their family who wants to get tattoos or piercings or dress differently or whatever it is. Hopefully, they can see that in the culture and the way things are moving forward.
How autobiographical do you allow yourself to get in your lyrics?
It’s literally just straight facts. Maybe I should do an alter ego so I could better protect myself, but no, it’s straight from the heart. I think that’s the only way I know how to write. I’m sure it would be a fun exercise to invent a character and write about their experience, but I’ve never really done that successfully. I’ve tried a couple times and been like, “What am I supposed to talk about?” I’m good at talking about myself.
Is anything off-limits for you topically?
No, I’m kind of down to write about anything. I feel like that’s what songwriting should be, that pure distillation, that feeling of, Okay, what is the feeling, and how can I concentrate it down to words?
You’ve said before that the words are both the hardest and most rewarding part of writing music. Which lyrics are you proudest of?
It’s like choosing your favorite child, except you can’t remember what their names are! When I think about songs, it’s hard for me to think about just the words on a piece of paper. I almost have to hear the melody in order to recall it.
I feel very proud of the lyrics I’ve written on this album. There’s a song, the last song on the album, called “Victoria,” and it’s about my childhood and growing up and who I could have become and who I became instead and not really feeling like I deserve to be here. There are some really fucking heartbreaking lyrics in that song, which I’m super proud of because I’m like, “You bitches better cry. I want to see some emotion from you.” It took the longest to write out of all the songs, which wasn’t actually that long, but it was long for me.
How long did it take?
I’m a pretty quick songwriter. I like to write quickly and then edit and refine, but this one took maybe four full days over the span of a couple months.
Do you write differently when you’re in love?
Yes. Hard yes. Even if I don’t necessarily notice it, I’m pretty good at recalling emotions. If I recall a memory, I can really sit in it. Not many people think I’m very sensitive, but I’m very sensitive, so I’m good at recalling emotions I’ve once felt and feeling them again. When you’re actively in the moment and you’re in love, it’s so easy. It’s kind of coming out of your fucking pores. It’s very expressive, and it’s quite natural.
How do you and Reneé stay connected when you’re both artists with fandoms and so much busyness around your careers?
FaceTime. I love FaceTime. But I think it’s also just seeing each other as people. I know that sounds crazy, but I don’t see her as her job or her work, and I don’t think she feels that way about me. I really love her for who she is—she could be doing anything and it wouldn’t matter. It’s remembering that she’s the person in front of me, not the person who exists online.
How do you protect that softness and privacy?
Honestly, it’s not hard. I think that’s also why we’re good together. It’s never really been a conversation we’ve had to have where she’s like, “Hey, can you please stop seeing me as a pop star when we’re trying to brush our teeth?” We both do little gear switches and put on different hats for different situations, and when we’re at home together, we’re just at home together.
What have you learned from watching Reneé perform?
She’s taught me so much about performance. I love watching her sing. Her vocal choices are my favorite thing to watch her do because I can see her actively making choices.
If she’s on the same tour, I’ll watch night one and night two, and I can see her changing what she’s doing. I like knowing her set well enough to watch her change stuff. She’s so good at her instrument that she’s able to manipulate her style and her mood.
It’s really inspiring for me because for [performing] live, I’ve always felt like, “Oh, I want to sound like the record. I want to sound perfect.” For her, it’s much more like, “No, I’m feeling pissed off tonight or I’m feeling great tonight or I’m feeling like I’m going to cry tonight,” and then channeling that emotion into her vocal style. She’s so good at what she does.
Which song on the new album are you most excited to finally perform live?
Oh my gosh, another favorite child moment. There are two songs that I love. Actually, can I say three songs? Okay, I’m gonna say “Dog.” I’m gonna say “69 BPM.” To me, they are sisters. And then there’s a song called “Daisy,” which I’m excited about. And, of course, I’m excited to perform “Gentleman.”
That was four songs!
I’m excited!
We’ve touched on lyrics, but what can people expect sonically from these songs and Gentleman as a whole?
A lot of guitar. This album is more alternative. There are a lot of constraints I used to put myself in, like a song needs to have a verse and a chorus. This album, I was like, “Fuck that. That doesn’t need to happen.” Sometimes it happens, for sure, but sometimes it doesn’t!
My personal favorite song on the album today is “Dog”—it goes verse one, verse two, verse three, guitar solo, bridge, so there’s never a chorus.
There’s no classic song structure, because I didn’t feel like it needed it. Maybe two years ago, I would have been like, “Oh no, we need a chorus, because every song has a good chorus,” and I would have tried to fit myself in this box and done a disservice to myself. So maybe another adjective to describe the album is “freedom” or “boundarylessness.” I do feel like I’m stepping out a little bit further and not adhering to the rules as much.
What finally gave you the permission to do that?
I think it was a lot of growth. Experience. Touring. Also growing up as a person and growing up as a woman and growing up as a queer woman of color, you’re constantly told that you have to fit in and be passive and be a wallflower and do what other people say you should do.
Now, finally, I have the confidence and self-assurance to be like, “No, I know that you’re saying that, but I don’t agree.” I feel like this album is when I’ve had people push back and I’ve been steadfast in my decision anyway, and that’s really scary. It’s so scary for so many people to disagree with you and for you to be like, “No, I don’t think you’re right. I think I’m right.”
How would you describe Gentleman, compared to your previous work?
My first album [American Hero] feels important, and it feels like a growing point for me, but now I feel like I’m at the destination of what I want my sound to feel like. I’ve landed in my sonic lane. I think it’s just going to get better from here on out.
