A new Lorde album is nearly upon us, which means the Grammy winner is officially outside and speaking about her latest body of work. It’s been nearly 4 years since she dropped her last record, Solar Power, and now that Virgin is on the way, Lorde has opened up about her creative process surrounding the new project. And, yes, that includes her ongoing friendship with pop’s favorite party girl, Charli XCX.

During an interview with BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, Lorde gave her “girl, so confusing” collaborator flowers and admitted that working it out on the remix inspired her approach to creating Virgin.

“I’d been kind of cooking this album up, we were like quite a way into it, but Brat coming out really gave me a kick in a lot of ways,” she explained. “It forced me to further define what I was doing because Charli had so masterfully defined everything about Brat.”

She added that Charli’s album—and the cultural movement that eventually became brat summer—particularly made a mark on her and other artists in the industry. “It’s just this amazing thing when a peer throws the gauntlet down like that,” the “What Was That” hitmaker mused, sharing how it impacted her creative process.

“I had been trying to express in this very naked way, and then Brat came out and she was kind of doing that from the other side of the coin,” Lorde said. “And doing the remix together and meeting her in that place of rugged vulnerability and kind of cracking open the thing, people responded really well to that.”

She continued, “I’ve spoken to a lot of peers who all had the same feelings. It’s very sick and I’m so grateful to her.”

The rare interview comes after Lorde made a surprise appearance during “homie” Charli’s Coachella set on April 12, which she called a “dream.”

“Charli was playing, and I just walked out into the grass, and was like, this is it. This is everything you could dream that your work would feel like,” she said, gushing that the “whole group is so cool,” in reference to Charli’s other collaborators, Billie Eilish and Troye Sivan.

“Through watching Charli and hanging out with her, I saw how, yes, we’ve got a job to do, but it also has to be fun, and we have to all be connected and having these special moments that no one can see,” Lorde added. “It was cool to hang with them and just all be sitting in the grass afterward and eating bad pizza.”

Cool-cool-cool, good to know me and Lorde ate the same $10 slice through Coachella’s Indio haze.