In just the first few months of 2021, the “Dancing With The Devil” singer has released an up close and personal, groundbreaking documentary alongside preparing to debut her brand new album called Dancing With The Devil… The Art of Starting Over.
Demi Lovato is also gearing up to launch her own podcast with Audacy’s Cadence13, which will be available right here on the Audacy app. The podcast will be produced by OBB Sound, the audio division of Michael D. Ratner’s OBB Media, and Scooter Braun’s SB Projects.
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Checking in with Audacy’s Julia today, Demi says they’re still “fleshing everything out in production,” but she’s excited to get started. “I think I have a rough idea of what I want to do... it’ll be good.” With all of the anticipation building, Demi also admits that the process of telling her story of transformation since recovering from a life-threatening drug overdose in 2018 “has been a very cathartic, therapeutic journey. Being able to finally have everything out is kind of surreal,” she says with a smile.
The title of her new release, Dancing With The Devil… The Art of Starting Over, Demi says came from working on the album’s track listing, with the first three songs being about her story in 2018. “It was really important for me to, kind of get it all out there… and that’s been really helpful to me,” she says. “I think putting ‘Dancing with the Devil’ and ‘The Art of Starting Over’ in the title tied together what the subject matter of the album was going to be about, and then putting it with where I’m at today kind of just blended it together.”
Demi’s YouTube documentary series, and brand new 19-track album, gives viewers and listeners a look into Lovato’s transformation and a candid understanding of what was happening before and after she went quiet in 2018. She has said in the past that she knew she wanted to tell her story when woke up in hospital, but admits she hadn’t thought about how exactly she wanted to do so. “I had done some interviews,” she says, “but I realized I didn’t want to give my story away to a magazine. I wanted it to have its own space to live.”
The lyrics for Demi’s “Dancing With The Devil,” came to her initially while in treatment in the form of poetry she tells Julia, and then finalized it with her good friend and co-writer Blush.
For the track’s video, which re-creates her 2018 story of sexual abuse and subsequent overdose, she tells us that she wanted to share what happened that night as she did in the documentary, “but with more of an artistic approach,” rather than it being “all factual driven” as it is in the feature.
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Just prior to the downtime we all faced due to the pandemic, Demi had teed up her comeback with GRAMMYs and National Anthem performances and a new single. Then, lockdown. She says the downtime gave her plenty of chances to take the album she was working on back to the drawing board. “I thought that I was finished with it, but then something happens in my life where I feel either reinspired or I want to take a different approach.”
“I went through a lot last year, to say the least,” she says. “It’s been a wild ride and I had a lot to write about… Once I figured out exactly what I wanted to say, and how to say it, then I figured out the rest of the album.”
Boasting a feature from Ariana Grande, “Met Him Last Night,” and carrying the weight of heavy track titles like “What Other People Say” and “California Sober,” Dancing With The Devil… The Art of Starting Over is Lovato’s most anticipated album yet.
Demi says she knew she wanted to collaborate with Ariana ever since hearing her early single “The Way.” “I was like, ‘who is this girl, she can sing!’ Finally, it fell into place. She actually wrote the song with me in mind.”
Other tracks, like “Carefully,” show a more vulnerable side of the singer, which in the end have given her and her storytelling a strength and confidence that is evident in the documentary. “I think I would’ve felt a sense of regret that I didn’t share as much as I wanted to,” Demi says about her choice to hold nothing back on her new releases. “Fortunately, I said everything that I felt was important to share.”
One of the “most difficult” tracks to write and record for the new album, Demi says, was “ICU (Madison's Lullabye),” a beautiful song which revolves around her sister and Demi’s temporary blindness that followed her overdose. On the flip side, tracks like “My Girlfriends are My Boyfriends” were “so catchy and so fun” that she knew they had to be included. “I have gone through a couple breakups now since recording that song,” Demi says, “and it got me through both of them. It was cool. I remember wanting to release that song quite some time ago, but I’m glad that I held onto it for the album. Hopefully it’ll be like a summer single ladies anthem.”
’Happiness’ is now the word of the day for Demi, something that you can see and feel in her single "California Sober” – “It completely embodies where I’m at today,” says Demi. Where she’s at right now may surprise you, however. She’s befriended her backyard squirrels. “Everyone has squirrels in their backyard, right? I was like, ‘I wanna get close. I want to make friends with them during quarantine,’” she explained. “So, I started buying squirrel food and putting it in a spot in my yard and I sit by it and wait to get close to them. I haven’t gotten that close yet but we will. It’s fine. They’re just so cute… it brings me joy and it’s adorable!”
Watch the full interview with Demi and Julia above and stay tuned for more details on Demi’s upcoming podcast on Audacy’s Cadence13, which will be available right here on the Audacy app. Demi Lovato’s Dancing With The Devil… The Art of Starting Over is out now!
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