Just before Alessi Rose graced the cover of Dork’s Hype List issue at the end of last year, her headline tour sold out in 10 minutes. Since then, well, everything’s gone a bit mad. “Mental, basically,” Alessi laughs.
Currently chatting from a hotel room in Europe, she’s untangling the immense journey she’s been on since we last caught up. For starters, she’s paused uni to go headfirst into embracing the life of Alessi Rose. “Literature’s gonna have to wait for a sec,” she explains. “So I parked that. I haven’t dropped out; she’s there waiting for me if I wish to return.”
Academia aside, for the artist known as Alessi Rose, 2025 has so far been a long line of bucket list boxes being checked, starting with writing in LA at the start of the year. “That was my first extended trip there, and as someone who has romanticised LA for their whole life, being from Derby – which is very un-LA – I found that so inspiring because it was a place where you could romanticise everything.”
On top of that, she had those aforementioned sold-out shows, technically the second headline tour she’d ever done. To Alessi, it felt like the first time she could indulge in everything from her expanding fanbase and her signature ‘hangouts’ (including a couple in the US) to stage design and being with a full band.
“When you’re going out into a room full of 1500 young people screaming the words, and they’re like, really screaming the words,” she marvels. “It’s like screaming the ad-libs and the bits that you don’t even sing in the song – and they’re making up their own chants. I felt really emotional on that tour because it felt like I was confronting something that had been, in a good way, bubbling under the surface.”
Her second EP, ‘For Your Validation’, was also released at the top of the year, and while its titular intention was said with a wink, it would seem that she’s taken it to heart and has found the validation that she initially struggled to comprehend. “When I first started, I definitely had imposter syndrome because of how I had got into it; I felt like I was fighting so hard…” she pauses. “I wanted it so badly, and it had been a thing that had happened purposefully, but also by chance, because obviously I was purposely putting myself out there and making music and producing and asking people to listen to me, but I’ve always felt constantly having to do things.
“Having it in front of you, I feel like it’s such an aspirational career where you’re constantly looking like, I want to be doing this in two years, wouldn’t that be great?” She asks herself. “When you’re like, no, actually, the thing that you’re striving for is happening right now.”
“Dua’s fans were so lovely and in tune with what I was saying”
A sentiment that very much rings true for her in 2025. Every tour or show so far she’s announced has required some form of upgrade. But the biggest surprise was being invited to support none other than Dua Lipa on her European tour, including two nights at Wembley Stadium. “I flew the day after my headline show in LA to Madrid to start with Dua, and I’d mentally prepared myself for the notion of a support tour where most people in the audience won’t know who you are,” she explains. “They might not care to know who you are. Your whole purpose is essentially to convince, isn’t it? But immediately, her fans were so lovely and engaged and in tune with what I was saying.”
Of course, given the ambitious nature of Alessi, this played right into her hands. “Literally, me and my team joke now, because it’s like, Oh, she only wants stadiums now,” she laughs, with an air of determination. “It’s like you get the bug – oh my God, this feels sick going out every night, and it’s this huge stadium with all these people everywhere. It’s incomparable.” Alessi continues, “The minute I have an arena crowd or a stadium crowd, I’m like, oh, game on, this is sick. We can do this. I didn’t get nervous. So it felt like I was lucky to experience it this early on and to have something to strive for.”
She’s also set to support Tate McRae in the US, and that’s all while building a fervent fanbase that has surged like temperatures in a heatwave with no end in sight. This is the year Alessi Rose properly establishes herself as a pop star of the future.
“It was the first time I’d ever had to encounter like, opinions about myself”
On the back of all of that, after signing with Capitol Records, it was time to bank another EP. ‘Voyeur’ was written, as always with Alessi Rose, with no stone left unturned in her life. It’s jam-packed with that cheeky, warts-and-all wit and emotional vulnerability in equal measure. All of this is soundtracked by sonics she classifies as “so quintessentially myself” – from the pop bangers (‘Same Mouth’, ‘Take It Or Leave It’, ‘That Could Be Me’) to softer ballads (‘Stella’) – inspired by a binge of Mazzy Star and Goo Goo Dolls. “It just feels like the perfect mix of me, and it’s more confident. It comes from a place of knowing I want more, which is nice. I can see the development there from me,” she says.
Explaining the EP now, she says it was the first time she felt fully comfortable embracing being an artist – now it’s full-time and full-on. “I’d spent 19 years of my life in my room, not working with anyone else, not knowing how a studio worked, essentially on my own, figuring it out. ‘Voyeur’, being the third one, I felt like I could go into the studio and be like, ‘I know what I like’,” she explains.
Calling it ‘Voyeur’ was a choice that also encapsulates the experience of being a burgeoning star. “It was my first exposure to people liking me and giving so much energy to me at the shows and so much passion behind the music, but also people who were like, ‘Who the fuck is Alessi Rose?’ It was the first time I’d ever had to encounter like, opinions about myself.”
It meant she’d second-guess things, which was a tough pill to swallow. “I’ve always grown up, personality-wise, as being someone who regarded themselves as not caring what people have to say and being very self-confident and self-assured. In truth, that’s quite hard to constantly be like that,” she confesses. “And then also being so open about the meaning of my lyrics, as I always have been. I guess I am experiencing some sense of voyeurism to myself because I’m reliving these situations that I’ve written so frankly about, and doing interviews and talking about them, and talking about it on stage in between songs.”
No matter how quickly her journey is taking off, Alessi Rose is clear on her artistry. The vision is all hers from the top down, no matter how big or small the stage. This is all to say that 2025, while only 6 months through at the time of Dork’s chat with Alessi, already feels firmly in her grasp, and the future should certainly watch out because she has no intention of letting it get away. “So long as the things I’m doing that are pissing people off, and they’re unapologetically me, and I have my reasons behind it, then that’s me staying true to the art and the vision I’ve always wanted,” she grins. ■
Taken from the August 2025 issue of Dork. Alessi Rose’s EP ‘Voyeur’ is out 25th July.
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