5 years after the sudden lack of her sister, musician Gigi Perez continues to be studying to navigate her grief.
“It's taken me years,” Perez, 25, informed Us Weekly in an unique interview earlier than her Weekend 1 efficiency on the 2025 Austin Metropolis Limits music pageant. “And I all the time will likely be processing it, and grief exhibits up in several methods as I proceed all through life. However I feel it took a very long time to actually … perceive what I used to be feeling, as a result of it was simply such an overload of trauma.”
Following Celene's sudden loss of life in 2020, Perez channeled her feelings into her music, writing a track named in her sister's honor which quickly went viral. “I feel phrases are one aspect of it,” she informed Us, “however then it's additionally, like, the way in which I hear music and my musical style and palette has modified inside 5 years from once I misplaced my sister to at this time. And so the method [of healing] feels painfully gradual.”
Perez's success on social media led to her signing her first recording contract. Her debut EP, The way to Catch a Falling Knife, was launched in 2023. Earlier this 12 months, she dropped the gripping album On the Seaside, in Each Life, which options fan-favorite hits like “Sailor Tune” and “Sugar Water.”
Engaged on the file was “tremendous cathartic,” Perez informed Us. “I take into consideration the album and take into consideration how a lot I wanted to marinate. Once I wrote these songs — once I wrote ‘Sugar Water,' once I wrote ‘On the Seaside, in Each Life,' once I wrote ‘Crown' — [I think about] how a lot it meant to me to have the ability to get it out.”
Together with the lack of her sister, Perez has grappled with the lack of her connection to her religion. Raised in a religious Christian household, Perez's perspective on faith has since shifted, a journey explored on the “complicated” track “Fable.”
Gigi Perez at Austin Metropolis Limits 2025 Picture by Jim Bennett/WireImage
“That one, I struggled with it for therefore lengthy and I by no means might discover the phrases for it in a means that was satisfying to me. And writing ‘Fable' simply fully hit it on the top,” she stated.
Perez dug deeper into her emotions about her religion on “Fable” after a lyric from “Sailor Tune” — “I don't consider in God, however I consider that you just're my savior” — drew criticism from a extra conservative group of listeners. Perez informed Us she was battling related “vital voices” in her personal head earlier than the discourse started.
“Everybody was like, ‘What the hell?'” she recalled. “And I stated [that line] with a way of regret, with disgrace, with anger. There was no sense of proudness of claiming I don't consider in God. [That idea] is completely devastating. I need to consider in God. … And I feel that it highlighted a whole lot of my very own wounds and my very own judgments of myself, the sense of committing blasphemy.”
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Regardless of dealing with backlash, Perez is glad a dialog was began. “Now I have a look at it and I'm simply so grateful for that have, and to be [having] this expertise, as a result of I do know that lots of people's relationships with God are way more difficult,” she defined. “And I feel to have an trustworthy relationship with God or the idea of it, you have got to have the ability to specific all sides of it. Folks that reside in an ideal world the place they simply by no means thought twice about it, that's nice for you. However there's so many individuals on the market which have very difficult relationships with God.”
Perez's personal relationship was made extra difficult as she explored her id as a lesbian. After popping out to her sister as an adolescent, Perez is “grateful” she's discovered consolation within the broader LGBTQ+ group, particularly as an artist.
“It's so vital to me. … And I feel greater than ever proper now, we'd like one another,” she informed Us of constructing house for queer musicians within the business. “We have to encourage one another and carry one another up. And so, though I'm one small a part of the rainbow with my very own particular set of experiences, I positively look to others to be taught from and to be in group with.”
Perez added, “The extra illustration, the higher. I feel that we nonetheless have a whole lot of work to do when it comes to bringing visibility to others.”
