That version of me was in her childhood bedroom, Zoom meeting with the VP of A&R at a major record label.
Generation W spoke to LA-based Sarah Defne Gray ahead of her performance at Generation W: Los Angeles – The Hotel Cafe from 7PM Friday 1st May 2026 – Get Your Tickets Here
Sarah Defne Gray: I was in my state school for pre-med, I was studying biology. My mom is from Turkey. And I feel like the desire for your child is to be safe and have financial stability. I took out loans to go to school.
Also, obviously, being a woman in STEM was something that I was proud of. I was in this pre-med organization where 99% of the people get into the top medical schools.
GW: Did your family know that you could sing when you were growing up?
Sarah Defne Gray: My family jokes that there’s this one song from a commercial I would not stop singing. I don’t know how old I was, but I was definitely young enough that I don’t remember this.
GW: Had your music career started to show promise before you graduated?
Sarah Defne Gray: Yes. I was scared to tell my family and to admit to myself that I wasn’t going to be a doctor. But I had this feeling inside of me that it was the right thing.
While I was in school, it was during the pandemic. I ended up filling up a lot of my time with writing.
I was living at home with my family and there was an electric keyboard that I would find myself drawn to every day.
I didn’t get piano lessons or anything. It was an outlet for me to explore my feelings.
I started posting casual things online just for fun, like cover videos, freestyles. When I was posting, things were getting attention that I wasn’t really expecting. That encouraged me to keep writing.
Eventually when I did start posting original music, one of those videos blew up. It ended up being my first single called ‘The Same Bitch’.
Having something that you wrote, completely from your brain, when people engage with that, it does give you a sense of confidence. I don’t want to say I live for other people’s validation, but it does make you see the value of what you did.
There are other people who resonate with it so much that it could be spread across the internet.
And people will be like, we want this song. I just wanted to post the song. I didn’t expect it to go viral. I feel like you never do. Whenever you post something randomly and you’re like, whatever. That ends up being the one that goes viral. Then the one that you have a lot of personal stake in where you’re like ‘I worked so hard on this’. Two people will see it. That’s something that I learned about the internet very quickly.
GW: What mindset were you in when you wrote that record?
Sarah Defne Gray: I was spiteful. I really needed this because I’m not a spiteful person. I went through a bad friendship-breakup basically. My friendships are very near and dear to me.
Going through a friendship breakup sometimes can hurt deeper than a romantic one, at least for me.
I was ruminating on this for a lot of months. Bouncing back and forth in my head. I made mistakes, but she made mistakes.
We don’t talk to each other anymore. Randomly on like a Tuesday night, I just appeared at the piano and started writing.
I didn’t really have the intention of writing about it, but I think especially for emotionally driven records, it marinates in my brain until it just physically manifests. It’s like melody and lyrics. I didn’t even know I was going to write about her until I started to, and then I was like, ‘oh, I know what this is about’. And then it just spilled out of me.
GW: Did you feel closure?
Sarah Defne Gray: I think in a sense I did. With songwriting, I’m learning that you need to condense things. Obviously emotions are more complex than that. It’s hard to capture every emotion that you could feel about someone.
That’s not the entirety of how I felt about the situation. But I do think when you’re writing a good song, a lot of them really focus on one aspect of a situation. That’s what makes it relatable.
If you listen to that song, you would think, ‘oh yeah she doesn’t care about her’.
You can also miss someone who was bad for you.
Music really started as a way for me to cope with my life and begin the process of moving on from things. My other record, ‘Autumn is a Killer’, which came out more recently, I wrote that about a heartbreak that was six years old. Sometimes things take time for me to process. I probably write many songs about each situation, but a lot of them won’t see the light of day.
GW: How did life change for you when your record went viral?
Sarah Defne Gray: I was living at home. I didn’t know anyone in the business. I started getting emails from every A&R under the sun. It’s crazy now talking about it because I actually do know people now. I’m not totally isolated. I have a lawyer and I have people who are considered to be on my team as advisors. I have friends who are in the industry. I’m a lot more educated now.
That version of me was in her childhood bedroom, Zoom meeting with the VP of A&R at a major record label. I didn’t really have anyone to turn to to help me with that.
I would be honest, ‘I write songs and I’m from Baltimore, Maryland, and I’ve been singing all my life.’ I didn’t have a manager there to be like, ‘what are you guys going to do for Sarah? What are you guys thinking?’
I didn’t know how to put out a song. I didn’t know how to produce a song, finish a song.
I didn’t know what mixing and mastering was. I didn’t know what to do. I ended up sitting on the song for a little bit and just like continuing to write other stuff.
Months later is when I decided, ‘I’m going to start sending myself to L.A. because that’s where everyone is’ I was a barista. I wanted to do sessions with other people and not work alone as much.
In LA I met Brian Maroney, an A&R at Records Co. part of Sony. He heard my song, Autumn is a Killer. Their label wanted to help me get the Same Bitch out. I signed with them. And shortly after, I used some of that money to help me move to L.A.
GW: If you understood that you could get the attention of the industry from your bedroom in Maryland, why did you move to L.A.?
Sarah Defne Gray: That’s a really good question. There’s a difference between going viral and being surrounded by that energy in real life. Maybe it seemed like I was doing well but living at home and being super isolated was not good for my mental health.
Some people stay where they are, grow and blossom. I was one of the situations where the flower needed to be repotted in order to get bigger.
From the very first session I felt this deep understanding of purpose. This is what I’m good at.
I felt like I belonged. I had never felt that before in my life.
All throughout school I felt out of place. I just didn’t know where I really was supposed to be. If you belong in a room where you’re making music, L.A. is one of the best places to be.
Sometimes we have awkward business conversations, but also a lot of the time we can hang out and we just get each other.
You learn to be empathetic about the culture of LA. People are exhausted. Everyone’s fighting for their place here and fighting to figure out, ‘do I belong here?’
Can I pay rent? Can I take this opportunity?
I have found people who are really beautiful, caring and giving people. I am starting to build that community of people who are showing up for each other.
My sister was just in town, I didn’t really know who was going to come. But I wanted people to meet my sister, which is a very personal thing. It has nothing to do with business.
Everyone I invited came, like every single person came. That is an LA miracle.
I was like, ‘these people really actually care about me and I care about them.’
GW: What was growing up in Baltimore like?
Sarah Defne Gray: I was born in the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore City. I lived like 15 minutes outside of the city in Baltimore County. I never really lived anywhere else until now.
I have faith in Baltimore rebuilding. It was getting to this really cool point, all the small businesses were surviving, there was this new tourism promotion that was going on. More people were coming to Baltimore.
Then the pandemic hit, which was super sad for me to see. A lot of businesses closed. When that happened, then they didn’t reopen because there wasn’t enough money going around to help businesses.
There was a lot more violence, a lot more gun violence, particularly because the city just became empty, a playground for people with guns. I think it’s starting to have that spark back again.
You definitely have to be careful which street you go down, especially as a woman, like any city.
GW: Do you ever get to Turkey?
Sarah Defne Gray: I went a lot growing up. Then when I was in uni, it was tough for me to go. Then the pandemic, obviously. I actually went back for the first time in years, I guess. This past August, I went back and stayed with my grandma, my nene.
It was a girls trip, a generational girls trip, which was super healing. It was me, my mom, my older sister, and then my grandma, my nene. We all went to Alanya together.
We took this crazy long bus to Alanya and we stayed at my nene’s, she has an apartment there. I was seeing her for the first time in years and it was very emotional.
I really, really missed it. I still miss it, I wish I could go every year.
The Mediterranean, it’s different than any other ocean. The water is so beautiful – the people and the food. And it was just such a wonderful time.
GW: You have supporters of your work, not just in America but all over the world. How does that feel?
Sarah Defne Gray: I mean, it feels awesome. I try to stay a bit detached from seeing who has been engaged with what.
Some of it I can’t avoid finding out about, Hailey Bieber reposted one of my videos on her socials like a month ago. I’m not seeing it immediately myself. A lot of the time I’ll hear from other people.
It doesn’t feel something super tangible and real to me.
But I feel honored that there are people who have consumed the things that I create online.
I’m trying to take social media less seriously. I’m navigating the balance between it being a determiner of my career and also it being something that’s not great for my mental health.
I would say I’m a comical person in my day to day life. I just love to make people laugh. I love to joke around. I started to just be more myself, and make like singing videos that are just kind of like funny, because that’s just like what I would do in real life anyway.
Of course, those dumb videos that I don’t think anyone is going to see will like go viral. And it’s funny, also annoying, but mostly funny.
GW: Have you ever been spotted out in the streets of LA by people who you don’t know?
Sarah Defne Gray: It happened maybe twice when I was living in Baltimore. But here it’s happened a good amount of times. The first few times I thought that they were people I’d met who I’d forgotten meeting. I’m like, ‘I’m going to seem like a total asshole.’ They’ll be like, I follow you online. It’s so cool to meet people in the wild, in the flesh.
I want to know, why do you resonate with me? Who are you?
Artists are struggling financially currently and I have a side job now because I’m managing the finances of living in L.A. I work at a bagel shop. And at the bagel shop, I was recognized. Standing at the register, ‘what can I get for you?’. And they’re like, ‘are you Sarah?’
First I was embarrassed, but then I was like, I shouldn’t be embarrassed.
They’re seeing me in my come up, in my grind, my hustle era. One day we’ll all look back on it and be like, oh, that’s so cool. I remember when she worked in a bagel shop.
GW: Aiida who is playing our Hotel Cafe show originally told us about yourself.
Does it seem that in LA a lot of young women on their own are making things happen, and supporting each other?
Sarah Defne Gray: There’s so many talented young women out here doing the scary thing.
Aida is out here driving to sessions in the middle of the night, trying to make her dream happen. I think it’s so beautiful.
There’s so many brave women out here who are just like doing their thing. They’re just out here chasing their dream.
They’re so talented. They’re so creative, and they’re dedicated. No matter what kind of room is thrown at them.