Tickets are now available for RØRY at Rescue Rooms!
Since her debut headline show at London’s Camden Assembly in August 2022, RØRY has been taking the UK alternative scene by storm.
Racking up over twenty million streams on Spotify in an impressively short amount of time, tickets to her first UK headline tour sold out within their first week in early 2023 – but her story began long before she took to those stages.
First embarking on a career as a solo artist under her birth name – Roxanne Emery – over a decade ago, after the passing of her mother, Emery found herself battling addiction. The beginning of a long, difficult journey that led to her writing dance hits, working with huge names in London’s pop industry, and becoming a platinum-selling songwriter whilst enduring some of her darkest moments – at 34 years old, Emery walked into her first AA meeting.
Combining her first and last name, Roxanne Emery became RØRY – cutting out the middle portion of her name to represent time lost to addiction and mental health struggles. Now five years sober and ready to rally against the forces of major label capitalism and ageism, she’s proving that it’s never too late to follow your dreams.
“Throughout my songwriting career I was constantly told that my lyrics were too dark, and that they needed to be more fun. That made me believe that I wasn’t any good, so I began trying to force myself to be happier,” RØRY explains.
“There’s a lot more that I wanted to say. Every part of my journey I’ve always been told, ‘That’s not quite right’. It’s too loud, too rude, or I’m just too old. After many years in the industry and a lot of therapy, I’ve come to realise that other people might not like it, but I do. I’m ready to live and die by my own sword.”
Spending her teenage years enamoured with early 2000s emo and pop-punk, RØRY has crafted a unique vessel for her reflections on grief, abuse, and recovery. Inspired by the deeply confessional songwriting of artists like Andrew McMahon and Chris Carrabba, a passion for distinctly honest storytelling has inspired a rapidly growing fanbase, drawn to her raw, cathartic rock lyricism.
“When you see the business side of music, it’s all about making money. Everyone’s talking about how to water it down to appeal to the mass market and how to get songs on the radio. There is nobody saying, ‘Are you telling the truth?’,” RØRY says.
“The most vulnerable parts are the parts we typically hide away, and to have people resonate with my songs is very comforting. Grief and abuse are things that isolate you, but to meet a whole community who have felt those same things is the antithesis to isolation – it’s connection.”
That connection sits at the heart of RØRY’s latest EP, ‘TITLE’, and radiates through her live show, with people of all ages singing along together whilst realising that they’ve all walked the same path.
Affectionately likening her performances to an “emo church”, that feeling of belonging is something that the 38-year-old has also been fostering alongside her loving partner on their popular TikTok channel – ADHD Love – since her ADHD diagnosis in 2021.
Passionate about helping others reach the same acceptance she has found in all aspects of life, RØRY is living proof that no matter how dark it gets – it can always get better.
“I remember very early on in recovery meetings hearing the phrase, ‘You’ll live a life beyond your wildest dreams’. At the time I thought I was too old for my wildest dreams to ever come true,” she recalls.
“You might be absolutely convinced that your life is over, but you can be wrong. I want people in their late thirties to start music careers, to get the diagnosis they deserve, and to be able to label the pain they’ve gone through with their parents. All I’ve ever wanted was to be a vessel of positivity and to feel that connection. I have everything I could ever want already, which is incredible way to start your career.”
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