A Chat with Roil (20.05.26)
Roil’s Living Outside the Closet plays less like a traditional debut album and more like a late-night conversation that stretches into sunrise. The Belgium-based artist folds heartbreak, humour, insecurity, and liberation into an indie-pop project that captures vulnerability without being overwhelmed by it. We chat with Roil about the release and more below.
OSR: Living Outside the Closet feels deeply personal. What was the first song that unlocked the emotional direction of the record for you?
Roil: I wrote some songs before this album. But the first song that I started to tell stories about my life after coming out of the closet was ‘Straight Guy’. Because it’s something that uniquely happened to me, but I also thought that many other people with different sexualities might also have experienced this. And it’s something odd that some relationships of young queer people seemed to be secretive in disguise of being straight, which I also understood that society in general was not fully open about it. But for me at that moment, I was already out, and I was ready for a non-secretive relationship. I wanted to have connections with people as a queer person and build a romantic relationship with someone without hiding it.
OSR: When you were writing this album, did you ever feel like you were documenting yourself in real time rather than ‘composing’ songs?
Roil: It was the mixture of both. But mostly yes. The songs like ‘Outside the Closet’, ‘Whisper’, ‘Straight Guy’, ‘Shittier Than Goodbye’, and ‘I don’t mind’ are very cinematic for me. That means those songs are the combinations of flashbacks, tears, and real-time struggles because the effects lasted until the time that I wrote them.
OSR: How has your understanding of masculinity changed between the earliest and latest songs on the record?
Roil: It has changed a lot. It showed in the song ‘Straight Guy’ that I used to think about being a “Man” meant excluding being gay or queer right after coming out. But then, I started to think deeper that biologically I’m a man and I feel comfortable as being a man and being called he/him. Even though I’m not straight at all, the dividing line started to soften, and I found the beauty in it. In the song ‘manhood’ was like the 2nd chapter of ‘Straight Guy’ and I found myself resonating a lot with masculinity as much as femininity. I spent time with straight friends and started to see that it wasn’t so bad to be part of a group of straight men. I might not understand it fully, but it doesn’t mean I need a clear answer about it.
OSR: You balance humour and vulnerability really naturally. Is that something you consciously protect in your writing process?
Roil: Surprisingly, I didn’t think about humour at all in the beginning of writing each song. It was fully vulnerable side. I always started with “Ok, it’s gonna be another sad song”. And in the process of writing them, it has shifted a lot. And sometimes completely changed from a sad mood to uplift pop song. I think it was naturally changed because at one point I wanted myself to be happy from this sadness. But sometimes you can hear that in some uplifting songs my voice was not the most joyful ever. It’s bittersweet. But I love that people find the humour in it because I don’t want more sad songs either; I wanna be happy sometimes.
OSR: Was there a moment during the making of the album where you felt emotionally ‘seen’ by your own work?
Roil: Yes, and there were many moments that I felt emotionally seen. Especially the songs ‘Straight Guy’ and ‘Whisper’ because the narratives are very clear. Even when nobody has listened to it yet, I felt like this part from my life experiences that I have never put into words before has become a full song with a lot of feelings in it.
OSR: Growing up across different cultures, how did that shape the way you understand identity and belonging in your music?
Roil: I grew up mostly in Asia, but later on, I moved to Europe to study and began my work life here, and I have a very important cousin living in the US. The core identity of me is still Thai and Japanese. But I found myself always in between. I never really had a solid ground that I could call a homeland. And even my sexuality is on the spectrum. So my perceptions about the world have become so boundless and fluid. I found myself easily attracted to music that raises more questions, is vague or pushes the boundaries lyrically. Sometimes, I want to see pop music landscape with more of other stories than flirting or romantic relationship-based lyrics.
OSR: Which track on the album was the hardest to write emotionally, and why?
Roil: ‘Dandelion’ was the hardest song. Because I think I couldn’t 100% capture how it sounds in my head, and I might never be able to do it. This song is the feelings that have been flowing through my body, like nostalgic memories of childhood and growing up with me in this madly changing world. The story of this song stretches from the long past that I almost forgot to the more recent past when I was moving to Belgium. It is still unfinished for me. I made an outro version for this album, and maybe I will make another version in the future when I can express it clearer than now. And that’s also why it’s the last track, because it’s still an open end.
OSR: Do you think closure is something you believe in, or something you’ve learned to live without?
Roil: Practically, it has to be both with and without. But for me, I tend to have some level of closure. Because living my life after coming out, moving to different countries and experiencing break-ups, emotional withdrawals or hardships in building new relationships, it did need some narrative of ending some chapters and moving on. Understanding what was going on and what was the right decision for those moments. It wasn’t what I truly believe in, but as someone who has lived through quite a journey, it’s something that keeps me making sense with myself.
OSR: How do you decide when a lyric is ‘honest enough’ to keep?
Roil: In the process, I always replay different versions of the lyric in my head. It’s mostly when I can’t rewrite or reimagine it anymore. When I think about this song with this line all the time, and it keeps visualising my exact memories and feelings back to me, then that’s when it is honest enough.
OSR: What do you hope listeners who are still figuring themselves out take from this record?
Roil: I do hope that this album somehow makes them feel that they’re not alone. Living Outside the Closet is like an example of trying to liberate yourself, but instead of freedom ahead, you will get even more struggles. It’s paradoxical. But it is you to know that figuring yourself out will lead to more doors of questions, and that’s okay. That’s actually a beautiful thing, and you might have to find humour and happy moments in it. If you wanna scream, cry or giggle with my songs, they’re here for you.
Many thanks to Roil for speaking with us. Find out more about Roil on his official website, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, and YouTube.
