Noah Cyrus is influenced by gospel music.
The 20-year-old singer – who is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus and the younger sister of Miley Cyrus – has said she grew up listening to the music her grandfather made when he was part of a gospel group in Kentucky, and now finds herself taking inspiration from music with strong harmonies.
She said: "My grandfather was in the Crownsmen Quartet, in Kentucky. It was a gospel group, and gospel music has been such a big part of my life. Listening to Pappy’s music, there were harmonies, always so many harmonies. I was listening to all different genres from all different decades, but the one thing I loved the most about songs was when harmonies just hit right. And there’s something about harmonies that are so beautifully haunting in songs. I like recording with multiple people in the room singing the notes of the harmonies, because I feel like that just brings this gospel choir sound into it."
Noah praised fellow musician Billie Eilish, 18, for using harmonies in many of her own songs, and says she enjoys harmonising to songs that don’t already have them.
She added: "I always gravitate towards songs that I can either harmonise to or that I find harmonies they don’t have. I love doing that. And I think sometimes artists leave it open for their listener to be able to sing. That’s why I love listening to Billie [Eilish] so much, her songs like ‘When The Party’s Over’ and ‘Everything I Wanted’. Her harmonies – she gets it."
The ‘July’ hitmaker also discussed the meaning behind her new EP, ‘The End of Everything’ – which was released on May 15 – as she said she chose the title because of how "terrifying" but "comforting" it is.
She told NPR: "The universe will all one day come down to two black holes that’ll dance together. The mountains that I look at outside of my window from my view, they’re going to explode and obliterate and there’s not going to be a me or a you or my mom or my dad. And there’s something really terrifying, but also comforting about that, when you think about how much fear and how much hatred there is in the world, and that will also end."