{"id":354854,"date":"2025-08-18T19:03:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354854\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T19:03:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:03:15","slug":"sombr-interview-on-his-debut-album-addison-rae-and-rock-stardom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354854\/","title":{"rendered":"Sombr Interview on His Debut Album, Addison Rae, and Rock Stardom"},"content":{"rendered":"

written by\u00a0<\/strong>DOUGLAS GREENWOOD
photography<\/strong>\u00a0BRYCE ANDERSON
styling<\/strong>\u00a0ALEXANDER PICON<\/p>\n

The walls of the Chateau Marmont throb with rock history. For decades, it\u2019s been the site of debauchery and legend\u2014where, apparently, Jim Morrison hung from its windows and Led Zeppelin rode motorcycles through the lobby. Where, for the most part, every star\u2019s secrets are kept. If you consider yourself a musician, you must enter knowing you\u2019re becoming a part of its lore. And so that\u2019s what 20-year-old Shane Michael Boose does on a scorching Saturday afternoon in early August. Wearing wayfarer shades, billowing slacks, and a striped shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, he snakes through the tables, past waiters and turned heads, and shakes my hand. A pendant hangs from his neck of a dragon curved into an \u2019S\u2019. The same symbol is tattooed on his wrist too. To most of the world, this hot waif of a man is known as Sombr. His life has changed drastically in the last six months, so much so that to be in this holy, canopied courtyard is barely novel to him. There are other things, though, that he\u2019s still making sense of.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like the fact that his debut album should probably be finished by now. \u201cShit man,\u201d he says, from behind the shield of his sunglasses. \u201cIt\u2019s really crazy. I don\u2019t have a title. I don\u2019t have a sequence. I don\u2019t have a cover\u2014and it\u2019s due Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"sombr
\n\t\t\ttop gucci, necklace sombr’s own\t\t<\/p>\n

Those details would come: I Barely Know Her, his 10-track debut album, was officially announced last week. It arrives on Friday. Getting to grips with its making has been a tricky task. He\u2019s been working on it for months, subconsciously for longer. But that time period has also been the time during which he\u2019s become a bonafide star: He made his late night debut on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in May, sat front row at Saint Laurent\u2019s Spring 2026 menswear show in June, and last month, cast pop heroine Addison Rae as his girl in the video for his latest single, \u201c12 to 12.\u201d Check out his TikTok (125 million likes), and you\u2019ll see someone with an intuitive understanding of the internet but with a face and sonic style from the \u201970s, alluring and classic. His rolodex of references\u2014Jeff Buckley, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan\u2014align with that too. He\u2019s our answer to the question: What if the rockstars of yore knew how to dice with viral attention\u2014and use it to meet with those listening on their level?<\/p>\n

It came to him unexpectedly at first. In the summer of 2022, Sombr, then a 17-year-old student at New York\u2019s LaGuardia High School, had been releasing his own moody, sometimes shoegaze-y alt-pop tracks into the ether. Then, just like all of the tracks that preceded it, he posted \u201cCaroline\u201d online, a track about an old flame. In hours, it started to blow up on TikTok. Record labels were DMing him on Instagram (he\u2019s now signed to Warner Records), and he was forced to reckon with the fact that his childhood pipe dream had become a reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIs my mind going insane, or are people gonna like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

sombr<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What followed was that same process, toiling away at his life to make songs from it. He moved to Los Angeles and, in the late summer of 2023, released the EP in another life. Then, in the nothing week between Christmas and New Year\u2019s of 2024, Sombr felt like he had something special. On December 27, he released \u201cBack to Friends,\u201d a song he wrote and produced by himself, about the fucked-up feeling of realizing a relationship is over. It was quiet at first, then, once again, TikTok caught it, and by the time spring came around, it was a top 10 hit in countries across Europe, and reached number one on North America\u2019s Alternative radio chart faster than any other new artist in a decade. It\u2019s since been streamed over 600 million times. Not long after, his track \u201cUndressed,\u201d a song so impassioned Sombr almost wails his feelings, experienced an almost identical fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIs my mind going insane, or are people gonna like this?\u201d Sombr is describing the kindling of songwriting, stirring almond milk into an iced Americano. (The Chateau doesn\u2019t do vanilla syrup.) \u201cSometimes you\u2019ll make a song all night and you\u2019ll be obsessed with it, then you\u2019ll wake up and it\u2019s the worst thing you\u2019ve ever heard,\u201d he says. His instincts are rarely this wrong, mostly because they\u2019re all he has to rely on. His songs go viral on TikTok not through some kind of algorithmic programming, but because people believe what they\u2019re about. As he puts it: \u201cThey don\u2019t come out of a fucking factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, three years, one EP, and over 20 singles later, he\u2019s reached what feels like a significant new milestone. The internet still loves him, but it feels bigger now. His songs catch alight when they hit radio\u2014self sufficient, compulsively catchy rock-pop that tells the truth.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"sombr
\n\t\t\tAll clothing and gloves SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO, Belt NOAH COLLINS, Boots MCQUEEN BY SE\u00c1N MCGIRR\t\t<\/p>\n

Making these honest tracks is a solitary and nocturnal task for Sombr. Staying up until three, or sometimes five o\u2019clock in the morning, he will sit in his home studio, and start with a drum beat, then a melody, and then \u201ceither a vocal melody comes to me right away or it doesn\u2019t. And if it doesn\u2019t, I\u2019ll move on to the next idea.\u201d If it does, he\u2019ll work on it, bringing the bulk of the idea into Sound City Studios, where parts of Rumors by Fleetwood Mac were recorded, and into the hands of the legendary producer Tony Berg, who\u2019s touched everything from Squeeze to Phoebe Bridgers\u2019 records. \u201cThat\u2019s my mentor,\u201d he says. \u201cFucking best guy ever.\u201d That\u2019s it. No co-writers or committees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recently, after performing \u201cBack to Friends\u201d on Fallon, he came off stage to several texts and missed calls from the girl it\u2019s about.He makes music like no one\u2019s meant to listen to it, which means millions of people do. \u201cBitch, why did you air us out like that?!\u201d He\u2019s recounting the messages to me, and then shrugging them off. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely got me in trouble, but if all art was hiding the truth, art would fucking suck,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The stars of the \u201970s didn\u2019t have TikTok to play with, but Sombr does and he uses it well. His online presence is knowingly silly and self satirizing: He pulled up a makeshift tip screen<\/a> at a fan meet and greet recently, and likes to play into the matcha-drinking, Clairo-streaming soft boy<\/a> trope. There are videos of him describing himself <\/a>as 6\u20197\u201d (fans rebuke this), and an artfully tongue-in-cheek clip of him<\/a> walking through a parking lot bragging about how much he loves feminist literature frequently appears on different corners of the internet. \u201cI actually can\u2019t read,\u201d he tells me when I ask about it, with such conviction I can\u2019t tell if he\u2019s joking.<\/p>\n

Sombr grew up in New York\u2019s Lower East Side with his parents and his sister. \u201cI was a very emotionally complicated child,\u201d he says. \u201cMy dad can confirm that.\u201d To his right, his dad, a handsome man in a shirt and a cowboy hat, nods from behind his phone. \u201cBut you can\u2019t make music without being a little bit crazy.\u201d He attests to spending much of his teenage years at LES and Tompkins Square skate park, sleeping, or skipping class\u2014a perpetual truant in search of something he actually wanted to do. Performance surrounded him: his dad had a stint in a band (they weren\u2019t big, so it doesn\u2019t count as a nepo thing), and Sombr became, for a brief time, obsessed with the stage musical Dear Evan Hansen. Broadway hasn\u2019t been the same since the musical closed, he thinks. \u201cAnd for the record, if it opens back up, I would love to be considered for Evan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was one of the few kids in New York who simultaneously found pleasure in Broadway theater and the musical stylings of Lil Peep and Pop Smoke. He discovered GarageBand in middle school and proceeded to make rap beats in his bedroom, thinking that might be his calling. By the time he\u2019d got into LaGuardia High School, auditioning with a Sam Smith song, he\u2019d pivoted to making shoegaze and specializing in vocal performance. Then came the \u201cCaroline\u201d moment.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\tCoat and top HERM\u00c8S, Necklace TARINA TARANTINO\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"sombr
\n\t\t\tTop and pants MCQUEEN BY SE\u00c1N MCGIRR\t\t<\/p>\n

Sombr enters the scene at a time when we\u2019re told his generation are sober and sexless, but the music he makes is hot and narcotizing. In that sense, it feels like a reminder that some things can never die. \u201c12 to 12,\u201d his most recent track, harbors a kind of fraught, juiced-up sexiness. The video stars Addison Rae\u2014who\u2019s arguably brought that same energy to the girls\u2019 world\u2014writhing around on a club dance floor, and in Sombr\u2019s arms. He smirks when I mention her name. The pair hadn\u2019t met before, only exchanged Instagram DM pleasantries, complimenting each other\u2019s music.\u00a0 \u201cI was like, okay, it\u2019s whatever, she doesn\u2019t care about me, though,\u201d he says, laughing. He\u2019s plotting out the story, with a scatty energy, of how that music video turned into a shared star moment. \u201cIt\u2019s, like, Wednesday, and the fucking music video shoot is on Saturday,\u201d he recounts. \u201cSo I just pull a Hail Mary. I hit them up. It was just so fucking easy, [her team] were so cool about it. I hopped on a Zoom with Addison and we instantly clicked. I got off that Zoom, I fucking, like, did a back flip\u2014no Benson Boone.\u201d And before he knew it, the most fawned-over pop girl in the world was his video partner. \u201cThat woman is a fucking natural,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAll I want is for my best song to be as good as Jeff Buckley\u2019s worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

sombr<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201c12 to 12\u201d was one of the last songs written on the record, but right now, days before the deadline, Sombr is trying to see if there\u2019s time to write one more. \u201cThere\u2019s not necessarily something missing, it\u2019s just that I will never think it\u2019s complete,\u201d he insists. \u201cI have to put myself away at a certain point, find a hobby or some shit to stop me from adding songs to it.\u201d He\u2019s been listening to \u201cRadiohead, Jeff Buckley, the Stones, The Beatles, The Verve, Oasis, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Phoebe Bridgers, Rihanna\u2026\u201d Rihanna? He nods. \u201cShe\u2019s got the best fucking melodies in the world.\u201d His favorite cut is \u201cLoveeeeee Song<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can hear them in I Barely Knew Her, which I hear on a Friday night at midnight over Zoom, such is the secrecy surrounding the project\u2019s existence. Sombr tells me it\u2019s inspired by \u201cyoung romance, dimly lit rooms, late nights, and love, loss, and life.\u201d Songs like the Dylan-esque \u201cCanal Street\u201d dwell on his return to New York at Christmas, back to the scene of an old relationship where nothing ever feels quite the same. On the chorus for \u201cDime,\u201d he yearns hard for a girl and cuts a joke in there too: \u201cI wanna love you til the end of my life, because you\u2019re a 10 and I\u2019m a man that needs a dime.\u201d (Sombr\u2019s quick to clear up: \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to be sarcastic!\u201d) There\u2019s uptempo tracks and stretching, Sombr-esque ballads, written like the world is ending. He\u2019s the album\u2019s only credited lyricist.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"sombr
\n\t\t\tTop SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO\t\t<\/p>\n

I\u2019d asked him to pick an album that he sees himself in, so I could listen to it in the days prior to us meeting. He\u2019d chosen Buckley\u2019s lone LP, Grace, a largely shrugged off album at the time of its release that has, over decades, been cemented as a singer-songwriter classic. Online, people have conflated Sombr\u2019s admiration for Buckley as him wanting to be him\u2014but it\u2019s not a title Sombr infers upon himself. \u201cI\u2019ve been hearing this record as long as I\u2019ve been alive,\u201d he says. His dad played it around the house, and while he was mostly ambivalent towards it back then, he\u2019s since torn into it, realizing they\u2019re both singing from the same hymn sheet. My writing isn\u2019t nearly as good as his writing,\u201d he says, \u201cbut one day, all I want is for my best song to be as good as Jeff Buckley\u2019s worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week later, Sombr unveils the existence of I Barely Know Her to his fans on Instagram. I call him to see how he\u2019s feeling. He\u2019s in the back of a cab, its roof dotted with LED stars, on the way to rehearsals. The last few days had been \u201cchaotic,\u201d he says, \u201clike when you\u2019re trying to finish an essay the night before it\u2019s due.\u201d By this point, the bulk of it had been there, but there were still some floating ideas that had to come down to earth. The album\u2019s final track was one of them. Called \u201cUnder the Mat,\u201d it feels like a gorgeous coalescence of his core influences and ideas: anthemic, big, nostalgic, almost Springsteen-esque. Of course, about love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI would pay to be on tour, [it\u2019s] the closest thing to drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

sombr<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cOne of my idols helped me name it,\u201d he says of the album, though part of the sacred agreement was that he wasn\u2019t allowed to say who. I Barely Know Her is the sort of tongue-in-cheek double gag: On one hand, it could be a reflection of a relationship where you feel like you\u2019ve lived a life with someone, but never understood them. On the other, it could be about the blink-and-miss-it lust of a one night stand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the last few years\u2014and surely for the next few months\u2014Sombr will leave his house, go to The Grove, or Erewhon (he\u2019d like a smoothie deal, by the way), or to dinner at a restaurant, and be approached by a stranger who\u2019s found solace in the music he makes. He\u2019s been getting used to this being his new normal. \u201cI\u2019m so grateful that people know who I am,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just the life I chose. By signing up for it, you\u2019re signing up for [fame], you\u2019re basically able to do nothing without someone seeing it. I\u2019m fine with that.\u201d He just got nominated for his first MTV Video Music Award. Tabloids now write about him. His tour sold out in a matter of seconds. He\u2019ll play his first arena show soon. Of everything, being in front of those crowds is the thing he actually can\u2019t wait for. \u201cI would pay to be on tour,\u201d he insists, hand on heart. Being in front of those crowds is \u201cthe closest thing to drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he pulls up to his stop, I ask Sombr what got him to this point, staring down the barrel of a new life, his first album as a kid who wanted it so badly. \u201cThis is corny to say,\u201d he admits, but he wants to say it anyway: \u201cIt\u2019s not like something got me through this. It\u2019s like my music got me through life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"sombr
\n\t\t\tAll clothing EMPORIO ARMANI, Ring Sombr\u2019s own\t\t<\/p>\n

hair<\/strong> JOHNNIE SAPONG USING HAIR BY JOHNNIE SAPONG FOR LEONOR GREYL AT SALON BENJAMIN AT THE WALL GROUP
makeup<\/strong> PATI DUBROFF AT FORWARD ARTISTS
set design<\/strong> ROBERT DORAN AT FRANK REPS
photography assistants<\/strong> STEVEN PERILLOUX & ALEX DE LA HIDALGA
digital technician<\/strong> RICK ROSE
styling assistant<\/strong> CHRISTIAN GUZMAN
production<\/strong> LOLA PRODUCTION
post production<\/strong> LUCKYSTAR INC.<\/p>\n