Alessia Cara is known for her hit singles: She emerged with the triple-platinum breakout Here and followed that with another triple-platinum track, Wild Things. More recently, she contributed to the quintuple-platinum Logic and Khalid collaboration1-800-273-8255. All that commercial success appears relatively effortless.
But it wasnt always that way: The first time Cara performed in public was a minor catastrophe.I went to guitar school for about ten seconds, she recalled recently during an interview forRolling Stones video series The First Time.I went onstage and I played guitar very horribly and I sang very badly, and I remember it was like the scariest thing Ive ever done in my whole life I remember I got offstage, and I forgot to unplug my guitar, so I knocked everything over and it was like a whole thing. Not a fun experience but I guess a learning experience.
Its on the internet too, so thats great, Cara added sarcastically. Now everybody can see it.
The singer is full of similarly self-deprecating stories. At age seven, she remembered two classmates discussing the meaning of the word popular. I had never heard of the word before I was seven, Cara said. So I was like, what does that mean? They were like, popular means you have more than 11 friends. Are you popular? I was like, let me think I tried to come up with 11 friends. I got to four, and I couldnt think of any more they were like, nope, youre not popular!'
But Cara ended up with the last laugh. Look at me now I have so many friends, she joked. No, I dont. But I have a lot of people who listen to my music, so I consider that popularity.
Cara released her second album,The Pains of Growing, in November.