For the first time in a 17-year career, Greyson Chance went fully independent for Boystown, making the album in just three weeks. We sat down to talk about the freedom behind the record and dive deep into its most emotional moments.

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I'm sitting in the lobby of Greyson's hotel, listening to Spotify on a sunny Wednesday in August, when I spot him coming out of the elevator. "Andrew, right?" he asks, giving me a hug. "And we've met before, haven't we? I gotta see these pictures!"Pausing the music, currently playing Greyson's newest single, I pull up photos of my best friend and me at the NYC stop of his 2022 tour. "Oh my gosh, it's been a minute!" Greyson says. "Good to see you again."

We head over to the hotel's coffee shop, where we find it's just about to close, at the late, late hour of 2 p.m. "But it's only 2 in the afternoon!" Greyson remarks with a chuckle. We laugh as we pivot plans and head to a nearby lounge, where I tell Greyson my thoughts on the album.

Though it's been four years since the release of Greyson's last project, listening to Boystown feels like catching up with a friend, as if no time has passed at all. Tracks like "Dirty Laundry" and "Sugar Rush" showcase Greyson's signature synth-pop, while standout ballad "Stages" is a driving, emotional four minutes that stopped me dead in my tracks. While you can hear echoes of past projects and influences, everything sounds more polished, more put together, and more Greyson.

"I'm glad you think so!" Greyson tells me, smiling. "We put together this album in only three weeks." "Well, you'd never be able to tell," I respond, hitting start on my voice recorder, as we dive into the making of Boystown.Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BuzzFeed: The album is called Boystown, which is such a distinctive title. What did you want that title to say about the world you created?

Greyson: Boystown is the gayborhood in Chicago. I've spent a lot of time in Chicago, and I have many memories there. I've had a few nights in Boystown that were genuinely fun, so I wanted to make that a little nod. But more so, I wanted the album to feel like a gay neighborhood. I wanted it to feel like it had different alleys and different back channels. The title track, "Boystown," was one of the first song ideas that I had, and so it stuck.

This is a true-to-form pop record where there's a lot of genre-bending. You get a little bit of everything on this record, and that was really important to me. On my past albums, there was a good amount of studying — spending time with other artists' work, other photographic work, figuring out what the visuals wanted to look like, all these things. Right when we started, I knew exactly how I wanted Boystown to look, which always feels good.

You made Boystown much more quickly than your previous albums. When did you realize you weren't only writing a few songs, but that an entire album was taking shape?

Greyson: The past few years have been a little tough for me. I've gone through some health drama, and I felt a little directionless working on new music in the studio. But Boystown came together way more manic than any of my other albums. I worked on Palladium and Portraits for around a year and a half each. With this record, we worked on it for three weeks.A breakup happened at the top of the year, but a lot had been building up to that — this wanting to take control of my life and my career again. I was sitting at home over the holidays, and it just kind of happened. I saw a world for a record, and the music came together pretty naturally.I knew that if I didn't act fast, it would fade, and then I would second-guess it. I told myself I was going to scrape the money together to figure out how to pay for it. This is being released on my own imprint, and it's fully independent.We just kind of went for it, and it honestly feels surreal, because it was a very faint dream in January. I told myself, "You're gonna have an album by June 15," and now that it's happened, I'm kind of like, "Whoa." There's something about the power of believing in yourself and really taking it by the horns. This is my baby for sure.

As you mentioned, Boystown is fully independent. What is the difference between making an album that's completely under your control versus under a label?

Greyson: I got signed 17 years ago, and I think this is the first time in my entire career where there haven't been these outside voices. There hasn't been a record label, an A&R, or a manager, and it's really scary, to be honest, because I'm not used to it. The beginning of my career was so high, really fast, and I kind of had everything laid out in front of me. Then I lost all of that.

It's this mixed bag of feeling so free as a creative, but not being used to having this freedom. It's been an interesting process in the studio, really working from the question, "What do I want from this music?" and trusting my instinct. This album is me really enjoying it and saying, "Okay, I'm gonna roll with this. I'm not gonna overthink it."You recorded the entire album in just three weeks in Toronto. Was there ever a moment when you thought, This is never going to get done?

Greyson: I don't think there was any doubt. It was just so much blind faith. If I ever had a night when I was thinking, What am I doing? I shut down that thought completely.

It's even hard to remember making it because everything happened so fast. It was this release of all this energy. It was also really emotional because of the core material — but it was just fun. We were fully in the moment.

Was there a song on the album that took longer than you expected?

Greyson: "Dirty Laundry" was one of the last things we wrote for the record. I was taking walks and thinking about what we had so far, and I told my producer, "I'm missing something. I need something at the top of the record that has tempo."I started telling him, "Let me just tell you the things that I'm not gonna miss out of my relationship." I just started saying these lines: "I won't have to fold his laundry. I won't have to hang out with his parents anymore. I won't have to do all these things."

I'm so glad that song came because it was definitely, if not the last thing, the second-to-last thing that we wrote for the album. That one was kind of tricky.

"Stages" really stood out to me because the song has this energy that feels like it's constantly moving forward. Can you tell me about the emotional progression of that song?

Greyson: Everybody always says that when you go through a big breakup or divorce, it's like a death. "Stages" embodies that feeling. The record is really set up in three distinct parts. The first part is rage, the second part is reality, where it's all kicking in, and the third act is detachment and trying to get over the person.

"Stages" is about how you move through grief. One day you're doing fine, the other day you want to kill him, and the day after that you want to call him and cry. Then some days you're thinking, Wait, why did we break up again?

Lyrically, I really challenged myself on that song. I rewrote some things a few times because I felt like the lyrics had to be really clear. Those little nuances of changing "I want" to "I need" in the chorus — that's the type of songwriting that I get so obsessed with. The second verse of that song tears me up with the line, "You do all this to end up alone."

Is there a lyric on the album where you're like, "Damn, I wrote that"?

Greyson: Definitely. There are a few. I love the play on words in "Garçonova." Some people will get it, others won't, but I think most people will understand the concept. I love the idea of "Boy Wonder."

Also, the opening track, "Bulls" — there's a reason why I started the record with, "I'm a bull in a china shop." I think that's how I feel right now in my career.

Any artist who's been around for this long and is on their fifth album has gone through hell and back to get there. I feel excited, pissed off, and liberated. I feel free. I'm ready to fuck shit up. Being able to channel that into a song and hear that lyric, I'm thinking, That's empowering. That's important.

"Love Odyssey" is the last song I want to dive into, particularly the beautiful piano. Can you tell me more about how that came together?

The title track, "Boystown," was the first song for the album, but that piano part in "Love Odyssey" was the first actual piece of music that I played constantly after the breakup. There were no words over it, no lyrics, no melody, nothing. I was going to the piano, just playing. It's a waltz, so it moves in an easy way. It's relaxing to play. It's meditative.

I wanted the record to end in a way that felt hopeful without being cheery. I wanted to say, "I'm still gonna do it, though. I'm still going to push toward love. I want to believe in it." That song was my lullaby throughout this process. It calmed me down, and it helped me refocus.

I'm very excited to play that song live because there's an echo part, and I think it will be a really special moment.

When do you see yourself touring Boystown?

Greyson: The hope is to get back out on tour next year. I want to make sure my body is ready for it. When I was in the hospital last year and when I was sick, there were a lot of conversations about how I've been gigging and working since I was 12. It's been long album cycles and long tours, going back to the hotel at 1 a.m. and waking up at 5 for a flight. That wears on your body a lot.

I want to make sure I'm good for it. My biggest fear right now is that mentally I feel 100% ready, and I'm afraid that I'll push my body too hard.

I was at a show last night, and I just missed it. I wanted to be up on stage again. So I really want to get back out on the road, and I'm planning on it — but it will be done safely.

You've been making music for essentially your entire life. When you listen back to your earlier projects, what do you hear that you still recognize as yourself, and what do you hear in Boystown that shows how you've evolved as an artist?

Greyson: Whenever I look back, I hear time and place. I do think there has been authenticity throughout my albums. Especially if I listen to Portraits, Trophies, and Palladium, I know exactly what was happening. I know why things sound the way they do, where they stemmed from, and where they came from. I like that about my catalog.

I feel like I have the worst shuffle on Spotify because you'll hear "Dirty Laundry," and then "Unfriend You" comes on. It's weird still. [Laughs.] Even listening back to those early songs, I can hear a 13-year-old trying to be really impressive on the microphone — certain tricks, certain flips of vowels, and things like that. So I hear time and place, which is important and cool to me.

Where I've evolved is that this is the most concise world I've put together for a record. I'm excited to keep going with it. I'm back in the studio working on things, and I don't want to leave this "world." I want to keep making little islands and cities in it.That's evolution as an artist, for sure.

Boystown is out now on all streaming platforms.Keep up with Greyson on Instagram and TikTok, @greysonchance.