With “Emptiness Is Godly”, Royal & the Serpent delivers a captivating, intimate project that blurs the line between vulnerability and rebellion. The album dives deep into themes of identity, self-exploration, emotional chaos, and self-destruction, wrapped in atmospheric production and sharp, conversational lyricism. Balancing raw energy moments of quiet reflection, Royal & the Serpent crafts a sound that feels both cinematic and deeply personal, a fearless exploration of finding meaning inside emotional emptiness.
SOURCE: SPOTIFY
Taslima: “Emptiness Is Godly feels both spiritual and unsettling. What does ’emptiness’ mean to you personally, and how did that idea shape the album?”
Royal: “Emptiness itself to me has multi-meanings, and I definitely found a lot of meaning in the album title as I’ve started releasing it for myself & I think letting go of all the things that no longer serve me whether they be emotional, spiritual, and in the physical term, shedding myself from all the materialistic habits and things that I have had in the past and felt so attached to things and really letting go and leaving all that metaphorical baggage in the past has been really freeing. I think emptiness is sort of its stillness and its peace and quiet and it can have a negative connotation and I sort have found power in it.”
Taslima: “I noticed the character ‘R.’ How did you come up with that concept for the album, what does that mean to you?”
Royal: “R is like the character that’s behind Royal and the Serpent and that was one of my favourite discoveries in writing this album, was that the entirety of this project it’s a personification of me. So, it’s one step outside of myself, it was nice to put a name and a face and a character to the music, to be able to separate me as a regular self from her and I think it’s just came naturally and everything clicked and made sense and it was so easy to see her transformation. When I took a step outside of myself and I was able to look in the mirror from the outside, and it’s been interesting building her and explaining her to people because she really is me at the end of the day.”
Taslima: “My personal favourite off the album is Pulling Teeth, it felt really conversational, like as if someone is speaking to me, so I want to ask what that process was of making that track like for the album?”
Royal: “That one came naturally I remember going to the studio and it was pouring rain in LA like as if we were having an atmospheric flooding in the streets, and we were just messing around with some sounds and I was with a couple of writers and having some ideas and I just wanted everyone to give me 30 minutes and I’m going to put my head down in my journal and write what comes to mind. I came back and I was like this might sound crazy but I’m not thinking a song I’m thinking a spoken word. It received well; it gave me the confidence to put something like that out because it was different and not typical.”
Taslima: “Was there a specific moment or experience that sparked the core of the album?”
Royal: “I remember realising that I wanted a shift was a festival I was playing years ago, I remember being on stage at this rock festival and thinking I desperately want to do something different and that was the first inclination of where am I going to go next and I then I remembered a lot of trial and error when it came to finding this sound. The first song we made when we realised we got something here was Death Do Us Part and I remembered being in the studio and finally found something that we can chase and follow. It was a lot of trying new things and noticing what felt like my sound and I was trying to locate within myself.”
PHOTO: NATASHA AUSTRICH
Taslima: “Do you see this album as a continuation of your past work, or kind of a reset, something brand new?”
Royal: “The most beautiful part is that it shows the growth, I think it’s so different, obviously sonically, but it’s still the same girl, I’m still the same person and I think I don’t want to shut out everything that brought me to where I am today those are all parts of myself, those parts are not only myself but this community that we have all built now together. I think to ignore all of that would be a disservice to not only me but to the fans. So, I think when you go all the way back to ‘Overwhelmed’ and some of my first songs, to me that feels like a continuation of that and it’s just elevated and more mature version, but I think it’s taking a bit of a journey over the years. But this feels like where I was always supposed to land.”
Taslima: “Your music often feels very raw and confessional, how do you decide what to keep private compared to what you want to share with the listeners?”
Royal: “Instead of deciding what I want to keep to myself and what I can share, what I’ve done is created a fictional world, so that I’m free to share and even embellish upon own experiences even way past where they went in real life and I think that’s sort of one of my favourite things about this project. Specifically, was that I realised I had the ability to dig further into some of those emotional complexities and experiences by making it based on true events but maybe a little bit fictional it definitely creates a safety net for me to feel like I can be raw and I can be candid but it doesn’t just have to reflect entirely on me as Ryan.”
Taslima: “I’ve been seeing that you’ve been doing dances, would you say that is contemporary?”
Royal: “Yeah, it’s super contemporary! I plan to just like take it far as I can, the dancing is something that I’ve started incorporating now but growing up as a dancer, I’ve always dreamt of doing it this way and I’m excited to see how far I can take it and to just keep practising.”
PHOTO: NATASHA AUSTRICH
“Emptiness Is Godly” is a testament to Royal & the Serpent, as she is incorporating new sounds and significant ways to stay true to herself, crafting a project that feels both emotionally unfiltered and artistically fearless. The record balances vulnerability with experimentation, proving that growth does not require abandoning identity, it requires deepening it. With haunting production, sharp lyricism, sonically different, and a clear sense of purpose, the album reinforces her ability to grow while remaining unmistakably her own.