Sky Ferreira reveals Elton John used to be her manager
‘It helped because everyone in my label was scared of him‘
By Tom Skinner
Sky Ferreira has revealed that Elton John was her manager before she released her single ‘Everything Is Embarrassing’ a decade ago.
The Los Angeles artist, who returned with the track ‘Don’t Forget’ in May, spoke about working with the legendary artist earlier in her career during a recent interview with V Magazine.
At one point in the chat, Ferreira was asked about being interviewed by John for a 2012 edition of the publication. “At the time, I was working with him, and he was managing me,” she explained.
“I was being managed by Elton John right before ‘Everything Is Embarrassing’. I’m still shocked by it. It definitely helped to have Elton [by my side] because everyone in my label was scared of him.”
The song in question – which was written by Ferreira alongside Ariel Rechtshaid and Dev Hynes, – appeared on the singer’s 2012 EP Ghost, and later featured on some editions of her debut album Night Time, My Time (2013).
Later, Ferreira spoke about the lengthy gap between her music (she is yet to release Masochism, the follow-up to Night Time…).
“I literally had [Masochism] in my mind since 2014. It’s gone through a lot of different phases of what it should be but I’m not glad that it took this long, because I didn’t want it to sleep this long,” she told V.
“I wasn’t allowed to release anything, to be straightforward. I was basically shelved without anyone outwardly saying it, but they were doing it. I wasn’t allowed to really do anything and it didn’t really make sense. It wasn’t like I was doing nothing for those eight years, you know?”
Ferreira continued: “If I did this sooner, there were a lot of things I wouldn’t have known or experienced either, even people I met and worked with, maybe that wouldn’t have happened. It gave me freedom [but yet], I had no freedom ironically because a lot of the time I was suffering through it.
“I felt trapped and I wasn’t really allowed to do anything. I wasn’t allowed to work with a lot of people, the circumstances were always crazy. The thing is though, something came out of that, but also it made me weirdly end up circling back musically to what I already do.”
During Ferreira and John’s conversation in 2012, the ‘Rocket Man’ musician praised the singer for taking the time to make her debut album on her “own terms”, saying that this approach was “such a good way to go”.
Back in January, Ferreira’s mother claimed on social media that her daughter’s second full-length would be arriving in March. The musician subsequently told fans to halt their “wrath and death threats” until April.
Ferreira then told NME last month that Masochism was “basically done for the most part, it’s just that some parts need to be re-recorded,” adding: “Just the finishing touches, really.”
Speaking to Pitchfork in 2019, Ferreira said that both ‘Don’t Forget’ and 2019 single ‘Downhill Lullaby’ would appear on her long-awaited new record. Last month, the artist premiered a new song called ‘Innocent Kind’ at a show in Portugal.