Interview: Poppy Hits Australia This Week As ‘Empty Hands’ Drops

Poppy kicks off her Australian tour tonight with her new album ‘Empty Hands’ landing this Friday, January 23rd via Sumerian Records.

Poppy’s always thrived in the space where things feel a little unpredictable, whether she’s leaning into heavier territory or pulling things back into something more unsettling and controlled.

Ahead of the tour, Emily Spindler spoke to Poppy about finishing albums, writing without worrying about genre, and what it means when songs stop being private and start taking on a life of their own in a live room.

Emily: Empty Hands is your seventh studio album. At this point, what tells you an album is finished?

Poppy: When there’s nothing left I want to prove to it. When it stops asking questions back. I don’t really believe things are “finished,” but I do believe in the moment where holding on starts to feel dishonest.

Emily: The title Empty Hands suggests absence or release. What were you intentionally letting go of while making this record?

Poppy: I wanted to see what happened if I stopped gripping so tightly and let the songs stand on their own, even if that meant they felt exposed.

Emily: You’ve worked with Jordan Fish across multiple tracks now. What does he challenge you on that others don’t?

Poppy: He challenges me to commit. If something is emotional, he pushes it further. If something is ugly, he won’t let me soften it.

Emily: Do you still think about genre at all when you’re writing, or is that entirely an external conversation now?

Poppy: Genre is something other people need so they know where to put things. I think about feeling, texture, pressure. If it needs to be loud, it’s loud. If it needs space, it breathes.

Emily: Touring Australia right as the album drops is intense timing. Do you experience songs differently once they exist in a room with people instead of headphones?

Poppy: Yes. Songs change when they’re shared. They stop belonging to me in the same way. Sometimes they come back heavier. Sometimes lighter. Sometimes the room teaches me what the song actually means.

Emily: You’ve collaborated recently with a lot of iconic acts: Knocked Loose, Amy Lee, Courtney LaPlante. What makes a collaboration feel like the right fit for you?

Poppy: Mutual respect, and a little danger. I want voices that don’t apologize for taking up space.

Emily: After years of public narratives about who Poppy “is,” how do you personally define authorship over your work now?

Poppy: Authorship is showing up and making the choices. Even the uncomfortable ones. It’s exhaustive to correct narratives, I prefer to keep creating until the narratives fall apart on their own.

Emily: When people see you live on this tour, what do you hope they understand about Empty Hands that might not come through on record alone?

Poppy: That it’s physical. Live, you feel what’s underneath it.

Emily: You’ve spent years disrupting expectations around femininity in heavy music without making it the headline. How has your relationship to that conversation changed, if at all?

Poppy: I don’t carry that conversation consciously. I exist, I create, and that’s enough. If that disrupts something, that’s not my burden to explain.

Emily: You’ve worked across music, film, performance art, and publishing. Did any ideas for this album start life outside of music entirely?

Poppy: Yes. Some of the songs started as images. Some as movement. Some as silence. Music is just where they landed.

Emily: When this album cycle ends, what do you hope Empty Hands represents in the larger arc of your catalogue?

Poppy: A clearing.

Poppy Australian tour dates