Bryce Xavier is only 24 and has already learned not to settle for less. Maybe it’s because he’s been thrust into the public eye since he was 14, or because he’s felt double the amount of love and disappointment with his fame piled on top of it. With all eyes on him, he’s differentiating the attention he gets versus the attention he deserves.
The singer has been through a lot this year. “My grandma passed away two months ago and I was feeling really lonely with how many ‘friends’ I had, but only a few to really lean on,” Xavier tells me. “I wasn’t happy for so long because I felt like I wasn’t being poured into the way I was pouring into others, and I wanted a full stop to it.”
“Willing to Die,” Xavier’s latest single, is dreamy and danceable, akin to hits from Troye Sivan or Lauv. You’d think it was a head-in-the-clouds love song if it weren’t for the lyrics: “Would you be willing to die / For me to feel more at home?” The song is both a plea and an affirmation. He yearns as he sings, but is confident enough to know that nothing can stop him from getting what he wants.
Vulnerability is Xavier’s throughline. He’s been online from a young age, creating videos when TikTok was still Musical.ly, and going viral on Instagram for his cover songs. He kept up with the content since then, releasing his first single “Fall in Love Again” in 2019. Since then, he’s released a slew of singles alongside his debut EP Beautifully Tragic in 2021 and LP It’s Been a Good Game in 2024.
On TikTok, he’s been trying to be more open with his fans on how his songs come together. When he dropped the track “Want2Want” back in July, he described certain relationships in his life that couldn’t handle confrontation and realness. It’s easy to have fake friends, especially being on the Internet for so long—Xavier won’t have any of that. He wants to be loved, and loved in the way he knows he deserves.
“I’m definitely a lover boy. I always have been. The problem is that sometimes I’ve loved more than the other person and sacrificed a lot more. It left me feeling a bit unworthy, you know?” he says.
With his unfiltered videos and equally honest songs, I asked Xavier if he’s used to being vulnerable to millions of people, or if it still comes as a struggle.
“[I’m] definitely used to it, and also [it’s] definitely hesitant to share. I don’t think the fear of sharing will ever go away,” he says. “The internet is such a scary place, but I’ve decided to focus on the joy between the cracks. The people that support me are loud and even when the haters are loud too, I’ve always been good at compartmentalization.”
One of the things that makes his music so relatable is that it’s not all love songs—he sings about friendships cracking, falling apart, and building new ones that fill your cup. Listeners can definitely tie it to a lover (“a lot of people [dissect] the lyrics to know who and what I’m writing about,” Xavier tells me), but he shows that friendships can be just as emotional and heartbreaking.
“I got rid of a lot of friends and habits in my life that I felt weren’t good for me… I’m attracting myself towards the same love, energy and feeling that I have,” Xavier says.
Lately, Xavier just wants to dance through the pain. It’s his way of getting his feelings off his chest while manifesting the way that he wants to feel. He departs from soft ballads like “I Love You Boy” and last year’s Motown-esque “You Make Me Stupid” to tracks that border on disco and funk, including his single “Fever” released earlier this spring. He references Michael Jackson and Prince while channeling his love for the modern pop of The 1975, Robyn, and Janeremover.
Xavier is a chameleon—it feels as though he can change his sound at any time while still staying true to his authentic self. All of his tracks released this year are a part of a larger, full-length album—When I ask Xavier if he can tease anything, he replies, “You’re just gonna have to wait and see.”
Listeners can see Bryce Xavier live when he opens for Faux Real this fall. He’s teasing his performance as the “One Man Show,” what Xavier says “is a hint to something coming,” and will be like nothing he’s done before.
