UPDATE: Lorde has taken to Twitter to clarify her latest interview where she addressed her friendship with Taylor Swift.
"I've always found people's perception of this 'squad' idea frustrating in the past. It was never some exclusive club or secret society...I want to say one more time that Taylor has always been there for me in all my dark and light moments these past 5 years. All of them. I f--ked up an interview question. Now go sip a beverage and head out on a walk."
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In an interview with Australia's Sunrise that aired Friday, co-host David Koch asked the New Zealand native about how she "coped" with befriending some of the people she'd idolized, like Beyoncé and Swift. "The second you think too hard about it, you'll just go insane," Lorde, 20, explained. "It's best to be like, 'We're in wonderland and it's just what happens around here.'"
"Also," Lorde clarified, "I don't hang out with these people at all."
"Hang on!" Koch said. "You're part of Taylor's squad; all the magazines tell us!"
Lorde shook her head at the notion. "You know, you make friends in different places," the singer said. "But I think for the most part I'm not, like, calling my idols for advice necessarily."
Instead, the "Green Light" singer said her parents—and not other musicians—have been her biggest mentors. "My parents are so inspiring in different ways. We're a close family, and we're very different. My mom's a poet and very emotional; I'm a reader because of her," she said. "My dad's an engineer—very methodical and very calm. I take a lot from both of them, I think."
Lorde appeared on Sunrise to promote Melodrama, her recently released sophomore album. "It's very scary putting out a second album, but it could not have gone better," she said of recording a follow-up to 2013's Pure Heroine, which won two Grammys. "I feel really grateful."
She's quite proud of Melodrama. "It sounds very different to Pure Heroine, and a lot of the sentiments are very different, but it is still me, and it's still me sort of thrashing my arms around and singing like my heart depends on it," Lorde laughed. "I think people sorta get that about it."
Lorde will kick off her 60-date world tour in Manchester Sept. 26, and her trek will end Apr. 15, 2018 in Nashville. "I am such a different performer than I was when I was 16. I feel like I can really lead a show with nothing but my body and a microphone and a pair of sneakers," Lorde shared. "The music lends itself more to a live atmosphere. It's stuff you can actually dance to."