Conan Gray is an American singer-songwriter who built an audience of millions on YouTube before turning that following into four consecutive top-ten Billboard albums, moving in the span of a decade from a lamp-taped bedroom microphone in Georgetown, Texas, to co-writing sessions with pop producer Max Martin. His catalog traces a deliberate arc: the confessional, guitar-and-piano indie pop of Kid Krow (2020) and Superache (2022), a full pivot into glossy '80s synth-pop on Found Heaven (2024), and a return toward intimacy, filtered through a newly learned pop songcraft, on Wishbone (2025).
Conan Lee Gray was born on December 5, 1998, in Lemon Grove, California, a suburb of San Diego, to an Irish father and a Japanese mother. As an infant he moved with his family to Hiroshima, Japan, so relatives could help care for his paternal grandfather, who had been diagnosed with cancer; after his grandfather's death, the family returned to California. His parents divorced when he was three years old, and he was raised primarily by his single mother, moving nine times during his childhood, including twice during sixth grade alone. He has spoken about being bullied in grade school for being quiet, and about the complicated experience of being mixed-race in mostly white schools.
As a preteen, Gray's family settled in Georgetown, Texas, a city of roughly 70,000 people north of Austin, where he spent the rest of his adolescence. That small-town upbringing became the defining emotional geography of his songwriting, an Americana-inflected nostalgia for idle afternoons, high-school heartbreak and quiet-kid alienation that still anchors his catalog. As he put it in 2025, "I'm as Texan as it gets."
Gray created his YouTube channel in 2013 and began posting videos at age 15, initially baking tutorials, art content and everyday vlogs about life in small-town Texas with titles like "SOCIALLY AWKWARD??" and "Cat Farts." He layered in song covers of Adele, Lana Del Rey, Troye Sivan and Frank Ocean, and eventually his own bedroom-recorded originals, using his computer's default editing software. By the time he crossed 100,000 subscribers, he says he "didn't really understand what 100,000 people were." His channel has since grown to 5.72 million subscribers and nearly 2 billion total views.
Gray was accepted to UCLA and moved to Los Angeles in September 2017, but dropped out after roughly two months once he was signed to a major label, later joking he was "like Hannah Montana-ing it the whole time" while briefly juggling college and a music career.
Gray self-released his debut single "Idle Town" in March 2017, famously recorded on GarageBand with a microphone taped to a broken lamp after he skipped class to finish it. The song went viral, racking up over 14 million Spotify streams and 12 million YouTube views, and reoriented his life within a week. As he later put it, "the same week I put up 'Idle Town,' I got kicked out of my house so I was living with my friends. I also started getting hit up by record labels that same week."
He self-released a second single, "Grow," in September 2017, and in summer 2018 signed with Republic Records, a Universal Music Group label. Around this time, producer Dan Nigro, a former member of the indie-rock band As Tall as Lions who had worked on Caroline Polachek's "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" and cuts from Sky Ferreira's Night Time, My Time, reached out to collaborate. Republic released "Generation Why" in October 2018, described as a rallying call to millennials, followed by the five-track debut EP Sunset Season in November 2018 ("Idle Town," "Generation Why," "Crush Culture," "Greek God," "Lookalike"), which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and leaned heavily on Lorde's Pure Heroine as a sonic and lyrical touchstone.
Gray supported the EP with the Sunset Shows tour, made his late-night television debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers in early 2019, and opened for Panic! at the Disco on the Pray for the Wicked Tour. Between March and October 2019 he released three pre-album singles, "Checkmate," "Comfort Crowd" and "Maniac," and mounted his second headliner, the Comfort Crowd Tour, with support from Benee and UMI. By October 2019 his catalog had surpassed 250 million cumulative streams, and he won the 2019 Shorty Award for Best YouTube Musician while earning a Streamy Award nomination for Breakthrough Artist. That momentum set up his proper studio-album debut.
Released March 20, 2020, on Republic, Kid Krow was recorded in 2019 at Amusement Studios in Los Angeles and produced chiefly by Dan Nigro, with additional production from Captain Cuts and Jam City. The 33-minute, 12-track indie-pop record includes "Comfort Crowd," "Wish You Were Sober," "Maniac," "Checkmate," "The Cut That Always Bleeds," "Affluenza," "Heather," "Little League" (co-written with Ben Berger, Ryan McMahon and Ryan Rabin, produced by Captain Cuts) and "The Story." It debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 with over 49,000 album-equivalent units, 37,000 in pure sales, making it the biggest new-artist pop debut in the U.S. in over two years, since Camila Cabello's 2018 self-titled record. It was certified Gold by the RIAA on May 4, 2021.
"Heather" became a sleeper TikTok hit in August 2020, later becoming Gray's first Billboard Hot 100 entry and charting top 40 in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Taylor Swift publicly praised the album on her Instagram story, singling out "Wish You Were Sober" as "a masterpiece"; Gray replied calling her his "lifelong songwriting inspiration and icon." A fifth-anniversary edition, Kid Krow, Decomposed, was surprise-released March 19, 2025, featuring the previously unreleased track "Bed Rest" plus live versions of "The Cut That Always Bleeds" and "Heather" from the Found Heaven tour.
Released June 24, 2022, on Republic, Superache was recorded between 2021 and 2022 at Amusement Studios and Cirkut City in Los Angeles, produced by Dan Nigro with Cirkut contributing to lead single "Disaster." The 40-minute, 12-track album, co-written throughout by Gray and Nigro with Julia Michaels credited on several songs, includes "Movies," "People Watching," "Disaster," "Astronomy," "Yours," "Jigsaw," "Summer Child," "Memories" and "The Exit." Gray described the writing process bluntly: "Writing this album was miserable, and that's why it ended up being a super-accurate depiction of my life... It felt like scraping my ribs of any last bits of meat."
Superache debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 with 43,000 units, Gray's second consecutive top-ten entry, and reached No. 8 in the UK, Australia and Ireland, earning a Metacritic score of 81, described as "universal acclaim." It was later certified Gold in Australia, New Zealand and Poland, Platinum in Canada, and Gold in the UK.
Released April 5, 2024, on Republic, Found Heaven was recorded in 2023 across No Expectations Studios in Hollywood, MXM Studios, The Village Studios, Subtle McNugget Studios in Los Angeles and House Mouse Studios in Stockholm. It was Gray's first album made without Dan Nigro, who was tied up producing Olivia Rodrigo's Guts at the time; in his place Gray recruited Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Oscar Holter, Greg Kurstin and Shawn Everett. The 36-minute, 13-track album was preceded by five singles, "Never Ending Song" (May 2023), "Winner" (August 2023), "Killing Me" (October 2023), "Lonely Dancers" (February 2024) and "Alley Rose" (March 2024), and is classified as synth-pop, dance-pop, electro and new wave, marking Gray's most dramatic genre pivot to date.
Found Heaven debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 with 36,857 units, including 16,000 on vinyl alone, his third consecutive top-ten placement on the Vinyl Albums chart, and notably reached No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart, his highest UK peak to date. Metacritic scored it 76. Commentators described "Killing Me" as "a merger between A-ha's 'Take On Me' and The Weather Girls' 'It's Raining Men,'" and noted the era's visual rebrand, a teardrop-star motif and a dark blue and neon color palette, as evidence of a deliberate if commercially riskier reinvention. Reception was more divided than for his first two records, with some critics and fans noting the new sound risked alienating the younger listeners drawn to his earlier diaristic mode. Gray described the shift as "a celebration of emotions" and "the beginning of a story." The "Never Ending Song" music video won Best Music Video at the 2024 Tribeca Festival Awards.
Released August 15, 2025, Wishbone marked Gray's return to Dan Nigro, who produced four tracks, alongside new collaborators Ethan Gruska, Noah Conrad, Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser. It was Gray's first fully self-owned release, issued under his own imprint, GirlyBoy, Inc. Critics described the album as blending Gray's bedroom-pop DNA with newfound musical ambition, citing Beatles-esque psychedelia on "Class Clown" and Olivia Rodrigo-style bridge "detonations" on "Nauseous," suggesting a hybrid of his diaristic roots and his arena-pop education under Martin. Lead single "This Song" featured actor Corey Fogelmanis. Wishbone debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, Gray's highest career chart placement, and No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart; the single "Vodka Cranberry" reached No. 19 on Pop Airplay, his highest radio peak. Track "My World," which references kissing both girls and guys, was dubbed a "bisexual anthem" by fans. A deluxe edition followed April 24, 2026, adding four new tracks, led by single "The Best," released March 27, 2026.
Dan Nigro is Gray's foundational producer and co-writer, brought on for Sunset Season in 2018 and remaining through Kid Krow and Superache as primary producer and co-writer on nearly every track. Nigro, a former As Tall as Lions frontman who later became one of pop's most in-demand producers via Olivia Rodrigo's Sour and Guts and Chappell Roan's catalog, sat out Found Heaven entirely because he was finishing Rodrigo's Guts at the time, a scheduling overlap Gray has confirmed publicly. Nigro returned for four tracks on Wishbone, reportedly encouraging Gray to write the album's most vulnerable songs alone, telling him: "You've written with other people before and you've got a few good songs out of that, but the truth is you write the best by yourself, so just go and write it by yourself."
Greg Kurstin, the veteran hitmaker behind records for Adele, Sia and Foo Fighters, joined Found Heaven as writer and producer on three tracks, "Alley Rose," "Forever with Me" and "Winner," contributing classic-rock and piano-ballad textures distinct from the Martin and Ilya synth-pop cuts on the same album; "Alley Rose" has been likened to '70s-era Elton John.
Max Martin, alongside longtime collaborators Ilya Salmanzadeh and Oscar Holter, became Found Heaven's dominant creative force, writing and producing seven of the album's 13 tracks, including all five pre-release singles except "Alley Rose" and "Winner." Gray has called the experience "almost like a pop music bootcamp," crediting Martin with teaching him melodic economy and structure: "How can I make [a melody] something that people will remember and won't just be forgotten into nothingness?" Martin's catalog includes career-defining work for Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Britney Spears, placing Gray, for one album cycle, inside the same hit-factory pipeline as some of pop's biggest names.
Gray's friendship with Olivia Rodrigo began around 2020 to 2021, when an 18-year-old Rodrigo texted Gray asking him on a pandemic-era walk after he had slid into her DMs praising "All I Want." Gray mistook her for a childhood neighbor also named Olivia back in Georgetown, Texas, and never replied, a mix-up only resolved at a dinner at Dan Nigro's house. He still has her saved in his phone as "OLIVIA FUCKING RODRIGO." The two properly met while both recording with Nigro during lockdown, a period Gray describes as seeing "almost nobody else even vaguely in our age range" other than Dan. They have since danced on each other's TikToks, performed together on tour, including Gray's Sour Tour cameo in Vancouver in April 2022 covering Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away," and posed together at the Met Gala. Rodrigo was directly involved in shaping Wishbone: "We literally made this album together," Gray has said, describing her role in picking singles, weighing in on production choices, approving cover art and critiquing vocal takes. In 2026, Gray provided backing vocals on Rodrigo's track "Honeybee" from her album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, released June 12, 2026.
Gray's touring history has scaled in step with his albums. The Superache Tour ran September 2022 through March 2023 across North America, Asia and additional international markets, following a separate spring 2022 world tour that preceded the album's release; during that broader period Gray also guested on Olivia Rodrigo's Sour Tour stop in Vancouver.
Found Heaven On Tour, his fifth headlining run and first at arena scale, ran July 11 to November 10, 2024, across 16 countries in Australia, Asia, North America and Europe, roughly 40 scheduled shows. It opened at John Cain Arena in Melbourne and closed at OVO Arena Wembley in London, with a milestone stop at Madison Square Garden on September 30, 2024, where Gray first played the then-unreleased song "Holidays." Maisie Peters opened the North American leg and Between Friends opened the European leg; Kat Edwards supported the Australian dates. Three Asian dates, in Manila, Taipei and Osaka, were cancelled for undisclosed reasons.
Gray supported Wishbone with The Wishbone Pajama Show, running September 11 to October 19, 2025, with Hemlocke Springs opening U.S. dates and Andrea Bejar supporting in Mexico, and including his first-ever headline date at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on October 6, 2025, plus Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey stops. The larger Wishbone World Tour followed, launching February 19, 2026, in Minneapolis and spanning North America, Europe and Oceania across 43 shows, concluding October 8, 2026, in Perth, Australia. Live Nation has promoted Gray's major tours throughout this period.
Gray has been signed to Republic Records, a Universal Music Group label, since summer 2018, with all four studio albums and the Sunset Season EP released through Republic; UK releases have gone through Island Records. His self-owned imprint, GirlyBoy, Inc., was trademarked in 2018 as a long-term vehicle for eventually owning his masters; Wishbone became the first album released under that structure.
From 2018 until early 2026, Gray was managed by Colette Patnaude Nelson and Eddie Wintle of Expand Entertainment, based on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, the same pair who originally discovered him as a high schooler on YouTube. In January 2026, Gray signed with Brandon Creed's Good World Management, joining a roster that includes Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Mark Ronson and Role Model. Creed founded Good World in August 2023 and was named Billboard's Manager of the Year at the start of 2025.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1998 | Born December 5 in Lemon Grove, California. |
| 2013 | Creates YouTube channel at age 15, posting vlogs and covers from Georgetown, Texas. |
| 2017 | Self-releases "Idle Town" (March), moves to Los Angeles for UCLA (September), drops out after two months once signed. |
| 2018 | Signs with Republic Records; releases "Generation Why" and debut EP Sunset Season (No. 2, Heatseekers Albums). |
| 2019 | Comfort Crowd Tour; opens for Panic! at the Disco; catalog passes 250 million streams. |
| March 2020 | Debut album Kid Krow released; debuts No. 5 Billboard 200. |
| August 2020 | "Heather" breaks via TikTok, becomes first Hot 100 entry. |
| June 2022 | Second album Superache released; debuts No. 9 Billboard 200, Metacritic 81. |
| April 2024 | Found Heaven released, Gray's first album without Dan Nigro; debuts No. 14 US, No. 4 UK. |
| Jul–Nov 2024 | Found Heaven On Tour, first arena tour, includes Madison Square Garden date. |
| March 2025 | Surprise release of Kid Krow, Decomposed, fifth-anniversary edition. |
| August 2025 | Fourth album Wishbone released, first self-owned release via GirlyBoy, Inc.; debuts No. 3 Billboard 200. |
| Sep–Oct 2025 | The Wishbone Pajama Show, including first Red Rocks headline date. |
| January 2026 | Signs with Brandon Creed's Good World Management. |
| Feb–Oct 2026 | Wishbone World Tour, 43 shows across North America, Europe and Oceania. |
| April 2026 | Wishbone Deluxe released with four new tracks. |
| June 2026 | Contributes backing vocals to Olivia Rodrigo's "Honeybee." |
Gray's commercial trajectory shows a consistent top-ten, or near top-ten, US album debut across every era, with UK chart performance actually improving over time, No. 30 for Kid Krow to No. 8 for Superache to No. 4 for Found Heaven, even as the synth-pop pivot drew a more mixed US critical and fan response. Across his catalog, Gray has surpassed 12 billion global streams as of mid-2025.
| Release | Key US chart result | Select international peaks |
|---|---|---|
| Sunset Season (2018) | No. 2, Billboard Heatseekers Albums | — |
| "Maniac" (2019/2020) | No. 1425, Bubbling Under Hot 100 | No. 1 Australia; top 100 Ireland & South Korea |
| Kid Krow (2020) | No. 5, Billboard 200 (49,000 units) | No. 5 Canada; No. 30 UK; No. 26 Australia |
| "Heather" (2020) | First Hot 100 entry | Top 40 UK, Australia, NZ, Ireland |
| Superache (2022) | No. 9, Billboard 200 (43,000 units) | No. 8 UK, Australia, Ireland; No. 4 Scotland |
| Found Heaven (2024) | No. 14, Billboard 200 (36,857 units) | No. 4 UK; No. 2 Scotland; No. 8 Belgium (Flanders) & Poland |
| Wishbone (2025) | No. 3, Billboard 200; No. 1 Top Album Sales | Lead single "Vodka Cranberry" No. 19 Pop Airplay |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Sunset Season (EP) | Debut EP; No. 2 Heatseekers Albums |
| 2020 | Kid Krow | No. 5 Billboard 200; RIAA Gold |
| 2022 | Superache | No. 9 Billboard 200; Metacritic 81 |
| 2024 | Found Heaven | No. 14 US / No. 4 UK; first album without Dan Nigro |
| 2025 | Kid Krow, Decomposed | Fifth-anniversary reissue with unreleased track "Bed Rest" |
| 2025 | Wishbone | No. 3 Billboard 200, career-best peak; first GirlyBoy, Inc. release |
| 2026 | Wishbone Deluxe | Four new tracks, led by "The Best" |
Each album has been tied to a different producer relationship. Dan Nigro's diaristic, guitar-and-piano pop defined Kid Krow and Superache. When Nigro was unavailable for Found Heaven, occupied with Olivia Rodrigo's Guts, Gray worked instead with Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Oscar Holter and Greg Kurstin, producing his most dramatic genre pivot into synth-pop and new wave. Nigro returned for part of Wishbone, which critics describe as a hybrid of Gray's earlier intimacy and the pop songcraft he learned from Martin.
The two met and became close while both recording with producer Dan Nigro during the COVID-19 lockdowns, after an earlier case of mistaken identity when Rodrigo first texted Gray. They have appeared on tour together, at the Met Gala, and Rodrigo was closely involved in shaping Wishbone, helping pick singles and approve production choices. Gray later sang backing vocals on Rodrigo's 2026 track "Honeybee."
It is his most culturally persistent one. "Heather," from Kid Krow, became a sleeper hit on TikTok in August 2020, months after the album's release, and gave Gray his first Billboard Hot 100 entry along with top-40 chart placements in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
GirlyBoy, Inc. is Gray's self-owned imprint, trademarked in 2018 as a long-term structure for eventually owning his own masters. Wishbone, released in 2025, was the first album issued under that structure, distributed through Republic Records.
Readers interested in the producer network around Gray's catalog may also want the entry for Dan Nigro, whose scheduling overlap with Olivia Rodrigo's Guts directly precipitated Gray's synth-pop turn on Found Heaven, and who returned for part of Wishbone.