Lorde says she has 'zero anxiety' about 'making less money' than she did earlier in her career

• Lorde discussed fame and commercial success in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.
• She said she's happy performing at smaller venues and selling fewer albums than she used to.
• "I have more money than I could ever spend in my life," she said.

Lorde opened up about her unconventional approach to fame and dispassion for commercial success in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The 24-year-old singer-songwriter is known to value her privacy. In between album cycles, she typically returns home to New Zealand and retreats from the spotlight, giving fans sparing updates via email newsletter. She does not have access to her own social media accounts.

"I have zero anxiety about it," she said of her low profile. "But I'm sure there is someone with a spreadsheet somewhere, who can point to the ways in which I'm making less money."

"I had this conversation with my manager," she continued. "I said, 'I have more money than I could ever spend in my life. I own a home. I own some lovely rugs and great furniture and can buy whatever I want at the grocery store. Like, we're good on money.'"

Lorde is due to release her much-anticipated third album, "Solar Power," on Friday. She declined to perform at arenas or sell CDs to promote the new music, opting instead for smaller venues and eco-friendly "music boxes," which will not count towards the Billboard 200 chart, according to Billboard.

"It's exactly where I want to be," Lorde told The Wall Street Journal. "I would much rather have a room with 5,000 people in it who know every word to every song and are passionate about me as an institution - than have 18,000 people who heard two songs on the radio and liked them."

She added that she thinks of herself more of an "amphitheater girl" than an "arena girl."

During her year-long Melodrama World Tour, which wrapped in November 2018, Lorde performed at several large venues, including Boston's TD Garden and Denver's Pepsi Center.

"I would be in the basement of a sports venue, showering in the basketball lockers - or, like, [the venue] would be named after a fast-food restaurant - and I'd just [think], 'I don't know if this is me,'" she said.

Lorde also said it's "the coolest" to have a smaller yet dedicated fanbase, which allows her to go out and about without paparazzi on her tail.

"To be able to have this huge amount of respect, but also still have my life, and not be so famous that my quality of life is disturbed - that's the dream," she said.