In an alternative timeline, 20-year-old Conan Gray would be in class right now. In 2017, he was a high school senior in Texas who had just come off UCLA’s waitlist. Then, his music video for “Idle Town,” a homemade folk-pop ode to his coming-of-age in Georgetown, Texas—the visuals show Gray singing into a plastic water bottle, suburban streets, a friend blowing out the candles on a heart-shaped birthday cake—started amassing millions of views on YouTube.

At the time, it had seemed like just another upload to Gray—one video among the many, in which he usually sat in a plant-filled bedroom and talked about bullying, or shared thrift-store hauls and the contents of his sketchbook. But it changed his life, he tells me in a boba shop in Manhattan’s East Village, garnering fans and music label attention. Now, his channel is more likely to offer music videos and tour vlogs.

Still, even after Gray signed with a major label, his online presence maintains that DIY feel, honest and unpolished. The singer-songwriter still does it all himself, because that’s how he likes it. When it comes to songwriting, Gray prefers his bedroom over studio sessions: “I met with a bunch of people I’d looked up to since I was a kid. But in the end, it was the stuff that I wrote on my own and the stuff that was personal that ended up being the best [fit],” he says. His merch and single covers feature his own handwriting and drawings. Until recently, he also wrote and directed his music videos—though he’s still coming up with all the concepts.

Gray kept both hands on the wheel for the release of his 2018 EP Sunset Season, as well as in preparation for his debut album, which is coming out next year. As more people got involved with the new music, he was worried that his vision would be lost. But looking through the tracklist recently, he realized that wouldn’t be the case. “It’s just me. Every single one of the songs, I literally recorded on my phone at one point,” he says.