Lana Del Rey has said it is time to stop and question why so many people have died in mass shootings in the US.
The singer-songwriter, 34, recently released a song in response to the massacres – titled Looking For America – and said the money raised would go to charities helping victims of the shootings.
Speaking with BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac on Tuesday, the Blue Jeans singer said the most recent spate of shootings had left her close friends “very upset” in a way she had not seen before.
Del Rey said they now feared a mass shooting could occur at their home town’s holiday event.
She said: “California and New York – I was between both states when that double mass shooting happened, when I released that song.
“People were very upset in a way that personally I have not heard my friends talk before.
“I mean (they were) crying: ‘Is it going to be next at our holiday parade?’
“It was really scary because at that point it was a really large number of people who had been shot and it’s only August.
“Especially now on my phone, when you wake up you’ve got your news feed right there.
“You see it. You see the headline that there is a mass shooting in Kansas. You keep scrolling.
“It’s like it’s every few days. It’s time to stop and ask why.”
Incidents at a food festival in Gilroy, California, a shopping centre in El Paso, Texas, and in central Dayton, Ohio, reignited the fierce debate over gun control in America.
The Grammy-nominated artist also explained the meaning behind the title of her forthcoming sixth studio album, Norman F****** Rockwell.
She said that by adding a swear word in between the American author, painter and illustrator’s first and last names, she was making a comment on the American Dream.
“Obviously, I am not a highly political writer,” she said.
“I haven’t in the past had a lot of political songs.
“But it also reminded me that if I put the effing in between the Norman and Rockwell it is really like a commentary, like an exclamation point on the American Dream.
“Like, where are we now in the American Dream? Well, Norman effing Rockwell. This is where we have come? We are kind of in a state of exclamation.
“Culturally, everything is super different, I feel, today than it was 10 years ago. It’s a lot more fiery and fun and there’s a lot more different personalities.
“It’s definitely an interesting time and it called for an interesting title.”
Norman F****** Rockwell is released on August 30.
