Earlier this month, singer/ songwriter LØLØ sat down with Monkey Goose Magazine to talk about her upcoming tour, opening for Marianas Trench and new music.
SS: You’ve got more tours and things coming up. So looking back from the summer, what would you say your favorite moment has been?
LØLØ: That’s a tough one because there’s been so many fun moments. Honestly, probably one of my favourite moments was All Your Friends Fest because as a Toronto native, it was cool to be up on that stage where I’ve seen so many festivals and to be on the main stage! I would say that was a really cool moment.
I just remembered one other one, though. I would also say singing with Simple Plan at Scotiabank Arena. Oh, and Budweiser was probably a highlight of my life, going on before Avril Lavigne hit that stage. So one of those 3 nights was probably the best.
SS: I’ve seen that they’re bringing Warped Tour back. Is that something you’d be into doing?
LØLØ: That would be great, I saw that. That would be Honestly… I saw it, and I immediately got anxious because I was like, that’s something I would wanna do. At the same time, I feel like so many people that if they were going to work with me, people would probably think, like, ‘oh, LØLØ’s such a poser, why is she on this? She’s so pop. She’s not punk enough.’ Which honestly I get it. I’m not a punk. But, I think it would still be really cool. But I feel like there would be varying opinions about me performing there.
However, I would love to perform there. So we’ll see what happens. I mean, they’ve had some pop performers in the past.
I think that’d be great, but ever since I got something thrown at me once at a festival for not being punk rock enough. Since then, I’ve always had this anxiety looming.
SS: You’ve got your headlining UK and EU tour this fall. What do you kind of have in store for that?
LØLØ: I’m really excited about that because it’s my first headlining tour ever. Normally, I have at the most, like, 45 minutes to perform. I’m usually teetering on 30 to 40 minutes, but now I finally have time. With that time, I can do so many more things. I can talk more about songs. I can bring in more audience participation. I’m gonna have a whole set design.
Basically, the long long-winded answer is that I will be putting on an experience rather than just a show.. So that’s that’s what I’m aiming to do.
SS: After that, you’re touring with Marianas Trench. How did that kind of come about?
LØLØ: My agent reached out to me and he’s like, ‘Would you wanna do this?’ And I was like, yeah, what the f*ck? This is so cool, and it’s crazy because I’m from Toronto.
So when that came up, I was like, woah. This is the best of both worlds because it’s a band that I’m dying to tour with and that I’ve loved forever, and I get to tour Canada for the first time. Unfortunately, I’m touring Canada in the winter. You would think I would know better. Why am I doing that? Couldn’t ask couldn’t tell you why, but, it’s gonna be fun regardless.
SS: When you are on tour or away for shows, how do you prepare to be away from home, and away from all your comforts?
LØLØ: You know what? It’s like I’m not preparing per se, but I have my things on the road more so, like, my crew and my band. I feel like I did one really small tour once without my comfort people, and I was so mentally unwell. I feel like it’s really important for me. I’ve had the same crew and band for a really long time. Like, yes, some people switch out and stuff, but, I feel like it’s the people around me that are the most important that keep me sane and keep me from freaking out on tour and getting too mentally exhausted or physically exhausted. So just making sure to have those people.
And then, of course, I have my sloth stuffed animal that has seen more of the world than most people, and he’s right here. I’ll show you.
This is… literally, my family makes fun of me. They don’t understand that I need this. I literally cannot…Anyways, I have that. And that’s my only constant besides my people. So stuffed Animal Queen.
SS: So your album, Falling For Robots and Wishing I was one, came out back during early summer. How would you describe the reception that it’s gotten?
LØLØ: I feel like it’s been a really good reception. I don’t think people were expecting there to be as many singer-songwriter slow songs as there were, which I’m happy about because I like surprising people. I feel like a lot of people are used to these upbeat bangers from me, whereas my favourite thing to write is a softer singer-songwriter song. You know, kinda depressing songs. That’s what I resonate most with.
It was cool to have both sides on the album and to surprise people with that and show them a different side of me once I had more time and length on an album to do that.
SS: Have you always been interested in the writing aspect as well as the singing, or is that something that’s kind of grown as you’ve been progressing through your career?
LØLØ: Yeah. I’ve definitely gone through phases. When I first started out, I was like, ‘I wanna be a singer’.
Then I started writing songs and I became obsessed with writing songs. Then when COVID happened and there were no performances or anything, I was just writing a lot. There was a second there where I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll just be a writer, maybe this is my career. I’m just going to be a writer for other people.’ I was writing with a lot of other artists and doing separate pitches, and I was like, ‘Okay, I think I think this is what I wanna do. It’s a lot less stressful than being an artist, you know?’
But then I went on my first tour ever, and I was literally obsessed with it and I loved performing. I had to remind myself, ‘Wait… What the hell? I’m an artist! Why would I wanna just be a writer?’
So I’m trying to do both right now and balance both and find time to work on my own artistic projects and other people’s. Although it is a bit challenging, I feel like I’m kind of doing it, so we’ll see.
SS: Do you ever find—when working with other artists —that you’re writing outside of your genre?
LØLØ: Yeah. I am definitely outside my genre. I just did an LA trip where I was doing K-pop pitches, and Ava Max’s newest single that she just put out, I co-wrote. So, you know, I think I find it really helpful writing outside my genre because then I’m prompting my brain to say things that I wouldn’t necessarily myself say. But then I’m like, ‘Oh, wait. That’s actually interesting, maybe I could say it, but like this, and then it would be more of a rock kind of attitude.’ You know?
At the end of the day, all songs are about love, heartbreak, loss, and missing someone. There’s the big topics that could just be so many different things.
SS: So when you were working on the album, for example, how did that process kind of come about?
LØLØ: At first, I didn’t know what I was working on. I mean, I’ve always been working towards an album at the end of the day.
In 2021, after I wrote “U & the Tin Man”, I was thinking that something about that song felt special. I didn’t wanna just put it at the end of one of my EPs and have it do nothing. I felt like there was a story behind it, I felt like it was part of something bigger. At the time, I didn’t know that it would be Falling for Robots and Wishing I Was One, but I put it in my back pocket and I knew this was album material.
It wasn’t until a year after that when I wrote “Wish I Was A Robot” that I had the moment like ‘Oh, this is kinda interesting because I wrote this song wishing I was a robot, but then in this other song that I love, I’m saying I guess I’m robots might be my type. Like, f*ck my life.’ So it’s funny that I would wish for something and then also hate on it, and then I was like, ‘Ah, there’s something cool here.’ It was some sort of yin and yang.
I thought that was cool, and I thought there was something special about that and then went to explore that the next year. That’s what led to me putting out my album. Every song on the album is either about falling for robots or wishing I was one. Some stuff didn’t really fit that theme, despite wanting it on the album, but then I was like, no. It’s not going on. It doesn’t fit the theme.
SS: It’s potentially more music for the future.
LØLØ: Oh, 100%.
SS: So, again, with performing, writing, and developing music, is there a point where you feel like a song is done? I know sometimes you’ll perform songs and make key changes and minor tweaks, but it makes a dynamic difference.
LØLØ: Yeah. I feel like I usually know when a song is done. It’s just kinda like a feeling. I have had moments where a song is done, and then later on, I’m performing it and I’m singing something and I’m at a show and there are people in the audience and then in my head, I think, ‘oh, f*ck… I could’ve said that instead, or I could’ve done this on the guitar. Maybe it would’ve been better… Oh, sh*t. Focus. You’re you’re playing a show right now.’
Then there are also times when I feel like my producers and I have really worked a song into the ground, and been convinced it’s not done yet. It’s not done yet. It could be better and then it ends up getting worse.
So there’s a really fine line of knowing when to stop because I think you could just keep working on something and sometimes it will start to get worse and not better. So, definitely, with my older stuff, I feel like I would do that. Now with my newer stuff, I try to slow down and not finish it as fast as possible, I try to not overthink it too much.
SS: Finish it and put it out of out of sight, out of mind for a little bit and then come back if you need to. I know with writing in general, I tend to work by the philosophy of “the more you stare at things and the more you’re just moving furniture around, the less sense it tends to make.”
LØLØ: Yeah. 100%. So true. That’s a good quote. That’s a good metaphor. I like that.
SS: In that same vein, what would you say is the most challenging part of performing or writing music or just being an artist in general, in your opinion?
LØLØ: The most challenging part is marketing yourself, honestly, and just being on all the time. There are some days when I’m exhausted, and I don’t want to do any of this or think about what TikTok I’m gonna post or which clip of the video or how I’m gonna share this.
I wish that I could just make music and then go on tour and everyone will just be there in the audience. But, unfortunately, you need to work hard at marketing yourself to put people in those seats. It just sucks that a lot of it is creating content. So it’s like it feels so cool to write a song and so cool to perform it, but it feels so uncool to be like, ‘Look at me! Listen to my song! This is it, it’s out now, and all the pre-saves, You know?’
So there’s that part but I’m sure every single artist in the world right now would probably answer the exact same thing if you said, ‘What’s your least favorite part?’ So I know we’re all in this together, so I try to just suck it up, but sometimes it sucks.
SS: I find sometimes, with content creation, it can feel so weird or cringe to you in the moment but I try to remember it only feels like that until it goes somewhere. And then once it does, it’s like breathing a bit easier.
LØLØ: Yeah. I feel like anytime I post something I’m like, ‘Oh, this is really cool.’ Nothing doesn’t get views. And then I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s kinda cringe or Oh, this caption is kinda cringe. F*ck, should I post this?’ And then that one gets, like 2 thousand views. I think that people like cringe. I think that one person or your friend or whoever telling you, ‘Oh, that’s cringe that you’re worried about it. You have to just put your cringe goggles on or stick your fingers in your ears and just do it because most people want that.
SS: I guess you’re not gonna have a ton of time to unwind and relax coming up. But when you do have time, what would you normally be doing?
LØLØ: Honestly, I feel like I’m such an extroverted introvert or maybe the opposite because I love my alone time.
I’d probably unwind, I would literally be in my room under my covers as I am now. I love to have interviews in my bed. But, yeah, just finding time to watch TV, because during the normal year when I have sessions every day or tour, I usually watch about 5 minutes of a show. I think it will take me a year to get through a season because I’m watching 5 minutes at a time while I’m eating quickly, and then I’ll pause it. So then when I have time, I love to binge TV. I just watched Pop Star Academy on Netflix. Highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it. It’s so good.
I also really like to go on walks, like long walks. My mom and I go all the time and hang out with my dog. I also love to see my family and see the friends that I have left after this crazy little life where I have no time to talk to anyone.
Just like nothing really, my hobby is music, so I have nothing interesting to tell you.
I don’t juggle or design clothes or anything like that. But I just chill, honestly, when I’m not doing music.
SS: Another popular answer I get a lot too is video games. They just want to sit down and turn it off.
LØLØ: A 100%. Not huge into video games now, but I used to be. I loved The Sims, which isn’t necessarily a video game, but it kind of is. It’s a computer game. But, I used to spend hours on The Sims. Hours. That was fun. Now you’re making me wanna re-download The Sims. That ruined my life. I remember I’d have an exam, but I was like, ‘I need to design this house.’
SS: When you go on stage, what energy are you hoping to bring to the fans? What experience are you hoping to give them?
LØLØ: Definitely hoping to give them a therapeutic experience. I definitely want it to be the energy that will go from calm to chaotic for sure. You know, from psychotic to reasoning with yourself, there’s a lot of ups and downs. My music deals with a lot of delusion and self-hate and anxiety and anger at people who have broken your heart and stuff.
But I’m hoping that together, we could all sing those songs and scream them and hopefully get a lot of stuff off our chest. You know, almost like a trauma dump in singing. A musical trauma dump. Let’s call it that.
SS: I think that’s the goal with a lot of music, right, is to have people connect and resonate.
LØLØ: Honestly, it’s so funny because I’ve seen people being like, ‘It’s not okay to trauma dump on artists.’ Everyone has their personal preferences, so no judgment there, but I think it’s so funny because I’m trauma-dumping on all of you constantly.
So please trauma dump on me. I actually love it when fans come up to me. They’re like, ‘This happened or this happened to me.’ I’m like, shut the f*ck up. He’s dead to us. Let me record a video right now and tell him to f*ck off. I’m so in it. I want the tea, give me the tea.
SS: Who would you say has been the most interesting person you’ve worked with, or who is somebody you would love to work with in the future?
LØLØ: Honestly, my producer that I recently met whom I did this whole album with named Mike Robinson, he’s been my favourite person to work with ever. I feel like we really get on. I feel like he’s my creative soulmate, honestly. We just really get along so well, and I feel like I love the songs that we make. He listens to me, whereas I’ve been in a lot of sessions with people where it’s this guy producer telling this young girl, ‘Do this… No… Do that.’ You know? This is better. I feel like Mike and I are on the same level. We’re teammates.
In terms of people who I would love to work with in the future, I feel like a dream of mine would be to write with Julia Michaels. I feel like she’s the best songwriter of our time.
If we’re getting into really crazy dreams, that would never happen, I would say Taylor Swift. But I don’t think that would happen. I would also love to work with Green Day. I think that’s so cool.
But again, probably out of the scope a bit, but never say never because I never thought I’d be singing with Simple Plan either.
SS: Last question, do you have any thoughts or advice for people looking to get started in the music industry?
LØLØ: Don’t do it. Run. No. I’m just kidding. I would say, be prepared to have very thick skin because it’s not easy. You’re putting yourself on a platform for everybody to judge you behind a computer screen.
Some people aren’t always the nicest. So I would say, again, put your blinders on and be cringe and just be yourself because if you’re trying to be something else or trying to be cool people unfortunately see right through that. Just do your thing. Don’t worry about what anyone else is thinking or at least try to.
I know that’s very hard but just keep going because if you keep going long enough, you have to succeed at something. Only the people who give up don’t make it because how could they make it if they give it up?
LØLØ’s newest single DON’T is out now!