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    Concert Preview: LOLO at Big Room Bar

    When I started writing for Columbus Underground last year, my greatest hope was that I would have at least a couple of opportunities to sit down and have honest and revealing conversations with musicians, comedians, and actors about their craft. I never would have predicted that almost all of the artists about whom I’ve chosen to write would agree to engage me in a discussion — from less-than-ideal locations like the back seat of a moving cargo van in rural Pennsylvania, or a hotel room while they’re fighting the flu and should probably be sleeping it off instead of talking to me. They’ve been gracious, accommodating, and patient — even when I’m sure I must be the umpteenth writer to ask them how they write songs, or to tell me what performers have influenced them the most throughout their career.

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    My interview with LOLO (whose given name is Lauren Pritchard) last week was no exception — and I’ll add that she perfectly matched the descriptor of “badass sweetheart” that her manager had used several weeks ago when they contacted me about promoting her upcoming show at Big Room Bar. Our thirty-five minute phone call confirmed why LOLO has drawn such admiration from her fans and her peers in the industry: her gifts as a musician are complemented by complete honesty and approachability.  When we connected, she was waiting to go on stage during a tour stop in Virginia. Like so many of the musicians I’ve spoken to over the past six months or so, LOLO been on the road for months — in her case, in support of her most recent EP, The Comeback Queen, that’s received universal acclaim since its release last July.  Her career has spanned almost twenty years, beginning when she started writing songs as a child in her hometown of Jackson, Tennessee. By the time she was a teenager, she had moved to Los Angeles to pursue work as a musician — eventually transitioning to New York and the Broadway stage in the lead role of Ilse as part of the original cast of Spring Awakening.  In 2010, she released her first album, Wasted in Jackson, and more recently, composed the score for the Off-Broadway show Songbird — an interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.  LOLO has been featured as a vocalist on tracks by Panic! at the Disco, Matt Nathanson, and Lemaitre, and also appeared prominently on Fall Out Boy’s 2014 top ten hit, “Centuries”.

    You’ve been praised for your songwriting and composing.  Do you remember what originally made you want to express yourself through music? What were your first songs about?

    “I started composing music when I was around nine years old… but I didn’t really venture into the world of lyrics until I was in early high school. I was really into poetry, so I think lyrically that’s where my head was at for my initial composing stuff. And then, my first couple of songs were inspired by a weekend church retreat thing in Nashville I went to when I was in high school. There were these fellow musician creative types — a group of three guys and two girls. I met them and it was like “oh my gosh! People who think like me! People who want to create music and are into that sort of thing!” It was really cool to make that connection outside of my little home town. I was so gutted to have to leave them when that weekend was over. So, my first couple of songs were about that — about having to leave after finding people you can totally relate to right away.”

    You moved to Los Angeles when you were incredibly young — and I actually read in an article that you lived with Lisa Marie Presley at some point during that journey. How did that happen and what role did she play in your career?

    “I know Lisa — her daughter Riley (Keough) is one of my dearest friends. And Riley and I met through my closest guy friend, Alex — at the time, he was very close with the guy Riley was dating when we were in high school. And that’s how we initially met; and then we became best friends. My mother and I moved out (to Los Angeles) when I was sixteen, and when I was seventeen at the beginning of the year, my younger brother came out to visit and stayed with us for a couple of weeks. And he got into a really awful skating accident and shattered his collarbone and all of this craziness, and had to have major surgery on his shoulder. And so, my mom had to go back (home) to take care of him… and I was still a minor, so therefore I was moving back. So, I went around saying goodbye to all the friends I’d made over the last year-and-a-half in L.A. — and Riley was like “you can’t leave — you can just stay with me”, and I said “I can’t do that, but thank you and I love you, and we’ll keep in touch”. And then a few days later, Lisa called. (She) knew what I was doing; I had an agent, I’d booked a few commercials and I made a little bit of money doing that — (she) knew about my reggae band and my writing. Lisa was so on my side and very supportive and very much a fan of the music I was writing, which was such a huge compliment. Lisa called my mom and said “you can’t take her! We love her and we believe in her, and she can just stay with us”. Not even necessarily as a musical influence, but Lisa is an incredible woman, she’s an incredible mother to her four children — and I admire her greatly. No-one can really imagine what it’s like to be her — she’s a person who was famous before she was even a walking and talking human. I have a lot of admiration for her; she’s a very strong, beautiful person.”

    So, trying to make it in L.A. as a musician… good experience or otherwise?

    You know, L.A.’s always been really good to me… ironically. L.A. is not good to most people. Most people find it a very hard place to adjust because it’s Hollywood-land. Like, everything is a gimmick out there — everyone’s got an angle or an ulterior motive, you know what I mean? My time in L.A. the very first time I went was weird — but not in a bad way. It was more or less me trying to figure out a combination of who I was… trying to figure out what that means to become an adult as I’m sort of getting out of high school and trying to figure out what life means as a high school-er in L.A. It was major culture shock going from my small town in Tennessee to Los Angeles — it was like “wait… what is all of this?” It was crazy — and very overwhelming. But, I managed to make some really great friends — and then after I did a few years in New York, I went back to L.A. I always go back to L.A. to do recording or whatever. It’s been very good to me.”

    You have Broadway in your background and you recently wrote the score for the Off-Broadway production of Songbird. I know you’re focusing a lot on pop music right now, but is writing for the stage something you’d like to go back to eventually?

    “It’s definitely something I want to do more of. It’s definitely one of those things I didn’t think I was going to do until I was older… you know… at 40, 45, 50… but not 27. I don’t know why but the title of “composer” sounds very grown-up — it sounds very official. So it’s been a funny adjustment for that reason. You know the other side of it is… as a female songwriter… as a female in this industry in general — we’re vastly outnumbered. The man-to-woman ratio in a lot of industries is not even, but the man-to-woman ration in the music industry — especially in behind-the-scenes part of the industry — is not even at all. And especially in the world of theater, it’s a fucking man’s world. So, what I would like to continue to do with my composer-ness is create things for the female opportunity — which we’ve already done and we continue to do. Not try and make it a girl’s club, but create those opportunities for women that are not normally there. So, that’s been really fun to try and create roles and write songs that girls don’t normally get to sing, and then we get do something like Songbird and they get to be a little naughty, which is nice (laughs). But yeah, it was an interesting process because Michael (Kimmel), who wrote the script, and myself when we started working on it… it wasn’t like we got commissioned by someone to do it. We just started doing it. We had no idea what to expect — in a good way, but also in that we never could have predicted what might have happened… and we were very grateful.”

    Your voice is an incredible instrument. Is it different writing songs for yourself as opposed to when you write for other singers?

    “Maybe yes… a little. But not really, because I think the main thing I try and do when I’m writing for other people — because I like this for me as a singer… I have found that in writing for other people it’s helpful to think of songs not from the writing side — from the singer side. When you’re thinking about things like melody and song structure — sometimes there are songs written and they’re fucking hard to sing. And they’re not written with the singer in mind. It’s like “these are the notes I want you to sing — sing the fucking song”. And there is such an art to singing — and singing well. And then also singing so you don’t hurt yourself. It’s a very precious instrument and I don’t think people talk about that enough. It’s a muscle and it takes very little for shit to go wrong with your voice box if you don’t know what you’re doing. And that’s why a lot of the time you can see these people who will wind up singing these songs that are written for shock factor — like, up in the stratosphere. It doesn’t mean it’s a singable song. And so I think when I am writing for other people — I try and write something that’s actually like… you’ll hear a singer say this: “it feels good to sing that song”. They’ll say it about some songs. And that’s definitely the perspective I try and go for when I’m writing for other people.”

    I’m curious what the meaning is behind the title of your EP The Comeback Queen. Listening to the tracks, your lyrics and vocal performances seem very impassioned — if not pained. Am I reading that correctly?

    “Yes, absolutely. The end of 2014 was a very hard time for me personally. Not to get too specific, but I basically just — I went through something that was unfortunately hard. I’d been through difficult things before, but I’d never really made the conscious decision to be like ‘the only way I’m getting out of this… like… my therapy is going to have be music and I’m going to have to share this. Even if only five people listen, I’m going to have to share this.” And so that was the driving force behind the EP and the songs that were created. And The Comeback Queen theme is in relation to that. You know, I got very depressed and had to go through various things and trying to re-acclimate my emotions and my feelings, et cetera. The Comeback Queen is something that was… coming back into myself — coming back against the dark side of myself and the thing I was going through — and surviving up above it, and conquering it, and face it head on, and move forward. There was some very sincere pain and grieving — you know like the line in “I Don’t Wanna Have To Lie”: ‘waves of sadness, waves of grief”… couldn’t be more honest. So, it felt very helpful to be able to put it into music and identify what the pain was. It helped me compartmentalize it to be able to move on. I think it’s important to talk about because I feel like we all live our lives through our phones through something like Twitter or Instagram or whatever now, and everyone’s like “everything just looks so fun!” Sometimes life’s not fun and sometimes people get depressed as fuck — it doesn’t matter who you are. And you have to take happy pills and go see a therapist and like, figure your shit out. And I think it’s important to talk about because depression is so hard — it can be very hard to overcome, because it’s really easy to wake up and feel sorry for yourself. Or feel sad about whatever you’re going through — you know what I mean? It’s as addictive of a drug any narcotic or actual drug out there. Depression is a real drug — it’s a stimulant. It’s scientifically proven… in your brain, the kinds of things it releases — endorphins… whatever. So, it’s scary and I think it’s important to talk about.”

    You’ve been recording with a lot of influential musicians lately. Are there other bands or singers you’re listening to right now that you find exciting or inspiring?

    “So, there’s a band from the west coast called Fidlar — I don’t know if you know who they are. They are the fucking shit. They have an album out called Too, and it is the best — it’s on permanent repeat for me right now. It really speaks to me — there’s a few songs: “Why Generation”… there’s another song “Stupid Decisions”, and another song, “Sober”. I mean, I think it’s a great album, too, because there’s an underlying message of the “first world problems” element of the world we live in now. It’s just a great album from all angles… being defiant and very strong. I think sonically it’s really great; it kind of sounds like skater boy beach music circa 1993. But it’s fucking great — it came out last year. My really good friend is Parson James, who’s kind of blowing up at the moment — and I love his music. He’s got a song out “Temple” that, like, is my wake- up-in-the-morning-and-dance-around-in-the-mirror-kind-of-song. And another guy I discovered recently — I think his voice is beautiful and think his writing is incredible — is Kevin Garrett. I’m not really sure where he’s from; I’m still trying to do a little investigating on him. He’s a great, great singer. Who else? She’s not new at all, but I love her stuff and I’ve started listening to it again — Kacey Musgraves. Her Pageant Material album is just fucking so great. And, I don’t know if you’ve listened to Melanie Martinez at all and her Cry Baby album? So, it’s like a really fucking weird concept album, but it’s good. It’s really good, actually, But it’s fucking weird — it’s really weird. But like in the best way. It’s like ‘I don’t even know what this witchcraft is, but I like it!'”

    The Comeback Queen has been out for about eight months now.  What’s on your agenda for the rest of this year? New music? More shows?

    “Touring — we’re going to be on the road on-and-off for the rest of the year. This one we’re doing we’re only on the east coast and in parts of the midwest. So, we’re hoping to get to the west coast relatively soon, which is exciting. Like… May..late May, early June. And I’m going to get to go down and do (SXSW) this year, which I’m really, really stoked about. We’re going to be putting out a new LOLO single around that time, so relatively soon a new song will be out which is exciting. And we’re gonna be putting a full-length album out this year — I’m stoked about that. I was just in L.A., actually, trying to get all of the writing finished and now that’s pretty much done — and we’re on to the production side of things. So, it’s exciting and I’m excited for people to hear a full body of music. It’s great — I’m very, very excited. We’re playing five new songs that are going to be on the (new album), so that’s really exciting to be able to already start to do that and get this stuff out there… and people can get a taste of it. So, yeah, that feels good — it feels good to be able to just already get it out there.”

    LOLO will be on stage at Big Room Bar (1036 South Front Street) on Sunday, February 14 along with Cherry Chrome. Tickets are $8.00 in advance or $10.00 at the door.  More information and media is available on LOLO’s official website.

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    Grant Walters
    Grant Waltershttps://columbusunderground.com
    Grant is a freelance writer for Columbus Underground who primarily focuses on music and comedy. He's a Canadian transplant, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and schooled in Vancouver, British Columbia. Grant is also the co-author of two internationally acclaimed books: "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1960s" and "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1970s." He has also penned numerous articles and artist interviews for the nationally recognized site, Albumism.
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