Lou Roy
“Lou Roy is an anti-genre singer and songwriter who has never done anything weird or wrong. Lou isn’t tired or afraid, and has a refreshing take on absolutely everything. For instance, “The climate is doing totally fine and AI is not scary” - Lou Roy”
Lou Roy released her debut album, Pure Chaos, on April 29, 2022 with UK Indie Label Blue Machine Records.
We had the wonderful opportunity to chat with Lou about her new music and her career on our show, SheSources: New Voices, New Views on W!ZARD Radio. Excerpts of it aired on Saturday, May 7, and we’re happy to share with you the full interview below. Lou Roy is genuine, funny, and dedicated to her craft, and we’re grateful to have had the chance to chat with her.
Where are you from, and where did you grow up?
I’m from Los Angeles, California, and I grew up here. I grew up in Topanga Canyon which is kind of nestled between the ocean and the valley in LA. It’s a good one.
When people ask you what you do, as an artist, what do you tell them?
Who’s asking, like an estranged family member who’s treating you weirdly? Or like, what’s the tone? Are they like, “so what do you do?”
No, definitely, like maybe you’re at a bar or something and somebody’s meeting you, and they’re just asking, “what do you do?”
Okay, so I say I’m a singer/songwriter and a vocalist, and producer in some aspects, and so I spend my days writing songs and singing songs. I’m also a wedding singer which is absolutely insane. What I try to do with art and music is connect via my truest expression of self and hope that it resonates with others. So, that’s what I’m up to.
That’s really nice! What do you think music does for people, is music a way of expressing your emotions? Some artists have this whole philosophy or about what it means to be an artist, if you have any thoughts on that.
Sure, as far as what I think music does for people, two-parter answer I guess. So I spend like all of my time thinking about music, and mostly, though, in a business way. How I want to carve out my career, and what moves are coming next, and what the right kind of post is for social media, and all of these very logistical aspects about music. And I don’t really get to get into the spiritual stuff too much. And the other day, I’m sick right now, I’m sick at home, and I was trying to write some music the other day, and I was playing guitar in bed, and I kind of had this moment and it was just a glimpse of a feeling, you know when you get a glimpse of a feeling and you don’t quite know how to pinpoint it? Anyways, it happened because I was playing guitar and just listening to the guitar, rather than trying to create or trying to force something out. Maybe it was my sick stupor, brain fog kind of thing, but there was a moment when I could finally let go of all of the intensity of being a musician and I just heard the true majesty of an open-tuned guitar. I was just listening to it, and was like, that’s so beautiful, that’s so amazing.
That’s beautiful.
It’s sappy but I was so grateful for that sappy moment because they don’t come very often. The second answer to what I think music does for people is like a tremendous, amazing sense of community. I went to a Paul Simon concert, in 2010, at the Gibson Amphitheater which is no longer there, it was the first time in my life that I had ever seen an entire venue, like the entire amphitheater was on their feet, and everybody was sort of hooked with their arms around each other and swaying and singing, and everyone was so engaged with the music. It was less of a cell phone time I guess, and not that cell phones are even an issue with engaging with music, but I’m just saying it was very much person to person focused, thousands of strangers all having a really emotional experience. That was an amazing experience.
The last one, I guess there’s three, I got to sing background vocals for Don Henley, who’s in the Eagles, and so we played Hotel California for this private crowd somewhere, but everyone in the crowd was screaming Hotel California at the top of their lungs for the whole song! And I took my in-ear monitor out so I could hear them sing, and it was just this wild moment of this silly song, it’s not silly, I mean it’s kind of silly, it’s an incredible song but it’s also Hotel Califonira! It’s so iconic that it’s silly. And I remember being so blown away by that feeling of hearing so many people singing and being so engaged. It just brings people together, this invisible thing brings people together in such a way that’s like, such a trip.
I feel that, it’s very spiritual, thousands of people feeling something together, there’s really not much that compares.
Totally! It’s spooky almost, you know?
Who are your favorite artists that you feel inspired by or that you love to listen to? It doesn't have to be like someone who helps you with your songwriting or anything like that, but was there ever an album that you listened to, like, 27 times and you were really obsessed with it?
Oh my god, yeah. So many times throughout my life with so many different people. My number ones in my life who have remained number ones have been Fiona Apple, and Joni Mitchell, and this album called Butterfly by Mariah Carey, that was the first thing I ever learned to sing was that record. I was just obsessed, and an only child, so I just had to find something to do.
Also, did you teach yourself guitar? Or did you get lessons or something like that?
Yeah, basically I’m self-taught, I learn songs to get better at guitar.
Just because I’ve been trying to teach myself guitar, and I’m like, it’s hard!
It is hard, I mean once you overcome the bar chord hurdle, it gets a lot easier, it's an annoying hurdle but once you get there you’ll have more chords available to you.
Let’s talk a little about Pure Chaos! So your debut album came out on April 29, tell me a little about what it was like to make the album, can you describe your process of making music, what was that whole thing like?
Yeah, I started to make this album in probably April 2020, right after we went into the first big lockdown. The first few weeks, I like everyone else, was panicking and was like, I have to work on something, I have to do something, oh god, but I just wasn’t. I wasn’t, I couldn’t make anything and everything was so stressful and music – music was just not fun and not good for me. So I set it down and did other stuff, gardening, cooking, working out, all that.
Did you make the banana bread?
I made… I did not make banana bread but I made some banana pancakes that I found on TikTok.
Nice! Good.
Once I put everything down, it kind of felt like permission, when I felt like I finally had permission to stop, and not make music, was like right when I wanted to make it again. You know? It’s like I needed somebody inside of my head to be like, “You can take a break. It’s okay.” So anyways, once it returned, I was so grateful that the urge to make music returned, and I started writing again, and I found that what I was writing about mostly was reflecting on some past trauma, but the lens that I wanted to talk about it through was not one of pain and suffering, I wanted to laugh at it and wanted to be able to wink at it, because that, to me, is the ultimate way to take back power over something, is to be able to say, “okay, all right, yeah I see you there,” acknowledge it but not let it consume your whole life. And I didn’t want it to consume the tone of the record, I wanted the record to be about acknowledging it, acknowledging all of the chaos in a person’s life, but through it, rather than stopping there at, “Isn’t this chaotic? Oh Christ! Oh God,” rather than getting stuck at the panic, it was important for me, so that I could stop panicking, to be joyful and lighthearted about things.
Yeah, I feel like it’s very healing, in that way, it’s like you can make a song about something awful, but when you transform it into something else, the process of that can be very healing.
Approaching it in a different perspective, maybe, one that you didn’t have when you were in it, but one that with time, you can see how things grow and change and affect other things, and yeah.
Yeah! What was it like for you to open for MUNA? Our founder of SheSources, Emma Stern, was so super excited that you were opening for MUNA, and you were singing Phoebe Bridgers’ part. And I’m a big Phoebe Bridgers fan, so when I saw that, I was like, “Oh my god, amazing!”
With MUNA, that was very easily the best time of my life, touring with them.
You looked like you were having so much fun.
I was! A hundred percent, that was a time that social media did reflect the reality of the situation, it was awesome. They are my very good friends, and it was a last-minute thing that we got together because their original opener had to cancel. Me and the band had eight days to get a tour together, our first tour, and we had played one show together as a band. But it was just the greatest opportunity, and we did get our s*** together in time. I don’t know how it happened, but every moment that I got to be out there made me feel like yeah, this is the correct path for my life. And I have been working toward that for many many years, that feeling. Of feeling like, “Okay, here we are, this makes sense, I want to do this work.”
Thank you so much for your time, and it was lovely to talk to you. I am loving your album and I’m so excited for you and all the things you are going to do in the near future.
Thank you so much for having me.
