Artist: Lauren Lovelle
Hometown: Newton, Kansas
Latest Album: My EP, Other Dreams, released September 9!
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Lolo or Lo. I really liked the band name “Lauren Lovelle and the Matter Babies,” too.
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
I’ve always been mesmerized by Linda Ronstadt’s voice, and the passion she channels when singing. She pours her entire heart out. Every song she ever sang felt like it was completely her own.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
My favorite memories onstage are with my dad’s band as a child. There is something supernaturally special about making music with kin. I started playing with him when I was four. The memories of my father and grandpa teaching me to play and perform pass through my mind to the soundtrack of that ABBA song, “Thank You For the Music.”
“Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing/ Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing… Thank you for the music, for giving it to me.”
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
I absolutely love to dance. It’s so necessary and healing. Just like my therapist would tell me to do with emotions, I like to identify where exactly I feel the song in my body. It can be powerful to share the emotional embodiments of the songs with the band to help us communicate and feel it as a unit. Sometimes, I write something that I feel in my legs and feet and it makes me want to stomp and strut around the stage. Sometimes I write something in my shoulders and chest and it makes me feel like I’m floating. Sometimes the song springs from my gut or hips where it feels more natural to dig my feet in, staying planted and upright.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
I’m a nursing school dropout. I was a CNA for awhile, so I could’ve likely continued down that path. I always told my mom I’d be a truck driver so I could listen to music and sing in the car as loud as I want all day. But when I was old enough to find out they can’t smoke weed, I decided that was no longer in the cards for me.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
It’s simple, but listening to Hank Williams and eating beans or chili and cornbread feels right. I have done it before on purpose and by accident. Real cowboy meal. Makes me feel close to my grandpas.
Photo Credit: Deanie Chen