Interview

LØLØ: “I’m living my musical theatre dream”

Pop-punk's new princess talks The Wizard Of Oz, ripped up diaries and fandom ahead of her debut headline tour


With a childhood CD collection that spanned Hillary Duff and Green Day to the Wizard Of Oz soundtrack, LØLØ’s fascination with music began long before she picked up her first guitar.

Dreaming of becoming a Broadway star from a young age, LØLØ can barely remember a time where she wasn’t drawn to the emotional release that art provided. A chance to expel the feelings bubbling away inside her and an opportunity to escape into a new world for a brief period of time, the Canadian pop-punk powerhouse knows all too well the power of music – a spirit captured wonderfully on her debut album, falling for robots & wishing i was one.

A journey into the mind of someone who feels deeply – the kind of person who apologises to a kitchen counter for bumping into it – it’s a blisteringly honest collection of songs. Pairing heart-on-sleeve lyrics with pulse-quickening melodies, it’s got all the angst and cynicism of pop-punk laced with a distinctly human vulnerability.

Determined to cultivate a space where people are free to feel their feelings, LØLØ is set to bring the world of falling for robots & wishing i was one to live at her debut UK headline shows later this month. 

“I’m really excited for people to see it, because it’s going to be one big therapy session. There are a lot of highs and lows, but by the end we’ll all feel better,” she smiles.

“I’ve got my yellow brick road, I’ve got a robot, and I want it to be more of an experience than a show. These are club shows, so I don’t have a crazy arena-level budget, but I know that we’ve got something special to share with people here.”

With the Toronto-born singer and songwriter’s story only just beginning, we spoke to LØLØ about the process of creating her debut album, the importance of vulnerability, and how being yourself is sometimes the bravest move you can make.

LØLØ - wish i was a robot (Official Music Video)

Going back to your childhood, were you always drawn to music?

I think I always knew it was going to be a big part of my life, but I didn’t know it was necessarily going to be my career. From a young age, I was obsessed with music and musical theatre. I loved being in plays, and I thought that I wanted to be on Broadway one day. That was the goal, and rock ‘n’ roll music was just something that I would listen to. My dream was always to play Elphaba on Broadway, but I ended up doing a Wizard Of Oz themed album instead! 

That scratched that itch, but I never thought that I was going to be an artist. I would always keep a diary to let out my feelings, but I had nosy parents. I was scared that they were going to come into my room and read through it, so I would write out my feelings and then rip it up into little pieces so that no one could read it. It was my way to let it out, but years later when someone suggested that I should write songs, it felt like releasing all my diary thoughts in public. I’m shocked that I do that for a living now!

LØLØ - 2 of us (Official Music Video)

What’s interesting about your sound, especially on falling for robots & wishing i was one, is how clear the influences are. Not only the influence of pop-rock and artists who circle around that scene, but of musicals and film too. Growing up were you drawn to the more theatrical sides of music?

I’m very dramatic, and that’s probably where it comes from. Even with my show that we’re crafting now, we’re making it a whole experience. We have some voiceover stuff and sound design, so it almost feels like a play. I’m living my musical theatre dream! It all comes back to me being an incredibly dramatic person though, which I reckon I got from watching all those musicals and movies as a kid.

Going into the process of creating your debut album, did you have much of an idea as to the kind of statement you wanted to make?

I had no idea, and that’s why I kept putting out EPs. I couldn’t work out what to do with an album, what the theme would be, what I’d write about, or what would make it different from an EP. The more EPs I released though, the more the pressure of the album loomed. I knew I had to do it, but it wasn’t until I wrote the last song on the album, ‘u & the tin man’ – which was the first song that I wrote for it – that it began to make sense. As soon as I had that written, I knew I had something. There was a story, and I knew that it could be part of something bigger. Originally, I was writing that song to go at the end of my overkill EP, but I decided to save it. That weird Wizard Of Oz song became the basis for the entire record.

LØLØ - u turn me on (but u give me depression) (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

In terms of the album title, talk us through the story of how falling for robots & wishing i was one came about…

After I wrote ‘u & the tin man’, I still didn’t know what was going on with the album, I just knew that I wanted that song to be a part of it. A year later, I was in my room, and I wrote ‘wish i was a robot’. I was reading the lyrics and realised that a year ago I was complaining about falling for a robot, and now I was wishing that I was one. I had just gotten off the plane in LA where I had watched the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, so that title was in my head. I wanted my album title to be something long, and that’s where it all happened. It’s two sides of a coin because I’m complaining about people like that, but at the same time I’m jealous of them. I wish I could just be numb to things. Imagine going through life not caring about anything?! 

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it would be a cool theme for an album. If I could relate to it, there was probably someone else in the world that could too. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about whether things were relatable and would resonate with the masses, but even when I wrote the most specific lines someone would tell me that they related to it. I’d write a line like, ‘He took a sip of vodka mixed with ginger ale, and then picked his nails’, and someone would tell me that their ex did that exact thing. Everyone is living the same experience, and so I decided to just write an album that was personal to me. The idea of falling for robots & wishing i was one became these two pillars, and every other song filled in the spaces in between.

It’s an incredibly personal record, drawing upon some extremely vulnerable moments and feelings. Is writing in that heart-on-sleeve way something that comes naturally to you, or did you have any reservations about putting your whole self into these songs?

When I was first writing songs, I would have never put this album out. I would have thought it was way too personal, but now, the more personal it is the better it feels. It’s a chance to let it out, but once you release a song you do worry about who is going to hear it. A lot of these songs are about certain people, and they’ll know that they’re about them. For a second, the anxiety of that hits me, but it feels so good to write those things down. My listeners love when I’m open, honest and vulnerable, so that’s all that matters. They’re the most accepting group of people, and I’m so lucky.

It’s such a deeply human record, and right now that’s what so many people need. It’s easy to feel isolated, and like you’re the only one in the world going through what you’re going through…

Honestly, I’m happy that people end up finding comfort in my music, but when I write I’m only thinking about myself. I’m thinking about my personal issues, but then when I’m pondering whether I should put it out or not, I think about whether it could help someone else. When I was releasing my first EPs, my manager at the time told me to stop writing all of my songs about heartbreak. They wanted me to write about something else, so I thought about what else I had in my life. Apart from heartbreak, all I could think of was anxiety, so I wrote the song ‘THE FLOOR IS LAVA!!’. After that, I was told to stop writing about anxiety, and to write about something else. 

When I first wrote about my anxiety though, it opened up this whole other side to me. I would have fans come up to me at the merch booth after concerts and say, ‘Thank you so much for saying what you said. You made me feel less alone’, and hearing that was the best feeling in the world. If I can help one person feel less alone, that makes it all worth it.

THE FLOOR IS LAVA!! – LØLØ (Official Music Video)

People can see vulnerability as a weakness, but often it’s far easier to close yourself off to your feelings and the feelings of those around you than it is to be open…

It’s my substitute for therapy. I probably should go to therapy, but instead I just write songs! I suppose at least I’m talking about it, and it’s so good to talk about these things. I think that everybody should have a platform to do that, no matter what form that takes. It’s so important.

It’s about growth too. Acknowledging what you’ve been through whilst learning lessons about yourself and what you deserve. Since you first sat down to write these songs, do you feel as though you’ve grown much as a person?

I feel like I’m constantly learning and growing, but sometimes I sing an old song, and it all comes back to me. I wrote those songs about completely different experiences, but now I relate to them in different ways. It’s interesting how many times those feelings will come back around. Of course, there is growth, but it comes in waves. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and the older I get the more I realise that’s what it is to be human. 

With the debut album finally out and these headline shows on the horizon, obviously music is the vessel for everything, but how much of your hope for this project revolves around culminating a community?

Building a community is the most important part of music for me. I want people to know that we are all in this together, and over the last year I’ve realised that I have the potential to do something great with this. I already feel like my dreams for LØLØ are taking shape. 


LØLØ plays Glasgow and London this October. Find tickets here