INTERVIEW: Lauren Daigle on her new self-titled album: "I didn’t want to create a body of work that was a hat tip to certain things, or nuances. I wanted them to be the actual truth."
Across her ten year recording career, Lauren Daigle has gathered over a billion streams, won two Grammy Awards and scored three top 40 US albums. Initially achieving major success on the US Christian charts, in 2018 she had a major mainstream breakthrough with the hit single ‘You Say’, which peaked at number 29 on the US singles chart, and the accompanying album Look Up Child hit number 3 in the US and made the top 40 in Australia.
She has recently released her fourth studio album Lauren Daigle which sees her continue her exploration of and experimentation with different musical genres, from pop to soul to jazz and almost everything in between, with her remarkable, majestic, at times husky voice dominating, but never overwhelming, every track. Released in two parts, the first ten songs will be followed later in the year by an accompanying 13 tracks.
First single ‘Thank God I Do’ opens the album, a beautiful, emotive piano ballad, which is followed by the country inflected ‘Saint Ferdinand’ with empowering lyrics that address finding strength through adversity. “Life gave me lessons that I still question / They said I wouldn’t last long, but here I am,” she sings.
With its funky beat, ‘New’ is an uplifting pop-jazz jam with Daigle’s powerful, husky voice sounding its absolute best. Second single ‘Waiting’ is a smooth, cinematic pop track with lush melodies and choir like backing vocals and gorgeous strings, while ‘Don’t Believe Them’ is also big on the drama, with a brooding, moody feel, a soul choir and lyrics that look at the ugly side of society today: “We make the ugly look so pretty and the innocent so guilty…how you gonna hear what they say if you never listen?”
‘Ego’ is a mid-tempo pop song that soars into a gorgeous, soul-infused chorus, with a powerful lyric repetition that becomes a hypnotic chant. The album ends with the stirring ‘These Are The Days’ which introduces an almost trip-hop beat mixed with hints of electronica and has a message of hope after the dark few years the world has been through: ‘These are the days, better get ‘em while they come / We thought we’d never see the sun through the dark skies.”
Lauren Daigle marks a high point in Daigle’s career. It is a remarkable album with a beautifully varied soundscape, lyrics that really tell a story and at times verge on poetry, and is a joyful listen from beginning to end. We recently caught up with Daigle to find out more about the creation of the album.
Hi Lauren! So good to chat to you. How is everything in your world right now?
Thank you so much for taking me in on this interview. I am full of excitement right now. I just put out a record, and it’s the first time I’ve released an album in three years so there’s definitely a lot of excitement, a lot of curiosity, and it’s just really special to be a part of music again. You never really know if you are going to get to put out another record again after your latest record. So there’s a joy to be able to be a part of something with such an incredible community of people. So how am I? I’m doing great, I’m excited.
Your self-titled album is out now and it is absolutely beautiful, congratulations. Can you please tell me a little about what this collection of music means to you, and the inspiration behind it?
Thank you so much! This music is by far some of the most special music I’ve ever created. It shares stories that I’ve walked through in the last five years that are very dear to my heart, and genuinely been transformative to me in the process of music making. I found myself surrounded by a new team of writers and producers that just genuinely changed my mind. I couldn’t believe the kind of songs we were able to be a part of. During COVID I would walk around and see different people in the streets, and I remember being so enthralled by what their stories could have been. So that curiosity led me to discovering new ways to write, new ways to story tell, and you’re going to hear that all over the record.
There is such an eclectic range of sounds on this album: pop, R&B, jazz, country, piano ballads…it is just so elevated. Did you have a particular intention when it came to creating the soundscape?
I remember sitting with my producer Mike Elizondo and basically just telling him that I wanted this body of work to reflect the soul that I feel when I see people, and when I listen to music. I didn’t want to create a body of work that was a hat tip to certain things, or nuances. I wanted them to be the actual truth, and capture the actual essence, and not just the idea of.
Mike understood exactly what I meant, and he took me under his wing and allowed me to create in a way that was so profound and revolutionary for my experience in the studio. I remember when I was a teenager I’d always say that I wanted to make a record for every nickname I have so I could come up with different genres for each record because I love music so much. So I wanted to write and make a record that represents the amount of music I love and represents me.
I am really loving the second track ‘Saint Ferdinand’. Its pared back sound and the lyric “they said I wouldn’t last long, but here I am” is just beautiful. Can you tell me about the inspiration behind this track?
’Saint Ferdinand’ is one of my favourite songs on the record. I remember writing it with Natalie Henby, and she was basically like “let’s write a song about leaving a place you love and entering a new territory, and always having home and what you love about it in mind”. Sometimes when you move to a new place it can be really daunting and it can be challenging trying to find where you fit in. But when you start to change your perspective and see life through a different lens then you can really see things not just as how people tell you how to, but how your heart wants to. I feel like this is one of the best ways to explore new places, and in turn it will reveal new things about you, it will build you, it will challenge you, and create a depth within that is only possible due to the resistance of change. I’m not someone who loves change. I said to Natalie when we were writing the song “We can write this song, it will be a cathartic experience, because regardless it probably won’t go on the record as it’s so folk sounding”. And as time progressed I showed this song to friends and they wept, and were like “Lauren, this is so your journey, and you need to share this with everyone”. So I decided to include it on the record.
Another incredible track is the broody ‘Don’t Believe Them’ and I love the message of the ugly side of human nature and the need for both standing up to evil and also to forgive. Talk me through this wonderful track.
’Don’t Believe Them’ is one of the tracks that when Natalie sat down, and we penned that chorus I remember thinking “oh my gosh. This song is full of conviction”. Often you write for what you think other people will enjoy, but sometimes you just need to a write a song for you, and this was one of those moments. It was a song that was all about what I need to learn, and what I needed to gain. It’s a song that wrestles with hypocrisy, and I love the opening line “there are two sides to every story” because I think it’s often that we find ourselves picking a side of things and running full steam ahead with that ideology. When we choose to actually love people with the depths of all we are, then we can see a collage of ideas, and there’s a diversity to it that can be really profound if we open our hearts to it. It’s a song to eradicate animosity and bring unity to the forefront.
This is your fourth studio album. Your first was released in 2015, how do you think you have changed or developed as a creative artist during those eight years?
Oh the amount of things that have grown in me from the time that I started making music to now. In 2015 I remember being in the studio and not understanding the vernacular and needing to learn so much and needing to learn how to communicate my ideas, how to sing in a studio mic, and hear rhythm with headphones on. There were so many things I needed to learn along the way. But one of the big things I’ve learnt that’s impacted me now is that I’m no longer afraid to express ideas anymore. I remember having the revelation while working on Look Up Child that I am okay to fail as long I fail forward. I’m okay being the person in the writing room that doesn’t give the best ideas as long it leads us to the best idea. And I think that confidence was just increased on this record. Mike Elizondo is such an incredible producer, and I had the privilege of arranging certain parts vocally on this record. So it was amazing to be apart of the creation of the sonical landscape. He gave me space, he gave me permission, and he allowed for such beautiful creative depth to come from this record.
You have such a gorgeous voice, powerful and tender, and with this lovely husky tone. Has singing always been a part of your makeup?
My mum used to tell me that I sang from the second I came out of the womb. She told me I was always cooing and putting little melodies together before I knew how to talk. I remember being three years old in a church play and I had a singing part as a camel, and I went to my family “I want to do this for the rest of my life”. Fast forward a few years to when people would ask you “what do you want to be when you grow up” and I had just discovered Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and I thought “I have to sing for the rest of my life”. My brother used to tell my mum “please make her stop singing”. But something came alive inside of me when I sung. I love the connection that is made in music. We can connect to other people, we can connect to stories, and that’s the thing in singing that I love to celebrate.
The music industry has never been a particularly welcoming or safe space for female artists, mainly because it has been run by older, straight, white men for decades. What are your thoughts on gender (in)equality and sexism in music?
Being in the music industry for the past 10 years, I have had the privilege of working with all sorts of men from different backgrounds. I’ve seen a lot. One thing I can say honestly is that there are some women who have had absolute horror stories in this industry, and some who have come out unscathed. I have met men who I’ve had the honour to work with who celebrate and encourage the uniqueness of a women’s voice and the diversity that comes with our perspective. And then I’ve met men that I wouldn’t want to spend more than 5 minutes with. With that being said, I do want to take this time to celebrate a few men who have given me space for my voice, and have cultivated a confidence in me, who have respected me, and have allowed me to be truthful to my process. Those men are men like Mike Elizondo who allowed me to soar in the studio. And Steve Bartels, who has represented my ideas in business. These type of men give me hope that change is on the horizon, and there are still good people out there to champion us.
Lauren Daigle the album is out May 12, what else do you have planned for 2023?
Lots of touring! I am kicking off the “Kaleidoscope Tour” in September in the United States, as well as some festival dates. So I’m really excited to preview this record in the live space.
Lauren Daigle is out now via Warner Music Australia. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Lauren Daigle you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter.
