INTERVIEW: Lily Papas on her new single ‘I Made It L.A.’: “At the end of it, you come out a stronger person”

Words: Emma Driver
Interview: Jett Tattersall

Lily Papas is an Australian singer and songwriter who knows a lot about the highs and lows of the music industry. She was dropped from her record label in the wash-up after the pandemic, when record companies downsized and many developing artists lost their labels’ support. But Papas gathered her energies and emerged as an independent artist, showcasing her diversity in 2022’s single ‘Exile’, then painting with darker colours in her latest release ‘I Made It L.A.’, an unadorned bluesy-pop track that acts as a manifesto for where the Lily Papas of the future would love to be.

“So go on and tell me my head’s in the clouds / But I’m sitting pretty in diamonds and gowns,” Papas sings, imagining all the dreams she’ll fulfil when international success is in her grasp. The song was directly inspired by the disappointment of releasing her debut album – Encore, in 2021 – and then suddenly finding herself adrift, without a record company and with no idea of what to do next.

On this latest release, the richness and power in Papas’s voice is undeniable; it has a classic blues edge and a strong vibrato that emphasises each emotional shift. Here, it ranges over the images in her crystal ball: making mixtapes that “pay all my bills”, going to parties, and making the people who’ve let her down regret their decisions: “I was your next star but you walked away.”

‘I Made It L.A.’ is another step towards a new EP Papas is hoping to release by the middle of 2024. If her previous single ‘Exile’ is anything to go by, we can expect a fusion of genres and moods – ‘Exile’ is gentler yet thoughtful, with its strummed acoustic guitar and glistening keyboard lightening the mood. Papas knows how to bring everyday stories to life, as well as dive deeply into more troubling experiences to unravel them and, hopefully, to help her listeners make sense of their own lives too.

When Women In Pop caught up with Papas, she talked us through ‘I Made It L.A.’, the different sides to her songwriting, and how she got her musical mojo back.

Fantastic to talk with you again, Lily. Now, your latest track, ‘I Made It L.A.’ – I think it’s beautiful. Can you tell me about the background to it?
So, the last time we spoke, it was the peak of the pandemic, in 2020, and everything was going really well with the [record] label side of things. And that kind of came to a halt after I released my album [Encore] in 2021 … I don’t hold any grudges – it’s a business, at the end of the day. But it really hurt my ego, you know? I’d had my one dream and my goal was “I really want to be signed to a label” … So I felt like I was living my dream. And then it all just kind of stopped.

So I was sitting in my room and just “feeling in my feels”, you know, just processing everything that had happened … I was really just needing something to make me feel like, “No, you can do this, you can get back on the horse, you just need to work really hard over the next few years.” So in the song I just wanted to talk about everything that had happened, everything that I wanted in life. It became like my own manifestation song, and I put in it everything that I want to happen in the next few years, maybe ten years. There’s some references in there, like Forbes magazine, that are going to be a lot later in life, hopefully! But I just wanted to put it all in there and lay it all out, so that when I listen to that song, it’s kind of like, “OK, this is what I want. That’s my goal.” So I can keep trucking forward.

You’re not denying the truth in the song. Because I imagine that within this industry, I think particularly when it comes to women, you can’t complain. You have to sit tight, do as you’re told and be eternally grateful.
So true. You’re right on there.

The fact that you’ve addressed that with this song makes it so real. People are still sold that same notion, aren’t they: just get the record label, get the dream, and then everything will be great.
Yeah, you’ve really hit the nail on the head. That was always my expectation, and [maybe] it was a naive sort of thing. I was thinking that having a record label was what you needed to be able to fund yourself. Like most artists, what I want is to make a living from music. And that has been getting more and more impossible with the way that record labels set up the deals.

But right now in the music industry is a really beautiful point where you can do it yourself, and that’s been almost liberating again – to be able to say, “OK, I’m so in control of what I’m doing now. I’m completely independent.” I’ve still got backing through the music publishing with Universal, and they have been absolutely amazing and supported me after everything that’s happened … Now we’re in a position where you can take back your power and really just speak your truth. And that’s what I wanted with this song.

I had my parents being like, “Don’t release this song. You’ve always got to be grateful.” I am super grateful for everything … But at the moment, being independent is what’s right for me … I want to be able to support myself, as a woman. To be financially independent is the goal for me in life.

So you go through that industry pitch: “Everything will be VIPs and diamonds!” And you think, “No, no, no, I just want to support myself.” Everyone’s hustling all the time, but for some reason you’re not allowed to show that.
Yeah, it’s a very interesting dynamic. You get into [the industry], and you realise, “OK, this isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” And that was a really hard thing to come to terms with … to realise that, actually, I don’t want to be controlled; I don’t want to be put in a box. I don’t want to be told, “Oh, no, we can’t release your song this week, because such-and-such is bringing out a song.” And then you get delayed and delayed and you’re just like, “I just want to release my music!”

I’ve spoken about this before, but for me growing up, music was a form of therapy. I used that as a way to get through whatever emotional struggles I was going through, listening to other artists before I could write for myself. And then when I started writing, that was my way of getting it out. All of my storytelling and my songwriting is authentic to what is going on in my life. I definitely will add elements of fantasy, and bits to jazz it up. But the bottom and the soul of the song is always what’s going on in my life. And I want that to be passed onto other people … So even though I’m talking about my life, and it’s personal to me, I also want somebody else to listen to the song and find a completely different meaning in those lyrics. And they can go, “OK, I’m applying this to my situation, and that’s helping me get through.”

So to be able to do that freely now is the most empowering thing. I’ve loved the last six months of being completely independent. I get to have my voice back.

Your music and delivery are so incredibly “after hours”, if that makes sense? Like it’s “cool insomnia”, and it’s dark because it’s the dark hours. And yet in 2022 you released ‘Exile’. And it was like, “Oh, here’s Lily in the daytime!”
Yes, that’s it! That’s such a good analogy.

On ‘I Made It L.A.’, you pulled a bit of ‘Exile’ into it, but then there’s this raw nerve in the melody. I feel like you can definitely hear the amalgamation of the two. Was that intentional?
I really think that that’s a reflection of me and my music. ‘Exile’, like you said, is like the daytime. And then you’ve got the songs that are the night-time and they’re a little bit dark and a little bit twisted. And the next single that I’ve got definitely leans more towards dark and twisted. It’s called ‘Die Tonight’. It’s definitely dark!

So I think it becomes a bit of a progression. I’m excited that being able to release music more frequently now means that I will get to showcase these other sides. I’m not a one-dimensional artist. I listen to a massive, eclectic range of artists, from Bowie and The Cure to more current music, like Kanye, or something that’s just completely different. And I really like to genre-blend and cross over. For a label, probably one of the biggest struggles was that they didn’t know where to place me. What artist is she like? Who does she sound like? How are we going to market this?

Now I get this freedom … it’s that kind of progressional thing because ‘Exile’ was so different to [2021 album] Encore. Encore was my body of work, and [the songs] all kind of fit together. ‘Exile’ was completely different. And I did that intentionally because I wanted to showcase a different side of my music. And then it now moves into – I don’t know, like an oldest sister to ‘Exile’? And then we’re going to come back around to the ‘Exile’ sound afterwards. I make my music intentionally to link them all together, in a way.

It’s such an internalisation. I feel like your music is full of the rampant thoughts that we get at night.
That’s me to a tee! That’s just my brain. To hear you say that is really cool, because that’s me as a person. “Beautifully chaotic” are the words I would use to describe myself. Some moments are like, “Oh, she’s really peaceful, and she’s got it together.” And then next minute, I’m like, “Oh my god, what am I doing? I’m going crazy.” And that’s just me … Most of the stuff I’m writing about, particularly during this period, did come from a bit of a darker place. But I tried to make the actual message that you can go through all of this shit in life … and at the end of it, you come out a stronger person. And I think that’s the beauty in darkness.

Like you say, ‘I Made It L.A.’ is your own mantra and your own reminder, which is why it will resonate so much with people. You’ve just hinted we’re going to have a little more daytime from you – what else is coming up?
I’m really just trying to go with the flow during this part. I think for so long I had constant ideas of where I should be and what I should be doing, and I think that really added to the brokenness of thinking that I needed to be in a place where maybe I didn’t need to be.

But there is there is an EP that we’ll be working towards, around April/May, depending on what singles we release first. It’s the fun part. And then hopefully a tour to accompany that. I’ll be doing some little shows here and there along the way. But the goal is to get a tour off the ground next year, and then I’ll be back in LA at some point.

That sounds fantastic. And thank you so much for your time, Lily!

‘I Made It L.A.’ is out now. You can download and stream here.
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