Room 12 drops in just a few weeks, and hours before their Electric Castle set in Romania, we sat down with LP to talk festival crowds, heartbreak, and everything in between.
LP, welcome back to Romania!
Thank you so much!
This is your first time here at the Electric Castle Festival and, right now, you’re gearing up to launch your latest record, Room 12, which comes out in September. Currently, you’re the only person who knows how that record sounds as a whole, with no reviews, fan theories, nothing of that sort yet. What’s it like previewing a few of these songs live to a crowd who’ve maybe heard one single, and before any of that discourse exists to shape how people hear it?
I think this record’s very much an LP record, taking you on a bunch of emotional journeys, all over the place from being happy, to hopeful, to a little sad, a little, little pining away for lost love and lost time. So, I think that there’s some good, solid emotion in there for sure. And, yeah, I feel very excited, you know? There’s always a range of emotions. I hope people like it! I don’t have a gauge on it yet. I don’t try to repeat myself, but I don’t try to veer off into some crazy land, I just try to make myself feel good first, and then see if other people follow me.
On that same note, with an LP album first and foremost being about strong, melancholic emotions. You’ve previously described the song Love Is All I Have as tracing the aftermath of a break-up, and the balance of heartbreak sitting next to freedom and growth rather than just grief. Was that something that you were reaching for on purpose, did it just come out naturally from previous experiences, or did you have to distance yourself from something in your past, and that that was just the natural result?
There’s a lot of those things, that’s a good question! Well, I feel like with that song, it was a [lot of] complex emotion[s] coming out, because I feel like I’ve been on both sides of that heartbreak, you know? I’ve been like that, sitting, staring on the floor, not being able to move with grief that you know you lost someone. Then, I’ve also been like, “Oh, thank God, I’m out!”, going out, enjoying [time with] my friends and being like “Ahh, I feel easy, relieved.” I got both of [those experiences], and I’m sure many people have had both.
The “ease and the savoir-faire” that I say in the song is short-lived, you know? It’s not a thing that stays with you. Then, you feel guilty and sad, and I get that. So, yeah, it just kind of felt like a very complex thing, and when I started to go in on it, it fell out very quickly. I wrote those words in a very short time because it felt like the poetry just came out.
Yeah, and [we’re] assuming it was also such an intense moment that everything came so naturally that it just coalesced into that, right?
Exactly, and what’s interesting is that I don’t think the one thing that you can really say is how [you will] come out at the end and be like “I’m going to be good and love again.” That comes with time. I was able to make myself look like I instantly had that, you know, but it took time.
We’ve only got one minute left, so for our final question: Tonight, you’re going to be playing to a crowd that maybe hasn’t heard anything except Lost on You, and they’re they’re going to think, “Oh, it’s that song that we heard on the radio 10 years ago!”
[laughs] That’s fine!
How do you usually approach festival crowds and people that haven’t usually heard your songs, or maybe one or two tracks? What would be one song that you’d most want them to leave singing?
Probably one of the new ones! There’s a song called Best in Life that [came out last week]. Honestly, [just] them coming out singing any song, including Lost on You, whatever you want! If that song knocks you out, cool!
It’s better [they sing] *a* song than *no* song. I’m not a controlling person. I’m not [gonna go] “Hey, what song are you singing? What the f***, what? No, sing this one!” [laughs]. I don’t do that, I’m kidding, but you know what I mean. Whatever you like, enjoy it closely!
LP, thank you for your time, have a great performance tonight and we hope to see you again sometime!
Thank you, me too, it was a pleasure!
Interview by: Florin Petrut
Check out our live review of Electric Castle Festival HERE.
