LP was born in Long Island and lived in New York City for a good portion of her life. She’s characterized by her raspy, electrifying voice, and songs are filled with overflowing emotion.
Much of her music is inspired by what she has gone through in her life, and with many song credits to her name – songs by Cher, Rihanna, The Backstreet Boys, to name a few – LP has an incredible background in creating music that speaks to the heart of those that listen.
LP has also had an interesting career – she has been with many different labels, and written many different albums, and has over two dozen song credits to her name. The past decade or so has seen her music rise to the charts not only in the US, but in other countries like Russia and those in Europe, along with songs featured in Orange Is The New Black and Sensate.
LP will be touring later on this month and the beginning of 2022 to celebrate her newest album “CHURCHES”, which comes out later this year.
Check out our interview below with LP!
The Knockturnal: What originally got you into music?
LP: Many things, you know what I mean? I feel like I wasn’t a child that thought I was going to get into music. I just kind of decided life is short and after my mom passed away, I decided I wanted to do what I want.
The Knockturnal: I love that! And I’m sure your mom is incredibly proud of you! Where do you draw your inspiration from? People, artists, life?
LP: Mostly from life, you know, and people – often lovers. You know, I feel like I just draw on feelings, and the moods I get in when I’m with certain people.
The Knockturnal: I love that it’s like you’re collecting all of the inspiration that you get. from people. So, what’s so fascinating about you is that you have an incredibly unique voice – did you have any formal vocal training?
LP: You know, I studied voice – which is really kind of multi scales – but I just kind of did them over and over again, like a guitar player. Then songwriting kind of got me to want to push myself to harder, go higher – I feel like every record that I put out is even harder to sing than the last one. Like, I can attest to that because I have to sing it every night when we go on tour! But yeah, I think that singing like that every night, that belt-y and high mix, you have to do it, then when we get good at that we’re ready to go.
The Knockturnal: Absolutely! Now along that route of doing things differently, I know that you’ve written for other artists before – is writing for yourself different, and if it is, how?
LP: Not really. I used to think about that differently, as far as like, you know, trying to get into the head of that artist, but then I stopped doing that. I just figured, you know, it’s universal. If I feel it, chances are, someone else is going to feel it. If I’m trying to feel someone else’s feelings, it doesn’t really work.
The Knockturnal: Yeah, you’ve got to tap into your own headspace! Now, how did Covid affect you and your work? Did you still write over the pandemic and was it any easier or difficult?
LP: I mean, I felt very inspired over this whole time. I feel like, what’s more inspiring than the entire world going through something together and kind of feeling the sense of loss that we all feel, whether it’s loss of a loved one or loss of freedom or loss of the company of friends and family? It’s like, we’re all kind of dealing with that on different levels. And, I don’t know about you, but I kind of felt during the first – and sometimes still now – almost six months, I was like, “This is happening? Like, is this really happening? Holy sh*t!” I thought it was like, pinch-yourself-I-can’t-believe-this-sh*t-is-happening. You know? So yeah, I feel like the fact that we’re all experiencing something like this, because usually there’s always someone benefiting from all this. Make no mistake! It’s wild. I mean, going back like 100 years ago, there’d be like pandemics in certain places and thousands and thousands, if not millions of people would get wiped out and we only find out later. I think they still maybe don’t know how many people were wiped out from the other pandemics. And you’re just like ‘wow’.
The Knockturnal: Interesting! What do you want people to take away from your music?
LP: You’re gonna take something away from me? [LP laughs] You know, I just want something where people will feel less alone – that someone has the same experience – just something to soothe them or to console them.
