Artist Of The Week #195 - Lou Roy
This week’s Artist of the Week is larger-than-life pop personality Lou Roy - who has just released her debut album ‘Pure Chaos’ via Balloon Machine.
Co-produced alongside Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties, ‘Pure Chaos’ is Lou’s take on our futile yet unavoidable attempt to give meaning to the chaos of life. Emblematic of her ‘all-in’ personality, it is a vibrant collection that shines with humour, invention and a peacock swagger.
Lou took a moment to talk to us about how her debut album came together.
Hey there Lou Roy, how are you? So your debut album is out now, how does it feel to have it out there in world?
Hi :) I’m ok thank you for asking. Now that the album is out I’ve got that empty nest feeling, like when you collect all the stars, even the hidden ones, in Super Mario 64.
It is called ‘Pure Chaos’ - what is the meaning behind that?
The title of the record is nod toward chaos magic, which I was engaging with during the process of writing and recording this album. There is a refrain associated with chaos magic: “nothing is true, everything is permitted,” which was a major source of inspiration for the record.
There are myriad explanations and interpretations of this idea, but for me I understood it as ultimate creative freedom. I had been very caught up in trying to “make it” as a singer songwriter and had lost my artistic voice along the way. Understanding that nothing was objectively “true” (which I took to mean correct or ideal) and also that all creative expression was “permitted” (which I took to mean of equal value) opened up a new world of music making for me. I stopped trying to write what I thought was worthy of praise or would bring me success and just wrote what came to me naturally without too much adjustment, now that I had this idea that nothing was better or worse than anything else.
Also the record is decidedly genreless. Like when you listen in order it strings together nicely but I’m sure it’s wild that “Dream” and “Down Since 07” are on the same album…that’s a bit chaotic!
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process?
In a few different spots around LA, some in m y kitchen, some in my co-producer Sarah Tudzin’s home studio, some at Studio 64 in Highland Park.
One favorite memory is of a very late night at Sarah’s place, just the two of us, working late night on a hot July night. We were watching both the dodgers game and Home Alone on mute, and we were a bit drunk and giggly while working on the record. The vibe was….chaotic. I remember we unlocked some ideas that night and were so stoked. It was always so easy to celebrate little victories with Sarah like that.
Another would be the recording process for “Big Anvil.” Sarah, Sam Wilkes (who also played bass on the record), Eric Radloff (Keys, BGVS, guitar) and I were all set up in the live room and each had our own percussion station, and Kyle Crane (drums) sat at the kit. We each had a bunch of instruments to choose from and played through the form, switching between guiros, woodblocks, tambourines and more when we felt called to. I rubbed two mini snickers bars’ together in a scuffle pattern, and the wrappers sounded like brushes on a snare. Then I got my best friends to add background vocals (Maddie Ross, Ren Farren, Jayme Satery) which felt like the most appropriate way to reinforce the lyric: “endless hope for the future, a big anvil dragging me down/with all my boys in my corner, it don’t look so tough now”. Just an extremely wholesome vibe.
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
-Accepting & embracing the chaos in my life
-Acknowledging with love and empathy the ways in which my past traumas inform my present
-Joni Mitchell’s 1991 album “Night Ride Home”
-Queersville, USA
-the Lord of the Rings
-chaos magic
Do you have a favourite lyric on the album? If so, which one and why?
Today my favorite lyric is in the second verse of Bull Ride: “I’m gonna hurl now, I’m gonna scream, then I’ll call up a limousine/drive around and make some new memories/learn to keep ‘em just for me”
I like this one today mostly because I use the word “hurl.” Hilarious word. I wrote it while walking around New York City feeling like I really was gonna hurl because of the pain from a recent breakup. But I’m also a sucker for a hopeful ending, and I thought the idea of doing something wild and silly, like calling a limo for myself just to ride around in, would be a step toward healing my heart.
If your album could be the soundtrack to any film - which one and why?
Maybe the original animated 1951 Alice in Wonderland. To me it’s a journey into a girl’s psyche where she confronts the fact that the way she previously understood the world has no bearing on her current situation–very chaotic! She grapples with excitement and disillusionment as her situation unfolds, facing moments of ecstasy and true fear. So thematically we’re aligned. The tone of the film and of Pure Chaos is absurd and silly, but an earnest effort at its core. I think specifically “U.D.I.D” would be such a vibe for that style of animation.
Now the album is out there - what's next for you?
I’m looking forward to a summer of traveling and playing the album live. I’m gonna try to kiss more people and smoke less weed, find more uses for radishes because I like how they look, and learn a bunch of Paul Simon songs on guitar.
