LØLØ finds strength in the messiest parts of her emotions on new album ‘god forbid a girl spits out her feelings’—Interview

by amber bintliff

If you’ve ever been told your emotions were “too much,” LØLØ is here to show you that being vulnerable isn’t a weakness. Her sophomore album, god forbid a girl spits out her feelings!, unapologetically finds strength in blurting out every inconvenient, messy and intrusive thought that comes to mind despite how ridiculous it might feel. 

The album shifts the perspective from her debut entirely. While falling for robots & wishing i was one sought to avoid these big emotions, god forbid a girl spits out her feelings! welcomes them with open arms. With her poetic storytelling and self-deprecating humor fully exposed, each of the record’s 13 tracks come across as reading pages from the Canadian pop-rocker’s diary. 

LØLØ sat down with Televised Magazine to talk about the power in emotional awareness, the growth she’s experienced as a songwriter and more.

Your sophomore album, god forbid a girl spits out her feelings!, arrives on April 17th. Congratulations! Can you walk me through the story behind the album's concept and how that translates into each of its 13 tracks? 

When I wrote my debut album, I had so long to write it because it's like you have your whole life. when I wrote that, I thought of the concept and then I filled in the songs afterwards. It wasn't like that for this [album] because I feel like there's so much pressure on a sophomore album. Especially for me, I loved my first one so much. For [THIS ALBUM], I was like, “Okay, I guess I have to start writing.”

I started writing the songs and I was like, “What is the title gonna be?” I would look at all of my songs on the tracklist and be like this is just so messy and chaotic. This is the album title. So many times before I was like “Should it be this? Should it be this?” I wasn't feeling that ‘this is it’ moment where I really felt that last time when I was writing my debut. Once I had that thought, I just knew. 

So the album title came from not being prepared and being so messy and chaotic with my writing. I think that is actually perfect because the whole concept of the album is like that. You could just spit out your feelings and be messy and be oversensitive and be too emotional and that's okay. 

I love how the cover is a reference to The Princess and the Pea. Why was this fairytale classic chosen as the inspiration to visually represent that concept? 

Thank you for catching that! I really love the opportunity to put art to my music because I feel like I'm such a lyric person that I'm never really thinking about what it looks like. When I get to do album artwork, I'm always like, “Okay, what is the world here?” I loved the world on my last album, [but] I can't do another movie because I don't want to just be the girl that does movies for her albums. 

Then I was thinking, what stories could relate to this? and I realized The Princess and the Pea works perfectly. In The Princess and the Pea, she felt the little pea under 20 mattresses just like I feel every little thing that most people might not feel or get so sensitive about.  I feel those things and I write many numerous songs about them. I feel like people in the past have called me ‘pop rock princess' and I thought it would be cute to be a princess. 

This new era, like you said, is all about the inconvenient, messy, and intrusive thoughts.  How do you think you've grown as a songwriter since the making of your debut, which was very much about swallowing those emotions, compared to now and how does the new record highlight that growth?

I think that after writing my debut album and looking at it, but more so performing it every night on tour, that's when I really realized, wait a minute. It's so nice that we are human and that we're not robots. It's so beautiful that we have all these feelings and that we could share them together every night. I would look out into the audience and people would be crying and laughing, but we were all doing it together. This is so great that we're not robots and that we're human. 

Going into the approach of my sophomore album, I was over that hump of trying to bottle it all. I think I could just be messy and really not censor myself. It's been something I've been working through since the beginning of time of writing songs for me, not necessarily censoring myself, but, sometimes [saying], “Oh, that's too much to say that.” When I first started writing songs, I would always try to be like “This needs to be more relatable. It can't just be so specific to me.”

Slowly, I think I've grown as a songwriter to be like, weirdly, the more specific it is to me, I feel the more people relate to it. I think it's because they can feel that it's so authentic and that I'm not hiding behind anything. So now with my songwriting, I'm just literally word vomiting and then making it rhyme. 

What's your favorite lyric you've written for this album and why?

This is so hard because there's one that comes to mind, but I'm like, is that the one I wanna say? One that I love is in “007” when I say “I might be on top of you, but I'm onto you, baby.” I think the whole song, I'm basically saying “I'm onto you. I know you're a fuck boy,”but then at the very end I think it's so funny that it's actually “I am fucking you, but I'm still onto you.” That's so funny because I feel like it's such an “I'm still giving into this, but I know I'm stupid.” So that's one but [also] every lyric in “dumbest girl in the world.” I literally got it from talking to my friends about guys.

I love also “Is he so convincing that it's worth forgiving / gets back on her knees with those god awful instincts?” I love that lyric because it could be “gets back on her knees” like pleading, but it could also be “gets back on her knees” for other reasons. I always thought that lyric was so funny because at first it sounds like she's pleading for him back, but it's really meant to be like, “She's back on her knees.” It's hard to pick a certain lyric. I could pick favorite concepts, but I love all the lyrics. 

god forbid a girl spit out feelings! is arguably a record for anyone who's ever been told her emotions are “too much.”  As an artist, why is it important for you to be that voice in this male-dominated scene that shows it's okay to be vulnerable and let out these big feelings, especially when it comes to love and relationships?

A lot of people, including myself just a couple years ago, really feel like they need to bottle their emotions. Especially being a girl, I feel like we're told so many times, “Oh, she's so sensitive!” “Oh, just being a girl!” or “Over-emotional!” or “She must be having her period!” Like how many times have we heard that or even said it ourselves as girls? Even though it's like, why are we saying this?

I think it's really important for other girls, guys and everyone to hear that it's okay to spit your feelings out sometimes. Honestly, especially for even men. I think it's so hot when a man is sensitive or shows the sensitive side. So I think it's important for people to see that and see that even us as artists, the people that they're listening to can go crazy or feel delusional or have a moment of psychosis sometimes. 

What are you hoping sticks with listeners the most after they hear the album for the first time? 

I hope that they feel not alone in their experiences. I know I talk about some pretty, I don't want to say crazy, but some pretty niche, deep stuff when it comes to relationships and feeling seen in relationships. 

For instance, in “me with no shirt on,” I talk about sending a nude, which I feel is pretty taboo. It's situations that more people than we think are going through with relationships. The insecurities of being a girl or just being the insecure one in the relationship or the anxious attachment style. I feel like a lot of my songs are anxious attachment style because I am like that. 

I hope that people take from it that they're not alone. Other people are going through these same things and it's okay to feel a lot and it's okay to be super sensitive and it's okay to be over emotional because it's what being human is. 

How does it feel to watch as people relate and connect these songs that are so personal to you about your experiences to their own? 

It's quite literally the best feeling in the world. Being on stage and seeing people scream the lyrics or getting a dm, being like, “You wrote the song about me! This is my life!” It's actually the best high of all time. 

When I'm writing songs these days I'm never thinking like, “Who's gonna hear this?” For me, I'm just letting out all my feelings and trying to make myself feel better selfishly. I think it's so cool that something that I'm doing to just make myself feel better is in turn making other people feel better. 

It's like killing two birds with one stone there. It's my therapy, and then it turns into other people's therapy. I think that's the coolest thing in the world. 

It's a really beautiful thing, especially with the last album. It was very cohesive and really relatable so I'm excited to see how these new songs take on their own life.  Is there a specific track on the album that you'd consider to be your favorite or one you resonate with the most? If so, why?

It's honestly hard on this album. I feel like on my last album I was like, yeah, “hot girls in hell.” I think that my favorite is honestly “lobotomy & u,” which is the last track on the album.  It's my favorite because throughout the whole album I'm talking about trying to fix someone and not get hurt, but then growing up and realizing people don't change. 

I touch on all those topics then “lobotomy & u” is about the idea of someone hurting you so bad, but you still wish that you could just forget everything and lobotomize yourself. Cut out all of the shit that they told you, the terrible things that they did and still go back to them. Wow, that's so fucking pathetic, but I think that's so human. Even though you hurt me so much, I still love you and I would still love to go back to you.

And it's like, why? That part really interests me about myself. I'm in therapy for this, but I just think it's so interesting. It's like, why do we go back? Why do we still want someone that's hurt us so many times? Why does that sometimes even make you want them more? I don't know. 

I also love how it sounds like ‘Loboto-me and you.’ I love the word-play of it, and I just love the concept. I think that we really nailed that concept. I've been wanting to write a song about that topic, but I just think that the way that it was written was perfectly written. We wrote it so fast, too, because we were just like, “This is it,” and we nailed it. 

So that would probably be my favorite, but honorary mention to “me with no shirt on” because I just think that song is so cool. It's really cool that it's about such a niche experience. It's really about 10 minutes of life like, “I sent you a picture and I'm freaking out in these 10 minutes before you're not replying,” but really it's about so much more. It's about that moment where you realize that person that once was obsessed with you doesn't feel the same way and you're dealing with that. So, it's really cool that it's about such a niche, specific thing, but it's also about such a broad thing. 

You're heading out on a headlining tour in the UK and Europe later this month. What are some things that fans attending these shows can expect to see from you?

I always love to bring my album to life with my shows, with the set, the transitions and the intros and outros. I'm a theater kid at heart. I started as a theater kid and I think that shows in my shows. 

It was also a struggle this time because I have to bring my [new] album to life, but I also have my last album, so I'm like, “Oh God, what do I do?” I think that I give a really nice nod to my debut album as well, but I would just say bringing my songs to life and a lot of free therapy. Even though I guess it's not free, it's about $30, but the free therapy comes with the show. 

Like you said, it's a form of therapy for you to get to perform these songs. What are you most excited about when it comes to finally getting to play some of these new ones live? 

I'm excited to see the fan reactions. I feel like I never really know which ones are the fan favorites because it's so skewed these days. You put out a song and it could get on a Spotify playlist, but then it could not be a fan favorite or it could be a fan favorite and it doesn't have that many streams.

I just did this acoustic gig a month ago in Ontario. I feel like “me with no shirt on” [has] always been my favorite of the singles, but it didn't get as many streams as the other ones. But then I went to sing that one and everyone was screaming and I was like, “Oh, so everyone does love this one.” For a second I thought it was flopping, so I was like, “Oof, thank God.” 

It's just really interesting to see fan reaction. Then of course, it's the coolest thing to see people connecting with it so I'm just excited for that high. 

You're also playing four dates of this year's Vans Warped Tour in D.C., Long Beach, Montreal, and Mexico City, which is super exciting. What's your favorite part of playing these big festivals where there's a high chance that a lot of the crowd is discovering you for the first time?

I think it's so much fun to be discovered. I remember I had the most fun I've ever had on my first tour ever opening for New Found Glory because I came out on stage and I sung one song and then I would go, “Make some noise if you don't know who the fuck I am!” and the crowd went wild. It's just like a blank slate.

I tell myself this anyway to make myself less nervous, but everyone's expecting you to not be that good. They're just expecting, “Oh, who is this? I don't know.” They're not going out there being like, “She's gonna be amazing!” They don't know who I am so all I really have to do is be great or even just be a little bit better than good. I feel like it's just really fun to make a first impression. 

I think it's also really fun to have a challenge and win over the audience, even though it's equally as fun to play for a smaller crowd and have all of them singing every word. I do think that sometimes after I have 10 dates on a tour and I'm doing this every night, I don't want to say it's so easy, but it's so effortless that I zone out for a second whereas I'm really working when I'm trying to win over the audience. It just adds this level of a challenge.

When people leave a show of yours, what is one thing you want them to take away from that experience? 

The same thing that I want them to take away from my album. I want them to feel not alone. I feel like my fans are just the best people. It's such a nice community and I always see people becoming friends at my show. 

I think that's so awesome so I hope that they leave with a new friend and a newfound community if they're not already in the community. Just feel not alone and feel like they could be themselves and be messy and be fucking unhinged And it's fine because we're all like this. We're all delusional and crazy.