LØLØ has been absolutely unstoppable over the last few years. Since 2019, she has been boldly developing her sound, sharpening her style, and bringing back old-school heartbreak. Taking the troupes of classic pop-punk, forcing them through a modern mesh and coming out the other side with music that pays tribute to what has come before as well as what is still to arrive, her journey is still only just beginning.
She has released three EPs since she started taking her diary entries and putting them into songs, most recently 2022’s Debbie Downer. Working with Maggie Lindemann and girlfriends, touring with New Found Glory and making appearances everywhere from Lollapalooza to Sad Summer Fest, she is showing off exactly why she is one of the most brilliantly fun artists currently bringing pop-punk to the masses.
LØLØ stopped by the idobi Studios in North Hollywood to chat with our very own Nick Major all about Avril Lavigne, her new track “omg,” getting all up in her feelings, and so much more!
I know that a lot of your music stuff kicked off, as for so many of us, on TikTok. You were posting a lot of songs on TikTok, but you would rewrite the way that the songs were. A different perspective of who the song was about. Was that what your audience began [from]?
Well yes. First, I started dancing on TikTok, and my videos were not doing well. I’m a terrible dancer, by the way. Then I started doing the covers. It was because of the “Hey There Delilah” trend, if you remember. People were doing, “Hey, It’s Delilah”. So I did that, and it got way more views right away. 200,000 views, at the time, was a lot. Then I was like, “Oh shit, maybe I should be singing on this clock app”. There was a bunch of songs where if I switched the perspective, I could make it really depressing and tragic, so I just started doing that until I ultimately ran out, and then I never did it again.
Then what is interesting is your own flow of lyrics, your own songs follow the similar trajectory of being a bit depressing, sad songs but from writing from the perspective of existing and taking your own experiences. At what point did you start writing your own music, and how did you find that to be your own release for heartbreak?
I’ve been writing music for a while. When I was little, I used to write diary entries just to get my feelings out, but I was so scared that my parents were going to read it. So I would write in it and then rip it up into little pieces because I didn’t want anybody to know what my thoughts were.
But then when I started picking up guitar, my guitar teacher was like, ‘You should write songs’, and I was like, ‘People knowing my diary? No thanks. That will never happen. I will never be that person’. He was like, ‘I’m not coming back next week unless you write a song’, so I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to lose my guitar teacher’. So I sat down to write a song, and it came out really naturally. I ended up writing nine, and that’s the day that I was like, “I want to be an artist. I want to do this’.
Of course, the first 200 songs I wrote were trash, but I started posting my own songs on TikTok around that time, and I guess it worked out.
And then, your first EP was Overkill?
My first EP that I like. I had an EP before that, back before I really found my sound, and it was glossier pop. I still like the lyrics and feel like the concepts are there, but sonically I want to throw up when I hear them.
You do talk about throw up a lot in your songs…
I do. Oh my god. I actually noticed that recently and I don’t know why. I hate throwing up.
Yeah, who enjoys it? You hate it. Oh my god, that’s crazy…
No, but I will do anything not to throw up when I’m hungover. Even if I feel like I really need to feel better or know that I will feel better if I throw up, I just [can’t].
I think one of the sickest things ever is – one of the most iconic bands from Canada, Simple Plan; you got to be on the bringing back of “I’m Just A Kid”. That was so rad that you got to do that because that song was popping off like crazy on TikTok. How did that happen?
Basically, my first tour ever was supposed to be me opening up for Simple Plan and New Found Glory, and that was going to be happening in 2021. Then six days before the tour, Simple Plan dropped out because of COVID, and when I tell you that I was bedridden depressed. I was so excited to open for them. I couldn’t believe that I got that opportunity. Then all of a sudden, I just crashed down, and I thought the tour was going to be cancelled.
It ended up going on, and they were replaced by Hot Mulligan and Less Than Jake, who were incredible, and it was the best experience of my life. But ever since that, I had this Simple Plan hole in my heart, and I think they also felt bad about it. They didn’t want to pull out, but it was COVID, and they felt uncomfortable.
It was a weird time…
It was a weird time. till is. So I feel maybe they felt bad for me this whole time, or they just fucked with me and were like, ‘What else can we do with her because we didn’t get to tour with her?’. And on the tour I was supposed to sing a song with them, it was going to be all that. But then they reached out and were like, ‘We’re doing this Amazon exclusive of “I’m Just A Kid” with a new artist, and we wanted it to be you’. I was like, ‘What the fuck?’
Then we got to sing it together at So What?! Fest in Dallas, which was insane. I blacked out the whole performance. I got up on stage, and then I got off and was like, “What happened?”. Then I got to watch a video and was like, “Oh my god, this is so good!”. Then we filmed it, and that became the music video. The video literally makes me tear up. I literally used to look out the window and sing “Perfect” and pretend I had issues with my dad.
Play music videos whilst your parents are driving you in the car…
Literally, I would sing “I’m Just A Kid” all the time, so the fact that happened. If I’m ever feeling down on myself, I have to remind myself that I achieved way more than little LØLØ would ever have thought.