Multi-platinum chart-topping singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Lauv says he is a storyteller, first and foremost.
The artist is ready to tell his most personal story yet on his second full-length album, All 4 Nothing.
“The album is about the death of a dream I was chasing and waking to that dream that was already there,” Lauv reveals.
“Up until now, I spent so much time trying to be something that I was actually ignoring what was right in front of me. If you want to really experience the magic of life, you don’t get to choose. You can’t pull magic from places where it doesn’t exist. You just have to be aware of its presence in your life, play with it, and create something with it. Ultimately, this album is all about surrendering to love and surrendering to life.”
In 2020, his gold-selling, full-length debut album ~how i’m feeling~ cracked the Top 20 of the Billboard Top 200 and saw Lauv selling out headline tours and supporting Ed Sheeran in stadiums, as well as appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!, The Late Late Show with James Corden and more.
As the global pandemic descended upon the world, Lauv found himself at a crossroads as he continued to write songs in his home studio.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, I started digging deeper into the songs I was working on and began finding common threads, common themes, and ultimately, the storyline between the songs which comprise this album,” Lauv continues.
“On one level, we were all alone, and everyone was rebooting. On another level, it starts from the point of me wanting to be a musician. On the third level, it was about me being a little kid up until now. As these levels crossed one another, I started to realize there are cycles in life. In 2020, I was reassessing the things I wanted when I was younger. I was putting a lot of thought and emphasis on the person I ended up becoming and what I left behind in the process, and at the end of the day, it was all very much about me reconnecting with my inner child.”
“I was a lot more hands off on the production of these songs than I had been on my previous records. I started off my career producing all of my own music, but as things picked up and my free time became more limited, so did my ability to focus on producing. That’s when I began to enlist the help of co-producers. But in retrospect, I realized I was really just giving up on the version of myself I thought I was—the person who’s control-heavy.”
“That really pushed me and allowed me to experiment more in the process. It opened me up to try new things, to experiment with my approach. Rather than write a song and record it, I would get up on the mic and start freestyling my lyrics. Approaching the creation process that way gave me no time to think about what I was doing or saying – I was just singing what I was feeling in real time, and he lyrics on this album feel more raw and unfiltered because of that. Instead of controlling every little thing, this album was me rediscovering my roots as a person. For a long time, I thought my identity was being in-control of the creative process. But my identity is just me, and I let myself go free.”
Lauv says there’s a magical feeling to his second LP.
“It curates an energy of openness, wonder, and excitement, but also vulnerability and realness,” Lauv says.
“I hope it opens up a vortex to something you haven’t felt in a while—a place where you can build yourself up from.”
All 4 Nothing is out now.
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