High Highs in LØLØ’s World

Words by Blythe Tokar 

Images by Kelsey Runge

LØLØ wears R3ssurect outfitted by MERDE Agency

Despite living in a world of AI romance and chatbot fuck boys, LØLØ might not actually want to be a robot. As she wraps up her first headlining tour, she’s found that each show is like a therapy session for her and the audience - a space for them to feel more human together, and the Toronto-native is more ready to feel than ever before. Ahead of her sold our show, Chicago MERDE Editor, Blythe Tokar, joined LØLØ for a session on the tour bus to talk about oversharing, embracing all of the emotions that come with heartbreak, and why she doesn’t follow any yellow brick roads but stomps down her in custom ruby red platform boots...even though she identifies as more of an Elphaba.

Blythe: So you're wrapping up tour, right? 

LØLØ: Yeah almost at the end, only three more shows!

B: That’s awesome! Is this your first headlining tour? 

L: Yeah! I’ve been an opener a lot of times. I've been in Chicago now opening for a New Found Glory, BOYS LIKE GIRLS, Jaden Hossler, and Lollapalooza. So this is my fifth time here, but my first time headlining. 

B: What's been your favorite part of tour so far?

L: We had a day off randomly in Lincoln, Nebraska, and were in this AirBnB-style hotel and my tour manager made us all dinner, which was really nice because we’ve had so much fast food on this tour, like on any tour. So that's been my favorite, like, nice family thing, and every performance has just been so amazing. I can't pick a show that's been the best, but just the fans in general, and meeting everyone and seeing everyone. Oh, and people dressing up! A lot of people are dressing up as Dorothy, which I love, or an emo cheerleader for Debbie Downer. That's probably my favorite part, actually. 

B: What was your inspiration behind the Wizard of Oz theme for your album? Do you love the movie or how did that inspire you? 

L: It's always been one of my favorite movies, and before I was doing songwriting my dream was to be Elphaba in Wicked; I was a theater kid. I didn't ever think, ‘Oh, I want to make an album that's theater-y or whatever, but when I wrote the song ‘You and the Tin Man’, I was like, ‘Oh, this feels like a whole world of something’. For so long it was a daunting task to make an album because I was just putting out EP’s. So I was like, ‘What will my album be about? What will the theme of it be? I don't know.’ But then I wrote ‘You and the Tin Man’ and then I was like, ‘Okay, this really feels like it's something, like album mode’ and that's kind of how the whole Wizard of Oz theme came to be. I thought it would be really cool if I was a punky Dorothy in the music video, and then it became the album art.

B: I love it, it's very punk Dorothy. So you were a theater kid? Was that your first foray into music? 

L: Yeah, I was always in my school plays but I didn't start playing guitar until grade nine, actually, or ninth grade, as you guys say in the States. Then when I started, my guitar teacher said ‘You should write songs’ and I was like, ‘No, never, not happening, I'm not that type of girl.’ He basically peer pressured me into doing it and I'm so happy that he did because I started writing a song, and then I was like, ‘Oh, I love this, this is, this is awesome.’ So, yeah, I wrote one song, and was like, fuck Broadway I want to be a songwriter. I think it's good that I said that, because I honestly don't know if I have what it takes to be on Broadway - I'm such a bad dancer. *laughs* Also, I feel like my voice dropped in puberty literally like a boy - I used to sing like a Disney princess back in the day, and now I have a raspy voice. So I think it's good that I chose this path. But I would love do a musical again if I had the chance to be in a production of something, I would fucking die for that. 

B: Still wicked, you think? Still Elphaba?

L: Oh yeah that would be great. I was Elphaba in my grade eight play. Actually, the other day I was home alone, I live with my family still, but I was home alone and wanted to see if I could still hit these notes in Defying Gravity, because I could in grade eight when I was little, so I put on the karaoke, and I cannot. I can't do it. Literally tried to hit the Cynthia [notes] and was like, ‘Oh, okay, I can't do that anymore.’ 

B: Well, maybe someday!

L: Yeah, maybe if I worked on it, yeah, that would be sick. 

B: What else went into the inspiration for your music journey? Did anything else really pull you to being a singer-songwriter? 

L: Honestly I feel like I've been through so many lives and different eras in my music. I grew up on like, Green Day, Avril Lavigne, and Hilary Duff. Those were, my favorite people and I feel like it’s honestly a very accurate amalgamation of what my music is today. I used to always write in a diary as a kid but I was so scared that people would read my entries - people, being my parents. *laughs* so I’d write out my thoughts and feelings, then rip it up into little pieces. So it kind of just came naturally, but when I write songs, instead of ripping them up into millions of pieces, I'm putting it on the internet for millions of people to hear, so complete opposite. I'm sure my younger self would be like, ‘What the fuck, this is so embarrassing’ but now I just do it. I used to be so scared of sharing but now I overshare.

B: What other musicians do you really look to, or who do you listen to to get your inspiration flowing?

L: Honestly, a lot of Boy Genius, I fucking love that band. I'm so sad that they aren't a band anymore, and I hope that they come back. When I watched their set at Coachella two years ago that really got me inspired to write a lot of songs. So, Boy Genius, honestly still, Taylor Swift, Julia Michaels, they’re probably the top of my inspiration list. I’m also finding new artists all the time, and now I have a lot of friends in the music industry, also, who are artists so just vibing off of my friends.

B: This is your first album - do you have a favorite song?

L: It’s so hard because I love all of them so much, they're all my children. But probably ‘Hot Girls In Hell’. I just really like that it goes from slow and sad to more upbeat and angry, because I feel like that's a really good representation of how I feel when I'm going through a breakup or a loss of any kind. I go through different phases where one second I'm sad and one second I want to kill someone. *laughs* So that's probably my answer because it's like two songs in one. I guess that’s kind of cheating, but that's my favorite. 

B: How did you find your style inspo for the album and your tour persona? How did you find your personal style? Is there a lot of overlap or is it different?

L: It's definitely different. First of all, I'm never the one to wear an outfit that's uncomfortable, even if it's so nice. I wish I could be that bitch, I really do, but if I'm not comfortable on stage I can't survive. So on stage, I wear a lot of high-boots-fishnets-skirt-and-top, whereas in real life, I feel like I wear a lot of baggy jeans and baggy shirts, but both are my style. For my album artwork, someone made me that outfit for the cover, so I had to tell the designer my style and I literally said, punky Dorothy, and that was the result. 

B: Those boots are everything. 

L: Yeah, the boots are so good I love those, they’re the best part. 

B: What’s your relationship with fashion? 

L: I honestly love fashion, but I feel like I’m so bad at it! I wish I had more time to really find things, but that's why I love working with stylists who will vintage shop for me. I’d way rather wear those pieces than fast fashion. For my personal style, I honestly just have been really loving the look of plaid and when I'm shopping in LA, there's this strip of stores on Melrose where I get a lot of my plaid outfits. 

B: You seem like a Vivienne Westwood kind of girl.

L: Yes she was definitely on the mood board 100%. I’d say she’s my favorite designer but I don't wear a lot of big-name designers. I would love to but as of now, I'm just kind of like scrapping stuff together, but hopefully one day that'd be sick. 

B: I know the pieces you're wearing for the show tonight are from a local designer, Resurrected. 

L: Yeah they’re super cool! I have to decide if I'm wearing the skirt or the jeans tonight with this tank top. I usually never wear pants on stage, so I don't know, but we'll see because the skirt’s really short and I have really long legs *laughs* so it might be a pants night.

B: Do you live in LA right now? I know you're from Toronto originally. 

L: Yeah, I go back and forth between Toronto and LA. I would say, maybe I'm in LA a little bit more, but then I'm also touring a lot of the time so I'm like a nomad living out of my

two suitcases. 

B: Do you like that? 

L: No *laughs* No, I would definitely rather be settled for sure but that just comes with the lifestyle. 

B: Have you been working on any new music?

L: I was working on some new stuff before I started this whole tour and right after this I'm going to Nashville to work on more so hopefully more stuff to come. I have a couple of new songs that are in demo world, but, yeah, I don't know what the next thing is going to be. I wish I did, but I need to get into a studio and just see what's gonna happen!


B: That's exciting, new beginnings. What do you hope you communicate to your fans when they come to your shows and listen to your music?

L: I hope that they take away this sense that we're all in this together. I say every night at the end of my show, that throughout making this whole album, I was wishing I was a robot, wishing I could feel numb and say, ‘Fuck these like assholes, they don't have feelings and are breaking my heart’ but then, it's like, you know what? Yes, it's sometimes scary to live in this world, but all these emotions are what make us human at the end of the day. So it's okay to go through all of is with the ups and downs because that's just the human experience and that's part of growing up. So I feel like that's the main takeaway of my album and my shows. I try to make it like a therapy session - all of us getting out our anger, letting go of the demons, saying fuck you to past lovers, and at the end of the day, it's like, you know what? We're feeling these things and it's normal.

B: I love calling it a therapy session. What are you excited for after tour? I know you said you're going to go to Nashville to get in the studio.

L: Yeah I'm excited to do that. I'm excited to relax honestly and spend some quality time at home. I'm also going to South America randomly for four days just for fun. I'm excited for that. I'm also so excited to announce that I’m doing a summer tour in the U.S. with Simple Plan! It’s a long time coming because my first tour ever was supposed to be opening for them and Newfound Glory, but they had to pull out because of COVID. I was so excited to tour with them and then that happened, and I was, like, bedridden-depressed but now I’m so excited - the full lineup is Bowling for Soup, 3O3!, and me! So yeah, touring, and then I'll definitely be releasing more music. I just don't know when, but it's coming. Don't worry!

B: Otherwise, can just see you on your social media journey. Is that something that comes naturally to you?

L: Yeah, I definitely hate it *laughs* I would like it more if I didn't have to do it every day and didn't have to stress about getting likes, getting more followers, and growing my fan base. That’s the annoying part of it, it's a fucking full-time job. It's crazy, I spent hours just editing videos, and I even have videos given to me, and I still need to add the text or think of a funny caption, so that's annoying, but I understand that it is the tool that will help me reach new audiences. So yeah, hate it, but I love it. 

B: Well, good luck with the rest of your tour, and good luck tonight! I'm so excited to see your show, I can't wait. Thank you for taking the time!