INTERVIEW: LØLØ Follows Up Summer Amphitheatre Tour with Local Headlining Show
11/07 @ Empire Underground, Albany
Photos by Christina Bryson
“It's a lot easier to connect to an audience when you can really look them in the eye and they're right there.”
It’s been just over a month since LØLØ wrapped up an opening stint on a massive summer arena/amphitheatre tour with pop-punk icons Simple Plan and Bowling For Soup, and she’s still coming down from the highs of it all. It’s a Tuesday morning in West Hollywood as she gushes about the experience, which included being able to sing “Jet Lag” with Simple Plan each night — a song she used to sing into a hairbrush in her childhood bedroom, creating quite the full circle moment.
“I grew up loving those bands — they were on burned CDs that I had and I was just obsessed with them. So honestly, I was really nervous for the tour,” she admits. “But then quickly after getting there, I realized that they're all dads. The whole tour was just fun, silly dad energy… no drama, and everyone was so nice. It was just so comforting and welcoming.”
Now that amphitheatre season is coming to a close, LØLØ has her sights set on a fall headline tour, which sees her traveling down the East Coast over the course of three weeks, including a performance at Warped Tour Orlando in the middle of the month. The pivot from playing massive venues to more intimate ones may seem like a shock to the system, but LØLØ threads the needle wonderfully, noting the beauty in both situations.
“Believe it or not, even though all of the pressure is on you as the headliner, I find that headlining shows are actually a lot easier because I know that everybody bought a ticket to come see me. Everybody knows all the lyrics to my songs. It's also a lot easier to connect to an audience when you can really look them in the eye and they're right there. When you're opening for someone, you have something to prove every single night because you want to win over the audience. The headline is kind of like the reward for all of your hard work as an opener, because it’s a room filled with people that love you.”
On November 7, that tour makes its way to Empire Underground in Albany where fans will get to experience LØLØ’s saccharine blend of pop-rock up close and personal. Not to mention, LØLØ shows are nothing if not cathartic. Her infectious melodies and biting lyrics laced with signature, witty one-liners are just clamoring to be shouted back and forth between the audience and the stage. For proof, look no further than songs like “hurt less” (‘You could stab me in the eye, you could kick me in the face / Throw me down the stairs, leave me in an alleyway / 'Cus baby that would hurt less than this’), “the devil wears converse” (‘The Devil wears Converse and '90s band tees / Prettiest monster, makin' me weak’) or ”u turn me on (but u give me depression)”, which is basically a one-liner in itself.
“I really like when everyone yells with me, ‘You never loved me you fucking poser,’” she laughs, referencing her 2024 song, “poser.” “That one is just really funny. And then my favorite song to play live is ‘hot girls in hell.’ I love singing the beginning slow part, and then when the beat comes back in, the whole room puts their middle fingers up and I feel so powerful in that moment.”
For the criminally unacquainted, LØLØ’s music lives somewhere between Avril Lavigne’s fashion-skater punk of yesteryear, and Olivia Rodrigo’s angst-driven arena-pop of present time. Each song has a hook bigger than the last, with choruses unabashedly tailored to generation ‘terminally-online.’ “american zombie” is a perfect example of this, an amalgamation of all that makes LØLØ LØLØ. It’s a song she recently described as “the most unhinged love song [she’s] ever written.”
“It’s basically about meeting someone who seems really messed up. Dead inside, dead behind the eyes, but I can see he's trying. And for some reason, there was something really endearing about that. Also really sad, but mostly endearing. Why do I find that endearing? I don’t know. I should probably see a therapist.”
To date, her catalog of music has not only garnered attention from some of the biggest names in a genre that’s seen a massive resurgence over the last couple years, but also an overtly organic response from the genre’s diehard fandom. Since releasing her debut EP Sweater Collection back in 2019, she has toed the line between quantity and quality effortlessly, releasing a steady stream of singles, EPs, and her debut full length, falling for robots and wishing i was one, just last year. In addition to her banner tour this summer, which followed her recent signing to Fearless Records, she has also spent time on the road with artists like New Found Glory and Boys Like Girls. She has experienced the kind of naturally meteoric rise you don’t see often in this day and age — the result not of nepotism or viral fame but perseverance and connection.
“I kind of just keep my head down and keep trucking,” she says. “It's such a hard industry, and I just try to go with the flow and try to keep being better and better. I always say that there's no way you're ever going to make it if you give up.”
Even for an artist with as many success stories as the Toronto-born, 27-year-old has had in her short career thus far, she still exists in the same culture as the rest of us, where social media can make things feel like a cruel competition. Part of this includes seeming accessible all the time, something LØLØ takes very seriously. The level of interaction she has with her fans is something to marvel at, as she’s answering every comment herself any time she has even just a few minutes of free time. It’s an approach that’s garnered her such a dedicated following, despite it being an overly taxing pursuit.
“It actually kind of sucks, because as artists, we weren't meant to be content creators,” she says, “but you're kind of forced to now. You can't really be like, ‘Well, Billy Joel didn't have to do this, so I don't want to do it.’ You’ve got to play the game.”
It’s a game that weighs on all of us — LØLØ included — but choosing to celebrate the little moments is how she finds a way out of her head.
“I have to just compare my success to my own success, because everyone is on a different path and everyone is so different. You wouldn't compare apples and oranges so how are you going to compare LØLØ and some other random artist? It's not always easy, but that's what I try to do.”
LØLØ’s debut performance here in Albany will offer local fans the chance to witness an artist who has performed on some of the country’s biggest stages, performing in front of an intimate audience of a few hundred. So break out the eyeliner, fishnets, and warm up those vocal cords for a night of singalong anthems. Because the next time LØLØ comes through town, it will no doubt be on a much larger stage.
For tickets to LØLØ’s November 7th show at Empire Underground, visit https://empirelivealbany.com/.
For more information on LØLØ, follow her on Instagram at @lolo.
