La Roux is Reigniting Her Spark After Leaving the Limelight

1 week ago 13

Chart-topping songstress La Roux sat down with EDMID to discuss her return to music, relationship with Skream, and upcoming unnanounced album.

UK hitmaker La Roux is back under the warm glow of the spotlight. Best known for her breakout self-titled 2009 album, her electropop tunes took the airwaves by storm, amassing accolades and fans at rapid speed.

While the superstar has won a Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album, her subsequent albums have solidified her as a mastermind at shifting sounds while putting out dancefloor-worthy tracks. After an unplanned hiatus to clear her mind, La Roux is preparing for a monstrous year as she puts forth her first effort since Supervision in 2020.

While details surrounding the release have yet to emerge, we had the chance to get the early scoop from the skilled superstar. Following her performance at M3F in Phoenix, La Roux got personal with EDMID as she rehashed her escape from the music industry, desire to redefine herself with every release, and what’s next for her project.

Continue reading for a glimpse inside the mind of an act that created one of the most iconic tracks of the 2000s.

In honor of the 17th anniversary, stream La Roux – “In For The Kill” (Skream’s Let’s Get Ravey Remix) on Spotify:

You just wrapped your performance on the main stage at M3F. How did you go about building today’s set list versus your set that you’re going to have at CRSSD next weekend, and how did it feel seeing the crowd’s reaction?

It’s actually the same set that we’re going to play, just adjusted slightly by taking out a couple of songs we felt were more chill.

I always keep a couple of chill songs — like “Sexotheque” and “Automatic Driver” — because I love performing them, and it’s always good to start a set with variation. There are certain songs as an artist you don’t take out. If you really, really love performing them, that will come across, and that’s as important as playing stuff with a fast tempo.

I think what’s tough about a festival like this is that people often misconceive that I’m a dance act when I’m an old pop act. Sometimes when we are devising the show, it can be easy to try and warp yourself into what you think the crowd will expect versus what you do. You have to play that balance — staying true to yourself, as well as delivering what you think the audience will want.

I felt like we played that balance okay today, but it’s hard because I saw the lineup for this festival, and I was like, “This is a dance festival.” So it’s a funny one, but you’ve got to perform and hope that what you do will emanate, and that’s what we did today.

In previous years, this festival’s lineup didn’t seem as dance heavy, but I felt you really bridged the gap between the dance acts and bands by bringing that electro-pop sound.

My first record is very electro and my second is very disco. My third record is a combination, whereas this new record is more R&B, hip-hop influenced. I’m one of those artists who tries to do something quite different on every record, which always makes sets hard to put together.

There’s always a challenge there, but I do love a challenge. I think I’d be very bored if my genre were the same and I’d followed a formula from my first record. I have a short fuse for bands that do the same thing across three or four albums.

You recently opened up on social media about your unintended musical hiatus. What did that time away teach you, both personally and creatively?

Mainly, I needed to feel safe again. I had a really, really bad time in the music industry. I had some really toxic people around me, a lot of money stolen from me, a lot of industry abuse, as so many people do. Still, I have an incredible job. I get to do what I want to do for a living, which I’m extremely grateful for. But I fell off really hard, and I ran away very intentionally. I didn’t want to be part of it for a very long time.

The first two years of my career hit me really hard. I was about 20 when it kicked off. I wasn’t ready for what I thought I was. I did something that I never expected to happen so quickly. Within a matter of weeks, I was on global charts. I didn’t know how to deal with that pressure at all, and it freaked me out big time.

Something that I’d wished and dreamt for my whole life came as a prize and a curse at the same time, and I really didn’t deal well with it. I think if I hadn’t run away at that time, I wouldn’t be able to come back with the knowledge, the maturity, the confidence, and the joy that I have now at 38.

It’s crazy to think that it took me that long to be able to come back to it with the joie de vivre I wish I had when I was 21-22, but that’s how long it took. Sometimes life just takes you on funny turns, and you have to go with it.

I kinda put myself in an early retirement. For a long time, I spent a lot of time in my house. I got into gardening and became a very homely person. I’m extremely lucky and grateful that “Bulletproof” allowed me to do that without feeling like I had to go out and work. Not many people have that luxury, and I’m sure a lot of people will hate me for even having that opportunity.

I feel guilt sometimes for the fact that one song has allowed me to kind of just dip out for as long as I did, but I’m also super grateful that the people who still listen to “Bulletproof” and “In For The Kill” have allowed me to have the mental health crisis that I needed to regain my safety and get my nervous system back to a place where I want to give back again.

It’s been an interesting journey, and I’ve so enjoyed making this new record. I’m so excited to put it out and for people to hear what I’ve been doing.

Speaking of “Bulletproof,” that track really remains one of those timeless pop culture anthems. How do you approach creating new music without the pressure of feeling the need to duplicate something that iconic?

On my second record, I really felt that pressure, but it’s also why I decided to change direction. For me, the artists that have inspired me are people who have never been afraid to just change direction on a sixpence — or on a dime, as you say here.

I produce, compose, and write every part that you hear on my records. I have no interest in repeating myself, whatever the risk. If you’re an actual musician and creative artist, you can’t worry about that. I remember there was maybe one short period of time in between my first and second record where I tried to compete with what I’d already done, and it made me so miserable and making music really hard.

I didn’t write “Bulletproof” with the intention of it being a hit. I was just having fun in the studio one day, and it accidentally happened. When people told me, “This is huge. This will pay you for the rest of your life,” I was like, “What are you talking about? It took 15 minutes.” I had no idea.

If you try to do that again, you will invariably make bad music. As long as you’re making yourself happy in the studio, one day you might hit that again, but that can’t be the reason that you make music. It’s a poison chalice.

Live Performance with La Roux x Skream x fred again..

It seems that you keep striking gold without actually intending to, and I think that rings true with “In For The Kill.” It’s been 17 years since Skream’s iconic remix, and you recently had the chance to perform it live together for the first time. Did you ever imagine the track would have such a lasting impact?

Actually, yeah. When I first heard the remix, I was still living at my parents’ house. I remember listening to it on my bed on my MacBook Pro, which didn’t have any bass, and thinking, “Why is everyone shitting themselves over this remix?”

I kind of didn’t get what all the fuss was about until I heard it in a club. And then I was like, “Oh shit, this is gonna be bigger than the original,” and it still is. Part of me hates to say it, because obviously I love the original track I made. I love the keyboard part that Bynon and I wrote, which obviously the remix doesn’t have in it.

I have an immense amount of love for the way that Skream made the vocal feel. It brings out the meaning of the song in a way that the original almost doesn’t. He brought out the emotion of what I was saying more than my version does, and that’s almost difficult to admit. He found something in that song that even I didn’t find in it — and I made it.

Everyone I ever speak to about that song remembers where they heard it, what they were wearing, and what room they were in. Whether they were in their bedroom, in a club, kissing a guy, falling in love, whatever they were doing, 17 years later, I still hear those stories almost every day. There’s nothing that can compete with how special that is.

When I saw him last week, we hadn’t seen each other for years. Even though we’ve never really spent that much time together, we kind of have this kinship, like he’s this distant brother that I just don’t see.

It was very, very special to do that with him. That track changed both of our lives in a way that I don’t think we’ll ever really be able to quantify.

Now you’re gearing up to tour with pop icon Hillary Duff. What excited you most about being tapped to open for the superstar as she returns to music?

It’s a whole other world, but it hits nostalgia in the same way, just with a different crowd of people. I guess the Skream remix has a nostalgia that hits with a dance crowd, but I feel like with the crowd that I’ll be touring with her, it’s the nostalgia of all the people in America that heard “Bulletproof” and were like, “Where the fuck did that girl go?”

It’s just a really nice opportunity for both of us to be able to tap into a time that’s gone by and bring it back in a weird way, at an age and a space where there’s been distance, and now you can rejoin a whole generation of people in a really fun, easy, loving way.

This is the perfect time for tapping into that nostalgia factor, as people are really craving the golden era and the safety of it.

It’s really weird that you just said safety, because I was recently writing about why there are late ’90s and early noughties references on my new record.

The woman who wrote my bio questioned, “Why this period? “I answered, “It’s the last time I felt safe.” It’s before social media, before people were obsessed with their phones. It was before the Internet was really a thing, right?

There’s just a time about the late ’90s and the early noughties that is safe — even to the new generation that weren’t there. They’re looking back at it and wanting a bit of that time, you know.

It’s the same as why I was obsessed with the ’80s when I grew up. They feel that they missed out on something that was so culturally different and so much less globalized. People want to go back to a time before everything became so complicated. It’s a real opportunity to celebrate that.

As you embark on this new chapter of the La Roux project, should fans expect more electro-pop tunes or a sonic departure?

It depends on how deep a fan you’ve been, right? If you’ve followed my whole journey, you know that I’ve never made the same record twice. If you didn’t know what I did since “Bulletproof,” you’re going to think everything I’ve done is a departure. I’ve never wanted to be the kind of artist that put out the same stylistic genre record more than once.

There are lots of artists that I’ve seen fall into that trap where they felt like they had to continue with their original sound, and then they get seemingly kind of lost. The only way to be an artist is to take the risk. If you’re not taking risks, you’re not making art. So as far as I’m concerned, I’ve never made a record or a song like my first record since then.

This one I’m about to release, encapsulates everything I’ve ever loved about pop music and everything that I’ve been too scared to approach before because I’m a white, middle-class female. I’ve never felt bold enough to dip into some of the late ’90s, early noughties hip-hop and R&B references.

A lot of the Black pop music that I love, like “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey, I’ve never been able to have an expression or an outlet for it. And I feel like this record, I said fuck it, you only live once.

There’s a bravery on this record for me where I’ve just been doing exactly what I want to do, but I think it’s the best record I’ve ever made, to be honest. I believe I’ve really flexed myself as a producer and a composer as well. I just hope people enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed making it.