7 minute read
LAURAN HIBBERD
“Who the f*** is Lauran Hibberd?”, is a question you may find yourself wondering, especially after noticing her stage backdrop, although the 24-year-old is keen to tell her story in her own words.
The slacker-pop musician could perhaps first appear to be far from her home on the Isle of Wight, but this couldn’t be further from the truth - as any witness has observed, her true home is onstage. Sitting in her tour van while she’s on the road with The Vamps on their Cherry Blossom Tour, she starts: “It is to stop other people from asking the question. I'm a very selfdeprecating kind of person. I guess on a tour like this, when perhaps I'm out with a band like The Vamps, maybe their audience probably wouldn't have heard me before. I guess I'm kind of taking the p*** out of myself really. It’s like, ‘You don't know who I am but let's just have fun anyway.’ That's sort of the point. It’s to make a statement about no one knowing who I am.”
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Dedication to music has always been part of her brand. Instead of going into sixth form, she got 3 A* equivalents at Platform One College of Music in Newport. She notes: “The Isle of Wight is great. It's a lovely place to grow up. Not ideal for a musician, as you can imagine but we do a lot of travelling. I think it's kind of become a good talking point. Everyone's like, ‘You've come from the Isle of Wight for this?’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, I know. Dedication’.”
There’s already a debut album release to follow her successful EP, “Goober”. “I'm working on my debut album, which is super exciting. That's kind of like a big cloud hanging over me in a really good way. It's like a pink fluffy cloud hanging over my head, so I'm very excited. I kind of have a Due to the personal nature of her lyrics, each track reminds her of people she has known. “In ‘How Am I Still Alive?’, for example, I wrote very specifically about a drummer that I used to know and I've never met anyone with a character kind of like him. Yet every time I sing that song I think about this guy and it's kind of funny because he's a bit of a nerd. You wouldn't stop on the street and look at this guy for more than one second, and you'd never think about him ever again. But for some reason, I was like, ‘There's something fascinating about this weird guy.”
Perhaps verging on too personal, Hibberd did question the release of her typically tongue-incheek track, ‘Old Nudes’ - however, it was luckily fine. Revealing she sometimes wonders if it’s too far or specific, she says: “I'm definitely sometimes trying to just go around details a little bit, to not have anyone knock on my door and be like, ‘Yeah, can you remove that please?’” as a starting point for merch designs and music announcements. Never one to do things by halves, she announced the tour for her “Goober” EP with a spoof weather report. “I think personality-wise, I like just goofing about and not taking myself too seriously. I like to make sure everything I do stinks of me. I want people to love or hate it, but know that it’s something that I would do. I definitely try to inject personality across all platforms. I'd much rather people remember me for something. I always like to put a fun spin on stuff.”
Her outlandish music videos have long become a staple in the Lauran Hibberd experience. “I normally come up with a really drastic million-pound idea for a video and end up having to do it on about £1000. I think that's the beauty with some of the videos like the ‘Never Looked So Cool’ idea. I wanted it to be me underwater and I wanted to hire our whole leisure gym/pool and fill it with marshmallows. We’d be lying on lilos and just kind of running around in that. It obviously didn't become that but it did become an underwater style video, so I did manage to incorporate that. I always have stupid ideas.”
Her favourite yet was for the ‘Hoochie’ video. “I was like a cool girl. I bought a burner phone and put the number at the bottom. When the video went out, I used it to answer the phone and text people back. It was a really fun and interactive thing. I think that's been my favourite one so far.”
The clear connection between Hibberd and her fans is palpable. It’s something that naturally still leaves her with disbelief. “I'm just surprised anyone cares, a lot of the time. I have endless time for anyone that buys a ticket to one of my shows because that's what it's all about as that means I can keep doing my job. It's amazing when you hear people who say, ‘You've helped me get through this, this and that’.”
Her honest and relatable tracks such as ‘Shark Week’ clearly resonate with her fans and ‘Sweat Patch’ is no different. Centred around drug culture and alienation from peers, Hibberd has become more open with how she feels about things. She states: “I used to just make up an excuse or whatever or got myself out of the room really fast. Now, I'm very much like, ‘I just like coke zero, it’s my jam’. I think I've learned just to be myself and be okay with it. People are really accepting a lot of the time. I think that everyone I've met has been really nice. I've been quite lucky so far. I’ll hit you back when I’ve got some horror stories. I’m sure they’ll come.”
Boasting a fast-growing and dedicated fanbase, it’s not surprising that Hibberd has already had a host of support from famous faces such as Yungblud, as well as Radio 1 DJs Clara Amfo and Jack Saunders. There’s another perhaps unexpected fan that’s stuck out to her. “Weirdly the other day, Scouting For Girls messaged me. I don't know if it's necessarily cool but I'm into it, like growing up with the Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, sort of film days. He was like, ‘Just loving your sound’. Literally, 9-year-old me would have absolutely done a front flip of excitement.”
She’s previously collaborated with Lydia Night from The Regrettes on her satiric-ballad ‘How Am I Still Alive’, which boasts almost 1.5 million streams on Spotify alone. She already has her next dream collaboration in mind. “I'd love to collaborate with Yungblud right now. I hadn't seen him live until I was at Reading and Leeds. I watched him twice both times and it blew my mind. I feel like it really inspired my performance. I kind of met him and had a brief chat. I just really, really like everything he stands for. I'd love to do something with him for sure.”
Standing up for others and both being creative freespirits means they’d likely be well-matched. Recently signing with Virgin Records and her latest track ‘Charlie’s Car’, on the radar for Spotify’s ‘the locker_’ and ‘Shockwave’ playlists, Hibberd has the world at her feet. If she had a dream musical day, those who know her wouldn’t be surprised by how she’d spend it. “I’d probably wake up in bed next to Rivers Cuomo from Weezer. Give him a kiss. I’d go and make breakfast with Avril Lavigne. Have a chat with her. I’d go into my studio session with Suzy Shin who is my producer now. I'd have to spend the day with her in the studio and then maybe hang out with Pixies in the evening. Maybe get drunk with Yungblud at night. Then, I'd like to play Wembley that night. Just to finish it off.”
An artist who shares everything through the authenticity of her music and interview answers, there’s still something she’s never been asked. “No one ever asked me what my middle name is.” If you were wondering, it’s Amélie just like the French film. As well as having the same name as the lead, they both share an affinity for sharing joy with others and celebrating the mundane in every day. Just stream Hibberd’s music or better yet, make your way to her live show to experience it first-hand.
