Lauren warming up in the green room (all photos by Michelle Shiers)

As I enter the green room of Teragram Ballroom (*quick note: vaccine proof was required at the door) I see Lauren Ruth Ward in her workout attire doing Yoga warm ups as she is about to perform an almost 2 hour set, if you’ve seen a LRW show you know her athletics and command of the stage is one of the many reasons why she’s an incredible performer. She offers me a beer and continues her warm ups, while a few friends and her band members are in the green room, celebrating; hair spray here, beers there. Lauren and I have known each other for about 5 years now, our first official meeting happened when she and Eduardo Rivera (her guitarist / co-writer) showed me the music video for “Make Love To Myself” prior to its release, we sat across each other at Stamps Proper Foods in Los Feliz in September of 2016 (I think… though Lauren is better at exact dates than me), ever since then we’ve cultivated a beautiful friendship, but this is the first time I am interviewing her.

I say my “hellos” to the crew, sit on the couch, and catch up with Eduardo, this show is partly dedicated as a farewell to Eduardo’s involvement with the band. Lauren finishes her warm ups and starts practicing a song with Emma Cole, acoustic guitar in hand, the green room is cleared at this point except for us three, so Lauren and Emma continue to unintentionally “serenade me.”

Emma Cole and Lauren practicing pre-show

They finish practicing the song, Lauren sits across from me and…

Obviously you are about to go on stage soon, I saw some of your pre-show rituals but can you share more?

I like to be social. I like to do normal things. And I like to warm up my voice and my body. So yoga, jumping around. When Emma was doing my makeup, I got boosts of excitement. I took it as a message that I needed to jump up and down. I did toy soldiers and kicks.

You just filmed 3 music videos in 4 days, how was that experience? How are you feeling?

It was great. It was actually sequitur of how I released them. So there's kind of a lo-fi one, ironically, that one took two days and the two higher production ones took one day each. It was like a couple of weekends ago. “The Breakup Song” was done on Friday. And that was higher production, but with a small team because it was underwater. Then that Saturday and Sunday, I did a music video called “Pain” with my girlfriend who thought “how can I just make you do some fucked up shit?” So she made me eat wasabi, spanked me, and made me get an ice bath and other weird shit. That was so much fun. And we spread those events out. There's even a couple things I did that did not make the cut. And then the next day we shot the third music video “Sing In The Shower.”

How was it shooting under water? Was it cold? How long did you have to be under water?

I was in the pool for about four and a half hours, five hours. We started right when the sun went down because we wanted it to look like a black void. Pretty intense. But Jenny the videographer, she's so wise, she's been doing this for years. So she has tricks. Her assistant brought a thermos, a water heater, and made me tea. I brought a couple towels, some robes, and I tried to keep my body in the water to keep my temperature regulated, put a towel on the top of my head even if my hair wasn't in it just to keep my head warm. When I was taking breaks I would sip this extremely hot tea with a towel on my head. But I got lucky. It's California summertime so it was like maybe 60 degrees. It ends up being warmer in the water than it is out of water.

Let me ask you about “Pain.” What was harder for you eating wasabi or having an ice bath?

The ice bath. I'm a fucking lizard. Because I like flavors. I like eating. It was like “oh, at least there's a party in my mouth.” Even though it's slightly excruciating.

Was it your first time throwing Mentos on a Cola?

Yes, and to be honest I didn’t really know about that trick. My girlfriend taught me that trick.

I love the aesthetics of “Sing in the Shower” with all the red. Was that your idea? I know you are very involved in the creative vision.

I actually lost my entire team for that music video because someone got COVID and the entire team had to quarantine. So I reached out to Ali Roberto, she is super creative, really good at making things happen, and at seeing visions through. I had only worked with her one time for Doc Martens. I texted with her “Hey, give me a buzz. I have this really insane request. This is the time frame.” And her response was “Okay, I've got this I've got the time we can make it happen.” We've popped on the phone we talked about some ideas that I had and then she sends me a couple of mood boards that have some red with high contrast black and red for this shower scene and I was sending her other ideas at the same time. I think that's why it happened so beautifully so quickly. We were both on the same page and it was just so awesome.

I’ve known you for quite some time now and I think that these three singles highlight the three main sides of Lauren Ruth Ward

(Laughs) Question for you, how do you describe the three sides of me?

I’m terrible at playing the “name the genre” game, but one side is the folk introspective that you show in “I Feel Cool” and “The Break Up Song”, another one is the pop side of you like “Did I Offend You?” and I see that in “Pain” not Pop Pop, but like Pop with an edge because you always have that edge, and finally your unapologetic rock and roll side that you show in “Blue Collar Sex Kitten” and in “Sign In The Shower”

Yeah, that's so cool. It wasn't exactly intentional. To walk you through it would kind of be boring. When the breakup song was finished, and I was actually with you in Maui. I sent it to a couple friends, you included, and I thought I gotta get this out. Then I had the vision releasing it the same week of this show. But releasing it next to a really Thrasher rockery song (Sing in the shower) as the juxtaposition. I was set to release those two songs and then I got the master for “pain.” And my girlfriend Raquel and I were obsessed with the song. Then she had the music video idea, that is why I released that one in between the two. But I was stoked because honestly, you know, you’ve worked with me for five years now. I would love to have a music video for every single song. She recorded it on this old flip camera from like, 2004.

A little out of topic question, one of my favorite things about you is how you connect with your kid side, there’s very few people that I can be silly and honestly a true kid around, you are one of those people. Were you always in touch with your inner kid? Did you ever lose her? And had to regain her?

I always had it, when I was a kid, I was really short, I was a little sister. People said “oh, little Lauren. She's just running around crazy.” And then, when I was a preteen to early 20s I definitely tried to hide my goofiness or hide my cackle. Like there were certain things that weren't “beauty standard acceptable” for a young woman, and I would say that that was definitely totally painful. I still was really playful, Goofy, but behind doors, but never lost it.

I'm glad I get to see that side of you. Last question, about your future projects. I know you are starting Heaven Electric with Andrew Martin, and are recording with Aging Actress with Chris Hess. What can we expect?

So very excited. With Heaven Electric we have our debut show soon. And yes in the studio right now with Aging Actress. Very excited for you to see it.

Lauren Ruth Ward performing at the Teragram Ballroom

MEET THE AUTHOR

Mikel Corrente is a Venezuelan entrepreneur and writer based in Los Angeles.

A PRE-SHOW CONVERSATION WITH LAUREN RUTH WARD

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