American singer Lauren Ruth Ward exclusively on her success: 'There's just no chance of being discovered in a corner.'
In our last interview we talked a lot about your tour and your approach to creativity. I know your team is mostly women. Also that you're very active in trying to communicate your experiences and feelings to the world. You talk about self-love and other important topics, you support LGBTQ+ people... This leads me to ask: Is it important for you to send a "message" to the world, how you feel about things, what you think is important to open up in public debate?
I've always had a warrior soul. For example, in the song Heaven Electric, I imagined a heaven where everyone is welcome. There's always been gay people, trans people and so on... The world just doesn't understand them. A world that's controlled by conservative-minded people.
A lot of things can change, like social media, that weren't there before. People who weren't visible before are now visible and can support others.
When someone comes to me or writes to me and says "Your work saved my life. Your music helped me be myself," it always gets me. I get goosebumps and it drives me on.
Thank you so much for that question because it inspires me and maybe I'll dedicate the next song to what the world needs to hear.
I feel like artists are basically storytellers. Storytellers who communicate important things in a way that the audience understands. Was it your goal to tell deep stories or did it just kind of come naturally?
It was more the latter. I followed my heart. If I had made different choices, I might be more famous, but I always did what felt right. I'm generally a very happy person in life. I'm happy where I am. The fact that the world listens to me didn't happen because I tried to master it as much as possible to make it go viral on TikTok, for example. I did and am doing what makes sense to me. I want to be authentic. People aren't stupid.
People can tell what's not honest...
Exactly.
From my personal experience: the book that does best in terms of my work is the one I wrote because the subject resonated strongly with me - for many reasons. Does it work the same way for you? Are your best (in the sense of top-rated, most viewed, or most popular with listeners) songs the ones you wrote based on your emotions and something that was extremely important to you?
It's interesting that the music industry is not linear. The most successful songs have always had a lot of people behind them. If you don't have a team, you can't do anything. That's the way it is. I'm trying to be honest now. Without the means of promotion - money and people - there's just no way you're going to be discovered in a corner. It's very much about getting technology on your side. Everything and everyone is connected. As an independent artist, I can tell you 100% that you can't do it without a team. You can't do it alone. Now, some people are gonna think I'm an outlier, but I am. That's what I've learned in my career.
Even my most painful songs will fade with time. The more you sing about what hurts, the more you get used to it and it just becomes a song. The most painful thing for me is always the stuff I've written recently, because I'm still reliving it.
How do you choose the people you work with?
Based on if I feel a connection in our creativity. If I like someone's art, I want to share it further. I want to showcase their talent to my fans because I know they'll enjoy it. My best friend Melanie Martinez also took me on her American tour. That's how they expand the audience and it touches me.
We talked a lot about emotions. So I'm thinking: What's the most difficult emotion for you to form? Is it sadness, anger, jealousy, or maybe happiness, longing, joy...?
I don't like clichés, but I will mention that my childhood was pretty lonely and sucked. So loneliness and despair are paradoxically comfortable for me. I know those emotions. I don't have a victim mentality, quite the opposite. I like to work out my personal stuff on my own and move on - I'm a Scorpio, you know. (Laughs) But I've read a lot of books on psychology and I've come to understand that when I cry, I actually feel happiness. Relief and comfort. In fact, it's so familiar to me from a very early age that I do most of my writing in that state. I was 12 when I started writing poems. Then I wrote songs when I was maybe thirteen to fifteen. Those were the hardest years of my childhood. And my therapist pointed that out - that that was the time I started writing. Now here I am, in my thirties, and I keep going back to it. When I'm desperate, I write a lot more than when I'm happy.
You mentioned that you're very happy now. So you don't create much?
That's right. I'm not moving. It doesn't push me as much as when I'm unhappy. I force myself to write. Ideas don't come out of me as naturally as they do when I'm learning from a mistake or grieving or just sad about the way the world is. I should write more. About happiness and fun. Yes, I promise to write something tonight !
I hope that next time you come back to Prague, you'll bring the proof with you in the form of a new song! When are you planning to show up again?
Hopefully this year! It's not settled yet, but if the songs do well, I believe it will work out and I will be able to visit my fans here in the Czech Republic again.
