Interview: Maude Latour
Interview by Tabitha Curry
Photo credits: Anna Koblish
Last week, I spoke with Maude Latour—who will be playing the Royale on March 18 in support of her latest album, “Sugar Water.” We talked about the record, the creative process, and what it’s like being a young musician in the digital age.
Tabitha Curry (TC): I wanted to ask about the sound of the record—how did it come together and what were you drawing on?
Maude Latour (ML): Totally. Well, “Cosmic” was the first song that I wrote for the album [Sugar Water]. I wanted this album to reference all the different musical influences that I have – moments of rock, trippy distorted guitar, 2012 recession pop, electronic music, club music, trippy psychedelic music, hyper-pop. I wanted to blur all these genres and make something that was a kaleidoscope of me and all the music that I love.
TC: Beautiful—I think that’s very clear in the record. It’s a very expansive sound. Is there a favorite song of yours?
ML: What’s your favorite?
TC: I really like “Cosmic Superstar Girl,” especially the guitar in that one.
ML: Mine changes – It’s like picking between my babies. I really like “Summer of Love,” I think that’s the one where if I need to feel like myself again I’ll put that on. I love “Whirlpool” and “Bloom” a lot.
TC: “Whirlpool” is a favorite in my apartment right now—we were listening to it at breakfast and talked about how it reminds us of “I am not the sun.” That’s the song that got me into you, it was shown to me by my roommate Gianna, whose friend Claire played it for her. This song had a chain leading to me, but I digress. Could we break down that song?
ML: Woah, me and that song. Damn. I love that song. I learned a lot from that song. I think the meaning of it is part of the process of it as well—in that when you’re writing something, making things, it’s not really coming from you. It’s coming from somewhere else—the sun, perhaps. That song was me giving into this process of “I bow at your feet, I am not the sun”—and it felt like it was just streaming out of me. That is exactly what I was singing about. That is not being the center of anything. It was also about the first time that me and this person hooked up and this intimate experience that made me realize what intimacy was supposed to feel like and it was so outside of myself. I was so not the center of things—it was this humbling experience of what love feels like and when you realize there’s something bigger than you out there. I realized while making this song that the creative process is the exact same process as loving someone—when you give into something bigger than you and something worth your ego completely dying. That’s how these divine moments, when we worship something, like music—the music shows us what we need to know. It’s not coming from us.
TC: Do you find that all of your songs come from this metaphysical place where you feel almost bestowed upon an idea? Are there things that trigger the feeling of needing to write a song about it, or is it totally outside of you?
ML: I think there’s different categories of how things can initiate. Maybe if I was not doing this professionally, I would just wait for those moments to happen. When you want to dive in deeply and make anything a practice, you have to practice opening this channel and letting things just stream through and not judging them. Just getting the bad songs out, getting everything that’s not the song out and learning how to listen instead of having it come from you. But, there’s definitely songs that I’ve kickstarted— maybe those aren’t as good or as pure. Every song has a moment of “Oh, wait, this part and then this part – wait and then together they make a new idea”. There’s no way that that divine synchronicity comes from me. That’s totally something else in the works.
TC: On the idea of being an artist and having to produce a product—how does that feel in this time where social media runs becoming “relevant?” What’s that like for you?
ML: Hitting the nail on the head. I think this is all a humbling journey to remember to practice not comparing yourself and to practice being detatched from numbers and results and posting. I think it’s a mindfulness, a challenge of do you love your art so much that who cares about the results – can it be that pure? I think that’s how I’ve approached the promotion of it over a long period of time—I’ve been putting out music for eight years. It is such an important part of it, it’s allowed the most exciting moments of growth in my career and it’s how everyone knows my music at all—it’s only through social media. It’s through word of mouth sometimes, like with your roommates. But, it’s a love-hate relationship and we all have it. We all compare ourselves, but it’s a perfect obstacle to have to wake up in the morning and be like “the numbers don’t matter, they can’t matter.”
TC: You have to detach yourself completely while also knowing how much the music industry is reliant on those numbers and it sucks. I think it’s the worst part of our time with art—but also we have so much access to so many people through socials. I was scrolling through yours and I think what shines on yours is giving tidbits about the actual record. It’s not just in service to creating buzz. There was a post where you shared how a couple of the songs were formed—like the line “Under the bridge going Superman.” I really enjoyed your insight on that.
ML: That makes me happy. I don’t want to explain the meaning too much, but I love explaining meanings. People always have to tell me to stop explaining the meaning behind things. But I love telling the stories about it. It’s important to me that all the songs are written about things that have actually happened and about real things, otherwise, I don’t want to write it. There’s a meaning behind every little choice.
TC: That’s so cool because you exist in this sound that is very spacey and yet that concrete nature definitely shines through. Another question, when you walk into the studio and have a hook in your head or a bit of “I’m gonna make a song,” what’s the first instrument that you pick up? Is there one you have a particular relationship with where a song will just come out from it?
ML: I started writing music on piano, especially my early music. That all started on piano and I love being at the piano. I do that less and less now. Now a lot more music comes from a sound—a glitchy, synth sound, a weird crackly sound. I’m definitely starting from a more electronic place these days. When I write by myself, I’ve been producing more and using more samples, creating drum loops and weird, terrible-sounding things that feel so free and are outside of the way I know piano. It’s like being a beginner in a new way at production. It’s made new ideas come out in new shapes. I think that’s part of my evolution sonically.
TC: Ah, it’s an abstraction of your music.
ML: Yeah, totally.
TC: Okay, what’s new about this tour? Obviously, you’re headlining versus opening—which you did for Fletcher, right? What’s different about being at the center of it?
ML: I am very excited, I’ve toured a lot of times and I want this to be a very new experience. I’ve never toured an album before, so there are twelve new songs that I haven’t sung to the people who know my music. I feel it will be a very different experience, but also pulling from all the things that have made my shows uniquely mine in the past. I’m really taking people on the journey of this album and I want to bring it to life. I want to make it make sense for people in person. I am most looking forward to getting a totally new meaning from the songs when I hear other people experiencing them. This album has been a question mark of if people have listened to it and if they like it. To see what it means to them so that I fill this empty hole in my heart that I feel when I’m away from everyone. It will be so fun. Are you going to be at the show? What show are you going to be at?
TC: They definitely have been listening—I know I have. I’ll be at the Boston show—March 18th I believe?
ML: Amazing! Boston’s always so fun.
TC: College town!
ML: It’s college town vibes—I’m very excited.
TC: Do you have a favorite city you’ve toured in or a favorite show?
ML: Boston’s definitely in my top few for sure. I love Chicago and Austin. A lot of random places, Salt Lake City. I’m happy to be anywhere, I’m just so glad I get to do this.
TC: On the college note, you studied philosophy at Columbia. What role does that play in your artistry?
ML: I was trying to make music that was in dialogue with my human self and I think that’s why I started studying philosophy. I was like “Let me turn to these answers in this formal sense as well.” I think my love for music and philosophy come from the same part of me, which is just me as a person who, since I was a child, has been hungry for the answers and so curious. This undying curiosity and love for life and people and so many questions, unanswerable questions. I think music is one of the ways that I exercise my personal philosophy. It’s the product of these inquiries that I explore through different mediums. This album is mirroring this philosophy that I studied in school, which is this post-modern framework of collapsing binaries to create a whole— which I spent my senior year studying. I knew I wanted the album to explore this question that I left college with. In college you learn all these things and by the end, all these things have synthesized and you realize that they’re also not true and how all these contradicting things exist at once. There’s these influences of Derrida, which was this guy who was like, “Oh, if we have the word happy and unhappy, the word unhappy contains both happy and the opposite of it.” Also, this ancient Western philosophy has these binary things where it’s either true or false. When we get to post-modernism and look at the real modern world and how we’re going to build the world we want, it can’t just be true and false. We need these opposing things to become whole – they’re actually not binaries. This future world we want to build includes the collapsing of binaries. We need to look at the whole, complicated picture as complicated as it truly is. That’s what the album philosophy is following. It’s supposed to be a proof of my interpretation of that framework.
TC: It’s a breaking of the grand narrative. It’s all these structures we uphold. That’s beautiful and important. You said you left college with all of these questions—obviously “What am I going to do with my life?” being one of them. I’m 20, so I’m in that stage of questioning and in-between(ness). What’s your take on that time?
ML: The beautiful thing about college is that you’re so close to your reasons, your true missions and getting your cup filled with inspiration and gathering as much inspiration as possible. When you’re done, in the real world, it’s just you and the rest of your life. There’s no right answer, there’s no wrong answer, there’s no one pushing you to do or become something. It’s so beautiful in college when you’re so close to your personal inquiry. Leaving college, remembering your mission, your interests, the things that make your brain spark and make you feel alive because your life project is to stay inspired, human, empathetic, and raw. Getting your toolkit ready for how you’re going to honor this complex being that you are, that you have this beautiful time in college to explore. Learning how you’ll do that for your whole life, and you’ll do exactly that—I already know.
TC: Wow, inspiring to think about. Okay, on another note, is there a more difficult aspect of the creative process for you?
ML: There are so many periods where after writing a song I feel “Cool, because I will never write a song ever again.” I saw something Doechii said recently, that when the album’s done you should feel you have absolutely nothing left to say. That’s what I wanted to walk away from this album feeling—I definitely have felt that way. Sustaining the creative practice over many years— more than a decade—the new challenges to me are how do I sustain it? How do I stay inspired by new things? I felt like I wrote my beliefs already – I wrote my mantra and my core truth, what else is there? I’m now coming up to this wall of there being personal work that I need to do to come to write something that’s even more true. I can’t keep writing on these old ways I saw the world and the old things I believed in and was inspired by. I have to do this inner, hard work of removing this gunk to figure out what is next. Being healthy at doing that, not wanting to numb that. It’s so easy in life to numb these painful, emotional things by going out and getting a drink or partying or doomscrolling. Trying to be disciplined in not numbing these things and having to look inside and having to feel this. I’m working on that, this 2.0 version of that, and how I do that at 25 in a new way. I’m different now and it’s harder to break the walls I’ve formed. I have to go even deeper than I used to have to go—that’s what I’m working on right now.
TC: We talk about these grand narratives, wanting to break them down, and yet we form our own. I think self-discipline and constant self-awareness are very important in that regard. More of a softball question, do you listen to your own music?
ML: I can have a perfect moment, an orchestrated perfect moment sometimes. Perhaps with a lover, recently, where we can put on Bloom and feel it together. There are a few songs where in a perfect moment I can be like “Damn.” Before the music comes out I am only listening to my own music. When they’re secret demos I am listening constantly. When it comes out into the world, I have a bit more “Now I can’t touch this.” I love when there’s a perfect moment to listen. “I am not the sun” is totally a song that I can be like “Woah, Okay, Totally, Cool.” It’s always special to get to listen to them again, but I don’t listen to them so much. They have to be at the perfect time.
TC: Does your relationship with those songs change a lot, or do you hear a song of yours and are immediately thrown back to the time you made it?
ML: It is this weird thrown-backness. Hearing “Furniture” I can’t believe it—it’s so weird getting older and seeing all these past lives. We’ve contained so many billions of moments and selves. All of these songs are people that I used to completely be for a week, two months, a day, or an afternoon. It’s a reminder of the kaleidoscope, patchwork of person that we are, of all of these things. I’m grateful I have this time capsule of everyone I’ve been.
TC: Discography allows you to form this very clear timeline. Especially being young and making music—to see so many versions of yourself. With your first record in mind, who was that girl?
ML: That is probably the EP I’m most grateful for—I could never make “Starsick,” “Superfruit,” “Ride my Bike” now because it was so pure; I was so pure in my childhood spirit. I am so grateful that I have that because life gets you down. I turn to that music like “Wow, I saw the world in this way and so alive.” I would ride my bike and feel beyond alive. Those are still the things that I want to guide me and I never want to forget that childhood spirit. I’m so grateful it’s written down because otherwise, I would forget it.
TC: I’ll leave you with one final question: What’s going on for Valentine’s? It’s tomorrow!
ML: Oh my God, it is tomorrow! Well, I’m in a long distance relationship and I’m alone on Valentine’s Day. I have asked someone to hang out with me, so we’re going to watch Severance and bake something.
TC: Beautiful.
ML: It’s a fun day to wear some hearts and pink and red.
TC: Totally, well thank you so much for being very thoughtful with your responses!
ML: I’ll see you in Boston! By then I’ll have done the show a bunch of times so all the kinks will be worked out.
TC: Good luck with the start of the tour, looking forward to it!