The Louis Theroux Podcast - S7 EP5: Laufey discusses viral fame, partying with Bill Murray and the benefits of boredom

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Louis sits down with Laufey, Grammy-award winning Icelandic singer and songwriter. Laufey tells Louis about her stratospheric rise to fame on TikTok, partying with Bill Murray, and why everyone can benefit from being a bit bored. Brace yourself for major music geekery.   Warnings: Strong language and adult themes.     Links/Attachments:    Album: A Matter of Time, Laufey (2025)  https://open.spotify.com/album/5rMOCuiWWbEBcHaKM69Hmv     Whiplash (2014)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/     “The Great American Songbook”  https://thesongbook.org/about/what-is-the-songbook/     Singing in the Rain (1952)   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045152/     An American in Paris (1951)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043278/     On the Town (1949)   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041716/     Ziegfeld Follies (1945)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039116/     The Sound of Music (1965)   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/     Mary Poppins (1964)   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058331/     Shirley Temple (1928 – 2014)   https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000073/     Song: ‘One Note Samba’, Antônio Carlos Jobim (1960)  https://open.spotify.com/track/1UJQJz6ZP0qKGU55fRDcyI?si=ef59b3251c18423d     Album: Getz/Gilberto, Stan Getz and João Gilberto (1964)  https://open.spotify.com/album/73ZRKdD3Ds43IjHrhKgucY?si=a1Fe3WkdS7eFZpoH9IYufA     Album: Chet Baker Sings: It Could Happen to You (1958)  https://open.spotify.com/album/5CNRrD9O1kCaBvN1RyHRdt?si=gK_1vEjQQAmSBs3RWeOAKw     Let’s Get Lost (1988)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095515/     Song: ‘From The Start’, Laufey (2023)  https://open.spotify.com/track/43iIQbw5hx986dUEZbr3eN?si=4f08726cd6fc4307     Song: ‘It Could Happen to You’, Chet Baker (1958)  https://open.spotify.com/track/5J8ahRMQ9Y1lRcuAhpP5Fy?si=b55e1844542c44fb     Song: ‘James’, Laufey (2021)  https://open.spotify.com/track/2y1NtQ2ZfIq0zBUP3tOlbX?si=15ac3bbfa0c74cf7     Song: ‘Mr. Eclectic’, Laufey (2025)   https://open.spotify.com/track/5n934Lu8pAsAHLc155qzck?si=f9ed9e496ee847d7     Song: ‘Goddess’, Laufey (2024)   https://open.spotify.com/track/2SEeyc2KS9DIjiJPCYtfgJ?si=a740ddd0858249d6    Song: ‘Creep’, Radiohead (1993)  https://open.spotify.com/track/70LcF31zb1H0PyJoS1Sx1r?si=ddeef2a9f1e34bdf     Song: ‘Letter To My 13 Year Old Self’, Laufey (2023)  https://open.spotify.com/track/59Y1f3y8FuLjadWY9Bx2LC?si=2a76c204cb644895     Song: ‘How Soon Is Now?’, The Smiths (1984)   https://open.spotify.com/track/1YrnDTqvcnUKxAIeXyaEmU?si=05763f85a40041c3     Album: Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Rodgers And Hart Song Book, Ella Fitzgerald (1956)  https://open.spotify.com/album/3DXgUbJhOxidQC3l0tegY9?si=_42fBZG1SZ2WrNwYoL88VA     Song: ‘Miss Otis Regrets’, Ella Fitzgerald (1956)   https://open.spotify.com/track/5dvh4M2Lo0aEXp5D0IJGH1?si=fd41d6fba27748df     ‘Santa Baby’, Laufey Music Video feat. Bill Murray   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_SsGMeJIHk     Song: ‘Too Little, Too Late’, Laufey (2025)   https://open.spotify.com/track/1qJnr4Bm7OAauklV18Vdah?si=6fc52bba5b5f48f5     Song: ‘Hallelujah’, Leonard Cohen (1984)  https://open.spotify.com/track/6s1mt6e0n8G7jcNhcxXKzq?si=400cab129f6d4083    Ballet: Giselle, Royal Ballet & Opera (2026)   https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/giselle-marius-petipa-details     Book: ‘How to Be an Artist’, Jerry Saltz (2020)  https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-be-an-artist/jerry-saltz/9781781577820     Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Maan al-Yasiri  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards   Shownotes compiled by Elly Young  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Studios Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk  Open a Moneybox Cash ISA at https://moneybox.onelink.me/Cqlx/y3xncge Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello there and welcome to the podcast we like to call the Louis Theroux podcast. For this episode, I'm joined by Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and Gen Z megastar Levei. On my teleprompter it says Loughy, which is how it's spelled. But it's not pronounced like that. She's Icelandic. If you're not at all online, even if you don't know who she is, you've probably heard her songs. From the start is the big one. It's a Bosanova track.

But there are many others. Her music blends Bosanova, classical jazz and pop, combining a timeless sound with modern lyrics about love and heartbreak. We go into the origins of this intriguing cocktail of influences in the conversation. And in case you're wondering, what's Bosanova? You'd recognise it if you heard it. Girl from Eponema is the most famous. I'm not going to sing it. There's rights issues. But it kind of goes, it doesn't go like that. I didn't get it. I can't do it without a melody. I can't drum. Did that help?

Now you know what Bosanova is. Renowned Brazilian genre, it says, that emerged from Rio in the late 50s. This is more like it, which blends traditional samba rhythms with jazz harmonies. The girl from Ipanima, we said that, Corcovado, Corcovado. I'm on thin ice with my Portuguese. She came up posting on TikTok during the pandemic, quickly amassing a devoted following. She released her debut album, Everything I Know About Love in 2022, age 23 years old,

then followed up with Bewitched in 2023 and a matter of time in 2025, both of which took home a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Her stats on Spotify, over 25 million monthly listeners, not that we care about numbers, but that's a lot, and streaming numbers in their hundreds of millions across most of her songs. LT, why you wanted to speak to her, says Millie, because she's huge. She's a big star. Her music is amazing.

She is technically extremely gifted. She writes her own songs. She's also got a vision. She has a full artistic world that she conjures into being. She's a jazz head, so it was fun to geek out about genres I enjoy. I remember, this is going to be before the time of Millie and many of you listeners and viewers, but there was a show on TV called The Singing Detective that introduced me to artists like Bing Crosby,

the Mills Brothers, the Andrews sisters, and it felt like a bit of a revelation. Don't fence me in, and you always hurt the one you love. And then later on, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong. And it turns out, thanks to social media platforms, music of that vintage is enjoying a new lease of life. So we talked about that, about social media, about life in the public eye, coming to fame, her fans, how she interacts with her fans. We referenced the great American songbook, capitalised, a phrase I've always found a little odd, it's not literally a book.

It's the catch-all phrase for the canon, one end, of the most influential American popular songs from the 40s and 50s, maybe 30s. Jazz standards, theatre tunes, think Broadway, Hollywood musicals, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter. That's what it is. Now you know. We recorded this conversation last month in person at Spotify HQ. Levei arrived with her team in tow, including her identical twin, Junior. Junia is what I said. It's spelt Junior, but it's pronounced Junia. Do I need to spell everything phonetically now? Millie asks, did you hear that? A couple of whom came into the studio to fix her hair. You may hear some hair spray going wrong. right at the beginning of the conversation.

I managed to catch her after two sold-out nights at the O-2, which I enjoyed very much. I went to the first one, and that's where we start the conversation. So sit back, relax, and chill as I ill, as we used to say in the early 90s. A quick warning, there's a tiny bit of strong language, all that as well as much else besides coming up. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

We do a lot of our shopping these days online. I've often thought in another life I could have had a blossoming online shop on Shopify. What would I sell? Maybe my chart-topping books, some TLTP bingo cards for the Die Hard podcast fans. I could finally centralize all that bootleg merch, pillows, cushions, t-shirts, cards in one place. And where would it be on Shopify? If you want a better experience shopping online for you and your customers, Shopify is the answer. It's the commerce platform behind millions of your favorite thriving businesses,

like Jim Shark and even Mattel, the international toy making conglomerate. But it doesn't matter how big or small your business is. The big bonus of using Shopify is that they'll help you every step of the way. From designing your first website to finding customers, marketing new products, managing inventory, shipping internationally and beyond. important for my many fans overseas. They're the ultimate business partner and the best part of all, you can do all that in one place. See fewer shopping carts go abandoned on those websites.

You know what I mean? I can't deal with this. I'm going to stop doing it. And earn more with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash louis. That's Shopify.com. slash Louis L-O-U-I-S.

How you feeling? Good. Good. Yeah. I was buzzing after the concert last night, so I was, took me a second to fall asleep, which very rarely happens. I was there on Sunday night. I heard.

And I loved it. I'm very honored. Thank you for coming. How was it last night? It was very fun. Receptive? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

It felt, I mean, I felt quite similar to the night before. And I really wanted to, the other times I've played like the biggest shows of the tour, so it was like Madison Square Garden, I feel like I didn't get to really enjoy because I was panicking and had built it up so much. And my one wish for the O2 concerts was just to enjoy the concerts. So I felt like I did. Do you get nerves beforehand in general? No, not really.

So why were you panicking before the Madison Square Garden? If there's a special guest, you never really know what the reaction will be. And I always want that to be a comfortable experience for whoever the guest is. Who is the guest? In New York, I had Pink Panther's. Did you? Yes, and Lynn Manuel Miranda. And Rachel Ziegler.

Wow. Which is a great lineup. Great lineup. So we should talk a bit about the show because I feel like it's quite a good introduction to your vision, your musical style. also your fashion style, your visual sensibility. I mean, you've talked about how it related to your most recent album, a matter of time. You've used the metaphor of, or the story of Cinderella, to describe parts of it.

Yeah, a couple of parts of it. I feel like the various fairy tales weave their way in and out of all my songs. But it was definitely, it was actually a production of the Royal Ballet's Cinderella that I saw. here in Covent Garden, three, two, three years ago. Who composed that? It's the Percofiaf. It's Sam. Yeah, which I love Percofiaf because, you know, it has its romantic moments,

but there's this kind of delusion woven through it. It's a little bit wonky, if you will, a little sideways. And I feel like that's something I really wanted to weave into my own, into this album, which is, you know, it feels like it's going to be the most romantic thing you've heard and then there's some sort of shock or some sort of dissonance in the music that makes it a little lopsided and that's kind of the through line of the album which is like these kind of breaks in the glass, a shatters in the glass and distorted ways to view beauty. People who know you will know your music, it's often positioned in the jazz genre but

there's also, it draws on what they sometimes call the great American source. song book. Yeah. Music of the 30s and 40s. Artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, he's a bit later. Yeah. So all of that's in the mix as well.

And what was striking was how the fans were there, it felt as much like a tribe. Like the fact, you know, there was a lot of sense of involvement and belonging in the room. It's a community for sure. It's something that I feel so lucky that it developed very natural.

I think it came from, I've always been very direct with my audience. And from the very beginning, I started on social media and the way to connect to fans and show, make my music be known. It was kind of, I was telling people the stories and, hey, listen to this song, it's about this. And I think through that, it just continued growing and I've never let go of that direct storytelling. And growing up, I struggled finding a community of people who enjoyed the same things as I did and enjoyed the same kind of music. And so my goal, and I mean, everything I do nowadays, especially the concert is such a kind of great example of it. Everything I do is just to feed what I would have wanted as a music fan when I was younger. So whether it's, you know, having like an unspoken dress code or direct conversation with the audience, breaking this,

this fourth wall that I think is often, and I mean, growing up in classical music, that wall exists very clearly, you know, in classical music, the artists are not communicating with the audience. And I kind of have made it my goal to break down that wall and kind of reach to the audience and show them that I'm not very different from them in a way. And I think especially nowadays, you want to feel in the room with that artist. We watch everything. There's a screen between us and everything that we view nowadays. So I think to go to a real life concert and not have that screen there, both, you know, obviously there is literally no screen, but also having artists be able to turn around and say something that isn't planned is really, I think that's very magical.

You mentioned coming up on social media, we should just reflect on that for a second. You said at one point, I'm going to struggle to find the quote. but it was along the lines of without social media, I'd still be making music in my bedroom in Iceland. Describe how it happened. You'd been studying at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston. Right. Not to be confused with Berkeley University in Northern California.

It's a very highly respected, mainly known for jazz, right? But it does classical. Yeah, historically, it started with a lot of jazz teachings, and now it's expanded to a lot more pop, songwriting, production, film scoring, and music business as well. People are going to think of whiplash. I mean, that is the example that people often...

That's set in a fictional musical college in New York, right? Right, right. Yeah, I think it's... But was it a bit like that? You've seen the movie, right? A long time ago, but... It's intense. It's intense, and people bring it up a lot to me,

specifically because I mean obviously it's like the jazz school thing well I think what people don't realize about Berkeley is there are so many different categories of musicians there you absolutely have the whiplash category of musicians but you also have a lot of songwriters or producers or you have people who are completely just engulfed in orchestra and film scoring and and composition and singers and vocalists and so you kind of have the whole range of things, which I think was really great for me because I came in as a classical musician

and a jazz singer. I'd studied classical cello my entire life and was also singing songs from the Great American Songbook. And then I love pop music, but I don't really know how to weave all those together. I think I grew up thinking that music was in boxes. So when you grew up the boxes,

What do you mean? You mean there were separate genres and you kept them separate in your head? I kept them separate in my head a little bit, yeah. Okay. I thought the classical musician was a classical musician and classical should stay classical. The jazz musician is a jazz musician. And then pop musicians were a separate thing. And I mean, traditional pop kind of fell into the, I suppose, the jazz bucket, yeah, of, you know, singing the Great American Songbook.

And once I got to Berkeley, I kind of... saw those walls come down and was able to start writing my own music. And I didn't feel this need to categorize myself as one thing or another anymore. I started writing and realized I could mix influences from pop music and the Great American Songbook and Bosanova and classical music and define my own genre in a way. And I felt so much freedom for the first time to write I think I was also just living for the first time. I was living in Boston and on my own and experiencing life in a way that was resulting in inspiration for music or for lyrics. But I started posting videos online as COVID or right around when COVID started. Early 2020. You've gone back to

your parents' place. They had a place in Washington, D.C. Were they living there at the time? Yeah. So they moved to Washington, D.C. The same. same year, coincidentally, the same year I moved to Boston. And so the first couple of months of COVID, I went back to D.C. and I was in this house that I did not grow up in and it didn't feel like my bedroom. And what I thought was going to be a two-week break from school, ended up being, you know, a year away from school. And I used that opportunity to just write. And I remember thinking, I'm going to take these two weeks or so I thought, to post and just see what happens. And I was posting videos of myself singing songs from the Great American Songbook.

I kind of was just going through the Great American Songbook and stringing in original songs in between. And was that music you'd listen to growing up? Yeah. Because your dad was a little bit of a jazz head? Yeah, yeah. I grew up thinking that... He's Icelandic, right? Yes.

Your mom's Chinese. So he would have, what, he had a record collection or a CD collection? Yeah, we had big CD and record collection of all kinds of music. A lot of, actually a lot of Beatles, loves the Beatles, but a lot of Basanova and jazz music as well. And that was kind of ringing throughout the home. And then my mom listened to exclusively classical music. And so the mix of those things. And then I grew up watching a lot of Golden Age cinema.

Like those films were my way of cut because I started playing classical music when I was four So it was always The string music classical music that kind of more traditional sonic world was a part of my vocabulary from such a young age that Watching Golden Age films kind of Acted as this bridge between I guess the very old music I was studying and a new world of of lyrics and a new world of lyrics and What kind of golden age films were you watching? Singing in the rain.

This is when you're very little living in Iceland. In Reykjavik? Rikovic, yeah. Rikievik. Yeah, singing in the rain, American in Paris, on the towns, Igfeld Follies, and then of course Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, a lot of Shirley Temple as well. Yeah.

Sound of music is a classic. It is. It's quite sad as well. Is it sad? No, because they get away at the end. Yeah, it's a journey. Remember the major or whatever he is, has a girlfriend who comes up from Berlin or somewhere? Oh, yes, yeah, the countess, the Baroness, yeah.

And then Julie Andrews is there. She kind of steals him. Kind of stealing him away. I know, he runs off with the nun. He runs off with the nun slash nanny, the home help. That's not a good look. Yeah, and she's like 23 or something. Is she?

Yeah. And he's pretty old because he's got like 10 kids. kids. Yeah. Different times. Different times. Different times. So listen, I know we're jumping around a bit.

I'm completely on point with everything we've started and haven't quite resolved. So one of them was, you mentioned Bosanova that your dad listened to. I was curious, I like a bit of Boston over. I'm not deep in it. Basically, what I mean is I like Georgesioberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Exactly where it starts. That's the sweet. I mean, I know there's more to it than that.

Of course, yeah. Anyway, this isn't about me, but when I was on Desert Island Discs, I chose One Note Samba as one of my songs. Really? You know that one? Of course. Yeah, of course you do. So that's the kind of...

Great Ella Fitzgerald version of it. Does she do it? Wild. Like really, really, really good. I need to hear that. Very unique. Because Jobeam himself had a good voice, I thought. I think he had a touch of Sinatra about him.

I think so. I think so. Have you listened to Astrid Gilberto? Yes. She is my ultimate favorite. Well, that gets Gilberto or gets Gilberto album. Do you know the one I mean? Yeah. It's got Corcovado on it.

Right. Quiet nights and quiet stars. I've been under strict instructions not to sing too much. I mean, there's a microphone. They claim it's a copyright issue, but I think they just don't want to hear it. My dulcet tones. Yeah. Well, my favorite part of Boston is.

It really is that if I'm correct, it's living room music. It's meant to be sung with the family. And it's not something that I think it sounds best with a fairly plain vocal performance. It's storytelling at its finest. It doesn't need big vibrato or anything like that, which I think is why I was so drawn to it because it's quite dry. When Joao Gilberto records, he's like he's in your ear. Which I love.

You ever listen to him with headphones? It's kind of creepy. Yeah. It's like he's right in your head. I've got a friend who's like, I can't listen to it. It's just true intimate. I love that. That's what I love about Chat Baker as well.

Like when he sings, yeah, it feels so close to you. And I've really tried to, for many of my recordings, I mean, for years I didn't record with reverb because I wanted to feel like I was inside the listener's ear. I like that term dry. I hadn't heard that before you used it in an interview that I saw. That's a technical term? Technical. I mean, it's... So it just means there's no echo. No echo.

It's just perfectly close. Yeah, it's not... Close. Yes. It's not in a room. Yeah. What's the opposite? Reverbie? Roomy. Roomy. Roomy.

How did you come across Chet Baker? I mean, it was... Was that your dad as well? Yeah. I don't remember. coming specifically across him. I remember coming across my favorite album of his. Which is?

Chat Baker sings It Could Happen to You, which is the second, lesser known, but my favorite version of Chat Baker sings. Was that sometime in the 50s? Did you record that?

I think so. Have you seen Let's Get Lost? You know, I haven't. Oh, you should watch it. I know, I need to watch it. For people who are listening, it's a documentary about his second coming.

He was a huge star, whenever it was, 50s, incredible looking guy, chiseled cheekbones, slick back hair. Very stylish. He used to dress to the nines. And then he had a heroin issue. Yeah, it's very sad. Lost his teeth down and out, more or less,

bumming around. And then he was kind of rediscovered. Yeah, he started singing. He still was completely in tune, but the timbre had changed slightly. And his mouth, he had a slightly mushy quality to his diction. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. And he seemed so vulnerable. He seemed so beaten up by life. I know. I think that's why Gen Z loves him. Right. Do Gen Z love him? Love.

And Billy Holiday had a bit of that too. Yeah. They say that when she went on tour towards the end and she was broken. You can hear the torture in their souls and their voices, which is crazy that that's a thing. But I think the context of artist's story is also, I think. make the words oftentimes feel so much more real. Do you know where Bosanova comes from? This isn't a trick question.

I don't know the answer. Rio? It's from Rio. Did someone kind of invent it? Did someone kind of invent it? Do we know? Did the histories tell us what happened? I don't want to misspeak, so I'm going to have to do a little bit of research. We can look that up.

That would be a fun project. Obviously, a lot of Latin American music is a mixture of the cultures. Like there were people brought over enslaved from Africa and then there was a mix of indigenous people and then white Europeans and that mix, I think something magical happened. Yeah, I mean, that's how all good music is made, I think. People meeting and passing by the fusion of cultures and whatnot. Fusion of cultures, yeah.

But it's striking that the Orbosanova tracks are particularly connected. I know, yeah. I was not expecting it at all. Which is the one's got more than a billion-strikes. Dreams? From the start. From the start on Spotify. I feel so lucky. A billion with a B. Billion, B for Brazil. I played in Brazil for the first time about a year ago. And I just went on stage and I was like, thank you. Thank you for. Yeah. I mean, it's. Had you never been to Brazil before that? No, never. What was it like? Just listen to Brazilian music. I mean, it was incredible. The people are so energetic and warm and. And. The music audiences are kind of unmatched. It's like the most supportive group of people you'll ever meet.

Did it feel like they appreciated you for, you know, doing their music? You know, I was a little bit scared going in because I'm so aware of the fact that I am taking so much inspiration from a culture that is not mine. And I spoke about it a lot and it was made this one interview. It was like, you know, you can call yourself a Basanova artist. love you and I was like that's so kind um that's interesting you were little self-conscious about it oh my god of course i mean it is i'm i am not brazilian nor did i study music in brazil but i am gaining so much from that culture and and so i think for me it's really important that i make sure i go back and give give back to the culture and the people so we we left you on a cliffhanger

in washington in washington dc uh your parents were there and you're at a loose end like we all were during the early days of the pandemic, amusing yourself by posting clips of you singing and playing cello, correct? Yeah. And then what happened? Well, it was one particular video I was singing, it could happen to you, actually, and accompanying myself on cello. And it went a little viral, if you will, on Instagram.

And then I... And you'd never gone viral before. You were just another anonymous person. chucking their message in a bottle out onto social media. Yeah. Hoping that someone would find it. Hoping that there was an audience my age for songs like the songs in the Great American Songbook. It was, I think, there was something about that time

where people just wanted to grasp onto something that felt like wasn't from our time because that current scene was a little bleak, the scene being a pandemic. Yes. you already had some music upload how did that then catalyze into an actual career so I had recorded one song at Berkeley and I recorded it the day I left campus and it was this immediate effect

it was really truly one of the few times I said I was going to try something and actually worked which is why I'm such an advocate for using social media to your advantage because even with all the bad that it can sometimes bring and it sure brings a lot of bad for me sometimes. I think it can bring a lot of good too and a lot of opportunity.

Was it on TikTok? It was first on Instagram. I rejected TikTok for a couple of months. But then I started posting my videos from Instagram onto TikTok. So the two together kind of compounded into growing a little baby audience. And I had this song in my back pocket and I just uploaded it onto Spotify. And it was a song that was kind of inspired by the Great American Scyon. songbook and I hope that people would you know link those two together and and I just kept going and I've

kind of been doing the same thing since just slowly growing my audience and and then my manager found me on social media and I held off for as long as I could because I I what I learned at Berkeley was like don't sign anything without a lawyer or or honestly don't sign anything I was really, really, I really wanted to keep my master's and keep my publishing. I mean, these are new times and I think growing an audience on your own, which social media allows you to do, it puts so much power in your own hands. So when it came to signing my first record deal, I signed with a label called AWOL, which stands for artists without a label. So I've been, I'm independent and have been since then and have retained ownership of all of my,

music and don't intend on ever giving that away. And I was able to come in with that power because of my audience. You know, it's really cool what you can do with social media. It's amazing. And actually you own your own voice in so many ways. It gives you leverage. Imagine like you come to a label and says, I'm Icelandic Chinese and I make bust and over-inflicted jazz and many of the songs are inspired by the Great American Songbook. They would have been like bullshit. Why would we believe that that would connect with people? The thing is, people don't really know what's going to go or not, you know?

Like, I don't think anybody can predict that because there are existing niches all over the world of pockets of people who are interested in different things. And really, there's not one person or one label that can identify those things. But you as the artist can identify that using this glitone. global resource that is social media. And I often think about how even in some of my first meetings, you know, there was, people weren't as excited as they are now, you know, obviously I've been able to prove myself. And ever since the beginning, no one's ever told me what to do with my music or my creative image or anything. I've had full, I've always chosen

all my singles, every single song that goes on the album, every production element, everything, every album cover, every move I make, every concert I play, I have full control over. And it is wonderful. I mean, we started the chat by talking about your vision and at the concert. It is sort of fairy tale, slightly ballet, Prokofiev-infused, otherworldly ethereal. Diaphanus is a word that sometimes gets used. No one knows what it means. Not enough.

I love the word diaphanus. What would you say that means? In my head it feels very floaty. Yeah, floaty, gauzy, ethereal, I think a diaphanous dress... Like see-through. Maybe not fully see-through, but you get a little hint of something. A little hint of something, yeah. The term levycore has been used.

Are you aware of that? Yes. What do you think it means? What I think it means is I think it's very romantic. I think it's whatever romantic means to you, seeing the world through a rose-colored lens. it's both a way of dressing and a way of being. Yes.

Traditionally feminine? Traditionally feminine, yeah. Feminine, I think, owning, finding power in being feminine. Definitely. I think growing up, I wore a lot of ballet flats and ribbons and blouses that were, you know, considered very feminine. And I think it felt oftentimes like a weakness. And I think for me, I've wanted to present it as a power. And I think the concerts are so fun because, you know, it is inherently girly.

And I sing about being a woman and I talk about it as well. But it doesn't seem to deter a male audience either. You know, I talk a lot about, you know, how real men listen to Leve or whatever. And I so welcome all audiences and it makes me believe so much in the next generation knowing that there's not this strict divide between what's for women and what's for men. It can be for everybody, I think, you know, men with a romantic view on life are also often left behind and they need to feel a space where they feel welcomed and, like, they can express their emotions in the most honest way. And I hope that my concerts or my music offer that too.

Yeah, and you usually tell I'm optimistic and that's appropriate. I think there's a kind of, as you say, romanticism, a kind of lushness. A lot of the arrangements, the instrumentation harken back to the 40s and 50s and the chord progressions as well. The lyrical content is often more caustic and self-lacerating. Like you're not afraid to go deep. You've talked about how your process of writing lyrics is almost like journaling. Yeah, it definitely is. I think everything that I do has to feel so honest.

Like I, even in my daily life, I don't know how to lie. I feel like some, you know, higher power is looking at me and identifying that, or that the internet is going to come together and be like, she's lying. I literally don't know how to lie. And I feel through my music, it's the same thing. Whether if I'm telling a story and it's not word by word what happened, it's based on a feeling that is very honest. And growing up, my favorite songs were the ones that were honest and made me feel seen

and made me feel less alone. Like what? Which ones? I mean, there's a lot of Taylor Swift songs, honestly. Yeah, I think that was... She puts a lot of herself into her lyrics, I think. She puts a lot of herself into her lyrics. There's an artist called Sarah Borrellas that I absolutely love.

She put a lot of herself into her lyrics. And I remember listening to that thinking, wow, that's so powerful. and it almost felt like she was speaking to me in a way. Does it ever get you in trouble? Because there's a lot of relationship stuff. I remember thinking, wow, imagine if you were, not me, but someone who was going out with you and thinking, wow, if we break up. Well, I think they know what they...

Do you have relationships with a song? Like, is that kind of a way of processing? There's quite a few songs where it's like, this guy was such a dick, basically. I mean, it's... First of all, I think you know what you're signing up for, you know, when you date me and I think also don't, don't fuck it up. You know, if you fuck it up, you get up, you get a song. Would you anonymize it?

Because there's one called James. That's a made-up name. Is it? But a real guy. What is it? It was like a blend of characters. It oftentimes is a blend of characters or sometimes... You sound like a real dick.

I know, because I made him out to be one. Yeah. And it's oftentimes based on stories from my friends or, you know, Right. There's no, yeah. Mr. Ecclectic. Mr. Ecclectic is based on a lot of people. Maybe I'm a bit like Mr. Ecclactic.

He's kind of pretentious and he's a bit of a know it all. Yeah. But you don't have to agree with that. I mean, and then I find myself in the orbit of those types of people, you know. Do you? Is that a mutual issue? Probably. Or is it music?

Music can be quite male-centric. Yeah. You know what I mean? It appeals to that male thing. I know a lot about this and I'll play. Yeah, I mean, all of jazz music. Do you know what I mean? Of course.

I mean, all jazz music and classical music, almost all of it's composed by men. And I think that's why I'm so, why I love being so honest and writing about the female experience. Because even though more of that exists now, of course, it really, it feels like more of an age of women when it comes to writing, songwriting. But I love writing songs in the style of that past that were often written by men with lyrics that I think only could. be that could only come from the brain of a woman and a woman's experience. What's your composition process? I start usually with either a title or a concept and then... A lyrical concept, like a metaphor or a control idea?

I'll walk past a street sign that says something and that will spark an idea sometimes. I'll be in the middle of a conversation with a friend and I'll say something really fiery and I'm like, wait a second, that's a lyric. or titles oftentimes. I will see something and I'll be like that is a perfect title for a song. And then what happens? The red pencil. The red pencil. Can I have a co-credit on that?

It is my pencil. I'm joking. So you start with a lyric and then what happens? Everything kind of comes at once. I just weave it all together. I very rarely start with music and add lyrics or, or with lyrics and add music, it all kind of flows at once.

The guitar? Yeah, all at once. You've talked about, you composed the guitar because you're almost too capable on the cello and the piano, right? Capable, I don't know if capable is the right word, but I think I'm so aware of, you know, I've studied so much music growing up

that my fingers have habits, whereas with guitar, it's no man's land for me. I didn't grow up playing guitar. I'd never taken guitar lessons, So I'm kind of just fiddling around. And it's a type of freedom that I think growing up playing classical music never allowed me. This episode is brought to you by Moneybox, the award-winning saving and investing app, trusted by over one and a half million people.

Do you remember your school days? I do. All the things you learned that turned out not to be that useful. I spent years learning Latin. I can still decline many verbs. Actually, you conjugate verbs. You decline nouns, poetry. Elap, who a lamb, I could go on.

Anyway, in case the only thing you remember from school, a random facts and information that's never proved helpful in the least, here's today's lesson from our friends at Moneybox. The end of the tax year is coming up, and now is the time to get your finances in shape. That was me working out. My finances. Every adult in the UK has a tax-free ICER allowance each year of £20,000.

But any unused allowance doesn't roll over, so if you don't use it by the 5th of April, you'll lose it. If you want to take advantage of brilliant interest rates this year, check out Moneybox. You can earn a market-leading interest rate with a Moneybox cash-isor. Customers rate Moneybox excellent on TrustPilot, and opening a cash-isor takes just a few minutes. So if you've been putting off, sorting out your savings,

now's the time. Open a Moneybox cash-isor in the app or at Moneybox app.com. ICE and tax rules apply, market leading based on moneyfax compare.co.uk. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. We do a lot of our shopping these days online. I've often thought in another life I could have had a blossoming online shop on Shopify. What would I sell? Maybe my chart-topping books, some TLTP bingo cards for the diehard podcast fans.

I could finally centralize all that bootleg merch, pillows, cushions, t-shirts, in one place. And where would it be on Shopify? If you want a better experience shopping online for you and your customers, Shopify is the answer. It's the commerce platform behind millions of your favorite thriving businesses like Jim Shark and even Mattel, the international toy making conglomerate. But it doesn't matter how big or small your business is. The big bonus of using Shopify is that they'll help you every step of the way from designing your first website to finding customers, marketing new products, managing inventory, shipping internationally and beyond, important for my many fans overseas. They're the ultimate

business partner and the best part of all you can do all that in one place. See fewer shopping carts go abandoned on those websites. You know what I mean? I can't deal with this. I'm going to stop doing it and earn more with Shopify. Sign up for your $1.00. per month trial today at Shopify.com slash Louis. That's Shopify.com slash Louis. L-O-U-I-S. Can we talk about Iceland for a second? I mean, Iceland's an amazing place, right? Yeah, it's incredible. But with a kind of tight identity, it's a monoculture, if you like. It's not like massively multicultural. Not at all. Very homogenous. I think not a lot of Asian people there, for example.

Not at all. How was that for you growing up? Must have brought some... Yeah, it was super weird because you don't really grow up thinking too much

about it. The only thing I felt was that I was different, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm Asian or Chinese or anything. I just felt different. I already felt different because I was studying 18th century music. But I spent my summers in China instead of at summer camp in Iceland.

It was definitely... Whereabouts in China? Beijing. In Beijing. Yeah. And I think I felt so... I just felt really weird. I was also...

I'm identical twins, so however odd I felt, there was double of me, so I felt two times odd. It was fun, though. I think it was a good place to grow up. for the creative mind. It teaches you to think outside of the box in a way because it is just so otherworldly somehow. It taught me to be a dreamer because you're so aware of the confines of the country

and everything beyond that, especially in a time before social media, was kind of this big question mark of foreign land, if that makes sense. And I think also, you know, contrary to what I was saying about music being in boxes in my head, music is certainly not in boxes in Iceland. You have such a small musical community that everyone's lending their efforts to different genres of music. I mean, my mom plays for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, but she would oftentimes play with the Icelandic pop singers or she would, you know, a metal band would be playing concerts with the orchestra. and, you know, jazz musicians play with pop musicians.

The jazz musicians are the pop musicians as well. It's all so, because it's such a small musical community. Everyone is playing with each other. And there's such a culture of this kind of like ambient classical music and eerie film score type of music. I mean, we have so many incredible composers and classical musicians that come from Iceland as well. But the common denominator of all Iceland,

musicians, I think is it's all a blend of music. And so I can't help but think that there's, that's no accident, that we're all kind of taught that it's okay to mix because you have to. Did I hear that you're going back, you're doing some gigs in Iceland quite soon? Yeah, day after tomorrow. Two shoes. What will that be like? Oh, a little stressful, I think. I feel like playing in Iceland is, well, first of all, I have to turn my whole show into an Icelandic concert. So I'm so used to presenting it in English. And I mean, even singing in English feels odd because I would communicate with them otherwise in Icelandic. But it's scary.

I have all my old music teachers coming and my parents are there. How big is the venue? I think it's eight or nine thousand. It's the venue. I saw Justin B. Bieber there in 2014. They like built it for Justin Bieber. Yeah.

They built it for Justin Bieber. Yeah, or they converted it for concerts for Justin Bieber. It was a football. Was that a good show? It was great. My God. To be 15 and seeing Justin Bieber in your home country, it was epic. He's a credible artist.

I saw him out the Grammys and it was an incredible performance. I loved it. It was one of my favorite. You've won two Grammys. Yes. We're pivoting. We're in Iceland. Just to reflect, you brought up the Grammys and you were right to do so.

You won two Grammys. I mean, Icelanders have won Grammys, I think, five years in a row now. Really? Yeah. You won in the traditional pop vocal album category. Yeah. I think Lady Gaga might have been nominated. A lot of the coverage was like, how do you feel that you beat Bruce Springsteen?

Like, that was the main takeaway. Yeah. What, how, I'm not going to ask that question, but what's it, is it weird? What's it like at the, is it all kind of big stars? kind of rubbing shoulders backstage? Yeah, definitely. Certainly. I really did not think I was going to win

because there was Lady Gaga and Barbara Streisand and Elton John and Brandy Carlisle. We're all in your category. Yeah, and really amazing, really amazing albums too. I really, and true, like, I'm a big believer in, like, if that's the company around me, I've already won, you know, to get to be nominated among those names.

was the win for me. So I was truly shocked. And I'm not just saying that. Do you mean the first time or the second time? The second time. I mean the first time I was shocked because I was like, like I never thought I'd want a Grammy. Relatively, well, less well known, right? This was back in 2024, two years ago. So you were a surprise win maybe? Yeah, it definitely felt like it. Especially coming from a background of social media. It's like, do we know if that's actually going to translate into Grammy voters. Are they going to understand the same way that my very Gen Z, Gen A audience does? And for them to understand was meant so much because at the end of the day, all I want to do is please fellow musicians and my professors and my teachers and my elders

in the industry to get their co-sign is worth everything to a people please are like me. So the most recent one was just a couple of months ago, right? That was about a month ago. Wow. And is there a big after party? I went to one hosted by Charlie XEX. Did you? Yeah, which was very cool.

She's very cool. So you know her? Who else was there? I mean, I don't. I've met her a couple times. Do you know Taylor? I said it like I know. I don't know Taylor Swift, but do you know?

No, I've met her one time, but it was in the middle of the Grammy kind of. of huddle. Rosalia. She's so cool. I don't know her at all, but she is incredible. Did you see her show at the Brits? Yeah, with Björch? Amazing.

Amazing. I love it. Her album and the... I love how you said... You actually... Excuse me, you actually know how to pronounce... I say Björk, which is halfway down the road. That's pretty good.

I'm least I don't say Bjork. I think Brits have it good because they have a very natural, like a... Eh? Sound. We were talking about, you know, I was aware at your gig how much I was enjoying it, but also that I was skewing on the older side. There were no cues at the bar. Let's put it that way.

Yeah, it could be first in line. Could be first in line. But I really enjoyed it, and I was thinking about, well, what did I connect with? I think I love real-life pain music, so the track goddess punches through. I love singing that song. And it felt it almost, I leaned over to, The person I was with her, it's like it's her creep. Do you know the song Creep by Radiohead?

Yeah. It's got a slightly similar progression. It's a slow build, but it feels like a self-lacerating creed occur, if you like. Yeah. Do you want to talk about what it's about? Yeah, it's hidden in a love story, which many of my songs are. But ultimately, I wrote it about this, I think, personal struggle with understanding who I am on stage. or on social media to the public versus who I am inside.

And definitely a little bit of worry of hoping that the person, the people I'm around, love me for not only the goddess that they see on stage, but also the person that is at home. So that's ultimately what it's about. I was a little worried when I released it. I didn't want people to think that I was, that I think that I'm some sort of goddess on stage. But goddess is obviously a, you know, kind of a metaphor. Yeah.

Or a figure of speech, perhaps. But remind me of what you say you went to bed with a goddess and woke up with... Me instead. Me instead. So, you know, you go to have this illusion of, you know, when you're caught up in the night, it's... This illusion of grandeur, right? And then you wake up and you're just skin and bones like anyone else. Mm.

And I very much just feel like a heap of skin and bones and meat. That's what, which we all are. That sounds a little... Which we all are. Well, okay, fair enough, yes. Which we all are. And you can be a beautiful pile of skin and bones and meat. But ultimately, when you take all the makeup and the costumes and everything off,

it came from this fear that people, in my life would get to know the version of me on stage and then not follow me into the person that I am at home. Do you mind if I read out a couple of lines from it? Please. It's because it's actually heavier than what you're saying. That's pretty heavy. At the end, the last answer is, you took me for a fool, you stole my youth. You wanted this so much.

You watched me rise, then killed my light, and now you know I'm not your fucking goddess. Yeah. That's where you lean into more of the love story bit, right? But it's funny, it's like I'm looking at myself too, and I'm like, am I acting like a fool right now? Like, is this pulling my youth away from me? You know, am I maturing too fast? Am I being forced to grow up because I'm in this spotlight? And then, you know, I'm not really anyone's goddess.

I'm just my own person. How have you found fame, you know, the whole, and the social media and all that? The stuff that goes with it. It's, I feel like I, I'm learning to have a healthy relationship with it. I definitely have moments where I spend too much time on social media and I have to take a step away. And it's, it's difficult because you want to understand what is happening in the world and you want to, or in my world, I want to know what my audience is talking about and what they're connecting to in the moment. I do feel like my audience is wildly positive.

Like I'm very, very fortunate. I don't feel that things are often being misconstrued or said. Do they have a name for themselves? Lovers, but written L-A-U-V-E-R. That's a good one. Yeah. Because I was going to say like the beehive or the swifties and they're the lovers. Yeah.

Look, we did one heavy lyric. Can we handle another one, do you think? Absolutely. Throw it at me. Well, your song, Letter to My 13-year-old self. And you talk a lot about at times feeling that you don't measure up to your own beauty standard in a way that you don't endorse, like you don't choose to have those feelings, but nevertheless sometimes. And certainly growing up, you talk about not fitting in.

Don't you worry about your curly hair, you say in this song. Clothes that don't fit you anywhere. Voices echo in the gym. And it goes on, it's sort of feeling of being an outsider. Yeah. And it ends with you saying, keep on going with your silly dream. life's prettier than it may seem. One day you'll be up on stage.

Little girls will scream your name. That lyric, I still, every time I sing it, and the fans always scream my name in that moment, every time I'm like trying not to cry. Really? Yeah, because it's so, I mean, I wrote that song as a way to reach back to my younger self and give her a hug,

tell her everything was going to be okay. worried so much as a kid. So many people around me or kids around me had big dreams and were quite delusional and I wasn't. I was so worried about who I was or what I was going to do or my identity in a way and I'm the opposite now. I'm very delusional and I wish I could go back and give her a little bit of that bravery. And I think for me writing that song I obviously can't go back and give it to my 13 year old self. But what I can do is I can give it to 13 year olds now, you know, or anyone, any age. And I just want to scream into the void that if you believe in yourself and like there, there are so many people out there, artists out there who don't act on

something because they maybe don't believe in themselves. And that's why I ended that. song with keep on going with your silly dream and the perspective kind of changes and it's like you never know

you might be up on stage one day and so I'm always very emotional through that song and always end the concert with it

do you think about why you would have lacked self-belief at the time I don't know I was a realist I just like

believed what I saw I've always been an anxious kid you know I thought I was going to fall off my bike when we took the safety wheels off.

You know, mentally I was also a little, like, obsessed with safety. And so I think that's why it felt like something unsafe or unrealistic, rather. It felt unrealistic. I felt like I was different. And I didn't see that as a superpower. I saw that as a shortcoming in some way. So I was like, I'm not going to be different. I think it was related to the sense that, well, you say you had a foreign name, your hair is different.

All the other people have blue eyes and blonde hair. So that's part of it too, I guess. Yeah, I felt, I just felt kind of left out, you know. And I think when you feel like you're left out, you also further perpetuated by just deciding that you're a person that's left out. And then you lack the confidence to step up and invite yourself to places. Or you'll go to a party and you'll just sit in the corner and be like, they don't want me here, even though you're invited.

Like it's just kind of this thing that keeps rolling. And there weren't many artists who represented that being. And so I immediately wanted to become that, you know, to be the voice for the people who didn't have a voice. Speaking as an older man, for me, the Smiths, do you know the Smiths? And there's a song called How Sooners Now? And the lyric is, there's a club if you'd like to go. You could meet somebody that really loves you.

So you go and you stand. on your own and you leave on your own and you go home and you cry and you want to die. Which I mean is horrific and bleak and almost ludicrously, almost comically dark. But I could relate to that. Yeah. I needed to hear that at various times in my life. I honestly, I'm going to go listen to that song now. It's really.

So how did you, steering out of the dark section, how did you end up in L.A.? Like, do you still live in L.A.? I do. I mean, it couldn't be further physically, figuratively, from Reykjavik, trying out the new pronunciation. Yeah, you're getting it. Is it, what's that all about? Well, I moved there in 2021, because that's where the music industry is, this is where all the producers and writers and artists, especially budding artists live. and I needed a community to be a part of

and I tried living in New York for a couple of months but it was COVID and I had no money and it was, you know, winter and I just kind of went to L.A. and checked it out and I met some friends and got an apartment and I've just been there ever since. I mean, it's been a really long journey for me to love L.A. It's a funny place. It's a really, really odd place. It's so weird.

And people love to talk about how much they hate it and how odd it is. And I definitely do that too sometimes. But it's become home for me. Has it? Yeah. How long have you been there? Five years now. What about New York?

New York's the best. New York is the best. And the thing is the nature of my... No disrespect to London, by the way. I do like London as well. Listen, I love both. And I think there are beautiful parts of L.A. and there are beautiful parts of New York.

My twin sister lives in New York, and I spend a lot of time in New York. I spend a lot of time in Iceland, too. I go home four times a year. Spend a lot of time in London, too. My twin sister just moved to New York from London. She lived here for four years, and I feel very much like a woman of the world.

I've never been able to peg my identity down to one thing. I've never been from one place. I've never been from one culture. I've never been one race. I've never been one person. I'm a twin. And I feel the same way about, I mean, I spend half of my year in L.A. and half the year all over the place. I think for me, Los Angeles is so naturally diverse, at least the Los Angeles I exist in.

What people don't understand about L.A. is that it is literally built on different cultures. There are different neighborhoods that represent different cultures. I think it's the best food city in the States. I think it's perhaps better than New York. I have never felt less weird than in L.A. I walk around every single day, and I see people that look like me. And I see people who grew up with their feet and hands

in like four or five different cultures. And it really feeds my heart as a person that comes from many cultures. I just don't need to explain myself. That was very well put. I was going to say, yeah, it's a place where no one really belongs, so everyone belongs, right? Yeah, it's a very difficult place to visit and a very great place to live. And listen, I need my breaks from it, and I take my breaks from it. But I am so excited to call it home now.

Wow, LA's getting a rave from Leveh. L.A. needs a better publicist. Do you? You were a time woman of the year. year. Did you know that? I did not that year. I did not have that year. It's not like there were a hundred of them.

There actually weren't that many. Right? I was very, very lucky they needed a musician. Don't put yourself down. There were plenty of musicians they could have chosen. They didn't choose Barbara Streisand. She's a woman in the year every year. She's the woman of the century.

It turns out. Did you enjoy working with her? Loved. What about her voice? Incredible. Like warm. Like honey. Like butter. Ella Fitzgerald's voice is like a silver bell.

Yeah, she's amazing. Frank Sinatra, this is the random free association portion, said that Ella Fitzgerald was the only singer he sang with who he felt intimidated by. Wow. He said she's the best living singer, male or female. She is. People don't know how incredible of a, my goodness, I really don't think so, unless he was.

were a boy that was about to be on the butt out of one of my songs. And maybe he'd be intimidated by me. Right, an ex-boyfriend. Frank, but you were saying, were you going to say something about... I was going to say Ella Fitzgerald is one of the best musicians ever. And people know, of course, that she's a great singer, but people don't know how incredible she was at improvising and understanding the fine threads of the music.

Do you have some favorites of hers? I love her Rogers album. Like if I could write a book, it's very romantic, very like classical, musical inspired. Is it Rogers because it's Richard Rogers' songs? Yes, yeah. So songs from the Rogers songbook. Really like these kind of Uber romantic songs. One of my favorites of hers, though, is, have you heard Miss Otis regrets?

Very odd Cole Porter tune. There's a great Elephist-Drolled version of it Where Oscar Peterson is playing piano, I think I saw Oscar Peterson perform Now we're going I'm not that deep into jazz But by a weird coincidence I did once The Oscar Peterson perform

The Oscar Peterson trio That I'm so jealous I love Oscar Peterson It was a great show I mean this was like a hundred years ago I'm sure Not that you're old I don't know if I've been alive at the same time as I was on the same time as I was

I'm not I mean if it was a hundred years ago that would make me minimum 110 110 yeah Not impossible not impossible modern technology I'm sure you have access to the best of it we've covered a lot of ground yeah Bill Murray Bill Murray appeared in one of your videos he did Is there an anecdote? The anecdote is that he's become a great friend. Has he? Yeah.

And he is also a musician. He's a singer. He is an album with like a trio, a classical trio. And they did some songs from the Great American Songbook. How did Bill Murray, how did you connect with him? So he came to Iceland to perform with this trio. Yes. approximately 10 years ago.

What's his instrument? Voix. And who else is in his trio? So, Miro Wang, who is my mom's childhood best friend. And that was how the connection was made. So they came to Iceland to perform. And the violinist is my mom's childhood best friend. So I met him when I was like 16.

And I remember it was so weird. He came up to me and was like, you are going to be a great singer one day. Bill Murray. Yeah. Said that to you. Yeah. We were, I told him I was a singer.

This would be about 10 years ago. I think he's a prophet. I think so. Because he said. He's definitely got guru energy. And I honestly believe it since then. And I remember he pulled me aside and said, you are a strong, powerful woman. And you are going to be like a great voice or something like that.

Have you heard you sing? I think so. Means more if he's actually heard you. I think he did. I think somebody showed him a video and me singing or something. Maybe you just felt the vibe, the energy. That's the part that I think is the woo-woo part. Like I think he was reading some sort of energy.

And then I literally did not talk to him for years. Thought there was no way he'd remember me. And I ran into him at my first big girl party in L.A. It was a pre-Oskers party. And I saw Bill standing there. And I went up to him. I was like, hello, do you remember me? And I think he did, I don't know, but we were all dancing and then...

He will have remembered being in Iceland. Yeah, he remembered Iceland and of course knew my mom's friend. And then I had this music video for this Christmas song. And I thought, I wonder if Bill wants to be in it. And so I texted him and asked him if he wanted to be in it. And he happened to be in the same place we were filming it in. And he kind of just showed up. And it was great.

Wow. Yeah. But he always offers great advice. Does he? Yeah. I asked him about acting because I was reading lines for something or auditioning for something. I don't remember exactly what it was. Yeah, or maybe it was because.

I was going to ask about you in movies. Yeah, I mean, I think it was, I don't know if I ended up doing the audition. It was like an idea or something. And then also we were on set of the music video and there's a little bit of acting involved. And I asked him, what's your acting advice? And he said, go to the theater. So. Have you had acting lessons?

I've had a couple. Yeah. Would you see yourself in like a regular movie or a musical movie? Musical movie feels very natural and obvious for me. Listen, I love acting and I love assuming the role of somebody else. Like, I love, that's what I do with my songwriting often. You kind of morph into another person's brain a little bit to be creative. So it's definitely something I'm interested in.

I think the great thing about being a singer and making the transition is you afford yourself the opportunity to choose the right role, if that makes sense. Wow, Lave takes on Hollywood. I mean, there's absolutely have nothing planned. You heard it here first, folks. And I'm very, very focused on music right now and for the foreseeable future. That would be exciting, though. Leve in her first movie officially announced. This is a very empty headline because I have nothing to give.

I don't think it's completely empty. Every one of my albums is a musical in my head, you know. There's a story that threads through. the whole thing always. You said you wrote from the start in 20 minutes. It has one billion streams. So it's always that. If you calculated how much you'd made on a one billion streamed song

and then broke it down, if 20 minutes, you know, what your wage per hour would be. Time is valuable, kids. Right? But that's amazing. Do you just find it very easy? That song I thought was. so silly. I really was like, nope, like this is just almost like a joke. But when you have a very clear idea in mind, like I did with from the start, very clear idea for structure and material,

it does come quite quickly. Lyrics and chords? Yeah. Well, I find that the songs I write the fastest are always the most popular. It's very, very rare that the songs that require the most labor and going back to and tinkering. Elton John says that too. Yeah. I think audiences can tell when something just slid out naturally. And I think Norman Cook, Fat Boy Slim.

They're like, you know, spend 20 minutes. If it's not coming, it wasn't meant to be. Right. That feels like the wrong message. Listen, I have a song called Too Little Too Late. That is now becoming, I think, one of my favorite songs to perform live. But it's one of the loudest in the concert. Is that off the new album?

It's off the new album. That one, I think, I think, one. I went back to so many times because I kept on adding lyrics. And you can hear the second chorus is like an extended chorus because I just had too many things to squeeze in. And I remember it was one of those songs that I kept laying, like turning around at night and like typing extra lyrics into my phone. And then the same with the production, like we did a version of it. And I really didn't feel like it was ready. And then I revisited it like two months later and kept tinkering at it.

And that one felt. And I kind of overcame this fear that. if I was working too hard on something or overthinking it, that it couldn't be beautiful. I think some things require more attention and more time and more work. And it ends up being more beautiful because of it. There's a story about Bob Dylan meeting Leonard Cohen. Do you know this story? I don't know.

I don't believe so, no. And Bob Dylan says, hey, Leonard, I really like that song, Hallelujah. And Leonard goes like, oh, thank you. It took me about six months to write it. And then it comes to this, I really like that one you wrote, whichever one it was. And Dylan says, oh, yeah, that took me 15 minutes. Yeah. Which illustrates your point, right?

There's not, you know, any ways to do these things. Yeah, I think both ways are correct. Both are correct and both can exist within one artist. And I certainly have discovered that I have both within me. I don't think it's a good thing to teach young artists that only the art. that is obvious and quick and carefree is the art that succeeds. Like, I think that's a completely wrong approach. It's actually the opposite approach to what I grew up in, which is classical music,

which every single day you are making the tiniest, tiniest bit of progress. You can't see, in classical music, you don't learn a piece in a day, very rarely to its full performance of capability. Like it's very thankless approach, you know. But that discipline and that understand, I'm so taken by things that take a long time now. Like that's something that has really started seeping back into my consciousness, like slow art.

I think art that takes a little bit more effort to understand, art that maybe you don't get immediately. We are so conditioned now to just see things at face value and if we don't like it, we dismiss it. Or if it isn't fast enough to enter our body, we immediately dismiss it. And when I think about the art that moves me the most, it's when I go see the ballet. I went to see Giselle at the Royal Opera with the Royal Ballet a couple of weeks ago. And it was... I don't know that one.

It's an amazing ballet. Anyways, I was so taken by it, taken by the music, the costume production, and just watching them, all the dancers, knowing that not a single one of them got there in less than 10 years even. You can write a song now in seconds using AI. I think all good art that stands the test of time is created through years of craft and understanding. and, you know, I may write a song in 20 minutes, but it's informed by my 20-year music education and of living on this earth. That's why I love going to see ballet or classical music or it forces you to slow down. You have to be off your phone. Sometimes you sit there and you get a little bit bored or a little confused.

And you don't know what's happening on stage unless you read the show notes. You don't know what the piece of music is about until you read it. And it's such a good practice to, I think all humans can benefit from being a little confused and a little bored because things are answered a little too fast for us nowadays. I think reading a book that's really boring is really important. Pushing yourself to get through that. That feeling of achievement is dwindling. Like that is such an important feeling. And I live off of that.

And I get so scared that we are starting to lose that, you know? Yeah. We're entertaining ourselves to death. I mean, I'm one to talk. I spend hours on TikTok often and then I feel disgusting afterwards because I've achieved nothing. I've done nothing. At the beginning of this tour, I bought watercolors with my friend. And we just decided to be terrible at something. And I spent a three-hour plane ride painting like a little landscape and it looked so terrible. but it like force my brain to think differently, force my brain to also be bad at something and try to understand it simply by doing.

And then I read a little bit, I was reading this book by Jerry Saltz called, I think it's how to be an artist or something like that. And it had all these rules about how to be a visual artist, but it was very applicable to being a singer or a musician. And I just got so inspired. And I spent two or three days completely off the internet, painting and reading this book. And I immediately wrote a song that I loved. Like it in the, it was,

I was in a backstage area. It was very uninspiring. But still, it like got my brain juices flowing. And it's, it takes effort. This is what I've discovered. You don't accidentally create art like that. Like it takes out. You need to sit down, read a book, be bored. I think that is something that I'm really increasingly seeing the importance of and definitely something that I'm taking with me into this year. I mean, two years ago, I didn't even think of AI. I didn't know the term AI. And now it's embedded in everything. I mean, of course, we need to learn to use these things because I don't want to be the enemy of it either. But the days this year that I've spent actively trying to distance myself and be bored have been the days I've been the most creative. There's a direct, direct line between the

too. I totally endorse everything you said. I've been trying to read more difficult books, books that I'm struggling and find confusing at times. And I think it's beneficial. And I think, you know, in the jazz realm, not in a, I literally have a song about this, so I don't want to contradict myself of, you know, Mr. Ecclectic or whatever. But it is important to read something that has stood the test of time. And even if you don't understand every other word, I think it's good to not understand. We understand too much nowadays. Amen. Thank you so much. What a great note to end on. Yeah. Now that's Bosanova, as it was meant to be performed. I think I can enjoy a warm welcome any time I go to Hio J. Janeiro, which is how you pronounce Rio de Janeiro in Brazilian Portuguese.

Did you enjoy the O2 gig, Millie has written very much? It was a young age group which meant there were no cues at the bars. That wasn't the main takeaway. She's a consummate performer and she's fully present on stage. I wonder if that's something young artists do more and more of. Like there was a time when artists on stage could be somewhat withholding. Or they do a little bit of bans, but it wasn't like they were there, kind of not exactly laying their soul there,

But there's a feeling that she's there for her audience and she appreciates how much they put into the experience of being there. Dressing up and singing along and doing various regular parts of the show. Like she said, shouting out her name at the end during her last song, Letter to My 13-year-old self. It's always interesting when someone's come up on social media. Pink Panther S had this as well, how you make the jump to live performance. Going from the bedroom to the main stage. And Leve has done that very successfully. I was also struck by the way in which having a social media following.

Like it's easy to say, as I tend to switch off, ignore it. Like, no one is not like, people aren't always going to love you. But if you take your fan community very seriously, if you feel as though their input and their energy is really valued, like it's not you kind of broadcasting your brilliance, It's almost something more like a family or a sense of give and take. Then you have to look at some of the social media content. You have to be involved in how things are being received.

So you can't switch it off. And if it's negative, the stuff that's coming in, that's going to creep in. And that will affect you. Which I guess that's obvious, but I'd never really thought about the fact that some level of fan engagement like that is kind of non-negotiable, that it's built into the relationship. I made a joke about whether I was doing a Bosanova rhythm with my fingers, but there was a serious point in the conversation, wasn't there, Millie, where Leve was talking about going to Brazil and feeling a little apprehensive

about whether she would be well received for her embrace of Brazilian culture and music. So if you've got cultural appropriation on your bingo card, you can tick that off. Not that that's what Levei was doing, that was the subject that was being discussed. Is that on the bingo card? No. It should be, right?

That's it for this week. Oh, apart from the credits, the producer was Millie Chu, the assistant producer was Maun Al-Jazeri, the production manager was Francesca Bassett, the music in this series was by Miguel Di Olivera, the executive producer was Aaron Fellows. This is a Mindhouse Studios production for Spotify.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. We do a lot of our shopping these days online. I've often thought in another life, I could have had a blossoming online shop on Shopify. What would I sell? Maybe my chart-topping books, some TLTP bingo cards for the Die Hard podcast fans. I could finally centralize all that bootleg merch, pillows, cushions, t-shirts, cards in one place. And where would it be? On Shopify. If you want a better experience shopping online for you and your customers, Shopify is the answer. It's the commerce platform behind millions of your favorite thriving businesses, like Jim Shark and even Mattel, the international toy making conglomerate. But it doesn't matter how big

or small your business is. The big bonus of using Shopify is that they'll help you every step of the way. From designing your first website to finding customers, marketing new products, managing inventory, shipping internationally and beyond, important for my many fans overseas. They're the ultimate business partner, and the best part of all, you can do all that in one place. See fewer shopping carts go abandoned on those websites. You know what I mean? I can't deal with this. I'm going to stop doing it. And earn more with Shopify.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash louis. That's Shopify.com slash louis. L-O-U-I-S.