Check out John Fisher’s interview with LP and their exclusive performance for 98.9 KPNW at the Rabbit Box Theatre in downtown, Seattle!
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Interview:
Warning: Explicit Language
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John Fisher: Here’s something funny that I read about you, and you can tell me if this is true, that when you were a little girl, you were, ah, shy about your singing, and you would only sing if there was, like, a lawnmower running or a vacuum cleaner because you didn’t feel confident in your voice.
LP: I just felt weird because I heard that whole vibrato thing, and I was like, oh, man, I’m going to get f***ed.
John Fisher: yeah, you heard your own, and you were like, what is coming out of me?
LP: That’s so embarrassing because I was, like, a little sports kid, and that was the worst thing. If you looked stupid in sports.
John Fisher: Yeah, right, sure.
LP: You’re always trying to be tough in sports, and then so kind of being all theatrical and stuff and dramatic was, like, just a little embarrassing at the time.
John Fisher: Well, you came to be, comfortable with it.
LP: I came to my senses, and I don’t give a sh*t.
John Fisher: Yeah, good.
LP: How much money you make playing saga?
John Fisher: Right. Good.
John Fisher: I have a couple of questions for you about songwriting, because, as, you demonstrated here in this set you just did, you are one of those people who seems to have a real knack for turning, I mean, I don’t know how much of it is real life, but heartbreak or setbacks or breakups or whatever.
LP: Into real life, motherf***er.
John Fisher: Into great songs. Right?
LP: That’s real life.
John Fisher: and so isn’t that kind of like making lemons out of lemonade for you, at the very least?
LP: For sure. You don’t really have a choice, I think, Yeah, I don’t know. Sometimes I think I don’t know what’s happening until it’s happening, you know? So I don’t know. I feel like, I don’t know how much of it is embellished or what, because I’m sure, you know, there’s always people who, have it worse, you know, in. In heartbreak and beyond.
John Fisher: Yeah. But it’s good. It probably is very helpful for them to hear somebody who they go, oh, she understands what I’m going through.
LP: Right? Yeah, for sure.
John Fisher: Yeah.
John Fisher: speaking, of songwriting, this is a question I’ve been dying to ask somebody, and you’re the perfect person to ask because you’ve written many, many songs, for a lot of high profile people besides yourself. And I’ve always wondered this. When you’re watching the Grammys and they’re reading the nominees and they read the songwriting credits, of a pop song, and there’s, like, a bunch of people wrote this song and you have a song?
John Fisher: Is it lost on you, or. No, no. The one you wrote for, Rihanna. Rihanna, sorry, the one you wrote for Rihanna. the song about the toast.
LP: yeah. Cheers.
John Fisher: Cheers. Yeah. there are eleven songwriters credited to.
LP: That song, and you’re one of them. That’s not real, actually.
John Fisher: Yeah, because eleven.
LP: Somebody’s manager was on that list.
John Fisher: Yeah, that’s what I thought.
LP: I’m not kidding. And, yeah, there were basically four people who wrote that song.
John Fisher: Okay.
LP: But it was just like, That’s how some of those sessions went in the early years. Literally. Somebody’s manager was on there and I was like, what the f*** is.
John Fisher: Yeah, right.
LP: Because I didn’t know, like, this was writing a song.
John Fisher: Okay.
LP: Remember when I said that? And he nodded, motherf***er gets 3%.
John Fisher: You asked some guy, does that sound okay to you? And he said, yeah, all of a sudden he’s a songwriter.
LP: Exactly.
John Fisher: Yeah. Right. Okay. Thanks for clearing that up. Because I could not picture eleven people sitting down to write a song.
LP: Two producers. And then, me and my friend Stacy were writing the book of the song. I was writing, other writing camp sessions for Rihanna, but, she had laryngitis, so, she asked me to come in. I wrote all the melodies, and she wrote words with me. And, there was some guy that was her friend there, I think he was like, yeah, that line.
John Fisher: Next thing you know, the dude’s a songwriter.
LP: Yeah. It was just a melee of a session. All right, so, yeah, I mean, I don’t want to discredit anybody, but I was just like, wow. Yeah, that’s interesting. So now you’re sharing and I share everything. If you’re in a room, I share it.
John Fisher: Okay.
LP: Equally. I’m not like, 0% of zero is zero Or 100% of zero of a zero money making song or credited song is zero.
John Fisher: Yeah, that’s good math right there. the song, lost on you, I find, it interesting that I get the impression people feel like it’s, a love song, and it’s one of those songs where, well, if you listen to the words, it’s kind of the opposite of a love song. It’s kind of a breakup song. Right. It reminds me of one of those songs where people play it at their wedding or something like that.
LP: It’s funny you say that, because one of my really close friends, it was her wedding song, and I was like, are you guys okay? F*** is wrong with you? Really sweet. All right, cool. Because I think people interpret it as I’m lost on you.
John Fisher: Yeah, right.
LP: Not like, hey, right, dumbass, wake up.
John Fisher: Yeah, I’m telling you stuff and it’s lost on you. You’re not here.
LP: Get it? I’m about to leave.
John Fisher: Yeah, right. Got you.
John Fisher: and also, something that, I didn’t see here this afternoon, but I’m sure we’re going to see tonight. Whistling.
LP: Oh, yeah.
John Fisher: You are a tremendous whistler. I assume that’s you. You’re using a session whistler.
LP: No. When I first. I remember into the wild, the first song, that came out that I whistled so much on, I remember there was like, sorry for the men in the audience, but the men in the audience, some women, too, mostly men, were, like, looking to the other. I was like, it’s over here, schmuck. Seemingly real tough broad right now, but, yeah, I just was like, yeah, it was fun. and then that one, that’s another one that they were like, is that track that was fun. I always whistled, and then when it became part of my stick, trust me, I was not like, playing the ukulele was something that came about when I was writing songs for other people. It was just like a nice little kind of off the cuff instrument to drag into a session, a little bit of a conversation piece.
John Fisher: Right.
LP: and then after that, I also into the wild was after that stint, I didn’t really expect to go be an artist again. and that’s when I whistled. So it was just an accident that I picked these two quirky things. So I was like, you know what? I’m going to come back as that whistling ukulele playing dyke, you know what I mean? I got an idea. It just might work. It just so happened that those two things f***ing came into the foray. As I was getting back into being an artist again, I was like, f*** it. I was like, I can sing well. I do something. That’s normal. Well, I’ll, let those other two little weird things be just my little cute little quirks.
John Fisher: You got to find your niche. yeah, that song, into the wild, was on a, What was it? It was a credit card or something commercial, right?
LP: Yeah. Citibank commercial.
John Fisher: Cibank. Yeah. And the thing I thought was weird, I looked it up and, it’s like a woman is like rock climbing or something. Yeah, right.
LP: It’s just a well known, professional rock climber, and she’s getting married, and she’s picking out, things, I guess. I don’t know. And the song is called into the wild. Ah, if you know it. And the whole thing is into the wild. And they’re showing all this nature, but they don’t use that part. They use. Somebody left the gate open. And when my publisher showed it to me, I’m like, okay, I don’t understand. They have this massive wild wildlife scape. Whatever.
John Fisher: She’s on, like, precipice of.
LP: Yeah. And it’s like, somebody left the gate open. All right. It’s going to be huge. And then it was. It was so weird.
John Fisher: There’s some good.
LP: Never understand this business as long as it ever.
John Fisher: Well, it’s great to meet you. We do have something in common also, by the way.
LP: we use the men’s room.
John Fisher: On a personal note, he showed me.
LP: The men’s room before. We both use the men’s room. We just have this thing.
John Fisher: That’s the one I always use. anyway, we both played, the clarinet as young.
LP: Oh, sh*t.
John Fisher: Yeah. And I’m wondering how it went for you. Because I didn’t, like.
LP: It went terrible, man. I used to steal reads out of other people’s f***ing cases. I didn’t want to do the reads.
John Fisher: Right.
LP: Yeah, because you had to buy reads. And I always forget, so I’d be.
John Fisher: Like, yeah, they’re disgusting. They break.
LP: I mean, that’s how disgusting I am. M I’m using other people’s reads.
John Fisher: That’s really bad.
LP: Yeah, I didn’t f***ing care. I was just like, this is brutal.
John Fisher: I had to do a thing where you have to drag a cloth through the instrument on a string to get.
LP: All the spit out, clean the saliva out of it. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to play that. That was like my father’s, massive control freak guy can’t even. He’s f***ing tone deaf, and he’s telling me what instrument to play when I’m a kid. The f*** is that? So I disgruntledly played the f***ing clarinet.
John Fisher: Yeah.
LP: I’m still pissed about it, as you can see.
John Fisher: I can see. I’m sorry to open old wounds.
LP: Work myself up into a f***ing tizzy right now.
John Fisher: Well, thank you for doing this for, our 98.9 KPNW listeners
and have a great show tonight at the Paramount. LP, everybody.
Audio Mixed and Mastered by: Brennan Mackay