More about: Laufey

When you think of jazz, you probably think of the legends, or you roll your eyes. Despite being part of the foundation that all music is built on, jazz maintains a reputation of snootiness and inaccessibility. With its long songs and entirely different scale, modern listeners often feel locked out or uninterested - that’s what Laufey is here to change. “My goal as a musician is just to introduce classical and jazz to new ears”, she tells me, “No matter what i do, if i’ve even turned one person over to it, that’s my job done. That's my calling, music education.”

And she can already consider it a job well done. Two years on from her debut single, Laufey has over a million monthly listeners regularly pressing play on her jazz and classical infused music while taking it worldwide with slots at historic jazz festivals such as Newport Jazz Festival. Approaching the release of her debut album, Laufey brings the sound of her childhood to a whole new audience, prying up the gates to a new era of jazz.

Talking musical rules, Taylor Swift and inclusivity - we caught up with the prodigy. 

Gigwise: Let's start at the beginning, when did you first pick up an instrument?

Laufey: My mother is a classical violinist and her parents in China were also classical music professors. So I started playing piano when I was four and then cello when I was eight. I started singing when I was 13, copying my dad’s jazz records. My dad isn’t a musician but he loves jazz, he would always play like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and stuff. I was also obsessed with movies like Sound Of Music and Singing In The Rain, these big golden-age american musicals. So I was always in this middle world between classical and jazz.

GW: Were you always writing songs?

Not at all. I was such a player of music, because classical music kind of trains you to do that, like you play other people's work, you don't compose your own. But I remember I just really wanted to find a way to mix all these styles of music that I loved together. Even though I grew up around musicians and was going to college to study it, the idea of becoming a musician or an artist in my own right felt like such an unrealistic path.

But luckily, I got offered a Presidential Scholarship at Berkeley, which covered everything. And I thought, Okay, I think this is like a sign from the universe that I should at least try. I was such a goody two-shoes at home, in school and music and everything. I followed all the rules. I think moving to Boston and moving away from my twin sister and my family, who I'm really close with, was a shock to me in the best way. I started actually making friends on my own and becoming an independent person. I started dating, I started drinking and becoming a young person and going through the things that you go through when you're a young girl living in a new city. So I finally had these experiences and it opened me up. I stopped following all the rules, both musically and as a person, and finally something clicked and I was able to write about my own experiences.

What was the first song you got down?

It was called ‘Street By Street’ - it was the first single I really released. Just when I was settling into this new openness at Berkley, lockdown hit and we had to leave. I recorded it the day that we were supposed to leave campus. Because I was like ‘I've never recorded a song before. I've never been in a studio and if I don't record this today, I'm not gonna come back and record it. There's no way’. So my mom and my sister packed up my dorm room and I ran to my friend’s dorm who was a producer and we recorded the song on the spot.

When I got back to my family home, I had all this free time, I decided to dedicate it to writing and trying to shape who I am. That was when I started posting little snippets of the originals that I've written and covers of jazz standards on Instagram, and then eventually Tik Tok, and it somehow started growing very fast. And it was just kind of a perfect storm. I released Street By Street the same week as I started growing on Instagram and it snowballed from there. 

It’s interesting how it took you learning to break those musical rules to write your first song, but it now feels like every release is becoming more and more classical - do you think you’re now comfortable enough in your identity as an artist to come home to it?

Absolutely. It's interesting that you mentioned that, no one's ever mentioned it to me before but obviously I've been doing that in my head like subconsciously. I think when I started, I was so scared of being pigeon-holed as not a modern artist, but as just a jazz musician. Nobody had really implemented classical and jazz as much into their repertoire while still competing in a pop industry. And so I think especially like with my first EP, I felt a need to make it a little more obviously modern in the production to bring it to the Gen-Z world. 

But now that I've grown my audience a little bit more, and I'm more comfortable in my identity as an artist. I find that what my audience wants is the old stuff! They want me to be true to my roots and will support what I enjoy making. And that’s what comes naturally to me, the modern stuff is a little more work. But now I say that the modern part of it is me - there’s no other year I'd want to be alive. People always say oh you’re born in the wrong generation but I'm not. Not only would I not want to be a woman in any other era for starters, but I'm absolutely a child of this generation. I’m a Gen-Z, I love my phone, tiktok and the internet - I just want to introduce my music to it, not change my music to fit.

You can really hear that in your work - just like how jazz standards always appeal to big, universal feelings, your songs bring these feelings into the modern day. Do you think your jazz education bred that hopeless romanticism into you?

I think so. I started dating so late, I didn’t even think about boys then it all hit me really fast. I almost didn't know how to comprehend the emotions, I only had what jazz and musicals had told me about it. It’s all quite Hollywood and over-romanticised while still being so literal. That's what I love about jazz standards, they describe the scene so well, every song is like a little movie. 

That’s probably part of why everyones got so hooked on your music - it all sounds so cinematic! I think a lot of us only have any classical music education through film scores and stuff…

That’s what kind of convinced me that Gen Z actually does have a palette for this kind of music and jazz music as well because we hear it in films. The amount of people I know that love film music and I'm like, Well, that means you like classical music. And they're like, really? They don't make the connection but it’s all the same sound. Even on TikTok, you see all these past classical film scores and jazz songs blowing up that people are using for montages or whatever - it’s so encouraging. 

I always say this is like the best time for me to be doing this because I don't think that many people think of me as a jazz artist necessarily. Like when you turn on a playlist nowadays, it’s not a rock playlist or a jazz playlist. You turn on a sitting in the rain playlist, or like walking home after drinks playlist. Everyones looking for a soundtrack to a mood, regardless of genre.

Yeah! And if pop artists can suddenly decide to integrate elements of dance or techno, why can’t pop and classical merge on the other side of things!

Exactly, I'm all here for it. My big goal is just to keep these styles of music alive and introduce it to Gen Z as something that's for them. I want to introduce it as something that's not scart or elitist or only for a certain group of society because I think that's what's going to lead to the extinction of these kinds of music. I've had all the classical and jazz education to understand that they're entirely snobby fields, you know. There's a lot of gatekeeping, but that’s only going to be the death of the thing they love. It needs to be opened up and I want to help.

I feel like if you ask any musician, their dream is to be able to work with orchestras or add big string sections to their songs, it must be amazing getting to do that off your own back 

I'm very lucky with that. Everytime i record I have my cello there with me, so if I want strings, it’s there. Cello is such a versatile instrument you can make it sound like a whole string section, or my twin sister actually played a lot of violin on the album as well which was amazing.

Growing up on jazz and classical and now merging with modern elements, how do you find new inspiration that feeds both sides? 

I mean, I'm such a Swiftie. Along with classical and jazz, I loved Taylor. She’s a major reason why I'm a songwriter. She’s so good at telling stories, she had me crying over boys when I was eight and had literally never even thought about one of them. She's very, very inspiring. I’m also a big fan of Bruno Major. He played a concert at Berkley while i was there, and after playing his beautiful love songs he suddenly started playing Giant Steps and the audience went with it. I’d never seen jazz displayed that way and the crowd react like that. I remember walking away from that concert being like, I need to do this for the rest of my life

Alongside your obvious streaming success and collabs with modern artists and all that, you’ve also got some major accolades in the more traditional sense. Getting to play historic festivals like Newport Jazz must feel amazing…

It feels really special and I think it's also a sign that this idea of social media musicians not being taken seriously is breaking down. I think previously there was such a split between people who were active on social media and like real serious musicians, especially in a field like jazz or classical. But getting to do Newport Jazz feels like a stamp of approval that I'm being taken seriously. It’s a big honour and also a sign that the world is the music world and the jazz world is taking it’s less painfully serious. The gates are opening up.

It seems like you’re ticking off these major, bucket-list accolades at such a pace. What’s next? What would be a real dream?

I want to play with more symphonies. I'm playing with the Iceland Symphony. To my songs and like all the songs in orchestral arrangements and I can't wait. My dream is to write for films. I'd love to write the James Bond theme, and obviously it’d be cool to be nominated for a Grammy. But one step at a time… 

Honestly, my goal as a musician is just to introduce classical and jazz to new ears. No matter what I do or achieve, if I've even turned one person over to it, that’s my job done. That's my calling, music education. I come from piano and violin teachers and i think everyone should have the opportunity to learn about music, it gives you so much. I think having a higher purpose outside of your own personal success is so important, I'm holding it close.

An Education - Laufey’s essential listens:

Chet Baker - Everything Happens To Me

"I could recommend every Chet Baker song, but this one is so clever. He changed my life."

Ravel - Pavane For A Dead Princess

"It was written in the french impressionist era, so it just sounds like a painting to me."

Bill Evans - Alice In Wonderland 

"It’s recorded live and you can literally hear people clinking their glasses and cutting steak in the background. If you need to put on headphones and escape it’s perfect, it’s so immersive."

Everything I Know About Love arrives 26 August

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More about: Laufey