Despite Lost On You’s success – it’s been streamed over a billion times – both the track and LP faced rejection when their recording studio dropped them after listening it. LP refers to an ability to withstand this blow and go on to garner such acclaim for the song as proof of the fact they have “nine lives”.
“I refuse the story. You know what I mean? I refuse to let motherf***ers make that story. I refuse to take this dumb f**k behind the desk, and let his version of me be my f**king story. Like, f**k that guy.”
When it comes to the pressure to define their sexuality or gender in an increasingly polarised world, LP isn’t one to mince their words.
“People try to tell you who you can f**k and who you can’t. I just refuse to let someone usurp my f**king life, and then let them live my life for me.
“I feel bad that people are trying to sanitise and sterilise this world – it makes me want to put together a giant trans dyke army and just go f**king blow heads off all over the f**king world.”
Above all, they lament the expectation for everyone to be the same, and any resistance against diversity: “It’s just wild that people want to use this gift of life to surround themselves with themselves. I want to see every single facet of existence – the most diverse world we can have. It’s beautiful.”
They tell GLAMOUR that empowerment can be found in so many areas of their life – in relationships, being autonomous, finding a connection to your body through exercise, but above all LP is empowered by making music. “Having a body of work, a finished record, and being like, ‘it’s coming up, I wrote it and within a year it’s gonna be out’, it feels good.”
Finding freedom in how they express their sexuality has been another source of power for LP: “I’m now in a place where I can let things be free a little bit.” They’ve spoken before about the importance of moving past the “moniker” of an LGBTQ artist, describing the limitations of labels to GLAMOUR: “For lack of a much better word, it’s ghettoising in a way, do you know what I mean? Whoever they may be, nobody cares anymore.
“At the same time, I very much respect that people do want to belong, that’s how I got myself moving in this community. My first Gay Pride I was like ‘holy shit, wow. This is fun!’”.
LP credits male rockstars with fluid sexuality as ranking top when it comes to their style inspirations. Their hair, in particular, is very Bob Dylan or Julian Casablancas from The Strokes-esque. Long, unruly brown curls, headband, sunglasses worn inside.
“Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Bob Dylan… I feel like I’m a little past androgyny where I like veer on to the more masculine side. I just like to be able to feel like a bit of a tornado of male and female when I’m singing.”
They’ve faced a range of reactions to the comparison between their masc appearance and very beautiful, femme singing voice, particularly in the US.
“When I perform in the southern states in America, I walk into a bar and when I start singing everyone’s shocked, because they thought I was a dude,” they say.
As far as the pressure to perform to, and resist, traditional gender norms goes, for LP it’s about one thing: “how I feel”. “I’m not trying to be a guy, I’m trying to be how the f**k I feel, you know what I mean?”