Boulder, Colo. — Touring in winter is described as difficult by some musicians. Laura Pergolizzi, who goes by “LP,” keeps a smile on her face despite being halfway through tour on a cold night in February.
She’s in the middle of buying a new home, difficult driving conditions in the Colorado Rockies, and general tour grind. Nonetheless, she’s warm and inviting. That warmth carries from backstage to onstage at Boulder Theater.
She’s into her thing for the fans and for herself, she says, “This is the biggest U.S. tour I’ve done. As far as capacity of clubs and stuff like that. I have such an interesting climb, but it’s awesome. The types of shows I do from one week or month to the next, I know that I’m in a way living a very unique reality of most musicians. I don’t know other one’s who are having a similar experience. We all have very different experiences you know.”
Her voice, her person — sounds like Celine Dion, if she rocked and behaves like Sailor Jerry, if he rocked. Pour that combination into one person and you might get LP. She rocks, takes all the chances and doesn’t stop to wonder what could have been. She’s into what is and what she is is an artist capable of giving little pieces of her soul away and having enough left in her heart for a fully formed solo career.
She’s written music for Cher, Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys to name a few. “LP” says, “I have equal pride in writing for other people. It’s always enjoyable and satisfying to drive something home that is your life. The very crux of your life. There’s nothing like that to be able to go there. Then it’s also really cool to be able to almost like, in a way, a prism through someone else’s mind and soul. Something that you’ve done. I’m using prism as a verb. You’ll notice, I don’t know if that’s allowed, but yeah. It’s like, you know, I enjoy them both because it gives me a break from myself.”
On writing for other artist, she says it works like this, “I kind of just try and honor whatever it is that day. One of the things that’s very good for me is having a title and a concept, I feel like often I’m sure to get a song when I have that.”
She does hold some of her songwriting for herself. “I think with other outside things I tend to write maybe a little bit more universal and sometimes when I’m writing my own stuff I get very like kind of you know — specific, and then at the same time, I do use actual events and stuff, but I think for me it’s about tone. More often than not. Also sometimes, I just feel like stylistically, I’ll just feel like something is not jiving with my soul or something like that.”
Describing the process of building an album, “LP” says, “I usually know midway through and also when I’m putting an album together. It’s almost like a sculpture, you know what I mean? It starts kind of like forming itself, uncovers itself, like you’re chipping away at things, and sometimes songs that I thought were definitely on the record aren’t and then vice versa. And sometimes, a song is introduced can change the landscape of the entire record all of a sudden. I’m just like, ‘oh it’s going there.’”
She kept the 13 tracks of Lost On You for herself and it’s a wide body of work with a great artistic arch and lots of style. It’s personalized with her character, the record, it’s still for all of us. “LP” says, “I like that it had a lot of — I feel like it had a certain amount of depth that qualified across the board as someway of a common human experience. Definite, my swing on it. You can tell, Lost On You really resonated with a really large group of people. The people that had been through it knew what I was talking about. There was no qualms about it and they — I think they were definitely like, ‘oh wow, yeah.’”
Those people, her fans, old and new, anyone who understands and said, “oh wow yeah” while listening to Lost On You can appreciate her live. She brings her words and songs to life in concert. What’s important to her playing live she says, “just connection, anything can happen, sometimes it’s like the shape of the room — just like changes my experience. I’m always trying to get myself in the head space of like giving and receiving in a way. […] I think it’s a lot of like visual connection and I think also emoting, naturally, not like kind of trying to be like — I don’t like when I feel like I’m acting on stage. I like when it feels genuine. I’m always trying to be in that genuine place.”
She’s a multi-facetted artist and a vastly thoughtful human. She can write for others, tell her own story, travel and connect to other artists. She shares with fans in their similar experiences. “LP” is an honest artist with a story once you hear you understand why she’s a songwriter / singer and you know both talents are equal in strength.
