FEATURE:
Awake and Unashamed
IN THIS PHOTO: Lauren Mayberry (lead of CHRVCHES and now solo artist)
The Case of Lauren Mayberry, and Band Members Who Embark on a Solo Career
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YOU get plenty of cases…
IN THIS PHOTO: Hayley Williams (Paramore)/PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes
where leads/members of bands go solo and embark on their own careers. There are some bands that go on hiatus and comes back together (like Paramore and their lead Hayley Williams after she released solo material). Think about those artists who cut their teeth in groups and then went solo and found a new level of success. Perhaps the best-known examples are Beyoncé (Destiny’s Child) and Harry Styles (One Direction). Notable in their first incarnation, they then found space and a new voice going solo. Sometimes you get artists who need to do something by themselves and step away from a group but then return. It can be a difficult situation. Look back at The Beatles. They had members planning and releasing solo material before they split. Maybe sensing the end, that awkward timing and balance did result in some dispute and hostility. One can appreciate how there is a certain commercial commitment and pressurise to stay in a group. It can be healthy doing solo work alongside band material. There are modern-day examples. Supergrass are an ongoing concern. You have Gaz Coombes releasing solo material. Same with Blur and their members. Radiohead too. These are legendary and established bands, I know, though it is far from rare. From Gwen Stefani (No Doubt) to Belinda Carlisle (The Go-Go's) through to, well…this artist who is going her own way. The Scottish band CHVRCHES formed in 2011. Their most recent album is 2021’s Screen Violence. They are hugely successful and celebrated. Their lead, Lauren Mayberry, is releasing solo material.
I will come to an interview recently where she has talked about this new venture and forthcoming solo album. I do feel like it can be restrictive or defining being in a group. Different voices and directions. You might have to play in a particular way. Write about certain things. A solo career allows for personal direction and versatility. In the case of Lauren Mayberry, she is letting her voice and perceptive come to the fore. CHVRCHES did allow for some of that though, as part of a trio, there is only so much independence she could have. You can check out her official website. I am going to bring in an interview she recently gave. A couple of live reviews too. Some group members might feel nervous or guilty about going solo. Rather than a betrayal to fans or a sign of unhappiness, it is an awakening and quite natural for some. Being in a group is pretty tiring and can get routine and uninspiring. There are no plans for CHVRCHES to call time. I feel Lauren Mayberry, instead, needs to write and perform in a different way. Let a different voice and narrative come to the spotlight. I will start with some live reviews. It must be a bit odd not having her usual crew around her. Being on stage but not being part of CHVRCHES. With singles like Shame and Are You Awake? under her belt and winning acclaim, there will be a lot of anticipation for the album. This is what The Skinny wrote when they caught Mayberry play at SWG3, Glasgow, on 5th October:
“Introduced by Liza Minelli’s Maybe This Time squawking through the sound system, the rolling synths of Bird rumble forward, and Mayberry comes to stage, tee emblazoned with ‘Safety, dignity and healthcare for all trans people’. The combination of sound and visuals command urgency, Bird’s chorus ending ‘When I burn down the house / You’ll know why I did it’. It’s musically familiar given the performer, but when the synths largely drop out as she and her band move into the chorus, it becomes clear why it’s the set opener: there is absolute focus on Mayberry, in identity and in voice.
This feels like the show’s main thesis: the musical inspirations and aspirations of Mayberry’s exploration, without the tether of her associated band's musical diplomacy. A choice of cover at the midpoint of the set is a signifier of this; Madonna’s Like a Prayer provides some aspect of familiarity that the audience can sing back to Mayberry, whilst also acting as intended pastiche. Changing Shapes and Crocodile Tears embody the 80s pallet absolutely, both audibly and visually (purple and yellow spotlights spinning from the ceiling of the compact stage) recalling Madonna's 1984 performance of Holiday on Solid Gold, while directing the audience to a clear difference between the artist being presented and the identity as frontwoman that we previously knew of Mayberry.
Genre and mode vary: Mayberry takes to a stage riser for Mantra, dark and bubbling, infinite repetitions of ‘I want it’ becoming increasingly, meditatively sinister. Sorry, Etc. brings the rage, a screaming Mayberry invoking the electro-backed anger of Peaches or Karen O, the song somewhat reminiscent of Yuk Foo/Play the Greatest Hits-esque Wolf Alice. Second single Shame is a highlight; angular electronic pop interpolated by an earworm guitar riff.
PHOTO CREDIT: Allan Lewis
It is unavoidable that the CHVRCHES ethos is echoed in both the audience – it's there in the audience wearing the band's T-shirts, and has brought in and cultivated the wall-to-wall crowd – and in Mayberry, though no CHVRCHES songs are found here; a conscious choice of hers to separate ‘her solo era’ from the band’s past and future. She states early in the show that dualism in this instance is possible: there can be love and support for the collective and the individual in parallel.
The hometown environment is palpable. Mayberry’s feelings about the current Conservative government and their deplorable actions this week creates a sweeping, resounding ‘Fuck the Tories!’ chant; all of this before an ovation of adoration, prior to the final song, renders Mayberry emotional. It feels like the only unrehearsed moment; Mayberry is a consummate professional whose shows run like clockwork, and, despite a smaller stage than she would usually inhabit, her spins and silhouettes mark the familiar iconography of her decade fronting CHVRCHES, with humorous asides as topical and wry as ever. All of this contributes to a performance that is ephemeral but genuinely exciting, and a preview of the second form of one of synth-pop’s most consistent songwriters and performers”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Lauren Mayberry at KOKO, London on 9th October/PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann
On 9th October, Lauren Mayberry played KOKO, London. NME were in attendance. Even, understandably, as her sets are short at the moment – I guess she can’t really do a load of CHVRCHES numbers! -, Mayberry is displaying the fact that she is an impactful and stunning solo artist:
“It’s rare to come to a show of this size and not have a clue what to expect. It’s a big room to fill for an artist with just the one single out, and as Chvrches’ frontwoman turned solo star Lauren Mayberry tells the packed-out KOKO herself: “This is very generous of you, because I know no one knows any of the songs at all.”
After a playlist packed with Madonna and the fittingly cinematic intro of ‘Maybe This Time’ by Liza Minelli, the darkness lifts to show Mayberry dramatically poised centre stage under the spotlight. She begins with ‘Bird’, a slow-burning earworm, much less sugary than Chvrches and with more of a sinister but electro-noir grit.
Each song is presented between clean scene changes. The set is framed by spoken word narrative from Mayberry telling of the horrors and pitfalls of body image in the “paranoid parade” of the social media age. Speaking to NME pre-show, she promised of a “more theatrical” concept, and one “born out of things that I couldn’t or wouldn’t write in the band” with men. We enjoy the spoils of Mayberry’s new universe – from surefire future single of ‘Change Shapes’ (driven by the energy Sugababes at their most streetwise via some pop-pomp ‘80s glory days Depeche Mode) and the industrial glam-stomp of ‘Shame’.
PHOTO CREDIT: Lorne Thomson/Redferns
She promises ‘Under The Knife’ will be a “depressing banger” to appease the “99 per cent Chvrches fans” in the room, and while a sombre and slow-revealing gem, the bangers are elsewhere: namely in the Billy Joel meets Tears For Fears ‘Crocodile Tears’ (the kind of jam of that should come with a single fingerless leather glove) and the Nine Inch Nails ferocity of “shouty, screamy, angry” closer ‘Sorry Etc’. While the tender piano ballad of launch single ‘Are You Awake’ goes down a treat, Mayberry wasn’t lying when she told us that it couldn’t be less representative of what else she has in the bag.
She chucks in a mega and bombastic rendition of Madonna‘s ‘Like A Prayer’ to “pad out” the setlist, and keeps up her tradition of a new cover for each city she visits with a gorgeous outing of Spice Girls’ ‘Viva Forever’, as well as teaching us that saying “space ghetto” with an American accent is the easiest route to the Scottish pronunciation of ‘Spice Girls’… ensue the KOKO crowd having a go at a mass elocution lesson.
It’s a thrilling reminder of her beginnings: “I did a Google and found a Chvrches show from 2012 where we only played seven songs,” she offers. The eight new originals on offer tonight pack one heck of a punch, and if this is just a test drive then we’re in for one hell of a ride”.
I am going to wrap up with a bit more about group members who go solo. It is an interesting phenomenon that yields mixed results. Your Robbie Williams (Take That) types can be successful and even outshine their group. Same with Peter Gabriel (Genesis). If solo success from various Spice Girls members has been mixed, others in successful groups can add their own stamp. CHVRCHES have a huge reputation and fanbase. I can completely see why Lauren Mayberry wants to do her solo thing. I can see many albums coming from her. There is a debut solo album in the works. With no set release date yet, I know that many are going to be really excited to hear that. Earlier this month, NME’s Andrew Trendell spoke with Lauren Mayberry ahead of a run of U.K. and European tour dates. She talked about what to expect from a solo album - in addition to a freedom of writing and working outside of her band:
“There’s always nervousness,” she told NME. “For any frontperson in a band, but especially a woman, as soon as you say the words ‘solo material’ people get very upset with you. I feel like every second sentence is, ‘I’m not breaking up the band, guys, however…’
“But we’re lucky enough to have fans that care so much that they don’t want it to break up. I feel grateful, but I’m trying to be reassuring to them – ‘Just give us a couple more years guys, it’s going to be fine’.”
With experience that’s often “very different” to that of her bandmates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, Mayberry explained that she would often be left feeling that the things she wanted to write about from a female perspective were unlikely to “resonate with them”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Press
“There are a lot of specific things about the female experience that won’t apply to Iain and Martin,” she told NME. “Obviously they have been very supportive of some of that making its way into Chvrches’ music, but sometimes I don’t want to sing about certain things or perform in a certain way when I’m on stage with men – if that doesn’t sound terrible. They’re the nicest men, but sometimes it’s not a conversation that I’m comfortable having fully in that context.”
Explaining her inspiration across her upcoming debut solo album, the singer revealed how she was looking to make sense of the “isolating” experience of being a woman in a male-dominated music industry.
“I was 23 when Chvrches started, and from minute one it felt like all anyone wanted to talk about was my gender,” she said. “A lot of the narrative was around what I looked like, what the guys didn’t look like and how that fit into the context. It felt odd, and it gives you quite a strange psychological separation from your physical self.
PHOTO CREDIT: Scarlett Casciello
“Everyone was having this conversation about me, at me, and I wasn’t really involved in it. If you spend most of your formative years in those environments, how do you psychologically stitch that back together to have a more connected experience with yourself, your life and your writing?”
While Mayberry “very much enjoyed being part of that touring circus”, she said she had always imagined what that world would have been like if genders were “code-switched”.
“Since I was 15, I’ve been in bands with boys and men,” she said. “That’s been wonderful most of the time, but it would be quite weird if a male musician was in an environment where they were only surrounded by women all of the time. So much of the time, people talk about Chvrches and they talk about feminism, but I was still the only one in most of those rooms in most of those experiences.”
She added: “To me, it was about trying to zoom in on the things that I wouldn’t if I wasn’t standing next to two guys in a band. That was the brief to myself.”
Beyond the lyrics, Mayberry’s newfound “freedom” has always inspired the look, aesthetic and live show of her solo outing to be “more theatrical”.
“Especially on the last Chvrches album [‘Screen Violence‘], we went into that more with the aesthetic and the live shows,” she said. “Even then, it was trying to fit it into a pre-existing format. I used to find the performance stuff so uncomfortable and unpleasant because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I had been a drummer and keyboard player and never a singer, then all of a sudden I was in this position where I was 23 and being looked at and told I wasn’t very good at it.
IN THIS PHOTO: Lauren Mayberry captured performing at August Hall in San Francisco, California on 28th September/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Jennings/Getty Images
Fans have had an early taster of the upcoming album at Mayberry’s US dates, which included support slots with Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service celebrating the 20th anniversary of their seminal albums ‘Transatlanticism’ and The Postal Service’s ‘Give Up’, respectively. “This tour offer came through and it seemed too good to be true,” she explained. “Obviously I love both those bands, both those records, and I love Jenny Lewis and Rilo Kiley. I feel like a bit of a creep because I’ve been lucky enough to be in and around the Death Cab cinematic universe for a while now.”
She admitted tat it was “quite poetic” that she should launch her record on the road with The Postal Service as they were a band that “Chvrches talked about a lot right in the beginning” when they were forming. The trio are currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album ‘The Bones Of What You Believe‘ with an expanded reissue, but Mayberry said that fans shouldn’t expect any further Chvrches activity for a while.
“Everybody has things that they’re working on,” she said. “It would be weird to be in any job for 12 years and not do anything else. Four albums in a row is pretty solid, so it’s important to get new stuff into our brains. Then, as and when we come back for the fifth album, it has to be moving the conversation forward – it can’t just be a different version of the same thing.
“After 10 years and four albums, this is a good time to take a minute. Everyone go on your own adventure so when we come back we’re not just having the same musical conversations over and over”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Robbie Williams
Being in a band gives you that support, community and sense of togetherness. It can seem less isolating…though there is also less flexibility when it comes to a member putting their print on things. Having to work to the same end, many do feel that they need to go solo. It can be met with a lot of expectation and criticism. Some lambasting that artist for leaving a band – even if they are still together and this is a side-step for now. Others get a lot of support behind them and come up with something magnificent. It is an odd dynamic and moment. That adaptation from working in a group to being on your own. I am really interested seeing how Lauren Mayberry’s solo career goes. CHVRCHES will be back in a couple of years or so but, for now, their incredible lead needs to write and deliver songs that seem more truthful and meaningful to her. That desire for her to write in a more female way. Tell the experiences of her and other women. So far, live and single reviews have been really positive! When an album does come out, that will give more of an impression of what Lauren Mayberry the solo artist is about. I know that there will be other groups who will see one or more of their members go solo soon. Perhaps that will spell the end of the group. Some groups like Little Mix are on hiatus and there are solo works from current or former members. It can be a disastrous adventure for some. In the case of Lauren Mayberry, she has already proven herself to be an incredible songwriter. This is continuing into her solo career. The CHVRCHES lead is…
WIDE awake and ready.