ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Lauren Mayberry has spent more than a decade as the lead singer of the beloved Scottish synthpop band Chvrches. Now she begins another chapter. Today she released her debut solo album, called "Vicious Creatures."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SUNDAY BEST")
LAUREN MAYBERRY: (Singing) I'll look for you in your Sunday best, and you can remind me it ends.
SHAPIRO: Mayberry started playing many of these songs live on a solo tour last year. Her very first stop was right here in Washington, D.C., at the 930 Club.
MAYBERRY: This is quite weird. Thank you very much for coming to the show. Thank you for coming to a gig where you only know maybe one song, if that.
SHAPIRO: On that night in September of 2023, Lauren Mayberry was about to take her first step into this new world as a solo artist. For the first time, the T-shirts and posters at the merch table didn't say Chvrches. They said Lauren Mayberry. She hadn't even publicly committed yet to making the album that's out today.
MAYBERRY: (Singing) Let's publicize our happiness, or at least I'll force a smile.
I don't know. I just keep expecting the other guys.
SHAPIRO: Your bandmates to show.
MAYBERRY: Yeah. And I'm like, are they in the van? Where are they? And I'm like, oh, they're not coming, which is quite sad but good for everybody to fly the coop for a little bit and then come back together.
SHAPIRO: Just before the show, we sat down to chat backstage.
MAYBERRY: Until about 20 minutes ago. I was down scrambling around on the stage, putting the final little bits of stage set together 'cause we're like, we've run out of time. And I'm not very well-versed in such things, but I know I can work a cable tie really quick. I was, like, putting them on, cutting them off, putting them on, cutting them off. It was good.
SHAPIRO: Is it making you regret the decision at all that you're now doing...
MAYBERRY: I mean, in Chvrches universe, there's people to do the cable ties for you. But, no, I think it's exciting. It feels exciting. It feels odd. It's definitely been an odd readjustment.
SHAPIRO: Lauren Mayberry had only released one solo track so far. It came out just a few days before the show. And "Are You Awake?" sounds nothing like the electro-dance pop of Chvrches.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ARE YOU AWAKE?")
MAYBERRY: (Singing) Are you awake? I've been thinking through some things, been counting their babies and their time and wedding rings.
Me and the managers and the label were like, what song do we put up? - 'cause you don't - I definitely wanted to make it clear that I'm not just going to be trying to rip off the band all the time. But also, it's not all going to be downbeat, sobbing piano ballads.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ARE YOU AWAKE?")
MAYBERRY: (Singing) Some feelings don't fade away with space and time. It's a state of mind.
I love the band. I'm grateful for the band. I'm never going to cut that grass. That grass is meant to be over there. And I think that's partly why I was like, something that's so different is a good palate cleanser. It kind of, like, scorches the earth so people can be like, just so you know, don't expect that.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
MAYBERRY: But then there's definitely more bangers.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: Promise kept. As she put it on stage...
MAYBERRY: So there's two depressing, slow ones, and then the rest of them have a bit of pep.
(Singing) I killed myself to be one of the boys. I lost my head to be one of the boys.
I'm very excited and honestly baffled that people bought tickets to these shows before there was any music.
SHAPIRO: Your advertising didn't even say, from Chvrches. It didn't reference your career with the band. It was just your name. And yet - I don't know if you saw this - people were lined up around the block before the doors opened to come...
MAYBERRY: Today?
SHAPIRO: Just now, moments ago.
MAYBERRY: Now that's going may be misty. Don't do that. I mean, I feel just really blown away by that and very grateful. I kind of like, in a way - at first, we were freaking out that we didn't have more music out before the tour. And then we were like, wait. Maybe that's actually quite cool and kind of old-school in a way. You know, I'm all over the internet with, like, my socials and stuff. And everyone's all over the internet, as well we should. But in a way, I think it's quite nice to not know something.
(Singing) Are you still having fun?
SHAPIRO: The show felt significant, like a moment people might talk about years from now as the start of something big. The stage was decorated with bouquets of flowers. The women on drums, guitar, and keys joined in with tight harmonies.
MAYBERRY: (Singing) I change shapes till I get what I need from you. We're all snakes, but what else is a girl supposed to do? I change shapes, but you never do. It makes me nauseous...
SHAPIRO: It's not a coincidence that the musicians on stage were all women. Lauren Mayberry told me she has spent the last 20 years of her life in bands with dudes, and that required her to code switch. Sometimes it felt like every interview about Chvrches was about her role as a woman.
MAYBERRY: I never thought about my gender a huge amount until we were in this band and it was brought up to me over and over and over and over. And I kind of felt like - I was like, it's just this thing that's being said at me, but I'm not really creating a huge amount that's to do with any of these experiences. And I don't feel like I was really using any of that in a productive way. I was kind of keeping it out of the creative, and it was being brought at me all the time, if that makes sense.
SHAPIRO: And so now the idea is you don't have to make yourself fit into a preexisting box.
MAYBERRY: I think so. The stuff that I've always loved is things like Tori Amos or Fiona Apple or PJ Harvey, and I don't know that you hear a lot of that in the band universe. And I think in terms of, like, live performance, I'm like, I love this. I'm a theatrical [expletive]. I love a bit of that. But that's just not a thing that indie rock bands did.
And I think on the last Chvrches campaign, we did costume changes, and there was, like, fake blood in the show and things like that. And every - basically every venue we went to, it was really baffling to everybody who worked in the venue because they were like, costume changes? People don't do custom changes because most people that go to those venues are straight, white dudes who aren't...
SHAPIRO: Right.
MAYBERRY: ...Taking any advantage of the theatrical fun that they could be having. And I kind of - it kind of became clear to me. I was like, oh, yeah. You love all this mad, silly [expletive]. So maybe you should go do this mad, silly [expletive].
SHAPIRO: So I was going to ask if seeing your name, Lauren Mayberry - like, your birth name, your driver's license name - on the marquee, the promotional materials, the door feels vulnerable, like you can't hide behind the name of a band. But it sounds like from what you're saying, it's almost more liberating. Like, you can be who you are, and nobody else has any say in what that is.
MAYBERRY: I think my brain is divided into two halfs. It's like there's the gremlin back part of my brain that's like, yes, we must create. We must make what we want. We must take the spotlight. And then there's the other part of me that - when I got the tour poster through and it's just literally my face, I was like, I'm going to be sick. I can't - and, like, putting merch together, I was like, I don't think they should buy a T-shirt with my face on it. Why would anybody want that? But then I can kind of switch into the other part. And I think it's important that the two exist, the yin and the yang.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: As Lauren Mayberry launches this new phase of her career, she knows the question she is likely to get more than any other, and she has a quick answer. No, this is not the end of the band Chvrches.
MAYBERRY: Our plan is that we're going to do both. We've resigned the band for more records.
SHAPIRO: Oh, great.
MAYBERRY: So everyone is confident and comfortable that that's what's going to happen.
(Singing) ...Cry. Crocodile tears running down your face.
SHAPIRO: One post online from the concert that night at the 930 Club said, Lauren Mayberry hasn't announced an album yet, but it sure seems like there's one on the way. Well, 15 months later, it's here. Lauren Mayberry's debut solo album "Vicious Creatures" is out today.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUREN MAYBERRY SONG, "CROCODILE TEARS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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