Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry on going solo: “This was born out of things that I couldn’t or wouldn’t write in the band”

nme.com:

Lauren Mayberry has spoken to NME about her decision to go solo, the “freedom” to write from a purely female perspective away from Chvrches, and what to expect from her debut album.First announcing details of her “fun, freaky, sad, weird, joyful” solo material back in July before revealing launch single ‘Are You Awake?‘, Mayberry has been roadtesting her new songs on tour in the US, before kicking off the UK and European leg in her native Glasgow last night.Speaking about her current mood having got the project off the ground, Mayberry said described it as “the usual new music anxiety multiplied by, ‘What if nobody wants this or if everyone thinks you’re a fucking idiot for wanting to do it’ anxiety”.“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’.”Explaining how she compartmentalised the material she was writing as separate to Chvrches, Mayberry said it “it was easy, because it was born out of things that I couldn’t or wouldn’t write in the band”.“The worse writing sessions were when I went in with someone who didn’t really understand what I was talking about and we would just write a sort of shit Chvrches song,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is a nice afternoon, but what’s the point in this?’ There’s already a universe where I can make that and I enjoy it.