The formidable Ladyhawke almost needs no introduction. The NZ powerhouse has a long-earned reputation having spent years on the Aotearoa and Australia music scenes, since erupting into the mainstream with her self-titled debut album in 2008. She has graced our airwaves with vigorous hits like “My Delirium” and “Paris is Burning”, and the groundbreaking PNAU collaboration “Embrace”. She’s worked with a diverse range of artists including Broods, Tiësto and Crooked Colours, and created three critically-acclaimed albums.
The singer-songwriter’s music is infectious, playful, and absolutely enthralling, and she is back with a new record and an Australian tour to boot. It’s been a five year wait for her fourth studio album, and it could not have come at a better time, with live shows returning around the world. Her latest single “Mixed Emotions” gives us a tasty glimpse into the ear-worm bass hooks and funky guitar riffs that will be rife on the album, aptly named ‘Time Flies’.
The multi-instrumentalist is one of those Kiwis we’re happy to claim as our own. We had the good fortune to interview Ladyhawke, and get to know the earnest, humorous and hard-working creative.
Best Before: How are you feeling about getting all this new music out there after five years?
Ladyhawke: It’s really, it’s really exciting. It felt like the longer it took, the less pressure there is, because it’s another couple of months between. But I’m just stoked. I’ll be able to perform it to some audiences, which will be nice!
Yeah, absolutely. Did you write most of it in last year’s self-imposed isolation?
No, actually — the first half the record I wrote in LA in 2019. I did two writing trips over there. One, in June-July, and then one towards the end the year with Tommy English (K Flay, Broods, Kacey Musgraves). I was supposed to come back April 2020, to finish the record. Then pandemic happened and New Zealand was in lockdown. I couldn’t do the trip. So I sort of had to just figure out how I was going to do that.
It was a combination of me and Tommy working via Zoom and screen-sharing. Then I met a really lovely producer here Josh Fountain, who produced the BENEE record. We just hit it off. So me and him were able to write four new tracks. We got on so well and it was great just being in the same room!
Speaking of collaborators, you’re still working with Nick Littlemore, right? Which is like a long…
Long, longtime best friend and collaborator. It’s awesome. We were working together while I was over in LA, actually. We spent like a week in a studio just messing around having fun. Out of those sessions came “Mixed Emotions”. He had a great little base hook and riff. Basically, the whole song was formed around it; it’s always really fun when a song is formed entirely around one hook.
“I don’t think that straight people realise that you have to come out almost every day, and re-live everything.”
For the video, do you have a vision for the visuals yourself? How did you work with the director?
Right at the beginning, after the writing process, I found this image that I love. It’s so beautiful, I just love the colours, and the water in the image. Sarah Larnach is my best friend and has done all my album artwork and designs right from the beginning, from my first record. I showed her this image and said I wanted it as a theme across my entire campaign.
I recently met a photographer called Lula Cucchiara who is a South American-New Zealander photographer. She is incredible and I am obsessed with her stuff. I met up with her and we just hit it off, I told her about my themes and ideas and she helped bring that into life. We made the album cover, I played her “Guilty Love”, and literally overnight she sent me through the treatments the video.
I honestly was like, “How did you get into my brain?!” It was spot on, and she’s super in tune! With that, we did the photoshoot and then the shoot for “Guilty Love”, which was awesome because it was pretty much the same crews. Britt Meiling, the producer on “Guilty Love”, directed “Mixed Emotions” and she just pitched an idea that really fit with the whole visual theme. The video was so fun to make as well, everyone was just hanging out and having fun!
Looping back to “Guilty Love”, it’s such a beautiful song. Has the song been with you for a while, in terms of thematics? Because it’s a notion that queer people struggle with for a long time.
Yeah, and that’s always been floating around within me and could never really leave. I thank Georgia [Nott from Broods] for really bringing that out of me. If it wasn’t for us sitting down and just chatting for ages I don’t think it would’ve happened. We spoke about it for ages and she was like, “We have to turn this into a song.” I thought, oh boy, okay let’s do it!
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You’re married to a woman and have a family, but the struggles depicted in the video, are sentiments that first surface as a teenager. I thought it was interesting that you would resurface them.
Yeah, absolutely. As a queer person who’s in a relationship with a woman, I don’t think that straight people realise that you have to come out almost every day, and re-live everything. Every time you meet someone new, every time someone asks you about your life, or you’re making small talk in the backseat of an Uber and the driver says, “What does your husband do?” The amount of times you have to come out to strangers can be really awful, and frustrating. So it’s been amazing making a song that was a healing experience for me.
It’s such an important voice to be heard and listened to. Speaking of listening, how excited are you to be playing some live gigs soon?
Oh, I’m excited. It’s gonna be great. I was surprised, actually, that it was happening this year. But pleasantly surprised. I was really keeping my fingers crossed for Australia because it’s sort of been touch and go, you know? I’m just so happy. I’m really, really excited about it. I can’t wait.
‘Time Flies’ is out on October 8. In the meantime, you can watch Lawyhawke’s electric video for “Mixed Emotions” below:
Here’s were you can catch Ladyhawke on tour: