LP interview - Churches & LOST ON YOU's 1 Billion streams

Montreal Rocks talks to LP about her current tour, which arrives at Place Bell this week, how her popularity has continued to climb and how it feels to have billions of people streaming your songs.

When you know, you know.

You know exactly what LP means when she sings. Without the limits of genre, the multiplatinum singer-songwriter, with more than +2 billion streams to her name, has created a powerful sound and devoted following all her own. LP’s YouTube channel currently receives more than 2.4 million views a day and her songs are streamed upwards of 2 million times a day around the world. Her soulful lyrics can reveal an intimate truth in one breath and swaggerly flip the middle finger the next. Her songs can extend to fans a seductive invitation or deliver a deep sense of purpose that lingers in your thoughts and feelings. Either way, LP has a rarity of character that consistently relates to audiences without filter or judgement. With each record release, she builds on a body of work that is full of complexity, truth and self-discovery.

In June 2014, LP released her major-label debut album, Forever for Now, through Warner Bros. The album featured the breakthrough track, “Into the Wild,” which was prominently used in a national Citibank television advertisement campaign.

Her follow-up album, Lost on You, was released in December 2016 through Vagrant Records. It was with this project that LP broke through on her own terms with the lead single “Lost On You” becoming a global behemoth of a break-up song, reaching number one in 18 countries before being certified Diamond in Mexico and France,4X Platinum in Italy, Platinum in Poland, and Gold in Belgium and Switzerland. The album’s second track “Muddy Waters,” was notably featured in the Season 4 finale of Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black.

In December 2018, LP followed the commercial and critical success of “Lost On You” and released Heart to Mouth, through BMG. The project featured the international hit singles “Girls Go Wild” and “Recovery.” “Girls Go Wild,” which was Italy’s most-played radio hit of all of 2019, again made waves in spring 2020 thanks to a new version of the track featuring Mexican singer Ximena Sariñana.

On May 29, 2020, LP released her first live album Live In Moscow via Vagrant/BMG. Recorded at Crocus City Hall in Moscow in 2019 in front of a sold-out crowd of over 6000 fans, the 17-track performance spans multiple albums, including “Lost On You” and “Girls Go Wild,” along with two collaborative medleys that include covers from Kings of Leon & The Rolling Stones.

In July 2020, LP released the single “The One That You Love.” Co-written by LP with her longtime collaborators, Mike Del Rio (co-writer and producer) and Nate Company (co-writer), “The One That You Love” reunites the team responsible for “Lost On You.” About the track, Billboard Magazine wrote, “LP wields her distinctive vocals like a surgical knife on her latest single ‘The One That You Love’," and tastemaker publication Buzz Bands LA raved, “LP has returned with a new single, ‘The One That You Love,’ a rocker with a Western flair, a gunslinger’s swagger and, of course, vocals you could hear from way down the canyon.” The new track, which was streamed more than 1 million times in its first three days of release, is available now at all major Digital Service Providers (DSPs).

Accompanying the song is a new video directed by Darren Craig (Rihanna, Kanye West, Shakira). The video features expansive shots of LP on horseback at the Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, Calif. On YouTube, where LP has over 4 million subscribers, in just the first three days since release, the video crossed 1 million video views and has generated millions of more views after.

In 2021, LP continued her upward trajectory by releasing her highly anticipated sixth album Churches via SOTA Records and was featured on the cover of SPIN Magazine. Churches’ first single “The One That You Love” generated 27 million+ YouTube views of the official video, 24 million+ Spotify streams, and had its TV debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers. The album’s second single “How Low Can You Go” has 8.5 million+ streams on Spotify, 7.5 million+ YouTube views, and hit Triple-A radio’s Top 3 most added songs. The video for the third single, “One Last Time” co-starring actor/filmmaker/model Jaime King, racked up 19 million+ YouTube views and 24+ million streams on Spotify.

Asked about Churches latest single “Goodbye,” LP says, "'Goodbye' is a blast for the soul. A spring cleaning to free myself and hopefully others from the shackles of my own mind. The light is always there if you want it. I definitely want it.” The lush and captivating Churches was executive produced by Mike Del Rio (Kylie Minogue, X Ambassadors, Skylar Grey).