Lava La Rue: going back to basics

ava La Rue’s life is full of lore. Speaking to the creative multi-hyphenate first thing on a Monday morning, there’s no shortage of formative moments that shaped them into artist they are today: street party performances with their first band as an 11-year-old and teenage house party cyphers; creative hangs on the side of motorways and chaotic college days; champagne-fuelled backstage afterparties and Tokyo nights spent at underground raves.

It all feels decidedly on brand for an artist as adventurous as Lava – whose stage name is an anagram of their real one, Ava Laurel – the kind of person you’re just as likely to catch at a warehouse party as you are to see them walking the runway at London Fashion Week. Their most recent sidequest was another highlight to add to the list: playing bass in an Elvis Presley tribute band. “I just want to do everything to inspire growth,” they proclaim casually of their unconventional approach. “Like, let me play in an Elvis cover band. Why not get better at my instrument?”

That’s exactly what Lava has been doing in the nearly two years since releasing their debut album ‘Starface’. Arriving in the summer of 2024, the intergalactic concept record saw Lava cosplaying as an alien who crashlands on earth – which they branded a “lesbian Ziggy Stardust” – and was the culmination of years spent releasing DIY music on Soundcloud, creating with their radical music collective NiNE8 and releasing buzzy EPs like 2021’s ‘Butter-Fly’ and 2022’s ‘Hi-Fidelity’.

As a queer, non-binary and mixed-race artist born to a Black British mother and Latvian father, Lava’s words have always carried the weight of much lived experience, going deep on everything from class politics and identity to community and relationships. It unsurprisingly seeps into their expansive sound – shapeshifting vocals, genre-skirting beats and sharp socio-political observations. It’s why flipping through their discography to date feels akin to the scattered pages of a junk journal, from R&B-inflected rap (‘Widdit’), low-fi psychelia (‘Magpie’), moody funk-pop (‘Don’t Come Back’) and punk-tinged indie (‘Vest & Boxers’).

The authenticity underpinning their explorative approach meant Lava didn’t stay underground for long. They’ve performed at Glastonbury and Coachella, opened for Remi Wolf and Christine and the Queens, and secured a coveted co-sign from Tyler, The Creator. And that’s all alongside their work as a visual artist, picking up a Grammy nomination this year as co-art director on the album cover for Wet Leg’s second LP ‘Moisturizer’ (Lava is also dating the indie-rock band’s lead singer Rhian Teasdale). “It was the first time there being nominated for something creative that I’ve done, which is pretty sick,” they say proudly. “I obviously absolutely love that band, and they have such a sick creative vision.”

Now, Lava is entering a new season with their first project since ‘Starface’: the reinvigorated four-track EP ‘Do You Know Everything?’ (which, truncated to its acronym, intentionally spells out “dyke”). Part rattling punk catharsis, part indie-rock chill out, it’s a freshly charged reintroduction that finds Lava creating from a much more personal place. “It felt really important [that], because I debuted with a character rather than me, for the follow-up to be something that was me being me, and not an alter-ego,” they explain.

The other difference this time is that Lava isn’t alone. They’ve recruited the talents of a full band who pushed the singer-producer to expand their horizons musically over the past year. At a time when many Gen Zers are rallying against digital fatigue by returning to analogue activities and IRL communities, it’s no wonder Lava felt compelled to create something real. “I was like, ‘I want to make things more from a live perspective,’” they say. “Also, as a response to this technological revolution, my new goal is to be able to make music that definitely wasn’t made by AI.”

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As a response to this technological revolution, my new goal is to make music that definitely wasn’t made by A.I.

Lava La Rue

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It feels like the natural outcome for an artist who has spent the last couple of years recalibrating. A much-needed reset came last January when they escaped to the snowy mountains of Japan’s Niigata prefecture to hang out with the bookers of Fuji Rock Festival. “I’m constantly working, and that’s been the only month I can think of in my adult life since turning 20 that I was just like, ‘Right, I’m just going to frolic. I’m going to wake up and go up a ski lift, and slide down a mountain and do that for a month.’”

Lava, now 27, chats to The Forty-Five with the kind of nonchalant self-assurance that makes you think imposter syndrome isn’t even in their vocabulary. But it’s not surprising when you look at how long they’ve been doing this. Growing up around Ladbroke Grove, Lava had no shortage of cultural influences to soak up in nearby neighbourhoods. “Notting Hill and Portobello [felt like] the last era of creative bohemia that it used to be back in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s,” they share of their upbringing, recalling being around the “last generation of the first wave of punks”.

Raised by their Jamaican grandmother before spending time in and out of foster care in their mid-teens, there’s a sense of independence behind everything Lava does. They first got their hands on a guitar when school gave out free instruments to kids from underprivileged backgrounds. Unable to afford lessons, Lava turned to YouTube tutorials of songs by Deep Purple and Arctic Monkeys. When they joined their childhood band, The West Borns, they already boasted some musical lineage through the group’s 12-year-old bassist – the granddaughter of British musician Mick Gallagher, who played in Ian Dury & The Blockheads and The Clash.

While the group disbanded ahead of their GCSEs, Lava landed in a new creative hub at Richmond upon Thames College in South West London. “At parties there would always be cyphers happening, and it turns out I was quite good at it,” they recall with a laugh. It was here that Lava founded the experimental NINE8 collective, which featured fellow solo artists including Biig Piig and Mac Wetha, while other students in their star-studded year included Dave, Rosy Jones from Goat Girl and Dunkirk actor Fionn Whitehead. “We were one of the most iconic years,” Lava remembers with an air of schoolyard bravado. “Everyone entered that school thinking that it was going to be like an episode of Skins, and then followed suit. There was so much drama. People were doing K in the back of the class. The smokers’ area was mental. And then everyone in my year did insanely well.” 

Around that time, Lava began uploading early tracks to Soundcloud and YouTube, modestly remembering how they “did a bit too well”. Fast forward to 2022, and they had signed with the indie label Dirty Hit, home to Beabadoobee, Wolf Alice and The 1975. Through it all, Lava has remained firmly rooted in their West London community. “The more I’ve travelled, the more I’ve realised how lucky I am to actually be from London. It’s something that you can take for granted as a Londoner,” they reflect. 

That commitment to community is steering the next era, inspiring Lava to throw underground gigs in the lead up to the new EP’s release. “I do think that it’s not the best thing when a band first starts and they skip all of the grassroots [venues] and go straight to supporting a huge artist or playing really big venues, because someone else in the band has already built that up,” they reason. “It’s really important to start from zero.”

There’s certainly something romantic about going back to square one. Joining Lava for the ride are: Bassist Biz Wicks, who they instantly hit it off with backstage at a gig for both being “punky, Black dykes” (alternating with bassist Dragon King); Sadie Sadist, a tattoo-covered Lithuanian dental nurse by day and punk rock guitarist by night; guitarist George Perry, a “six foot three guy who looks like a cherub” but talks like “Danny Dyer’s long lost son”; Florence and the Machine live drummer Cian Hanley; and drummer/producer Mattu who’s previously worked with Don Broco and Nickelback.

“If someone’s going through something, they’re the first ones to turn up at your house or cook you chicken soup if you’re feeling ill,” Lava says of their close bond. “It’s more than a band at this point.”

‘Do You Know Everything?, originated as jam sessions among friends, trading experimental curiosity for a more textured finish with the help of Grammy-winning producer Fraser T. Smith, known for his work with Adele and Stormzy. The punky ‘Jet Lagged’ featuring Foster The People’s Mark Foster – who Lava met through their long-time collaborator and mentor, Isom Innis – feels like the doorway, a trippy ode to the dizzying LA-London time difference. “[They] schooled me on the New York bands era of The Strokes and The Moldy Peaches,” Lava shares of the collaboration. “It’s so easy to fall into the Gen Z nostalgia, and they were like, ‘This is what it was like, we were there for it!’ I learned so much.”

One of the biggest switch-ups is the roughed up ‘Scratches’, which gave Lava permission to bend their singing voice out of shape. “Boy musicians were afforded that privilege quite early,” they say. “There were a lot of lads in bands and their voices were god-awful, but people respected it because they were like, ‘You’re a great songwriter!’”

Then there’s the EP’s head-banging moment with ‘Girl Is A Knife’, detailing Lava’s dark and grungy quasi-romantic infatuation. “Cut me deep and kiss me a sweet goodnight / A boy is a gun but my girl is a bloody knifе,” they blurt in a reprieve from a wail of screeching guitars. “Those lyrics just flowed out of me, and I guess they were subconsciously talking about romance,” they say coyly. “Sometimes you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and then you look back, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that song’s about her!’”

Closing out the tracklist is ‘easy come, easy go’, which champions Lava’s long-held mantra of “radical compassion” under the guise of a summery beat. “Made small talk with a man in his suit and tie / We want all the same things, but live different lives,” Lava observes on the track. “I come across different groups of people who, on paper, might not get along,” they elaborate, “but actually we’re all living in the same city, and we all actually want the same result, which is to be loved and have a home and security, but everyone has different ideas of how they achieve that.” 

The political footnotes in Lava’s lyrics are a salient reminder of just how many artists are shying away from speaking out at a deeply turbulent time of genocide in Gaza, ICE raids in the US and a major right-wing swing in the UK. “Before, the concept of being a political artist maybe felt like a choice. Whereas now, it’s like, how could you not be?” Lava asks, baffled. “Good things will only happen if we don’t dart around the conversation.”

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Before, the concept of being a political artist maybe felt like a choice. Whereas now, it’s like, how could you not be?

Lava La Rue

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Lava hints that this EP is a “bridge” into “more long-form worlds”, and it sounds like things could go anywhere from here. “Everyone in the band is 50 per cent the exact same, and 50 per cent the exact opposite, and it takes [the new music] in places that I would never just by myself,” Lava says. They also haven’t written off a return to the ‘Starface’ cinematic universe just yet. “I might ebb and flow between the two projects. It won’t be as rigid,” they add knowingly.

One thing’s for certain, Lava is ready to find out what can be achieved as a collective. They paraphrase a powerful proverb which sums up that intention for the rest of the year ahead, which naturally applies to more than just the music: “Solo, you can move quickly, but together, you go further.”

‘Do You Know Everything?’ is out now.