Lauren Oxford Interview
Americana Highways had a chance to interview Lauren Oxford at the Walnut Valley Music Festival in Winfield, Kansas. The festival spans four stages, and hosts over 30 performers, providing more than 20 hours of music over 4 days. The music covers folk, bluegrass, Americana, Western Swing, Celtic and many other styles. And a contest of the National Flat-Picking Championships, along with other contests are held.
Lauren spoke with us there, and played two songs for us as well. The entire video is available just beneath this written transcript.
Americana Highways: This is David Hakan, roving reporter for Americana Highways, collecting the stories of Americana music. I’m here today with Lauren Oxford at the Walnut Valley Music Festival. Welcome, Lauren.
Lauren Oxford: Thank you, David.
AH: First, tell us about your award!
LO: I received the Winfield New Song Showcase first place award on Thursday in the Love Songs category. So, I won alternate, and then this competition is kind of a, if you don’t show up, you don’t win. And so, the person who was supposed to play did not show up, and I kind of got it by default, I guess? I was running a little late, because I was going to go to the new song showcase anyway, to hear all of the songwriters. I was very tired, I had maybe four hours of sleep the night before. In the shower. I get out of the shower and realize I’ve forgotten my towel. So I’m just standing there, hoping someone is at camp, because everyone has already gone to the New Song Showcase. Someone’s there, they go to my tent, they fetch me the towel, I get ready, but I’m running late. I see a text on my phone that says, bring your guitar, you’re gonna play today! And it was just very chaotic. I was tired, I was like, I hadn’t taken my brain meds yet, and I truly do not remember what I said when I got up on the stage. I probably made some horrible joke, and… but [the] performance went well, so that was nice, but it was just very unexpected, but I’m so honored because Winfield is so hugely important to me, and to win this award at this festival, in this category too, in the love song category, with a queer love song, just felt, it felt really good.
AH: How did you start being interested in playing music growing up?
LO: I took piano lessons as a kid for probably seven years or so. I really, really hated and still hate reading music, but I always had a good ear for it. So my poor piano teachers would give me the assignment out of the little book, and I would go home and I would just hear a song, and I would sit down at the piano and figure out the song I heard, and then I would show back up to my lesson, like, look what I did! And they’d be like, that’s great! Did you do the lesson? And I said, no. So I didn’t really stick with that. That was [for] about seven years. In middle school, I was in the Nashville Children’s Choir, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. So that’s the only kind of formal vocal training that I’ve ever had. And then in high school, I played marimba in marching band. And playing marimba in marching band, you don’t march. You’re in the front ensemble. So that was kind of my musical background. I grew up listening to a lot of music. My parents introduced me to a wide array of genres and artists, and I feel very grateful for that. I was writing a lot of poetry. Near the end of high school I just picked up a ukulele on a whim, started playing that, got to college, and I met a dear friend of mine who told me about this music community she was involved in. I got involved in that with her, and kind of picked up guitar, started playing guitar, and then realized I could combine the poetry and the music and write songs. That was in about 2016, and I’ve kind of been doing it ever since.
AH: Tell us about your new project.
LO: A recent project that I have just completed is I’m in a band, the Starlight Darlins. There are four of us. All four of us are singer-songwriters, and we sing in four-part harmony with banjo, fiddle, guitar, and I play the bodhran, which is like an Irish frame drum. We just released our second EP and our first studio EP in February. It’s called Skyline. Five songs on it, and we’re all so, so proud of that thing. It feels like a huge honor to even be in that band with such dear friends of mine, and I think you can really feel the love and the togetherness in that EP. And it’s been great being here at Winfield with them and playing and singing together again.
AH: What Americana artists have been big influences on your music?
LO: Okay, I’m going to talk about two. Kind of ironic because they’re both in the UK. But I would be remiss if I did not mention, and I don’t know if I would necessarily say she’s Americana, say she’s more like folk. definitely acoustic, but, um, Corinne Polwart is a Scottish singer -songwriter, and I think she’s one of the best writers working right now. I mean, she’s writing songs that no one else is writing, she’s talking about things no one else is talking about, it combines, you know, ecology and, like, migratory of birds and sheep that has a background working in domestic violence shelters and just all of these things come together and her voice is a wonder and the arrangements and the melodies. Claiming her as an influence almost feels like I could never touch what she does, and if I can begin to approach it, it would be an honor.
But she’s how I want to be, so she’s definitely an influence of mine. And I will also say Laura Marling, who is a British folk singer -songwriter. She definitely has Joni as an influence herself, and so… Lots of gorgeous alternate tunings, beautiful guitar work, another voice that is just astounding and writes these really almost like philosophical, heady, like full of illusion and kind of like metaphysical things, just really amazing songs.
AH: So what was the spark for this first song that you’re going to play for us?
LO: The first song I’m going to play I actually wrote one year ago. at Winfield. My background is in poetry, so as a songwriter I always start lyrics first. I get all my lyrics written. As I’m writing them, you know, you kind of get this sense of rhythm. You might have a vague melody fall into your head. And then I beat my head against a wall for eight hours trying to write the music. But I wanted to challenge myself a little bit to write guitar first. And so, at Winfield Bastier, I put my guitar into a really weird tuning, and I was just kind of playing around, and I came up with this phrase.
It had six syllables, or like six, you know, beats in it. And I was like, okay, so this line needs to have six syllables. And I wrote the music first, the lyrics came after, and I wrote it for my wife, Emma, who has a steady job,a stable income. She’s my rock. She had a period where she was worried that I would fall in love with traveling or the road and that she was holding me back or like being a stick in the mud, keeping me from flying and I wrote the song to reassure her that that couldn’t be further than the truth.
AH: Tell us a bit about the next song you’re gonna do for us.
Okay, now for something completely different. The next song that I am going to do is from my first self-titled album. And I wrote this in 2020. But I wrote this, as someone who struggles with their mental health, for other people who maybe struggle with their mental health. It is just about kind of where I was at, at the moment, healthy-coping-mechanisms wise. Things are a little better now. If you just keep living, you figure out ways to do things in healthier ways.
Thanks for chatting with us, Lauren Oxford. You can find more information here: https://laurenoxford.com and find her music here: https://thestarlightdarlins.bandcamp.com/album/skyline
