Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches Reflects on Her Drive to Please Others

Lauren Mayberry, described as a peacemaker, has served as the lead singer for the Glasgow-based group Chvrches since 2011. During her tenure, the band achieved success, headlining festivals and reaching high positions on album charts, known for their distinctive sound featuring distorted synthesizers and sharp melodies. Mayberry, who was 23 at the time she joined, was the youngest member of the group, significantly younger than her fellow musicians, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty. Despite the age difference, their creative synergy was immediate. Chvrches’ initial single, “The Mother We Share,” was composed and recorded within 48 hours, utilizing their limited collection of three synthesizers. This track subsequently gained popularity through word-of-mouth, leading to airtime on BBC Radio 1 and opportunities to open for bands like Passion Pit and Depeche Mode. Publicly, the band meticulously cultivated an image of collective equality, ensuring each member received comparable recognition. However, Mayberry expressed concerns about her position as the least experienced member. She stated, “I was always conscious that I was younger than the other guys, and they had a lot more experience,” adding, “They’d been to music school, and I hadn’t. So I always felt like I was on the back foot, in terms of where I sat in the hierarchy.” This sentiment intensified during a 2019 tour in Australia. The schedule included a four-day hiatus in Melbourne, which Mayberry had anticipated spending with her bandmates and the touring crew. However, she found herself isolated in her hotel room after learning they had made alternative arrangements. “I remember being very upset and hurt by that because I was always worrying about everyone else and taking care of everybody, and it was a humbling moment,” she recounted. She concluded, “In the end, I hired a little car and drove to an Australian spa town and had a wee cry listening to Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer.” Reflecting on the experience, she believes that her role as the sole woman in the touring group meant she bore the “emotional labour” required to sustain the tour. She articulated her efforts, stating, “I feel like I twisted myself into a pretzel sometimes to make everyone happy. “Then I’d look back and think, ‘And were you happy?’ “Not really, but I was keeping the peace.” Following the incident in Australia, she contemplated departing from the band. Subsequently, the onset of Covid led Chvrches to produce their fourth album, “Screen Violence,” released in 2021, through remote collaboration. A year afterward, she ultimately decided to leave, but not before co-signing a new record contract with her bandmates, thereby securing the project’s continuation. She explained, “I was conscious it would give people a sense of security, that I’d made a commitment,” adding, “I don’t know that that’s how it actually works, but that was my hope.” Mayberry emphasized that there is no animosity, noting that Doherty and Cook have offered their complete backing. Nevertheless, it is common for an artist departing a group to establish their identity distinct from the band’s prior musical style. As Mayberry concisely articulated: “I didn’t want to make a crap knock-off Chvrches record.” During recording sessions, she reacted negatively to the use of vintage synthesizers. Instead, she opted for a more natural, lyrics-driven creative process. However, after ten years performing as part of a trio, the inclination to compromise was deeply ingrained. She stated, “I’m very used to arguing my point, then trying to see other people’s point of view,” continuing, “So it was a real learning curve to be like, ‘No, this is my opinion, and if I don’t think it’s right, then it’s not right, and that’s the end of the conversation’.” The outcome is “Vicious Creature,” an album that reveals new dimensions of Mayberry’s vocal range, shifting between tender vulnerability and sharp intensity, while also honoring her pop inspirations. She evokes the style of All Saints on the opening track, “Something In The Air,” and incorporates the distinctive choppy, sampled strings from Annie Lennox’s “Walking On Broken Glass” to drive the single “Crocodile Tears.” This song serves as an impassioned rebuttal to an emotionally manipulative man, with Mayberry delivering the lines: “What a man will say just to get his way / Always crying wolf, so I’m sad to say / I don’t really wanna hear it from you, babe”. The artist explained that she is adopting a persona in the track, drawing inspiration from the dark, rebellious female characters such as Velma Kelly from the musical “Chicago” and Sally Bowles from “Cabaret.” This particular song is among several that were retained from the album’s initial version, which was provisionally named “Fiction” and intended to be “dark, theatrical and character driven.” Gradually, more introspective compositions began to be included. “Change Shapes,” with its syncopated rhythm, critiques sexism within the music industry, featuring the lyric “I’m a doll inside a box, with a ball and a chain.” Similarly, “Sorry, Etc” conveys a comparable narrative, set against a turbulent fusion of garage rock and drum & bass. Mayberry commented on her musical career, stating, “There were definitely a few songs where it was at best expressing frustrations and at worst [feeling] kind of hurt.” The album’s most personal track is “Oh, Mother,” a subdued piano ballad. Across three verses, Mayberry chronicles the evolving dynamic with her mother, transitioning from the innocent affection of childhood to teenage resentment, and ultimately, to the awareness of their finite time together. She sings softly, “It kills me to know you won’t be around,” and “Oh mother, what will I do without you?” This song, the final one composed for the album, emerged spontaneously after Mayberry’s friend and collaborator, Dan McDougall, outlined the chords in the studio. When discussing the lyrics, which were prompted by a family illness, the singer displayed some emotion. She remarked, “When you’re living in the shadow of things like that, it’s on your mind all the time,” adding, “I think about it all the time. When I go away on tour, I always think, ‘Oh, is this the tour where I’m gone and I miss it’.” She concluded, “So that last afternoon in the studio was quite a weepy one… But then we went to Nando’s. So it’s all about balance.” Mayberry stated that “Oh, Mother” is the kind of song she would not have been able to create within Chvrches. She elaborated, “It’s not a place that we would go emotionally or sonically,” explaining, “I think the best songs happen when the lyrics and the meaning and the sonics interlink but [with Chvrches] I was writing things in my notebooks and thinking, ‘This is never going to fit with what the band have built’.” However, transitioning is inherently challenging. While certain reviews have lauded the album as a “masterclass in pop alchemy,” others have suggested that Mayberry “still sounds like someone finding their feet.” Additionally, admirers of Chvrches’ industrial aesthetic have voiced their dissatisfaction, but the singer has developed the ability to detach herself from such critiques. She explained her perspective: “When people are like, ‘Screw you’, I rationalise it like this: You’re mad at me, but you’re mad at me because life is hard, and our music made your life a bit easier for a minute. And now you’re like, ‘Please don’t take that away.’” She continued, “When I was 24, that was overwhelming, but it made sense once I could compartmentalise it. “You are the representative of something that means so much to this person – so when you do something else, it threatens the idea of that existing.” The contrasting aspect of this dynamic manifests during live performances. When Mayberry performs a track such as “Asking For A Friend,” which features the comforting affirmation, “you still matter,” she frequently observes “someone in the audience having a wee dance-cry.” She shared, “And when people cry, I cry. Everyone’s like, ‘Are you ok?’ but I’m just caught up in the moment.” She concluded, “But I hope that’s why I’m good at my job, because I have some kind of empathy. “It’s inconvenient for my life, but hopefully good for the crowd.” Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the content found on external websites. Information regarding our external linking policy is available for review.