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Normally when stardom descends into the OTW basement we are a little ashamed of our cluttered content hovel, but when the star is on the precipice of releasing a pop perfect album title ART OF BEING A MESS, well, we feel more understood. The aura Lauren Spencer Smith walks with is one of approachable honesty but also fiery confidence, on full display over her sophomore album. It's a collisions of highs and lows, melodies and hooks, a proper cocktail of emotions and heady upsets. Not wanting to say anything on her behalf, we uncorked the mic for her and here are the effervescent results:

OnesToWatch: Why are you an artist? 


Lauren Spencer Smith: That's such a deep question. I do feel like I was born to do music. There's nothing else I ever wanted to do. 
I’ve known I wanted to do it since I was three years old. I feel a greater purpose within myself to write music about the things in my life in order to help other people through those same situations in their life. 

So there's a little altruism in there. What happened at three years old that made you love music? 

Honestly, I was just obsessed with music on the radio. I grew up in the Hannah Montana and Victorious era, and I remember Disney Channel would have random performances in between commercials and I would learn all the songs. But no one in my family does music, no one listens to music. 
It's very odd that I had such a calling to it. 

If no one in your family is a musician, how did it come to you? 

I have no idea. My parents say I would hear things on the radio and they would hear me singing all the words. When I was five years old, they bought me a karaoke machine. 


You suggested that music was the only thing you could really do. If music was taken away from you, could you imagine yourself doing anything else? Could you have a normie job? 

Mm. I would probably rather die than not do music, but if I was forced against my will, I could be a celebrity chef. 


Okay. Hard pivot…

Or a detective. I’m watching a cop show right now and it reminds me of middle school when we would solve fake murder mysteries, and it was fun. I’m very competitive, I wouldn't go to sleep at night until I caught the murderer. 

How long have you been writing songs? 

Writing songs that could be played for other people's ears, I’ve been doing for four years. 


Okay. What happened before? 


You know, I would come up with little things and journal it down and try to make up really horrible piano chords. I don't play an instrument that would necessarily be considered good. I can learn a song here and there and practice it over and over and over, and then maybe perform it for someone, but I don't play instruments that much. So, growing up, I only knew very basic chords. I didn't start really making music with other people or producers or anything like that until about four years ago. 

So, when you started writing with people and it was still pretty new to you how did the songwriting process go?  

Honestly, I don't even remember. I remember being slightly nervous, but I was just excited. I felt like I always had something to say, even if I didn't know how I wanted to say it. And I always had some type of concept or something going on in my life that would help provide the perspective. My songwriters would help me exactly what I wanted to say.

I know some artists struggle writing with other people – it sounds like you didn't. What is your go-to songwriting process? Is there a common starting place for when you’re writing? 

I'm very concept driven, and based off of that world, I know what I want it to sound like and look like. Sometimes I'll have verse or chorus lyrics written out, and I normally have like the ending tag of what I want the chorus to be. Usually I have an idea of if I want it to be a guitar or piano, too, or how big vocally I want it to be. And then we go from there with the chords and the melody. And I do love collaborating. I would get bored without it. I'm such an extrovert, I love being around people and feeding off of people's energies and ideas. You never know, even someone's bad ideas sometimes spark a good idea from somebody else. 

Given you've been doing this for four years now, what have you learned most about yourself in that songwriting process? 

Honestly, I feel like I've just learnt my process. A lot of people really are melody-driven first and other people just play chords. Some people go in and they're like, "Should we just start riffing things on the mic?" And I'm like, "No." I already know what I want the song to say. And it did take me a while of watching other people songwrite and watching how they process things to figure out myself. 

If you ever were to struggle with concepts, what would inspire you? Do you have a tactic for writer’s block?

I don't really run out of ideas because my life is so chaotic. But there have been times where things got calmer, and I was like, "Uh oh, you know, what am I gonna write about? Life seems to be good." And then two weeks later, it's not good again. And then I have concepts. 


Do you self-sabotage your life to create amazing songs? 

Absolutely not. But I know people do that. I would love for my life just to be good all the time, everyone in my family to get in line and every friend in my life, I keep forever. 
I've been in a relationship for the last three and a half years, so that's easy to create happy love songs about, but I could never sabotage that to have bad songs. There's always something happening, which works out for me. 

You just released a beautiful record called THE ART OF BEING A MESS. How old are these songs? 

I wrote the album over a year and three months, and I started last January. So they're not too old. 

This is an interesting question because you’re so concept driven, but I’m always curious if projects represent a period in an artist’s life – a snapshot of a moment – or are they more song by song in terms of the theme? 

A lot of the angry songs I wrote in a very angry time and I don't feel that angry anymore, so that definitely represents a certain time in my life. But I would say more than half the album still feels very fresh, I still feel the same way about what those songs describe, and I’m still dealing with it. And usually that's not the case. 
Normally I write something and I'm over it by the time I write about it, but a lot of this album touches topics that I’m actively working through.

Would you say, given you’re concept driven, does the album also have to be cohesive, or is it okay that each song sort of represents different ideas? 

When I finished the album, I could have easily just made a whole album of sad songs that were about the same thing, or just angry songs that were all about the same thing. But then I realized there was no cohesion to it whatsoever. I looked at it and saw that I was angry about one thing, while still being happy with my boyfriend, but also sad about something else, and confused about another, and that was how I came up with the title of the album. It’s just a mess and life is about the ups and downs happening at once.

How many songs didn't make the album? 

A lot. 

Do you write a lot of songs and then narrow it down? 

I guess it depends what a lot is, 'cause I've been told Ed Sheeran writes 100 songs, and I don't think I wrote a 100. 

Is it double the amount of songs on the album? 

Oh, for sure. I think there's at least 50 songs that I wrote. I could have made an album of 20 songs pretty easily. 

Those songs that you cut, are any of them worth keeping for future projects?

I hope so. My life goal is to put out an album called The Vault with all the songs that didn't make the cut but I really liked. Or maybe they didn't feel relatable enough to others, but it was really personal to me. There's quite a few that I think are good, that I would love to pitch to other songwriters or singers, but then there's so many of them that are so about my life that I couldn’t give away. Like, I wrote one song about my mom that I love and I would never give that away, but I want other people to hear it. So I definitely see myself releasing the back catalog at some point. 

That speaks to some of your ambition. I'll touch on that later. If this album did everything you wanted to do, what would that be? 
Where would it take you? What happens to you? 

Dream world… I'd probably win like six Grammys. Every major category. I would definitely be doing arena shows. And hopefully it'd be number one on Billboard Hot 100. 


Okay, I love this. All of this seems possible because you have, what seems to be, an amazing attention captured from your audience in a way that's very hard for people to do. Do you have an explanation for it? Why do you think you resonate? 

Sometimes I think it's because I'm so extroverted. I have always been someone that when people meet, they feel like they’ve known me forever. I've always been very talkative. I also feel like I'm just myself. The whole thing, trying to be perfect and have your makeup done all the time, it's just super not me and I don't think I would ever be able to uphold that if I chose to be an artist like that. People just relate to authenticity.


Moving into some fun questions. Do you do anything to relax? 

I love massages. Swiss and deep tissue. I love IVs. It sounds very LA of me. But it really does really help. I get all my vitamins, my fluids. 

Is that a weekly thing or do you do that every day? 

If I'm in LA, I'll get them every week. 

But I'm not here all the time, so. What else do I do to relax? I love watching Netflix. Right now I'm watching The Rookie. 
Have you seen that? 

I have not. 

I like it. It's a cop show. Everyone keeps asking me if I've seen Love Island, and I keep telling them I can't start it because I'm in the middle of my other series and I really like it. 


Will you get to Love Island? 

100%. I love reality TV, I love Selling Sunset, anything that makes me feel like I'm normal and everyone on the screen is insane… those are my favorite shows. 


I think that's got to be some of their appeal. It makes you feel grounded and normal. If you had some friends who were famished after a hike in LA and you didn't have your IV kit ready, and you were forced to make them a fun lunch, what would you do? 


A fun lunch? I don't want to say a sandwich, but I just feel like I would make a sandwich. I love ham and cheese sandwiches with just mustard and mayo, nothing else. 

What type of mustard? 

Like, yellow mustard, preferably, but a lot of delis in New York only have the weird deli one. But I'll still eat it. 

Okay, what's your meal that you know isn't good for you? You can't have it regularly, but if something really good happens you treat yourself? 

Dairy Queen Blizzard, Smarties, specifically. 


We are very aligned on this one. 

Yeah. That's mine and my boyfriend’s immediate cheat meal, or pizza or a burger and fries. 

You really are all American guys. If you were to go back in time to any time period, is there something historically interesting to you? Is there a place you'd love to be? 

Honestly, no. I mean, no one has rights these days either, but people really didn't have rights back then, especially women. So I don't really know if I'd want to go back in time. I obviously grew up in a time period where there was just a lot of opportunity, and that was a privilege. I never felt that being a woman prevented me from succeeding and I don't think a lot of other people can say that who are older than me.

What about if you were to create a dream show lineup? You can be the headliner, you can open for someone, it can be anywhere, with anyone, dead or alive.

If I could do one big festival, maybe it'd be called The Vocalists. It would have Adele, Sam Smith, Pink, Demi Lovato, who else do I love… Jessie J? Reneé Rapp can be there. She's got a crazy vocal. Lewis Capaldi, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson. 
Beyonce, anyone who crosses the bar of just like... big pipes. Big vocals. I just want to meet everyone.

That’s awesome, sign us up. You've said a lot of things that really represent ambition, are you already living out your dreams? 


This is the beginning. There's way too many things on my list that have not been crossed off. I'm fortunate and lucky to be where I am. Little me dreamed of just being here in the first place, but if this was where it ended for me… I have to reach all my goals. 

Now, you have a tattoo, and I just say in this contrast, because it says “appreciated.” Do you appreciate where you are? 

Yeah, for sure. All the tattoos on my body are positive affirmations in some way, which is hilarious, because I don't know if everyone in my life would say that I do that all the time. There’s “I choose happiness,” on the side of my ribs. And I have 222, which kind of means you're where you're supposed to be, you know? 
I think you can be appreciative and at the same time be wanting more and have bigger goals. Happy with what you got, but wanting more. 

I love that. Could you give us some non-music recommendations? Movies? 

My favorite movie of all time is the Taken movies. He's basically a spy in some way…
winning fights in self defense. Peppermint. You ever seen that? Really great movie. Jennifer Garner is the main actor, her and her husband get shot at in a drive-by at the beginning of the film. And she literally goes away for 12 years and does combat and learns all this stuff and comes back and like hunts them down. It's crazy. 

Okay, go, Jennifer. Now, I’d love to hear who your OnesToWatch are – who are you listening to, that we should be hip on? 

I really love Avery Anna. I think she deserves to be super successful. I really love Maddie Zahm. Suriel Hess.


Any last advice or plugs? 

Maybe I’ll plug my album…. But also, people should believe in themselves. No matter what you do, even if it's not in music, people will always doubt you. And if I stopped every time somebody doubted me, I would never be where I am. So you kind of have to believe in yourself more than anybody else is going to. 

Thank you so much!