Nicole Laurenne Discusses THE DARTS, BLACK VIIOLET and New Album DARK BLUE
The singer describes juggling studio sessions in Los Angeles and Seattle with THE DARTS and BLACK VIIOLET.
Nearly a decade fronting THE DARTS — signed to Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles, touring Europe more times than most bands manage in a career. That's on top of years earlier fronting The Love Me Nots. That alone is a full career. Most people would take the win.
Instead, Nicole Laurenne started a jazz project from scratch. BLACK VIIOLET is now three real records deep — including the new Dark Blue, tracked at Studio Black Box in France — and she's somehow still finding hours to write, tour, and say yes to more.
Asked about the moment she decided building something completely different was worth doing anyway, Laurenne said: 'I am always writing songs. Pretty much for my entire adult life, songs have been my diary, my friend, my therapy, my spouse, my confidante...During lockdown, while I still lived in Phoenix, I found myself writing a lot of vintage-sounding torch songs with triphop beats underneath them...When my agent Ludo Riou at Adrenalin Fix Music in Bordeaux, France, heard my demos a year or two later, he was the one who said, 'If I get a band and a rehearsal space together for you here in France during a tour break, will you try it?' How could I say no?'
On what's different about how she approaches a career that most people would let settle into a groove, she said: 'I suspect that most people maybe aren't as mentally co-dependent on making music as I am...There is no other place in my life where I feel truly complete other than performing great music on stage, so for me it is an essential part of my mental health and wellness, honestly. Most people probably won't tell you that, and maybe that's the difference. I'm just not very happy when I'm not making music, it's that easy.'
Describing what an actual week looks like while touring one project and recording another, Laurenne said: 'I just wrapped two weeks in three studios — Station House in Los Angeles with The Darts, and London Bridge and Ruby Room in Seattle with Black Viiolet — plus a few days recording three tracks in France at Hey! Studio while on tour. All day in the studio, but typing interviews like this one in between vocal takes, ordering t-shirts for our two-month Fall Europe tour, getting Australian tour work permits figured out with The Damned's management so we can open for them there...It's more than a full-time job.'
The Darts — Tour Dates
08/26 — Portland, OR — Dante's
08/27 — Bremerton, WA — The Charleston
08/28 — Shoreline, WA — Bigfoot Stomp
08/29 — Vancouver, BC — Fox Cabaret
08/30 — Olympia, WA — Wild Child
09/04 — Suginami City, Japan — Top Beat Club
Photo Credit: Mari Tamura
Photo Credit: Mari Tamura
