Posted by Emerging Irish singer-songwriter April – full name April Lawlor – comes from a musical family and has been making music since she was “super young”. “I’ve always been writing songs,” she says.
Just over a year ago, though, she found herself with a new laptop and “started messing about on that”. She took inspiration from other “DIY artists” like Clairo and she “started trying it out myself”. Her debut song ‘The Impossible Task Of Feeling Complete’ was released in February and has amassed over a million combined streams and counting. “It’s crazy,” April tells us. “Really weird. I never expected that,” she laughs.
April’s debut EP, ‘New Conditions’, explores love from an honest perspective. Her current single, the dreamy ‘What I’d Do For You’ is about “being in love with someone and maybe it not being reciprocated and all the things you would do for them (to) try and show them how far you would go for them. And maybe they don’t want the same thing”. The song was inspired by events that occurred in April’s own life. When asked about her inspiration for it, April states “personal relationships,” without divulging anything further.
She is excited about releasing her debut EP, though. “I’m really happy. It’s really exciting to finally have something out in the world that I was working on for so long. And (it’s) something I’ve wanted to do for so long”. Making the EP was “really nice” the singer says: “It happened really smoothly over a couple of months. I went to London. I met people, started producing with them. It feels like a whole time in my life and I made new friends”.
On being an independent artist, April spoke about resisting change, for the moment. “I want to try and keep my independence for as long as I can because I’m afraid of losing that…having to have super tight time schedules and not being able to be in control of things…That’s really important to me”.
With ‘New Conditions’, April allowed herself to pour emotion into her songs. “Each of the songs (on the EP) feel like a different time of my life last year. I wrote them all at different times. They’re all about different things. They’re just super personal. I used to be afraid of making personal songs and being afraid to share things that are about myself but then, when I finally finished them, it was like, ‘Oh it’s nice to have something personal out there’”.
Super personal and super positive, April’s pop vision is rapidly coming into bloom.
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‘New Conditions’ EP is out now.
Words: Narzra Ahmed
Photo Credit: Charlie Cummings
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