Daze of Laur: “When I write music, I'm going into a place that's deeply personal, trying to channel directly from my soul and heart, without worrying about who's going to receive it”
Photo Credit: Allie Feldman
Daze of Laur is the musical project of Laura Esgro, a Los Angeles-based folk-country artist with music coursing through her veins. Last year, she delivered Outlaw in the Sky, an intriguing and unique pure folk tale serving as her debut single. More recently, however, it's her sophomore return, Valley of the Clouds, that I've been swept up in.
Getting the sense that Laura had an interesting story to tell, I was over the moon when she agreed to an interview! Going in-depth with us about the deep musical roots that run through her family, the camping trip that "birthed" Valley of the Clouds, and her wide selection of musical influences, please welcome our new friend Daze of Laur!
Welcome aboard Laura! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us - I'm really excited to introduce you to our ever-growing audience!
Let's kick things off with an easy one...Who is Laura Esgro, what first drew you to music, and how did you discover your passion for it?
Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here :)
I'm still figuring out who Laura Esgro is. If you get any new leads on that, let me know! I think my pull to music is one of those things that comes from both nature and nurture. Music informs most of my earliest memories; it's just something I've always connected with on a very deep level, and I've always loved to sing.
I'm so lucky that both of my parents nurtured that in me and constantly exposed me to great music; my dad played sitar with Ravi Shankar in the mid to late 60s and introduced me to classical Indian music, 1930s jazz, Dr. John, and artists he spent time with in Laurel Canyon like Little Feat and the Doors.
My mom sang me to sleep every night; my first introduction to artists like Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Jimi Hendrix was through her voice. I have a brother who's five years older, too; he got into all kinds of weird and wonderful records when we were growing up that opened my mind.
My grandparents and great grandparents were from Memphis, and influenced by that scene, and my great uncle worked for RCA and signed Elvis in the 50s. So there's a lot of deep appreciation for music and art in general running in my family.
As I got older, the inimitable joy of discovering through my own musical exploration, playing an instrument, and writing set in.
There's usually a wonderful backstory to a musician's chosen name, and it's a question I just love asking artists.
How exactly did Daze of Laur come about?
Daze of Laur is a play on the archaic phrase "days of yore", the Old English idiom referring to a bygone era or an ancient past. Folklore and myths are a huge inspiration for me, and that was a phrase that came up in a lot of fairy tales and folk legends I was reading; it's kind of akin to "once upon a time".
My name is Laura, and a lot of my closest friends call me Laur. I've always liked how that's a homophone of the word "lore", referring to storytelling and traditional wisdom. I love the word "daze" too, meaning "dazzled by light".
When I write music, I'm going into a place that's deeply personal, trying to channel directly from my soul and heart, without worrying about who's going to receive it. I feel very much like my Laura self then. But when it came to releasing and performing, using something other than my given name felt necessary, like part of a rite or ceremony. I wanted to be able to step into an expansive aspect of myself and create a world around the music that other people could step into as well.
Right, moving onto your brand new sophomore single, Valley of the Clouds. A tune that explores the highs and lows of emotional waves, it's a charming and delicate song that has recently taken up residence in my heart.
Do you remember the track's "birth", so to speak? That initial spark that set Valley of the Clouds in motion?
Thank you so much for opening your heart to this song; that's all I could hope for!
I wrote Valley of the Clouds a couple of years ago, when I was at a low point creatively. I couldn't see a clear way forward on my path as an artist; it felt like I was surrounded by fog, and I didn't know which baby step even to take next. It was deeply disheartening, and I fell into the black hole of comparing myself to other artists who were "farther along" than me, whatever that really means.
I went on a camping trip to a totally isolated island off the Ventura coast in Southern California, where I live. There are no buildings aside from the ranger station, and you have to pack everything in and out. Out there, I could hear the voice of the Earth and the echoes of the people who had lived in perfect harmony with the land so plainly. It cleared my head of so much of the noise and fog.
From a high vantage point one day, I was noticing how beautiful the shadows of clouds looked on the ground as they moved from peak to peak over a valley. I realized then that what I was seeing, from a new perspective, was a symbol of my own experience: I was down in that valley, stumbling around in the shadows and the mist, but that wasn't the entire picture. At the end of that valley, there would be another peak, a place above the clouds, clarity, light. And at some point after that, another valley, and the cycle continues.
That camping trip and that experience reminded me of the perfect cyclical nature of life; nothing is ever just one way. We need all of it, the light and shadow, rain and rainbow, mountain and valley, struggle and joy. I wanted the song to celebrate and honor the whole process of living and creating, rather than just holding out for the good times.
Your debut single, Outlaw in the Sky, is another hugely intriguing and unique piece of music.
How did you decide this was the one that should carry your name out into the world first?
When I wrote Outlaw in the Sky, I really just wanted to tell a mythological, fairy-tale story about an imaginary epic figure, a hero. I was noticing that a lot of songs are built around the same themes: personal love, loss, grief, joy - these essential parts of the human experience that we so very much need reflected back to us. But it was harder to find a modern song that was pure folk tale.
We've lost the thread from bygone times when so much of our human experience was distilled and passed on through storytelling and the symbolism in myth - I wanted to hearken back to that. Imagination is so important, it influences reality to the point where they become indistinguishable. I think we're suffering from an imagination deficit, and that hurts us!
Outlaw in the Sky is also less personal than most of my other writing, which comes straight from my own experiences and feelings, so it felt a bit safer to release it as the first before sharing more vulnerably.
Photo Credit: Allie Feldman
Who are some of your biggest musical influences - and if I peeked at your ‘Recently Played’ section right now, who would I find there?
There are so many, but some big ones that come to mind are Anita Carter, Mary Hopkin (especially on the record she made with Paul McCartney), Roy Orbison, Howlin' Wolf, Gram Parsons, Charles Bradley, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris, Tom Waits, Jack White, and Ennio Morricone.
When I'm influenced by a musician, it's not always about wanting to evoke a similar sound as much as it is about admiring their commitment to embodying their particular uniqueness. I find a lot of inspiration from artists who work in other mediums too, especially filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch, Agnes Varda, and Karel Zeman.
Recently, I watched an absolutely epic documentary from the late 70s called The Secret Life of Plants. It's this incredible dive into the possibilities of plant consciousness with stunning time-lapse photography and a beautiful dance number thrown in for good measure. Stevie Wonder did the soundtrack, and it's truly amazing. I've never heard anything like it. That's been getting a lot of play lately.
When you’re not creating music, what keeps you busy and happy? Walk us through a non-music day in the life of Laura Esgro.
I think every day is a music day for me because even if I'm not playing my own, I don't know if I could make it through the day in one piece without listening to something! But besides music, I also make visual art, I love photography and alternative photographic processes like cyanotype, and have recently been adding onto my process with aspects like collage and metalworking. That keeps me pretty busy!
I also love working with children; they teach me so much. They are natural distilled wisdom because they recognize everything that is good and pure. And they're so funny, in the most brilliant ways. I go to schools in my area and teach 2-6-year-olds about music, nature, and storytelling. It's rewarding and inspiring and makes me very happy!
I also read a lot. I like to read a fiction and a non-fiction book at the same time. I just finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry; it was a masterpiece in the truest sense. I cried when I finished it because I never wanted it to end (it was 900 pages).
Some other things that make me happy are writing, walking, having interesting dreams, a visit from an animal spirit messenger, uncontrollable laughter, drinking cacao in an afghan coat, spending meaningful time with the people, land, plants, animals, sun, ocean, moon, and stars that I love, and my soulmate wolf dogs, Subi and Rain.
How do you navigate the balance between staying true to your artistic vision and adapting to changing trends in the music industry?
That's a great question; there's definitely a tension there that I think every artist feels nowadays. There's a lot of pressure to show up online, which is a remarkable tool for getting your voice heard, but it doesn't come naturally to me at all. I can't deal with TikTok; that app was designed in the 8th circle of Hell.
Personally, I just feel bad and off if I'm not staying true to my own vision; I'll be overwhelmed, drained and cynical. It happens! That's always a sign that I need to step back into my own sense of artistry, follow my intuition, and remember why I do this in the first place. It has to feel authentic, otherwise there's no point. Trends are just trends - they're constantly going to change, especially in this hyper-accelerated information age. We're not all meant to follow the same formula - what's the point of art without original delivery? Everyone is on a unique path.
Thanks so much again for chatting with us Laura! It's been a pleasure getting to know you better! Before we say farewell for now, what comes next for you musically?
Thank you for having me, and for such thoughtful, lovely questions.
I'm releasing a cover of a song I absolutely love next month, I'm excited about that! I think recording a cover can actually be more challenging than an original song; you have to bring something new to something already good, and make it your own in a way that will inspire people to listen to both versions.
A couple more singles from my first EP will be making their way into the world before the full thing comes out early next year. That's going to be a visual project as well as a musical one. I'm making a Western-inspired short film to accompany it. I love traditional American country music and spaghetti Western soundtracks, and I'm really interested in Old American West archetypes and the stories that have gone untold from that time. The addiction to "progress" and power at any cost created some of the most vile destruction and violation in history, and I feel as though the current world is moving in a similarly heedless way into the future.
With this project, I'm thinking about the questions: how can we remember the mythos and realities of the past so we discern rightdoing from wrongdoing? How do we honor and protect each other and the Earth in our current reality? The world will always change, but I pray that we can find ways to imagine ourselves changing for the better with it.
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