The Isle of White slacker pop queen Lauran Hibberd is proudly flying the flag high for the tiny island in Hampshire as the 25-year-old releases her debut album Garageband Superstar.
“It’s a fun place to grow up,” states Lauran as she claims the island is like a child’s dream. “There’s everywhere, little theme parks, dinosaur parks – it was great. It’s only when you hit, like 20, you go ‘oooh, is there other things to do?’. Up until that point, it’s pretty cool.”
For the garage-rock artist living on the island still gives Lauran that sense of tranquillity and relaxation from the hustle and bustle of being a musician. She’s always off touring or recording songs so it’s a place to block it all out and be relaxed. “I kind of enjoy living here at the minute. There’s something nice about it, it drags you back,” says Lauran.
If it wasn’t for living on a small island where one of the biggest music festivals on the calendar is held – Isle of Wight Festival – Lauran would never have got her ‘first break’ from singing songs in the living room in front of her mum and dad.
“I got my first festival appearance [at the Isle of Wight Festival],” explains Hibberd. “They needed some last minute fencing and my dad was fencing at the time. He ended up meeting John Giddens (the founder) – how much do I owe you? You’re a lifesaver? Nah, put my daughter on your stage this weekend. He came home like ‘you’re playing a festival this weekend’.
“That was my first gig ever. So that was pretty cool. At that time, it was very much like. I was 15 and I’d just been writing songs and playing them to my parents downstairs and stuff like that. I was quite shy so I think it was the push I needed to go and do a gig, especially at IOW festival and that was when I was like ‘that was actually fun’.”
In her younger years, Lauran was late to get into music as she progressed from listening to Mika songs, to discovering her new found love for rock music. Artists like Green Day, Weezer and Wheatus became her influences and later featured on the debut album.
Described as a “pinch me” moment, Garageband Superstar features three artists; DJ Lethal from Limp Bizkit, Brendan Brown from Wheatus and local alt-pop artist Viji. It all furititioned from a cheeky DM on Instagram and away we go – collaboration guru! “I just messaged him [Brenan] on Instagram and he replied, which was so weird. The same thing happened with DJ Lethal from Limp Bizkit.
“I think you’re only ever one DM away from a good collaboration if you need one.. I always wanted to have people feature on the record because they do it a lot in hip-hop and that’s how you discover new artists. I think working with people like Wheatus and DJ Lethal would help me get in this group of niche fans who like those artists. It would add a sense of nostalgia and credit back to the people who I learn from. Having them on the album was really fun. In a different vein, having my friend Viji on the album, who is an up and coming artist, was also super fun because it’s two totally different ends of the spectrum. Music is such a collaborative thing so you might as well work with the people you like and love.”
Being a mega fan of Wheatus, that was the ultimate collaboration Hibberd could have dreamed of. From trawling through the band’s entire music discography as a kid to recording the title track with “the ‘teenage dirtbag guy” on the record was pretty cool in her eyes…
Want to read more? Read our font page feature interview inside abridged issue 5 here.
