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We recently spoke with Lauren Barlow to talk about BarlowGirl's new album and their road to the success. Keep reading to find out what you can expect to hear from the BarlowGirl's new album "Love & War" in stores Tuesday, September 8th.
BARLOWGIRL RELEASES FOURTH STUDIO ALBUM "LOVE & WAR" TUESDAY!
(By: Bessie Sorge)
Many fans have eagerly waited months for BarlowGirl to release their new album "Love & War" and that day is finally just around the corner.
BarlowGirl wasn't something that sisters Lauren, Becca and Alyssa planned on creating when they were singing together at home with their family and in Church as young children. It wasn't until the Barlow family began traveling to different Churches around the country performing music when fans expressed that they wanted to hear more thus giving birth to BarlowGirl.
"My dad was doing the youth and music stuff at our Church, and we got involved in that and started traveling around the country, just as a family going to different Churches and singing," Lauren Barlow, the youngest of the three sisters, recently told us during our interview. Growing up in a fairly large music-loving family certainly didn't hurt either. "My Dad is one of fourteen kids and so I've got like fifty cousins just on my Dad's side, and when our family gets together it's like a million guitars and we would be in a circle singing," Lauren said of her musical upbringing.
With the upcoming release of their fourth studio album it seems as if girls have their song selection process down to the wire. While most artists who write their own music tend to navigate through a record with enough material penned to last them a lifetime, this sister trio opts to pick one direction and perfect their music on each song. "We are minimalists," Lauren shared about their secret of album making by simply going into each project individually. "We are single focused, when we do a tour, we do a tour and we do it 150%. A lot of people write when they are on tour and we don't have that. It's hard to get your mind into another box, like the writing box." Instead of following in the footsteps of these other artists who find themselves spending the extra time going through voluminous amounts of material that is often rushed or incomplete, the members of BarlowGirl take the time to focus on the perfection of each song as a whole and those skills are what keeps them at the top of their game.
"Writing is very emotional for us girls; writing is very deep and takes sometimes eight hours a day. When we know we've got an album we will take six to eight months at a time and we will start writing every single day, and we will write for that album," Lauren explained. The girls find inspiration, comfort and serenity in their own home when choosing a location to write their music. "We have one room in our house that we always write in and it's our music room. We live on a farm so the whole wall is all windows and we have our grand piano in there and all the windows like it goes over and looks in the stream. It's a very relaxing room and that's where we go. If we want to get away for a while we will go rent a cabin in the mountains or go to the beach or something just to get some inspiration, but if we chose that we will just want to go on vacation instead of work and write music so we usually just decide to stay home."
The entire process for this new album took approximately two years to create. "It's funny how two years equals forty-five minutes and a photo shoot," Lauren joked with us. The new twelve track album may only total forty-five minutes worth of music, but we believe the fans will surely be satisfied with the quality and greatness of the new material!
Last month fans were able to get a sneak peak at the record with the release of the first single "Beautiful Ending," and the video which launched on the internet. "I felt like I was in Narnia or Lord of the Rings," Lauren explained of the setting where the music video took place. "I love the beginning shot of us girls in the forrest just standing there with Alyssa playing the piano. I love that piano, it had all the crazy plants in it." The music video was shot on location just outside of Atlanta, Georgia at one of the crew members' house."
While BarlowGirl remains one of the most popular mainstream Christian Music acts on the charts today, the girls are certain to make time for some of their favorite past times like shopping, spending time with family and getting their Pinkberry fix. In one of their recent YouTube videos Lauren was the only fan of the popular yogurt brand Pinkberry, but that has since changed. "They like it now because we went back and Pinkberry got some new flavors. Alyssa likes that new tart yogurt and Becca started getting honey on hers, so now they are both obsessed," Lauren dished. "Is Pinkberry not the best thing in the entire world?"
Below you will find some excerpts from our interview with Lauren Barlow. To find out more information about BarlowGirl, or to pre-order a copy of their new album "Love & War" be sure to stop by their official website. Tune into our "On The Road" section to find out when BarlowGirl will be visiting a town near you!
ON BEING ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR CHRISTIAN BANDS TODAY
You know, doing something that you love for your job and being able to travel, there's nothing more fulfilling. It's probably one of the most fun things I get to do; it's a very rare experience that someone my age would be able to do something like this. I am very blessed to be able to do this, and to be able to do something I love and to do it with my family, I just feel very blessed.
ON FINDING OUT ABOUT THEIR FIRST NUMBER ONE SONG
Before us girls ever got into music we didn't know there was any such thing as charts. I mean, you've heard of number one singles, but you never think yours is going to be number one on the charts or anything; it was never something we expected. So when our single went up the charts and it was Number 1 for a really long time it was awesome, it was a really cool feeling. It was cool to know that that people knew our song and people were singing our song and connecting with that.
ON NAMING THEIR NEW ALBUM "LOVE & WAR"
We had that title for the album before we started writing. I think the idea of "Love & War" represents life, it represents our faith. We have to fight so much in life. We have to fight for what we believe in, we have to fight to stand strong and we have to do so many things, but the reason that we fight and the reason that we stand up for the things we believe in and the reason we do those things at the end of everything is for live. We fight for Love. We love God so we do things for him and we will fight for him. There is a lot of love songs on there, but there is a lot of fighting songs on there, and then there's everything in between. That title just kind of embraces the album and wraps it all up.
ON HER FAVORITE PART OF THE ALBUM MAKING PROCESS
I love the creative side of being in the studio and just the energy, the creativity, you know when something just sparks in your mind and you get to act out upon it. I just think that's so much fun to be able to do that. Vocals are probably my favorite because I get to be very creative with the vocals. I learn a lot of the harmony stuff and I love that kind of stuff. The vocals are really fun.
ON HER LEAST FAVORITE PART OF THE ALBUM MAKING PROCESS
The least favorite part is getting drum sounds in the studio, because I am the drummer and I have to sit there and I have to hit the drum, the same drum, for like ten minutes so they can get a drum sound; and they do that on each thing, they are like 'hit the symbols!' Drum sound is like the most boring thing in the entire world, but it is so important because then the album sounds incredible, but its that process of getting the incredible drum sound that is really annoying.
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