“All my mum ever wanted to be was a singer and she didn’t get to do that.” Ahead of her Melbourne Recital Centre show, with full band and string section, Laura Jean says she feels privileged she’s able to devote time to a creative practice when her ancestors were unable to do so.
“I’m just trying to get our work puppy out of the room so she doesn’t get bored – out you go!” Laura Jean Englert is on her lunch break at the time of our chat. “I have a job and I study,” she explains. “I still make music for the love [of it], I don’t [make a living] off it.”
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The aptly titled Amateurs, her staggeringly brilliant latest and sixth record, explores the notion that unfulfilled dreams can be passed down from generation to generation and in Rock’n’Roll Holiday she sings, “All my grandma wanted to do was dance/ And I’m the flower at the end of the branch…”
“The album includes this feeling of carrying on the dream that maybe my ancestors had of being able to take creativity seriously when, really, they weren’t able to,” she elaborates. “Whereas I have the privilege to be able to actually devote time to creative practice and take it to a level where I can present it to the public and feel good about that.
“All my mum ever wanted to be was a singer and she didn’t get to do that. Being a single mum she didn’t really have the time to devote, ‘cause she had to work and look after us.” Instead, Mrs Englert took singing lessons and dabbled in amateur musical theatre. “We used to go to her Jazz singing lessons and sit under the table and try not to laugh when she did scatting and stuff,” Englert recalls with a chuckle.
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“Do you remember when I came home screaming, ‘I got in!…’ – this lyrical recollection from A Funny Thing Happened is based on a specific memory, says Englert: “My mum came home when she got into her first amateur musical production when I was six and it was so exciting for her. She didn’t get a main part – she got in the chorus – but she didn’t care.”
Often the most evocative lyrical content throughout Amateurs is almost diaristic. “I’ve got a good memory,” she admits. “When I’m writing a song and I’m trying to express an idea, often these random moments – little anecdotes from my life – come back to me as a way to help me express a feeling or an idea.”
Of masterfully incorporating the chorus from Touch by Noiseworks into Amateurs’ opener Teenager Again, Englert observes, “Sometimes you’re lucky enough to have a weird life like I have. And I had a really eventful, interesting and, you know, pretty tough childhood so I have lots of material to draw from. And that actually happened! I went to a reiki workshop and at the end of the class we literally stood around, held hands and sang that song together. So I didn’t even have to make that up!” she marvels, laughing. “I do make up things, but that bit is true; I just find these things that happen really funny.
“So that was a moment in my life that really illustrated something: not only the naïveté and, you know, misguidedness of my attempts to kind of heal as a teenager and to fix myself, but also the words [“Reach out and touch somebody”] fit in with the rest of the song.”
Englert is rounding out her regular five-piece backing band with a four-piece string section – which includes this record’s esteemed string arranger, Erkki Veltheim, on viola – for these upcoming Amateurs launch shows, which include an appearance at the Melbourne Recital Centre. She’s also looking forward to supporting Lorde on one of the New Zealand superstar’s upcoming Australian dates.
After hearing Touchstone, a single from Laura Jean’s previous Devotion album (2018), Lorde took to Twitter to share her fave lyrics from this song, which she also described as “maybe the sharpest communication of the spooky, all-consuming nature of feminine love”.
“It’s just such a great honour,” Englert reflects of Lorde’s appreciation-tweet. “For me, it really hits different when other songwriters love your music, because I feel like songwriters listen to songwriting in a very deep kind of way. And when other songwriters love what I do, it makes me feel like it’s worth all the effort I put in and that someone’s hearing it.”
Fun fact: Laura Jean’s mates Aldous Harding and Marlon Williams supply BVs on three Amateurs songs: the title track, Teenager Again and Folk Festival.
Laura Jean plays Melbourne Recital Centre on 10 February. Tickets available here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre.
