All the prettiest girls in LA were at the Regent Theater this weekend to see Girlhouse take the stage and open for The Wrecks.
I have been waiting patiently for this band to hit the road so when I saw there was a date in LA I knew I needed to take the opportunity. We have been raving over Girlhouse for over a year and were so excited to see how their live experience would stack up.
We were not disappointed, girlhouse beautifully translated their transcendent rock sound to the live performance. The indie rock ambiance is unmatched and was beautifully impactful on the stage. I am always impressed when the live experience brings a new layer to the songs and her vocals are compelling and the songs are infectious. The whole crowd, whether they were there for The Wrecks, girlhouse, or Mothé; all were drawn into the emotional storytelling and rocking indie tracks. They make bedroom pop that just transcends the bounds of the genre. Every song felt anthemic and the witty banter was relatable (I too call my depression cute) - honestly this was a show I knew I was going to enjoy every moment of even if I had gone completely alone. That is how good girlhouse is.
Post their set I went to go and purchase the most iconic “gaslight gatekeep girlhouse” tshirt and had the privilege of saying hello to Lauren Luiz (the voice of girlhouse) and honestly I did not expect to have a “who loves whos curly hair more” chat but honestly it felt like the perfect end to the evening.
I will say this show is a 10/10 and I can’t wait for girlhouse to hit the road again and to share all the incredible projects that come our way from this artist.
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About girlhouse:
Ever since she was a teenager, girlhouse’s Lauren Luiz has always felt the pull to try and experience new things. Growing up in the city of Portland, a place of polar opposites with the very liberal on one side to those wielding confederate flags on the other, she first began to make her mark as an actress in her early twenties. Appearing in shows like the NBC hit series Grimm, she felt like her career wasn’t really going to fully begin unless she moved to the heart of the action, Los Angeles.
Driven by her first serious breakup, she migrated to LA in 2013 to pursue her acting career, where she got her first big break in a production of Spring Awakening. The production was all through sign language and half of the cast was deaf, so it gave her a truly unique experience and taught her to sign. The show took her to Broadway, New York, saw her perform for President Barack Obama at The White House, as well as appearing on The Seth Meyers Show. And while her music had yet to come to the forefront of her creative spirit, it was this pursuit of an acting dream that led her to the places and people she would come to build her music career around.
She first moved in with a friend she had met while attending the Old Vic School in Bristol, and began to work at the Diesel Jean store at the city’s Beverly Centre mall. It was here that she met her future band mate/producer Tyler Thompson, who was working at the Sony Store at the time. The two had an instant creative connection and stayed firmly in touch when Lauren had to uproot to New York for her production. But once that show ended, she returned to LA and the pair formed their first musical venture WILD together with another band mate.
Together, WILD became a huge force on the US folk-pop scene. They went onto release a handful of singles and an album that garnered them more than 50 million streams, a slot at SXSW, and sync deals with the likes of Mazda, Switch, and Pixar, it felt like they have found a special connection that they could build something truly special around. But while WILD was still going strong, Lauren had spent the entire time writing music for herself, something different to what the band had been producing so far and so began to explore a new aesthetic. This was the formation of girlhouse, a solo project that Lauren felt was more in keeping with how she was as an artist and gave her a creative outlet to drive her own passions.
Inspired heavily by the works of fellow female singer-songwriters such as Phoebe Bridgers, Soccer Mommy, and Lucy Dacus, girlhouse now feels like the most confident and fulfilling direction she has taken so far. Now living in Nashville, her personal life still continues to inspire and influence her music, offering us all a window into her soul and creating a bright and sweeping world for us all to enjoy.
Review and Photos by Hannah Schneider