Lauren Calve

“Better Angels”

Lauren Calve has a lot to say — not in an in your face way, but subtlety and coolly. Her lyrics, intonation, and songwriting resonate with the listener, leaving them to ponder what they’ve just heard and wanting more. On her latest EP, “Wildfire”, Calve delves into interesting territory as she uses memorable imagery and meter to write about complex issues too little found in popular music today, such as the increased polarization and divisiveness prevalent in the US and around the world, corporate greed and their role in both the climate crisis and gun violence, women’s stories that are dominating public consciousness, and even the precarity of online dating. Her thirst for knowledge and understanding about the human condition feeds her creativity in a way that she can’t get enough of.

Her musical compositions find their ground in the sounds of blues and Americana, guitar and lap steel, but their strength lies in how they go beyond tradition into innovative melodies, structures and arrangements that define their originality. “Blues music is probably my biggest influence. It moves me in ways hardly anything else does. I’m drawn to and try to emulate its simplicity, searing electric guitar lines, and emotive vocal style.”

Calve started singing and playing guitar at the age of 15. Her family’s love of getting together and telling the same stories over and over painted an Americana vision for her. They’d sit around her grandma’s kitchen island drinking scotch as her uncles compete for the most raucous response to their stories of the cast of characters that worked and lived on the family farm, “the squat farmhand and his family, my grandpa ‘Pup’ and his accident-prone adventures.” “It’s because of this family tradition that I’m innately drawn to stories. My uncle calls me the archivist of the family. I genuinely love engaging with people to learn about their own family stories. It’s with that same enthusiasm passed down to me from my family.”