There’s Something About Laye

The alt-pop singer talks fashion, Emily Dickinson and cringey Hinge boys.

by Ben Boddez

Photos by Sarah Pardini

Published on November 21, 2024

Often found decked out in leather and dark tones, Montreal alt-pop singer laye has always been one to maximalize the combined impact of complementary music and fashion – so it makes sense that she’s about to take the stage at RANGE Magazine’s M For Montreal showcase Sur La Piste At Bar Le Ritz.

A music and fashion showcase, three Montreal artists are paired up with three local designers for a multisensory journey through sound and style. With a handful of songs that will prove to be a thematic match, laye will be collaborating with leatherworker CJ CRAY, known for her queer-forward custom fetishware.

“I used to always say I’m kind of like a costume box, because I dress depending on my mood and a bit more eccentric, but usually darker,” laye tells RANGE. “I love Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Dilara Findikoglu, R and M Leathers… PJ Harvey is an inspiration. She’s such an icon. Just always so effortlessly cool – but also looking as if she rolled out of bed looking like a rock star.”

Perhaps understandably due to her aesthetic, laye’s music often gets hit with the “dark pop” label – which she leans into at times by combining big hooks, cheery melodies and an airy vocal delivery with lyrics that analyze loneliness, mental health and sexuality. Whether it’s in her head-turning Instagram posts or more experimentation with her acoustic folk roots, however, she mostly just has aims to shake up the typical pop star formulae.

With universally relatable lyrics that she hopes hit home for her listeners, laye knows that in taking big swings and containing multitudes, there should be at least one part of herself that connects with anyone in a big way. “I don’t really mind how people see me; I want them to perceive me however they want to,” she says. “Whichever parts of me resonate the most with them, whether it’s a combination of the darker and brighter sides or not is good with me. I don’t think anyone is one single thing.”

Taking her first steps into the creative fields as a poet – her favourite is Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death,” where the speaker comes face to face with the Grim Reaper – laye grew up on her mom’s collection of Dido records and found a love for indie acts like Daughter, Kodaline and Bon Iver herself. Amalgamating these century-spanning influences gives a pretty good idea of how she arrived where she is today.

With her upcoming album, however, she’s leaning more into the latter. Since it’s her first independent release in a while, she says she’s felt freer to write from her most authentic place, and the music she grew up with felt like an appropriate backdrop for her “scary but cathartic” musings. laye subscribes to the old adage that “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Whether it’s one of her salacious past tracks like “touching myself” or opening up as of late, she thinks feeling a little unsettled is healthy.

“I think the core of ‘touching myself’ is a really universal feeling about fantasizing about something you’re afraid of pursuing. Some people hear the name of that song and it rubs them the wrong way, but others hear it and they’re intrigued,” she says. “I think it just speaks to how art shouldn’t conform to what others perceive as ‘appropriate’ or not. I was kind of scared to release that one and that’s sort of when I knew I really wanted to release it. Because it was gritty and daring, and a feeling I think lots have felt but are uncomfortable saying out loud, so I wanted to say it out loud.”

While there have always been ups and downs, it feels a little bit like we’re back in a Renaissance of sorts for female pop stars owning their sexuality and being embraced by widespread audiences – just take a look at Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan ruling the airwaves with unabashedly amorous tracks. laye, on the other hand, doesn’t see it as something all too unique: “I think writing about ‘being horny’ is just as mundane a feeling as writing about being happy or sad,” she laughs. “But I think there’s just more freedom in expressing yourself now, as a woman, without shame.”

Where does laye get the inspiration for all of the equally hapless and heavenly love interests that appear across her discography, though? As one of her TikToks points out, “I write my best music about Hinge boys.” laye actually admits to using the dating app as more of a writing exercise than a search for a possible partner, calling the faces she flits across “an unlimited amount of characters I get to pull from.” Some situationships, of course, stand out more than others.

“I made a playlist for this guy (he looked like a lumberjack God) who was going away for a year or more and we always shared music, so I made him a playlist for the flight,” she says. “He messaged me on the plane telling me how good the playlist was, but then he mentioned how one of the songs (BANKS’ ‘Someone New’) made him think about a girl he was in love with, which was apparently not me. And then he had the audacity to ask me to do a cover of that song.”

As she continues to chronicle what she calls the “gut-wrenching, jittery emotions” of “the extremities of falling in love or being completely heartbroken,” at least we’ll know that laye will present them in a catchy, stylish and clever lyrical fashion, and no matter how sad her songs get, she’ll still have a great time while doing it. As for what you can expect from her set at Sur La Piste?

“I’m stoked to be on this bill with all these great artists, both in fashion and music. I’m doing a mix of old and new; it’s a short set but it’s sweet and it’s slutty. It’s going to be a lot of fun!”