Coming of Age with Maude Latour: "Strangers Forever" and More

Interview by Megan Armstrong

Graphic by Rebekah Witt

Maude Latour is in the minority: she is a senior at Columbia University who gets excited about studying. As a burgeoning bedroom pop star, the 22-year-old singer-songwriter is soaking up as much of this unique double life as she can before it’s gone. She relishes in the commonplace college routines, though she possesses a singular ability to translate those experiences into relatable and undeniably catchy pop songs. That has never been more evident than with her most recent EP, Strangers Forever, which arrived Oct. 29 via Warner Records. The six-track project poignantly encapsulates a past heartbreak. But her eyes are cast forward now. Unlike most college students, Latour will celebrate her graduation with her first-ever headline tour next spring. “I believe that my next project will be my best project,” she says, full of confidence and eagerness as she enters young adulthood. In other words, Maude Latour may be a stranger to you now, but you certainly won’t be able to evade her forever. Read our conversation below.

This might seem like an overly simple place to start, but it jumped out at me that London, Hong Kong, Sweden, and New York City are all places you’ve lived at one point or another.  Can you please walk me through that upbringing?

I’m half-Dutch. My dad is Dutch, and I speak Dutch at home. My parents met in Sweden. When I was growing up, they were both aspiring journalists so we had to move around to follow their career paths. I went to middle school in Hong Kong, and then I moved back to New York for high school and have been in New York since. New York has been my home base, but yeah, a bit of a crazy patchwork of seeing the world. I’m a bit addicted now to moving like that, and I love moving. It’s totally affected me in so many ways. It’s an important part of my life and identity. I think I’m still figuring out how it affects me as a person—how I love and how I can walk away from things.

What is your earliest memory of growing up in New York City?

I lived here before I moved to Hong Kong and after, so I was a kid here too. My earliest memories? Well, I lived in this lovely neighborhood that was growing. It was downtown Manhattan, post-9/11. We moved there right after 9/11, and there was a lot of effort to bring families to that area. There were a lot of playgrounds. Being downtown in such a community. A great public school that was also working on [building] community. An idyllic childhood, as a lot of childhoods, feels when looking back.

Does the city always make its way into your music, even if in ways listeners don’t pick up on and only you know?

Totally. Oh my gosh. I literally don’t think I would’ve ever started writing songs if I wasn’t here. When I moved back here for high school, I got to be independent at such a young age. I got to be 14 and go out into the city and have all these experiences, craft a world of my own in the city. New York kids are something else. They just have been walking around the city by themselves for a good few years by the time they become adults.

I had just moved back, and I was so wide-eyed about it. Every magical experience just felt enormous, and it gave me this sense of awe for something bigger that made me have a clear objective to what I was singing about and singing to. When I started performing, just inviting my friends to local shows, there was just so much to do—so many places I could perform in.

What is your earliest memory involving music?

I was a choir kid, starting in first or second grade. I was in the choir, always, and that was just my favorite place to be. When I lived in Hong Kong, I was in the choir there. That was my safe place, being in the middle school choir. I’m still in touch with my middle school choir teacher, and she supports me all the time. I still feel like I’m just the choir girl. My true self, whenever I feel lost in what I’m doing, I’m like, “I am just the girl in choir auditioning for the solo.” That’s my natural state. 

In high school in New York, I joined choir again and a capella groups. All my friends were acapella girls, and we would just harmonize on the weekends and busk on subways. The six of us created all these harmonies and arranged songs and sang in different places. I started writing—I was like, “Oh, wait, I can write personalized songs about my world? Oh, that’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what I want. That’s even better than singing other people’s songs!” And then it really started.

Your music is very anecdotal and diary-esque, in a way that is most associated in the mainstream at the moment with the likes of Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo. Have you always processed your life this way, even before you realized you could do it as a song?

Yeah. Well, actually, I think because of my parents’ backgrounds—both being writers and journalists—I definitely was taught to write things down. The written word was just so important to me growing up. I’ve kept a journal since I was, like, in first grade. I have every single thing that’s ever happened to me written down since literally first grade. It’s crazy to read them. I think my music is just an extension of these record-keepings of what happened.

And at some point, a lot of people started paying attention. Did it feel sudden to you or did it feel gradual, as you’ve been doing this your whole life?

God, no, it does not feel sudden. Sometimes I look back, and I’m like, “Oh, it’s been so long!” It’s literally been one follower at a time, like converting one fan at a time. It probably started in high school. I would be active on social media and just be silly on social media—carefree and very much myself and share singing videos all the time. People were already like, “Hey, nice job.” They’d be supportive and follow me and look at my singing videos. When I released my first song, which was actually because, for my senior year graduation, we had to make a project. I was like, “Oh, I’ll get one of the songs I’ve written during high school produced and release it.” My whole high school was so supportive. And then people from nearby schools. They’re all kind of connected, these New York City prep schools. 

 It was word of mouth, and then I kept going and started college and released more music. I got a manager, and they started getting me on some Spotify playlists. It was going—slowly, slowly—and when the pandemic happened, I started posting more on TikTok. I’ve been slowly growing through TikTok. Not ever just one specific viral moment, but just over time, and now we’re here. I’m signed to a label.

I love the line in “Furniture,” ‘All my friends feel like they’re strangers / I don’t wanna be famous, but I want to sing until I drown.’ Has it been difficult, or even just weird, to learn how to adapt not only to your college existence but your life and entire existence around the attention that comes with making good music?

Yeah, yeah. Ugh! Goodness. Every other day, I have an existential crisis about what this means. I’m in my senior year of college right now, so I’m still in this double world. This is definitely the toughest year keeping up with both that I’ve had so far. Before, since I was independent, I was making my own schedule and calling all the shots, which I still kind of am—just a lot more things to put on the schedule. 

It’s a little bit tricky, and I’m really trying to navigate boundaries. Because it started as literally just me in my room making singing videos, I’ve always been so open on social media and given my whole heart to my online presence. I’m realizing now that if I’m gonna do this, I actually need to have so much more privacy and boundaries. It is scary, yup. It is the reason that I would want to not do it. I’m a little bit freaked out by it, but I know that this could all go away in a flash. Who knows how long this lasts? Who knows how long people will like my music? I think I’m trying to work on enjoying the moment, as we all are. But goodness, it’s scary! It’s changed a lot. Of course, you’ve got to know me in real life to really know me, but also, I’ve given so much of my personality online that a lot of people do really get my vibe. I think I’m gonna figure it out.

How do you think being a student at Columbia inspires your music in a way that can’t necessarily get anywhere else? 

It totally keeps me grounded. I’m literally writing essays as I prepare for the EP to come out.

I love that in the same Instagram post, you asked people to presale your major label debut EP and wish you luck in midterms.

Oh my God. It’s literally that. I hope they don’t get annoyed—the label. Last week, I had two midterms on Wednesday. I was like, “Everyone, I’m not free Tuesday or Wednesday. I need to study.” And for the first time, I got to just study. I was so happy to study and take these midterms. 

The best part is having so many interactions with people. I think being an artist is lonely, and from my little doses of going to L.A. for months at a time, I can see how it’s lonely. Hearing the noise of the industry in L.A. and that being your only world does seem so difficult and isolating. I think it can accidentally make you forget what art is. I guess I like being in school because I’m writing about my real life, and I’m writing about the interactions I have with people. My normal ass life. I’m excited for it to be my senior year. There are so few moments in life where you get those times of closure. When you graduate, when you get married, or these big moments. I'm excited to feel all the feelings that come with saying a proper goodbye to these years. I think I’m gonna get really inspired by that and write about that. Also, my classes keep me in check with, what are my values? What do I believe in? If I’m gonna take up space in the world, I better know what the fuck I’m talking about and what I care about. It keeps me focused on what I want to do with my life, and I’m lucky that I get to use my education to make moral decisions and shape my beliefs and values [in] religion and philosophy and literature.

In the best way, you’re just a 22-year-old who is fully embedded in life at Columbia, and yet, in the outside world, there are plenty of people who are comparing you to Lorde. How does that make you feel?

Being compared to Lorde, specifically, or just the fact that people are chatting?

That, too.

I guess we all just kind of dissociate when things that don’t feel real happen. It is crazy, but it’s been such a slow build. And I’m also not crazy famous in any way. Like, no one knows me, except for teenagers sometimes. I’m so shameless. When I see 16-year-old girls walking around, I’m like, “Hey! Do you know my music?” And they’re like, “No.” I’m like, “OK! You’d like it! Bye!” They rarely listen when I do that. I always embarrass whoever I’m with. I was with my A&R in L.A., and I went up to another table. I was like, “I bet they know my music.” They didn’t. But I’m trying to keep it fun. This is just a way to share these songs. If the people like the songs, they can keep having them. I’m making music for me.

 My friends keep me freaking grounded. They don’t have any time for it. They’re great about it. One of my friends, I was like, “Wait, you haven’t said anything about all this crazy shit.” She said, “You’re gonna be thanking me that I don’t say anything about it.” I am still figuring out that balance—the in-between phase of my Instagram being my normal Instagram, but it’s almost about to be my pop star Instagram.

How do you think you’ve grown the most from Starsick to Strangers Forever?

I believe that my next project will be my best project. I’m learning so much more about how I write and what I want to say and what makes a good song. When I was 19, making the Starsick EP, I had 19-year-old feelings and was coming off of high school. The world seemed awesome and open and pre-COVID. 

I’m 22, God, it’s not that different. But no! It is, though. The difference between 19 and 22 is crazy. I think my biggest challenge is, “OK, wait, I learned to write when I was 16 to 19. Can my music complexify with me?” And I need to make sure it does. I don’t want to do it if I’m writing 16-year-old or 19-year-old songs forever. Figuring out how to get my 22-year-old emotions into this medium is my current challenge, and I’m trying to write new songs post-Strangers Forever because I wrote that mostly about heartbreak. But still, I don’t want to sing a heartbreak song where I’m like, “I’m so sad missing you! I’m crushed forever!” Like, no. That’s not true. It’s so much more complex. There are so many layers. And I’m trying to make my songs true. I’m trying to put my 22-year-old self and the darkness that I feel—looking at the next decade of my 20s, like, “Oh, so there’s no actual thing that’s guaranteed? Awesome. Everything is unknown, and this is life forever! Cool!” Plus, a million other thoughts. Loneliness, growing up, the state of our world. I want all of it to change with me.

Loneliness has been the banner word for the last 18 months, or however long it’s been now. Has it almost felt surreal, for your rise to coincide with a global pandemic — because you’ve been isolated and haven’t been able to tangibly experience people connecting with your music?

For sure. I did my first post-pandemic—or mid-pandemic—show about a month ago, and it was shocking to see people knowing the words. It was so shocking! And it was so much closure, too, of, Oh, this is what has been missing. This is the main part of the job that I totally forgot about. It doesn’t actually exist on social media. It only exists here in this room. I do think it has allowed me to go deep into my mind about what I want to sing about in the future. I’ve heard other artists say they’re making albums without really thinking of an audience because they forgot about it, and it’s forced more internal albums. I think I know more about myself.

It’s so much about loneliness because even before the pandemic, loneliness is one of the biggest parts of life. I think this proved to all of us that we can be a lot more alone than we thought, and I think we’re a lot better at it. It also makes us sadder, and everyone is going through their mental health journey. It’s all the more reason music needs to be real, and it needs to do what it’s promised to do, which is this revolutionary act of being a magical art form that is as old as humanity itself. We need to let music do that for us.

Even through all of that, you’ve managed to have a really reciprocal relationship with your fans. I read in a previous story about you that you believe “people really want someone to tell their secrets to,” and I think that’s both profound and powerful. What is the most personal secret a fan has trusted you with—that really drove home the gravity of how your vulnerable music helps others feel brave, too?

Tell their secret right now? No! There are so many. Every type of secret. Everyone is dealing with something. There are so many types of secrets about people’s lives and what they’re going through and needing this strength to keep going—things I can’t even imagine going through. The world is so big, and there are so many painful parts of living. I have so much respect for the people who do reach out to me because they are going through their lives with grace, and it’s beautiful to see their strength, but also the way they get that strength from music.

It always stands out to me when fans reach out to me [from a place of] how much they love music. To come to me as an artist and say, “Wow, your work is exactly how I feel. Thank you,” I’m like, “Thank you for letting music do this much for you. Thank you for being so vulnerable to let these songs mean anything to you.” Because you can go through life without letting art in, and these people get so much power from music. Those are the sensitive, emotional, deep people that will contribute to the world. It’s so important to let art touch you because it’s hard to let your walls down.