Having never released any music as a solo artist prior to 2019’s Patience EP (“mostly because it seemed really scary,” she told us at the time), Lauren Early introduced herself as a musician with plenty in common with the bands she’d been a touring member of at that point (including Girlpool and Surf Curse) while presenting something wholly unique that piqued a certain excitement at what was still yet to come. Today Early returns with the news that her debut full-length—titled Don’t Take My Dream Away—will arrive four years almost to the day of that last project, with the promising lead single “Good Girl Bad Boy” serving as an early indication of where her sound has taken her in the interim years.
Gone is the lethargic and self-deprecating slacker-rock of Patience (well, maybe not entirely—“Am I an incel, or am I hysteric?” Early deadpans to open “Good Girl Bad Boy”), with the new single instead taking the form of a lo-fi yet upbeat anthem worthy of a colorful karaoke performance. “I wanted to make a song that had that ‘Deceptacon’ effect where you can listen to it forever on repeat—a song that gives life and is just straight up fun,” Early shares, citing Le Tigre as an influence after the original version of the tune had a twangier country sound. “I ended up turning it into this weird ‘pop by someone who’s never touched MIDI before in her life’ song.”
The video that comes paired with the track sees Early skipping school to complete a Grand Theft Auto challenge IRL, hopping aboard a private jet, googling “How to fly a plane,” and taking off. “The vibe I wanted was like if John Waters directed a Die Antwoord video,” she explains. “It was extremely ambitious and difficult to make, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without help from my friend and collaborator Charlie Walker who filmed it. Once it was planned, I had the time of my life directing this and getting my friends into character and running around LA like a psycho getting it done.”
Watch the clip below.
