LP

Ryan Jay
LP discusses their new album 'Churches' and getting back on the road.

Musician LP will be happy if they never have to play another drive-in show. The 40-year-old singer has performed for a lot of audiences all over the world, but couldn’t get used to car horns instead of applause at the multiple drive-in shows they did over the pandemic. 

“We’re not meant to sing to f—ing cars,” LP tells Billboard. “But I feel like people enjoyed it and they got to feel like they were doing something again.”

Throughout the fall, LP has been touring their latest album Churches – out now via SOTA Records – to growing audiences across the globe including Hungary, France and England. In 2022, the artist will spend more than six months touring the world with their most uptempo album to date.  

The music video for “The One That You Love” — the first single from Churches – has already generated more than 25 million YouTube views for the Western-inspired track. LP released an additional four tracks from their sixth studio album for more than 27 million more YouTube views and, on Friday (Dec. 3), debuts a video for “Conversation” in conjunction with the album’s release.

The “Conversation” video features two versions of LP attempting to communicate, to no avail. LP describes the video as, “Me being in two different outfits and one of me was not hearing, or not understanding, and beating their head against the wall.” Check out the new video below.

They hope the new album translates better to their fans who had to wait 14 extra months from when Churches was originally scheduled to come out. According to LP, the wait generated four additional songs and has come to “incorporate feelings people felt before and after the pandemic.”

“If you’re already a fan of mine, you’re going to dig this album. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m trying to chronicle my own life and my story,” LP says, adding that they believe they’ve found a tribe out there and it’s about making them happy.  

The 15-track album fits seamlessly into LP’s canon – both sonically and thematically. Churches’ production is lush with handclapping beats and LP’s powerful vocals. The album’s executive producer Mike Del Rio says, “We imagined this music being experienced as some sort of sweet release after a dark time.” He adds, “As fluid and as genre-less as LP is, the music we make is always a pursuit of reflecting their philosophy with a message of love and connection at its center.”

For LP, finally getting to release the aptly named album is cathartic. “Church, for me, is what everybody finds sacred in their life, in their heart,” they tell Billboard. “These songs are my way of expressing my love and the depth of my connection to people.”

Brad Paisley has called Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding “one of the least pretentious weddings he’s ever seen”.

The country star attended the ceremony alongside his actress wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley. They joined around 1,000 guests at New York City’s Madison Square Garden earlier this month as the global pop icon married the American football star.

Although the celebration attracted enormous attention and involved tight security and a stunning makeover of the famous arena, Paisley said the occasion never came across as excessive.

“Ironically, (it) was one of the least pretentious weddings that I've ever seen or ever will see,” Paisley told The Associated Press during an interview. “It meant a lot to be (invited). It was, kind of, a big thank you from her to invite us.”

Paisley, who chose Swift as an opening performer for his tour when she was a teenager in 2007, said he was delighted to be included in what many considered the biggest celebrity wedding of the year.

“They were very clear with the invite, and I took this personally when I got the invite, because in the invite, it said, ‘If you're getting this, you mean a lot to us,’” he revealed.

The musician also explained that guests were not told the wedding’s exact location until the date drew nearer.

“It was really fun to watch the cat and mouse game of, like, ‘We can tell you roughly where it's going to be, we're not gonna say what building... and here's the date. If you're in, we'll tell you more,’” he continued. “I went to my wife, I said, ‘Want to go?’ and she said, ‘Absolutely, we gotta be there!’ So, we did it, it was RSVP yes.”

Other famous attendees included Brad Pitt, Gigi Hadid, Bradley Cooper, Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter, Hugh Grant, Haim and Tom Hanks.

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