Lauren Mayberry: 2025

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

It's been a dozen years since Lauren Mayberry first visited FUV with CHVRCHES, the Glaswegian synth-rock trio that vaulted to fame with their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe.  As part of that band, Mayberry ascended not only as a lauded singer and songwriter, but as a consequential activist and advocate for women in the music industry and beyond.

Belief in her own vision is what finally led Mayberry to write and record her solo debut album, Vicious Creature. Surprisingly, as Lauren explains in this FUV Live session, it took her longer than she anticipated to make that independent foray and to broach songs that are true to her own experience and vision, such as the deeply personal "Oh, Mother," which she performed in Studio A. Joined by Heather Nation on guitar, piano, and backing vocals, Mayberry also performed "Something in the Air" and "Anywhere But Dancing."

A spirited and fascinating conversationalist, Mayberry spoke about that long road to confidence and realizing her own potential without compromise. She also touched on her friendship with The Cure's Robert Smith — always a supportive voice in the wilderness — and what her own agency and activism has meant to her.

[Recorded: 2/12/25; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Erin Merriman and Renée Majekford; produced by Meghan Suma. Videographers: Louisa Schramm, Lyla Toomey, Adithi Vimalanathan, Olivia Iannaccone, and Vee Venning.]