Lauren Sanderson Has Tried The All-important Label Thing – Now She's Doing It All By Herself

It's Thursday morning in Silver Lake, California, and singer-songwriter Lauren Sanderson is already feeling the fatigue. “Anyone in this industry who doesn't drink coffee might be crazy.”

The 28-year-old singer has a good reason for her exhaustion. While Sanderson has spent much of her career bouncing between major labels (she signed to Sony's Epic Records for her 2018 EP Do not panic before leaving the label in 2019) and more boutique organizations (Rix Records, Young Forever Inc.), the singer now takes the do-it-yourself approach to its most literal end.

“I'm an only child, and I think the older I get, the more I realize how independent I can be sometimes,” she says, laughing to herself. “I'd rather go into this year, make the best album of my life and really live up to the specific goals and vision I have for myself than rely on someone else. If a coach can do it for me, then I can do it for myself.”

Her aforementioned best-of-life album is still out (with a tentative July release date set), but those wondering what she might sound like recently got a first taste. “They won't like that,” the newly released lead single from the new LP, features Sanderson at her most self-assured, as she casually invokes that she just doesn't care how people perceive her. “I got a theory, yeah, it's something they won't like,” he raps on the song's catchy first verse. “Because I shouldn't be myself, but I could.”

The song was born out of what Sanderson calls “rejection exposure therapy,” where the singer opens herself up to the possibility of rejection in order to overcome her fear of it. “There's that moment when you're going to do something you really want to do, but then something in your brain is like, 'They're not going to do it like that, they're going to judge you,'” she explains. “But you can't make the mistake of judging yourself by others judging you. It's like, it is these will i laugh at you Or are you laughing at yourself?'

Despite the confident persona she projects to her fans, Sanderson still struggles with rejection — even when it comes to a song about combating that very idea. “I loved that song, but I still got in my head and said to my girlfriend, 'I don't think I should put this out, I don't think people are going to like it,'” Sanderson says. “He looked at me and said, 'Girl, then why did you make this song? Isn't that the whole point?''

Part of the reason the song immediately resonated with the singer is precisely because it reflected the sound of her early career, when she was still living in Indiana and started releasing rap-influenced pop tracks on her own. This, she points out, was her goal to approach new music for 2024.

“My biggest inspiration for this whole album, this single, was my younger self. It was about the 19-year-old girl who didn't know how to make a song, but started saying how she felt over a beat,” he says. “It's really cool to look back on her now and hear her words about big dreamers and apply them to my current self.”

This dedication to her younger self also showed through her new approach to doing business in the music industry. After spending the last six years of her career deferring to managers, promoters and executives at various companies, Sanderson returned to doing all the work for herself.

Sure, the prospect of managing her own career can be daunting — “It can be, like, 'Oh, wow, that's a lot,' and the goal isn't to manage myself forever,” she says — but the singer -The songwriter points out that she's done it all before, albeit on a smaller scale. “That's how I got started in Indiana,” he says. “I was my fake manager, I was a fake booking agent, and I booked an entire 28-city tour that I drove myself… I don't know if it's because I'm a Capricorn or something, but I love you for sending an email. I love making a Dropbox folder.”

Part of her promotion strategy, as with almost every artist making her mark in the industry lately, has been TikTok. In recent years, Sanderson has amassed more than 500,000 followers on the app, posting videos ranging from teasers of her latest songs, to journal entries about mental health, queer affirmation and more.

Now, that particular tool in its promotional strategy is in jeopardy. In January, Universal Music Group announced it would pull its entire music catalog — including the work of signed songwriters — from the app, saying TikTok was “trying to build a music-based business without paying fair value for music.” In the months since, many music organizations have supported UMG's protest, and even independent advocates have warned customers not to rely too heavily on the app for virality. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives recently passed a bill in the Senate that, if passed into law, would effectively force ByteDance — the company that owns TikTok — to sell the app to another company or ban the app across the United States. .

For her part, Sanderson acknowledges the influence TikTok has on the music industry right now — but is quick to point out that adaptability is more important to success than chasing viral trends. “Some people have built TikTok to be this thing where musicians feel like if you don't have a million followers on the app, then you might as well just delete yourself,” he says. “TikTok is literally just an app, it's not the make or break for any artist. It sure would be a bummer if TikTok ceased to exist… but if it did, I would definitely start posting Reels. It really is that simple.”

It certainly helps that before pursuing a career in music, Sanderson worked as a motivational speaker in her teens and early twenties. She could be giving a TED talk or simply posting an inspirational video on YouTube, but Sanderson always made it clear that her goal was to help revitalize anyone willing to listen.

That aspect of herself remains completely unchanged — even on “They Won't Like This,” as she has with many of her previous releases, Sanderson dedicates the song to instructing her fans to “stop doubting themselves and be that god you are.”

She showcases her mood-boosting tendencies in a “delusional confidence” she's had since starting her career at Indiana. “I had to go to that place in my head and really be so delusional and convince myself that I was already doing huge things that I hadn't. In my head I was like, 'I've already sold out Madison Square Garden,'” he says.

But now, he points out, some of the fantasy has already become reality. Over the past five years, Sanderson has opened for major artists like Finneas and Chase Atlantic on their respective solo tours, helped write songs for alt-R&B star Joji's debut album. Shiversand cultivated a motivated, ever-growing fan base.

“Sometimes I forget that my confidence isn't really that delusional,” she says. “Now I have real proof that I can do this.”