Q&A: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole with Lark Lepage
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY FAITH LUEVANOS ☆
Photo by Camilla Ffrench
LARK LEPAGE IS UNCOVERING STORIES UNTOLD—in her debut EP, Being Alice, out everywhere now. Lepage sees a lot of pieces of herself within the character Alice from Alice in Wonderland, stating that the film is exactly what it feels like to be a girl growing up. The NYC-based singer-songwriter diverts from the abstract and directly tells stories that create a world that feels so expansive, even with just her vocals and acoustic guitar.
Being Alice not only explores the tumultuous process of growing up, but also multiple types of relationships and how those ties affect different parts of you. From romantic to familial relationships, Lepage leaves no stone unturned as each line in songs like “Ajar” dedicate themselves to different people. “I don’t really feel like my songs are ever about one thing or even one person,” shares Lepage.
The Luna Collective sat down with Lepage to discuss the making of Being Alice, her lifelong passion for music, where she feels the most creative and more. Read the full interview below.
Photo by Camilla Ffrench
LUNA: Congratulations on the release of your EP! Obviously, there are overarching themes of Alice in Wonderland. What guided you towards that idea?
LEPAGE: Funnily enough, I want to say it goes back to my fifth birthday, when I got gifted a huge, pop-up book of Alice in Wonderland. I always shared my birthday parties with my best friend, who had a birthday in the same month, and she got a Wizard of Oz one, and she was a brunette. I was the blonde, so I always felt like the Alice to her Dorothy. I also just wear a lot of dresses and was a blonde, blue-eyed kid, so I got a lot of Alice in Wonderland comparisons. My boyfriend, who produced the song and the EP with me [and I] were one night watching the old cartoon of Alice in Wonderland, and I was like, “Oh my god, this is exactly what it feels like to be a girl growing up.”
To suddenly be like, “Wait, I have no access to that magic anymore,” I just wanted to go back. Also, Alice is so bored in regular life, and then she has this wonderland that she discovers. Funnily enough, I had this dress, and I was playing a show, and this was after we watched the cartoon. We started to write the song, and then it took a while longer to actually get it recorded. Still, I was playing a show, and I was wearing this white and blue dress, and this girl came up to me and was like, "Do you get Alice in Wonderland a lot?” I ended up using that dress in the music video, so it all feels very full circle. It felt like it was coming to me.
LUNA: Besides Alice, what other character do you resonate with and why?
LEPAGE: Two immediately come to mind: the White Rabbit—because I feel like I’m late all the time and always in a rush to go somewhere magical—and also the Mad Hatter. I feel like if I steered all the way into the skid of my personality, I would be the Mad Hatter. He has this line that I reference in the song, “What happened to you, Alice? You used to be so much, you used to be much muchier.” I love how he talks and the tea parties he has; he’s definitely a muse of mine.
LUNA: You began releasing music in 2024, but when did your passion for music really begin?
LEPAGE: Oh my god, very young. My dad plays guitar and was in a band growing up, and now he’s a music critic. I think the first show I ever went to I was one year old, so I grew up going to shows. My mom’s a writer, so I grew up around writing as well. I started guitar lessons when I was eight, and then I hated learning the guitar. They could not get me to do bar chords, they couldn’t get me to read music, and my parents were just like, “She doesn’t like it.” Then, my teacher was like, “Why don’t you try writing a song?” and I was like, “What do you mean?” From there, I was off to the races, and it was all I wanted to do. So, definitely eight years old, but pretty much my whole life.
LUNA: That’s so cool that you have a musically-inclined parent, and one who’s a great storyteller. That leads me into something I noticed while listening to the EP, which is that you have such a raw way of storytelling. I really enjoyed it, and it reminded me of Fiona Apple. What led you to that sort of sound?
LEPAGE: Partially my mom. Also, I grew up on Fiona Apple and I love her, so that is a huge compliment, thank you. My earliest memories of my mom are her holding court at a dinner party. Probably the first thing anyone says about my mom is that she’s such a brilliant storyteller, so I definitely grew up loving to tell stories. I think I inherited that from her. That lends itself to my writing style, I’m not going to be that abstract because I really want to be telling people stories that they can follow and imagine and put into their own lives.
I loved to write music for a really long time, but then I had a hard time translating what I was writing and how I played it live into recordings. I would feel like it was too processed or too simple or way too much. I’ve had producers put so much onto my songs, and everyone loved how I sounded live, and then they would hear the recordings and be like, “Oh, okay.” I feel like I just got lost in them, so making this music has definitely been a journey to going back to it being just my voice and guitar, and finding how that can be engaging. But I want my songs to be as close to how they would sound with me sitting on the couch and playing them for you. My joy as an artist is in the writing and the performing of it. I love to record music, but that’s not where I would necessarily say I come alive, so I feel like the recording has to be as close to how I feel when I’m writing it.
LUNA: You co-produced the EP with your boyfriend. What did that process look like? Did it feel better working with someone you’re already so comfortable with?
LEPAGE: Totally. I’ve had the privilege of working with some incredible female producers, but as a young woman, 18, 19, when I made my first album, and the singles before that, I was working with male producers who were much older than me, as is common, and I was just so intimidated because I didn’t know as much as them and the verbiage of things. Even them saying something and me not knowing what it meant, I’d walk away from the session like, “Oh, I don’t like how this sounds.” They were doing their own thing, and that’s great; they should do what they want, but it was definitely a learning curve, and I need to be able to use my voice and not feel like saying that I don’t like how something sounds is rude, because I’m the artist, and I should be able to make that call.
So, when I started working with my boyfriend, that dialogue was there in such a beautiful way. I not only felt capable of being like, “I don’t like that,” but also being like, “What do you mean by that? Can you explain it to me?” knowing he would, and I’ve honestly learned so much from that. Now I feel that if I were to go back into those old sessions with those guys, I would feel much more comfortable.
LUNA: Which song stands out the most for you?
LEPAGE: I would say “If It’s You” stands out the most or “Ajar.” For “Ajar,” I just really like the line, “I used to sleep while you were driving” because it feels so intimate, and I don’t really feel like my songs are ever about one thing or even one person. I wrote that line about my ex-boyfriend, but then a couple of lines in that song are about my dad, and a couple are about a friend I used to have, so that stands out to me because it feels like that one line encapsulates what I’m trying to say about trust and intimacy in relationships, and how, when those relationships end, you’re almost horrified by how intimate they were.
“If It’s You” stands out to me because I wrote it about two of my friends who were dating, and I didn’t know if they were going to last, and what a feeling that is to be in a relationship and be like, “Is this gonna be it, or are you totally gonna break my heart in two years?” But then, I was looking at my own relationship and realized this is where I was, too; it’s so universal, and not something we talk about all that much. I played it at a show recently, and someone said, “Try not to look at your partner while you listen challenge.”
LUNA: This isn’t music-related, but what was the last film you watched that you would recommend?
LEPAGE: What a great question. I watched Dog Day Afternoon for the first time, and I loved it. It’s amazing and so enjoyable.
LUNA: Where do you feel the most creative?
LEPAGE: I feel the most creative in motion. I bike a lot, and I have a lot of ideas when I’m city biking. I also love to go on long drives. I definitely feel most creative alone. In my bedroom, too, I write all of my songs on my bed.
LUNA: You’re playing a show at The Slipper Room in New York on July 28 to support the release of the EP. What can fans expect to see at the show?
LEPAGE: I think fans can definitely expect to see some nods to Alice in Wonderland, maybe even some burlesque. And definitely some incredible folksy female acts, Laura Elliot and Gentlewife. Expect a very cozy, community-based folk show.
LUNA: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
LEPAGE: I’m just so excited for you to hear the EP and hear what I’ve been up to and where I’ve been going with my stuff. It feels very different from anything I’ve written, and it feels a bit more grown-up and reflective of my age. I hope that it sounds like I’m sitting on your bed playing guitar and singing to you.
