Indie rock vibe with underlying folk at the Chichester Fringe

She will be at The Jam Cafe, 33 Southgate, Chichester, PO19 1DP on June 5 from 19:15-20:35. Audiences are invited to arrive for a drink at 19:00. There will be a short break between two live music sessions.

“I have been doing this actively since 2020,” Laura says. “That's when the songwriting started again after a very long break for raising children and work and everything else. As a child and in my teens I was songwriting. It was something that I did just for fun, and I had a not very big band but I used to play music with friends. And then life and university and marriage and children and jobs happened. But I always enjoyed writing poetry, I guess, more so than songs – just to have that creative outlet, but we were always a very music-orientated family.

“But it was in lockdown that I started writing again. I had started playing in a blues band and then with the friend in the band we started doing our own duo stuff. I was playing keyboards and singing and he put the guitar to it.

“Sadly I lost my dad in 2022 and I went out on my own and did some solo stuff. I think it was a way of letting out my grief. My songwriting is very emotional. I've got a psychology background and I've always been interested in behaviour and emotions and mental health, and I think that just comes through in my songwriting. I think for me songwriting is an expression of the inner world and it is very introspective.

“And then in 2023 I met another guitarist and we got talking. He was producing his own stuff and took an interest in my own music. He started playing with me and we started playing gigs together.”

Laura now plays in a variety of formats. She plays with a full band but the full band wasn't available for the Chichester Fringe date. She also plays solo and she's also played in a trio but for Chichester the gig will be a duo with guitarist Mark.

“I play the keyboard/piano and that’s how I write the music and what I play when performing solo, duo or as full band so I will be playing keys, along with the guitarist on June 5.”

Laura has got a number of songs on Spotify and the hope is to get more up there this year: “I would love to do an album one day or maybe just an EP just to get some more stuff out there. I've certainly got enough content for at least two albums but it is a question of time and money and resources but it's something I would love to do.

“But basically the music is introspective songwriting. It's about the emotional inner world and about mental health and uses a lot of nature metaphors. Because of my psychology background I am interested in relationships.”

There is a song about anxiety, and also a song about how everybody was struggling in lockdown in the dark times: “It is about how you can look for a tiny spark that might lift you out of it. It is what music can do for people.”

Tickets on https://www.chichesterfringe.co.uk/event-details-registration/laura-l-page-2