INTERVIEW: Spencer LaJoye Loves to Say the Queer Part Outloud
Spencer LaJoye does not shy away from saying what they really mean. That forthrightness is something we can expect from their album Shadow Puppets, out February 16. LaJoye is an East Coast singer-songwriter with Midwest roots, a classically trained violinist with a proclivity for Broadway vocals, and a student of Americana music with a theology degree hanging in their studio. They’ve been writing and touring their own autobiographical folk/pop music for over a decade,but the virality of their 2021 anthem Plowshare Prayer secured them a permanent place in hearts and households across the world, as well as a peculiar career as a voracious songsmith with an unshakeable pastoral presence. Charming and banter-heavy, Spencer’s live performances at theaters, listening rooms, church sanctuaries, backyards, folk festivals, spiritual conferences, and queer clubs keep diverse audiences laughing one moment and weeping the next. In our interview, LaJoye tell us why they talk so much between songs and how it’s important as queer people to just completely ignore the rules.
Recent release you cannot stop listening to?
Madi Diaz has been releasing singles leading up to her album, Weird Faith, and, at the time of this interview, the album isn’t quite out yet, so I can’t speak to the whole thing. HOWEVER, I have the four existing singles on repeat. Madi’s songwriting is something so different and special to me. In almost every song, there are moments when I have to hold my heart and ask the air around me, “Is she allowed to say that??” It seems like every song is letting me in on a secret, and I feel her fear, anger, shame, and love as if it were my own. It’s almost like… the songs sound so honest they make me afraid of myself. I can’t get enough.
How do you feel your queer identity ties into your performance style or music?
I love this question. I was just telling an audience how so many songs on my new album should be relatable to most any listener, but queer people will hear them and think, “GAYYY.” There are just subtle nods to queer experience sprinkled throughout my lyrics, because I wrote them, and I’m queer. The story of unrequited longing, the experience of misplaced devotion or transference of desire from sexuality to religion, the caring for my younger self… it’s all so gay.
As far as my performances go, I recently had a well-intentioned straight man offer me unsolicited advice after a show: “Talk less.” What he meant was that my songs are good enough to stand on their own. So I thought about that advice and even considered taking it for a moment, but then I remembered my responsibility as a platformed queer person. If people want to hear my music on its own, I have some incredible studio recordings out there on every streaming service. If they want to see and experience a queer person knitting those songs together into a cohesive narrative of explicitly queer existence, then they can buy a ticket to a show. My performances are banter-heavy because they’re my opportunity to say the queer part out loud.
How do you manage having a good time at shows, but also trying to stay mentally and physically fit?
Mentally and physically, I do the same things during days on the road as I do at home – meditation, writing, walking, and bouldering. (Truly, I pack my climbing shoes and find the closest gym. It’s obnoxious.)
I also try to stay with host families instead of in hotels, which might sound odd. I’ve never known if I’m an introvert or an extrovert, but what I do know is that my energy is entirely inertia-dependent. If I’m at rest, socially, I’m very content and thus very unmotivated to interact with the world. And if I’m “on,” I can stay on indefinitely, but the come down hits really hard. That pace-change, if I don’t navigate it gently, can be super emotionally tolling for me, I’ve learned. And I usually tour alone, so my options at the end of a fun night of music and friends and after-show merriment are to: a) go literally crash in a quiet hotel room, or b) come down easy with a kind host and their dog in their living room. The latter might sometimes be more socially uncomfortable, but it beats big sadness and also makes it easier to hit the road the next day.
What would you like to say to people who are currently questioning their identities?
I think it’s really hard to shed old frameworks completely, so a lot of us can tend to give old frameworks new paint… which isn’t really freedom. When it comes to questioning and exploring our gender or sexual identities, the magic happens when we discover how there are actually no rules we have to follow. If you’re feeling your masc energy, you don’t have to become toxic (and you shouldn’t.) If you’re nurturing your femme side, you don’t have to get a dress (but you can!). If you’re committing to love one person, the success of that commitment doesn’t have to be defined by longevity, monogamy, or domesticity (but it can be!) After I got top surgery, I felt more femme than I ever had before. Nothing has to make sense the way the cis/hetero patriarchy told us it would. If it feels good and it’s not hurting anyone, you’re doing it right. You have permission to play, try things on, and change your mind.
Tell us about your favorite show you’ve ever played.
It is very tough to pick just one. But my favorite show in recent memory was in summer 2023, and it was a homecoming show of sorts, in Denver, CO, a city I called home for five years until 2021. This church I used to work for let us use their sanctuary for the concert, and it meant so much to me. We turned it into the loveliest listening room and totally packed the place. I had my old producers, China and Seth Kent, help out. Seth ran sound and China played keys. Our string quartet, who played on the project the Kents produced, joined me for four songs. My friend, Masha Eads, who hit the road with me for part of my first ever real tour back at the start of my career, joined me on mandolin for a handful of my newest and tenderest songs. I just felt so surrounded by friends, not only on the stage but in the audience. I’d just had top surgery a few months prior to the show, and I was still exploring real true embodiment on stage. A couple of good friends told me after the show that I was performing like I was a friend to myself, and I’ll never forget that comment.
Shadow Puppets by Spencer LaJoye will be out next week, February 16
