SCOUT LaRue WILLIS

Getting Surreal with Scout LaRue Willis.

Introducing VULKAN’s new issue, “Surreal” a journey beyond the ordinary, where reality blurs with the extraordinary. We kick off this visionary edition with an out-of-this-world shoot featuring the captivating Scout LaRue Willis. Prepare to explore the unexpected and embrace the surreal. Print issue available end of October.

Scout LaRue Willis is an up-and-coming artist, musician, and songwriter based in Los Angeles, CA. She released her debut self-titled album Scout LaRue Willis in 2022 as an ode to her experiences of heartbreak and subsequent self-discovery. Her upcoming album Songs for Sorrow, Songs for Pleasure, is in the same universe but from a different perspective. Scout pranced into the studio with a beaming smile on her face, a crochet top, sweats, and an infectious, free-spirited energy. Her long brown hair flowed behind her as she introduced herself with a warm hug. With coffee and matcha in hand, she led me into her artistic world, steeped in shades of passion, self-empowerment, and most importantly, pleasure.

How are you feeling today?

I’m about to get my period, so I woke up and felt like I had a choice between either being a melancholy, sad girl and worrying about something or reprogramming my frequency and having a ball. I chose the latter! [she laughs]

I’ve been listening to your debut album, Scout LaRue Willis. Congratulations! I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s beautiful–I loved it! The lyrics are raw and relatable.

Thank you so much! I feel like when you share honestly, people can’t help but relate to these themes that are actually really universal to all of us. The album is mostly based on my real experience […] but when I put it all together, it traced the experience of meeting someone for the first time and being nervous and unsure. A lot of them were written during the course of this long drawn out, toxic break up I was having [and] the process of finding yourself in a spiritual experience and connecting to a higher power. I’m a relational creature, that’s how I learn, and that’s how I understand myself and the world. Yes, I can understand myself alone, but I can’t exist in a vacuum. It’s not about meeting someone, it’s more about what happens when you’re human and you’re alive.

Do you feel like you’ve learned to appreciate those difficult moments and emotions?

Absolutely. I think I really have shifted my perception to bring every kind of emotion I have into an embrace, as opposed to saying “ugh, those are the ones I hate. I hate feeling this way”. I’m always like, “how human of me! Oh my god, I feel jealous or sad. Oh my god, I feel anxious. How utterly human of me.”

You choose to embrace it.

Yeah. And, well, I know everything always shifts. When you’re feeling sad, you get really low, and it’s like,” I’ll never feel good again,” but that’s just not true. I even said to myself this morning, “you have a 100% success rate with moving through things and feeling good again at some point.” At the very least, I try to have curiosity because sometimes sadness is just

sadness, but trusting that it will go away at some point and things will feel different and trusting that…there’s some gift in it. And then sometimes you just have to deal with it. [she laughs]

When did you first discover that singing and songwriting was your passion?

I think I loved it all through my childhood, but my path would meander away from it and towards it. [In] college, I realized “Oh, I could do this,” then in 2017, I taught myself guitar. But even that—the long process of when you love something so much, and it’s the closest thing to you connecting with the gods? It’s scary, you know? It’s vulnerable.

What was it like for you when you first started performing and did you have a fear you felt you needed to move past?

I’ve always loved performing live. I played everything and anywhere anyone asked me to. What I’ve learned while performing is “if I fuck up, don’t let them know.” I once had to change an entire ending of a song and just make it up on the fly because I switched the verses by accident! You just don’t sweat it because nobody knows you fucked up besides you.

One of the biggest shows was this launch of a makeup beauty app: Megan the Stallion was playing, Halsey was emceeing, and I’m like, “why did y’all invite me here? I love it, thank you so much, but huh?” I was playing with a full band, but my guitar was plugged in so the audience would hear every imperfection and I was so nervous; but, I had heard that the chemical makeup of anxiety and excitement are the same in your body. So, if you remove what the “story” is, it’s the exact same sensation. I was like, “well it’s day-of, I’m not going to get ten times better at guitar, so I might as well let that go…what if I could reframe what I’m feeling in my body as just pure excitement?”

[So] I went out on the stage in front of all these Gen-Z beauty influencers [who] were all talking. They didn’t give a shit who I was, but I had this moment where it all just flipped for me and I thought, “I’m here for my pleasure and my joy!” I belted out this big note at one point and they all shut up for a second. I was like, “now you’re listening!” [she laughs] I really said that!

That performance was really pivotal for me because I realized if it’s a crowd of three or 5,000, I need to be on stage for my pleasure and my joy. The crowds are gonna do what they’re gonna do, so I have to be up there because it’s fun for me to perform and honestly, that shifted so much for me in the way that I show up on stage.

I feel like you just gave me a TED talk on life.

[she laughs] We’re here for, hopefully, a long time, but pleasure is the path. I do this whole Venus devotional every Friday: I have a little altar, buy her flowers, do hot girl walks, put on a look for her, and create my little altar for the handmaiden of the goddess of beauty, love, and sex. I swear it’s really changed my life. [There are] moments when I’m thinking, “I should be working harder and pushing myself,” [but] I know that the energy that is going to come through is energy of play, fun, pleasure, and bliss. I used to be so caught up with wanting people to take me seriously and not be judged, et cetera, then I thought, “well they’re going to do it anyway. Otherwise, I worry about it and I’m not having fun, so what’s the point?”

How would you describe your creative process when writing music?

It’s different every time. I journal every day and sometimes that will inspire me or sometimes I’m driving in my car and a line pops in and I’m like, “oh that’s good.” Recently, I was driving and I just had this thought where I was like, “I’m wasted on all but the bravest of mortals.” I was like, “That’s good! That’s fun!” So I wrote it in a song.

What aspect of creating music excites you the most?

Honestly […] sometimes the music video [she laughs] because there’s a sense of completion to the whole process. I’m also a visual artist, so there’s something about the full road: I have the experience, the experience informs the song, I write the song with a guitar, perform it, then I record the song, it takes a secondary life, I invite other people and instrumentation in, and then it lives in its own world! It’s like learning to crawl and energetically taking flight, then I get to feel how it wants to visually express itself. By that point, I’m probably a completely different person than I was when I wrote it, so I then get to circle back to myself at that point and figure out what makes sense visually. There’s a sense of completion and healing around it. I’ve had really powerful experiences filming music videos and I’ve been very lucky that every time I’ve put one together it’s also just such a fun hang. I work with the best people.

What can we expect to hear from your upcoming music?

The new album is going to be called Songs for Sorrow, Songs for Pleasure. It’s something that you can kind of listen to to either get out of pain that you’re feeling or draw in pleasure. Something that people, without even realizing, will be repeating to themselves like an affirmation. There’s something about unabashed confidence, pleasure, joy, being happy, turned on, curious, and how to weave that in musically […] things that I’ve been so lucky to learn on a spiritual and emotional level. What’s inspiring me right now is how to make songs that people can dance and move to, and not necessarily pop music by the way, because I come from a more folk, americana vibe, but something that you can dance to.

What are you currently listening to?

I’ve been making a monthly playlist to chart what’s inspiring the music that I am making and this month’s a really high octane, exciting one. “Espresso” [by Sabrina Carpenter] is there, “Makeba” [by Jain], “Million Dollar Baby” by Tommy Richman, “Colors” by Black Pumas, “Bitters End” by Roxy Music, and “Power of Goodbye” by Madonna, the most perfect breakup song of all time, and Troye Sivan.

A few months ago, I made this giant collaborative playlist with a bunch of people on Instagram and everyone added to it. I was about to go into a scary, complex work conversation and that Troye Sivan song “One of Your Girls” came on and it changed my life! I was like, “oh this is that song with the music video, the iconic drag moment. This is pretty good.” Then I put it on again and was like, “woah, this is really good.” I put it on a third time and I’m like, “this is the best pop song I’ve ever heard in my life” and I listened to it 64 times that weekend. I was also having a kind of heartbreak, and I was like, “yo, pop music is powerful!”

Who are some of your biggest musical influences?

In high school, I listened to a lot of Roy Orbison. I think he and Patsy Cline both exemplify using their voice as an instrument around really simple melodies. Growing up, my dad listened to so much music. I got my classic rock education from him. Everything from The Beatles, The Monkees, The Rolling Stones, The Coasters […]. My mom was listening to angry ’90s, singer-songwriter girlies and R&B. She loved Eric Benet [and] also loved Beth Hart. Recently, I like indie stuff [like] Big Thief, Julia Jacklin, and this English pop star that goes by CMAT. It’s so much fun. Everything has a tongue-in-cheek energy.

If you could collaborate with any artist who would it be and why?

Cher. Her career is one that I admire so deeply and want to emulate. She has incredible music, a snatched body, and is a gay icon. Does a few movies that are all somehow iconic and wins an Oscar. And Troye Sivan would be a dream to work with. There are so many.

What’s something you’ve learned about yourself since first sharing your music with the world?

My biggest cheat code to life: whatever scares you the most, and scares you so much you think you’re going to die…do that. Just lean into whatever that is. Life is about being present enough to see these moments of choice that can either be small or big. Like, if I choose this way, it’s kind of me doing the same thing I’ve always done and that’s the safe route; then this other one scares me so much that I feel I’ll be so exposed. Just do whatever that one is because every single time I’ve done that, I find the greatest joy, bliss, and freedom. I let a lot of [external] things mean a lot [to] me. I learned through those experiences, and I feel so blessed that I like myself so much more now. Like I said, pleasure is the path.