It’s been over 10 years since the British electronic pop musician Elly Jackson, who goes by the moniker of La Roux, has performed live on stage in the U.S. But that long hiatus will conclude this Saturday, March 15, when La Roux will play in Los Angeles for the start of a month-long residency.
“It’s nice to finally be getting a run going and singing the old songs again” says Jackson, who came onto the music scene in 2009 with her smash self-titled debut album. “I’m very much looking forward to playing for people again and getting back into it. It’s been a long time.”
Throughout her career, La Roux has been known for her scintillating synthpop music and androgynous look. She has played stages on her own and with other acts like New Order and appeared at festivals such as Governors Ball and Glastonbury. In 2011, La Roux won a Grammy under the category of Dance/Electronic Album for the debut record.
Her last studio album, Supervision, came out in 2020 when the COVID pandemic forced musicians – and the rest of the world — to shut down. Now La Roux’s return to the stage with her Los Angeles residency is not only an opportunity for her American fans to be treated to the hits, but the residency is also a preview of new music from her upcoming album (whose title and release date have not been officially announced).
“This record is solely American production-influenced,” Jackson, who hails from London, says of why she chose to play in Los Angeles. “I don’t feel like it makes as much sense in the U.K. as it does in America. All of the visual references are also completely American. Plus, I feel like L.A. has always been a nice spot for me. Being in the sun is where this album should be. It’s nice to start things from where it felt like it was born.”
To her, there is a difference between performing in front of American audiences and those in Britain. “I feel like people [in the U.K.] have high expectations and they see a lot of entertainment,” says Jackson. “There’s a bit more kind of waiting for you to impress them. But then the minute you leave London, it’s like the audience is completely different. I feel like America generally has a kind of like you can talk to people in the street. Last time I was in L.A., I bumped into so many people and I ended up having conversations and it’s kind of like a friendlier, more chatty vibe. And that also translates on stage and the response that you get from the audience.”
Jackson, who works out of her U.K. home studio, says she wrote about 80-90 percent of the new album by herself. “Then what I usually do at the end is maybe bring it to somebody that I really trust. that I’m already have a good relationship with.
“I have a friend called Sean [Oakley] who lives in L.A. and who’s very good at what he does,” she continues. “And he just gets me. We mixed Supervision together. I wanted to spend a few weeks with him in L.A. also because I wanted the record to have some time in its place of influence. So I did that probably well over a year ago. I spent a few weeks out there with him seeing what else could be added, finalizing production out there, and using L.A. as an influence.”
In describing the upcoming record, Jackson says the lyrics are more engaging this time compared to her previous album. “My manager said, ‘Sometimes you like to hide in ambiguity and metaphor.’ [This time] I feel like it’s a lot more obvious what I’m saying and why I’m saying it. And I think it’s a little bit more revealing, but it’s also very fun. I’ve got into characters a little bit on this album, but whilst also still being really honest, I do feel like it’s funner than maybe I’ve been for a while.”
Fittingly, the impending arrival of the new La Roux album comes after Jackson’s debut record marked its 15th anniversary last year. With such hit singles as “Bulletproof” and “In for the Kill,” La Roux put Jackson on the map and recalled the ‘80s synthpop of acts like Depeche Mode, New Order, the Human League and Soft Cell.
“It’s very weird for me to see how much time has gone,” Jackson says of La Roux’s recent milestone. “Everybody has that in their life. It’s not just me, but it is strange. I think there’s been a lot of kind of anniversarial stuff that’s happened recently. When you go through phases and come out of them, you very much feel like you’re being reborn in an anniversarial way.”
From the early part of her carer, Jackson set her sights on La Roux — which started as a duo project with producer Ben Langmaid — achieving success in a big and bold way. “I definitely wasn’t aiming small when I was younger. I was involved through rave culture and the kind of Ed Banger-Maison Kitsune-French electro thing. That was really important for me to merge that with the old references. So I was very keen to have what they used to call a kind of breakthrough crossover record, which is hard to have now. It’s a different world.”
La Roux’s next album Trouble in Mind (2014) drew on funk influences and embraced new sounds — including Chic-styled funk — rather than merely rehashing the grooves and beats of the previous albums. Jackson says she never wanted to be an artist that does the same thing twice.
“I think you always have to challenge yourself, find new things you love, find new inspiration. Delivering what you’ve delivered before in a slightly lesser form doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve watched other artists try to do it and try and stay in that lane. And it’s so hard because the longer you stay in it, the harder it is to leave it. And I was very aware of that. It’s why I changed my look really quickly. I didn’t want to get stuck. But there was a lot of tension and a lot of people that were like, ‘Why don’t you just write another “Bulletproof”?’ Which my answer is always, ‘If I could write “Bulletproof” every day, trust me, I would. My bank account would love it, but it doesn’t work like that.’ Art isn’t about that.”
Trouble in Mind was appropriately titled as it saw the departure of Langmaid and became the last record Jackson would make for a major label. “There was a lot of tension around it,” she says about that second album. “It broke up the relationship with my record label because I did what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to do what they wanted me to do. But I do feel like it’s paid off many years later. I’m still insanely proud of it. I was rehearsing yesterday [for the residency], and I love singing songs from that album: “Sexotheque,” “Cruel Sexuality,” “Tropical Chancer.” I think it is some of my best work.”
Supervision, La Roux’s third album, was released in 2020 through Jackson’s own label; among the standout tracks was “Gullible Fool,” which provided further evidence of the growth of La Roux’s sound. “I was coming up to another five years in between records, and I was like, ‘I can’t have this again.’ I’d also broken up from the longest relationship I’d ever been in. I needed to get everything out. “Gullible Fool” is the maturation of so many things, trust issues, trying to work out who you are. I think it’s definitely the most honest moment on the record. I do think there are great moments on that record, but I also feel like it just had to happen and I had to move on.”
While the L.A. shows are the only ones so far announced, Jackson is hoping to perform in other places in the near future. “I know there’s a lot of people online being like, ‘Please, are you going to come here?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, of course. Don’t worry.’ This is very much just the beginning. I would say this is a warm-up for where I’m going. I just want to play some of the new tracks live and see how they feel. I’m kind of working it out at the moment. But of course, I would love to do a residency in New York. I’d love to do a residency in Paris. I think there’s definitely scope for that, but I may play it differently.”
La Roux will perform in Los Angeles on March 15 at the Sun Rose; March 22 at the Peppermint Club; March 29 at Moroccan Lounge; and April 5 at El Cid.