A little less than a year post-graduate, Lauren Rintoul is juggling it all. The multi-hyphenate artist balances her time between her own artist project, writing for other artists, and working as an assistant publisher. Her most recent move? “Collateral.” Her latest single mixes dense lyrics and vocal layering.
On April 4th, Rintoul will be releasing a new single titled “Immune.” “It’s the weirdest one I have,” Rintoul said.
Annenberg Media talked with Rintoul about the collaborative process, production learning curve and upcoming projects.
Full transcript has been edited for clarity.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Hello, I’m Lauren Rintoul. I am 22. I live in Los Angeles, and I am a singer-songwriter. And I graduated USC in May of 2024. When I was at USC, I studied music industry, but I took a lot of creative classes as well.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I got started in music when I was super young. Just before I even played piano or guitar or any instruments, I was always writing poems and little things and humming melodies and stuff. They were terrible, but I was kind of doing that from the beginning. And then, of course, naturally, as like every five year old girl was, I was obsessed with Taylor Swift. So, I started playing piano to kind of put a structure to the melodies I was writing and then taught myself guitar in middle school, and just sort of went on from there.
And then kind of took it more seriously when I came to USC. I was always planning on being in music, but I went to school for microbiology. I did all of this other stuff. And so when I got to USC, I really started to take it more seriously. I made some friends who were good at music production, so I could create with them, and that was super exciting for me. So I put out my first two songs then, and I pretty much just started writing and taking being an artist more seriously. And then about a year ago, I started writing for other artists as well, and that has become an absolute joy for me. It’s one of my favorite things to do. And yeah, I got very lucky. I met some amazing artists, and now I do that as well.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I was very lucky that right out of college I started a full time job, and I’m a bit of a workaholic, so that kind of had to happen. But I’ve been kind of going right after graduation, so I didn’t feel like I had the break where I was like, ‘Oh, fuck. What do I do?’ I kind of just started.
Post grad was super awesome. I feel like I got very lucky in that I sort of just had a path, and I got to have a bit more time to do the creative in addition to actually making money, because those things are very separate, unfortunately.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Right now, I am an assistant publisher at The Circuit Group, which is a conglomerate of a bunch of EDM labels, and so I do a ton of their stuff, especially in music sync, but a lot of their metadata organization and that sort of stuff. Outside of that, I have my artist project, obviously, and then I write for other artists as well. So it’s kind of just a balancing act of when I can do stuff; a lot of my sessions are on weekends or at night after work.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I think the balance between a full time job or just work and doing the creative. I think it’s really important to have a balance. But I also think that having a more like, industry side, or a business side, or something that’s separate from the creative, kind of helps the creative in a way, because it allows you to use different parts of your brain. But also turn off the creative sometimes, and turn on the creative sometimes. It kind of — t’s very different parts of the brain which I’ve found to be useful in both sides.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Yeah, so my artist project is kind of ever evolving as I learn to produce my own stuff and get interested. I’m a bit of a music technology nerd. I’m obsessed with vocoders and synthesizers and all that stuff. And I just got a new loop pedal, which I’m so excited about. But yeah, I think a lot of the new hardware tech that I get influences the music that I create. And so as I am learning, I’m definitely incorporating that more into my sounds, and that’s sort of shaping what I create, a bit, but definitely the collaborators that I work with as well.
I think inspiration wise, I definitely, I mean, Ed Sheeran is one of the reasons why I started writing songs. Crazy to say that on a podcast, because I feel like a lot of people would not say Ed Sheeran, but he definitely was one of the reasons why I wanted to be a performer. Watching him using his loop pedal and everything, but also just his songwriting is insane, so I always have to give homage to Ed Sheeran. But yeah, like Billie Eilish, there’s an artist named Devin Again, who’s a lot smaller, who I love. She does a lot of glitchy type things, but also the lyrics are very important, and that’s something that’s super, super important to me to have the dense lyrics as like a through line.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: In all of my music. I like to have a hand in the production, no matter what. A lot of the songs will start out with me making a demo on my own, and then I bring that to one of my producer friends, and we finish it together. Some of them, I just start with my producer friends and that sort of thing. But every song that I put out has been written just by me and then produced by me and someone else.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I got into the production side of things entirely by necessity. I don’t know if any other creatives listening to this had this problem as well, but I found that I would write songs and I would bring them to other people, and whenever I would start to produce them with other people, they would feel less and less like mine. Like I would bring them to a producer, and because I didn’t have the language to say what I wanted and they would have their own vision, and it would just become sort of their sort their kind of thing. And so as I was doing that, I realized that that wasn’t going to work for the type of music that I wanted to create. I wanted to be able to have it be the way that I pictured, and so I started producing just as a means of getting out my ideas and being able to learn how to have the right lingo in those rooms to get things to the point where I wanted them to be. And I’m still not great at production at all. I’m very much learning, but I feel like I’ve gotten to the point where I can create things that I’m proud of showing people which is an awesome place to be. Could not have said that a year ago.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: “Collateral” was a super special song. I wrote that one in my room here at USC. But yeah, with that song I believe I wrote it on piano initially, and then I created a demo for it that was entirely vocals, cause I initially was not very good at production. So I would create everything based off of vocals. I would sing whatever melodies I wanted the bass lines to be, whatever melodies I wanted different sounds to be, and then I would just put different plugins on to make them the sound that I wanted them to be. So the entire demo, originally for “Collateral,” was just vocals, and vocals turned into other instruments, which is kind of cool, but yeah, anyway, so I did that, and then I sort of evolved it. And that song kept coming back. I kept showing it to friends of mine, and they were like, ‘That’s the one you need to put out.’
And so I was in a class at USC, and I was looking for producers to collaborate with on artists that I was writing for. And I met this one producer that was also at USC, production major, Evan Pruett, super awesome, super talented. Only great things to say about him. I met with him, and just as a trial to see if he would be a good person for the other artists that I write for, we were like, ‘Let’s just make ‘Collateral’ together.’ So we did that. It was like, four sessions, and it was over the course of months, because we were both super busy and leaving and I went to London for a little bit because Maymester here. And yeah, we ended up finishing it when I got back, and I was already mixing another song, “Downpour.” So this one kind of went with that and became a bit of a package deal in all the things. So yeah, that was kind of how “Collateral” came to be.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I’ve always been the therapy friend, and I love that. It’s so much fun, like it’s entirely who I am. But sometimes I find that sometimes the best way for me to get out my own thoughts is more putting them into songs, and “Downpour” is entirely about that and that I felt like whenever I would talk about my own feelings, it would hurt other people around me. So I would always keep that inside and put them into my songs. So my songs are entirely my journal, and it’s things that, I mean, I would talk to some of my close friends about but sometimes I don’t want to be the one that’s like, ‘Oh, I miss this person again for the 50th time,’ so I’ll just write a song about it, and it’ll become that and “Lost Art” and “See Through” were actually about the same person.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Yeah, with a lot of my music, I focus a ton on, obviously, focusing on the dense lyrics and not having a through line throughout all the music. But I also really enjoy doing vocal layers, and so when you listen to “Downpour” and you listen to “Collateral,” that’s definitely something that you hear in both. I also like taking vocals and turning them into other instruments. So there’s a lot of that in “Collateral” as well.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: The entire intro is vocals, which I think is kind of cool. In it, the verse sits just on top of like a pad of vocals. In the outro, we bring in a bit of the glitchy vocals again.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: We really wanted the intro of the song to start out really pretty, and then to go into this more kind of rocky, like aggressive thing that happens at the end, because at the beginning of anything, it feels beautiful.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Like everyone else, I’ll get such bad writer’s block sometimes, and so especially because I feel like being a bit of a workaholic, sometimes, I’m not like going to bars or meeting people and that sort of thing. So I’ll draw inspiration from stories that I see in film and TV. I wrote a couple songs about “Euphoria” a while ago, and maybe I’ll put those out in that little thing together. But, um, yeah, I definitely take inspiration from all kinds of media.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: The amazing thing about USC is that everyone is so collaborative, and when I was looking to do cover art for it. I was actually in an environmental studies — it was senior year, and I was in a freaking day one environmental studies, thing environmental studies 100 or something and it was my last GE. And I met this girl named Jackie [Hung], who’s awesome. We got through that class together, but she was always in that class. I would always see her with her digital designs and everything — so, so talented. And so when I was looking for cover art, I just tapped her on the shoulder. I was like, ‘Hey, would you want to do something together? Do a little collab moment?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ And at that point, I was actually working on another song, which will come out at some point, called “Influence.” And so we got together with her friend Christine [Zhaang], who was taking the actual photos, and then she was editing them, to actually take the cover art for “Influence.” And it’s funny, because that song ended up getting kind of stuck, and it’s gonna come out, but it’s in paused mode right now. But yeah, we ended up taking the cover art for “Downpour” and “Collateral” that day.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: When I was at USC, I put together a string of performances. I was doing a ton of live shows. That was a huge part of what I did here. And I would use a full USC band, but we performed at the Mint, the Viper Room, the Virgil. Kind of just all over LA — every venue that we could, every venue that asked. I was very lucky to be able to play at some really cool places. And then as I started to really figure out what my sound was, because when I released “Lost Art” and “See Through,” when you listen to those, they’re very different from “Downpour” and “Collateral.” I was working with a different producer, but that was before I really understood production, so that’s why it’s a little bit different. But I started performing again. I guess this past performance that happened a couple days ago was my first performance in a while, but I did it acoustic piano one, because that was the type of venue that we were doing it for. But in the future, I am planning this entire performance with my looper and like synthesizers and all of my hardware tech stuff that I’m super excited about.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Writing for other artists is a completely different part of my brain than writing for myself. When I write for other artists, it’s always different depending on who I’m working with, if I’m writing a pitch song versus writing with the artists in the room, if it’s a sync thing, like whatever. Every version of it is different. But if I’m writing with like a new artist and they’re in the room, the process is, usually we sit down, and my whole thing as a songwriter is I want it to feel like the artist’s voice. So I never want someone to be able to listen to a song that I wrote with someone else and be like ‘Lauren Rintoul wrote that.’ That’s my worst nightmare. I feel like I failed as a songwriter if that’s the case.
So, my process when I’m writing with a new artist is I will sit down for like, 45 minutes and just spend as long as it takes to get to know the artist. It’s helpful if I’m friends with the person first, because then I’ll know everything. But it’s pretty much like, ‘I want your life story. Tell me every nitty gritty detail. Let’s go in. Like, what was your worst ex? Tell me everything, you know.’ I just want to really understand who the person is. And usually during this conversation, if the artist is comfortable, I’ll pull up a Google Doc, and as they’re talking, I’ll write down sentences that they’ve said so I can kind of understand how they say things and phrase things so that when we are writing, I kind of know what words they would use to describe things and that sort of thing. And that tends to help me get closer to something that really feels like the artist. And then, as we’re writing the song, I also always let the artist know that no matter what they are the last say, because it’s their song. It’s not my song. So if there’s ever an idea that they don’t feel comfortable about, there’s no harm in being like, ‘no’ like, just say it and we’ll move on. And we’ll create something that is even more amazing. If we get two hours into the song, we can scrap the whole thing and start over if that doesn’t feel like the artist, because who wants to waste the whole day on a song that’s never going to exist? So yeah, that’s my process. When I’m writing for other artists and they’re in the room.
When I’m writing pitch, I like to kind of consider it like acting. When I was really little, I was super into acting, and so what I’ll do when I’m writing for pitch is I’ll literally pretend that I’m the artist, and I will pretend that I’m going through something I think that they would be going through. And I kind of do that with my music as well. But for pitch songs, I’ll be like, ‘Okay,’ Ellie Golding is an example I use a lot, because I did a couple of pitch songs for her, but I’ll be like, ‘Okay, what is Ellie Golding going through right now?’ And I’ll make up some story about, like, ‘Oh, she had this breakup and she did this thing.’ “Don’t” by Ed Sheeran is all about her, getting with Nial Horan in a hotel. And so sometimes I’ll write about that and kind of just take things that I think that she might be going through and act it out in my own brain to write from that perspective.
But yeah, when I’m doing the acting thing writing for myself, sometimes I think the really beautiful thing about writing music is that it’s kind of a snapshot into a specific moment in time that you felt something. And Rick Rubin actually had a very interesting tidbit about this in his book, but he was saying that you can’t just trigger inspiration. You can’t decide, ‘Oh, I’m going to sit down right now and be inspired.’ You’re going to get inspired when you’re driving to work. You’re going to get inspired when you’re walking to class.You’re going to get inspired by all of these things. So you can’t just sit down and expect it to be right there at that moment. So sometimes what I’ll do if I’m feeling stuck, I feel like I like if I’m — for “Collateral” for example, I wasn’t actually experiencing in that moment when I was writing that song the feelings of someone being collateral damage and the outcome of that, but I wanted to accomplish getting that emotion into the song. So when I was writing it, I had to put myself in that vibe of, ‘Okay, I this just happened to me,’ and I sit there, and sometimes it can be really hard, because sometimes I’m a good actor and I really get into it, but yeah, sometimes it can be really hard, and you can get a little lost in it, but it’s always nice to come out with, like a little packaged bow of your trauma.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: Yeah, it was something that felt so important to me, because when I would work with other collaborators, my biggest thing was sometimes I would feel like my voice wasn’t heard. And that’s like my worst nightmare in a writing session for someone else. I never want them to think that they aren’t heard. Because when I’m writing for other artists, I’m their therapist. That’s like exactly what it is. I want you to spill all your trauma, and we’re going to package it up and send it off so that you like it. And so if, if they don’t feel like their voice is in it, then I’ve absolutely failed. So that’s the most important part.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I think the next song that’s coming out is going to be “Immune,” which I’m very excited for. It’s the weirdest one I have, but I feel like it might be time we just start with the weirdest, and then we can kind of work backwards and see what the vibe is, but then everyone really knows what we’re getting into. You know when you go on a date and you’re like, ‘Oh, let me just get all my weird out now so they know if they want to leave,’ that’s what immune is going to be.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: One of the first songs I had released under another artist name that I had written with the artist was this song called, “We Were Girls” by Grace Power. We also wrote that while I was at USC as well. But she is one of the most amazing artists I’ve worked with. Her voice is insane. Her vision’s insane. She’s so talented, but she had a release party for her album, and it was so special. She had a bunch of fans send in artwork and stuff like that. And, there was a fan that did artwork for one of the songs that we had written together, and it was so special. Literally, I cried. I was like, ‘I feel like I’ve made it as a songwriter.’ This is exactly — and it was the first song that I had ever released under another artist’s name. And just the feeling that I had in that moment was like, ‘I just need to write songs for other people for the rest of my life.’ Like, I have to do that. It sounds so cheesy, but it was like, I wanted to cry. I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ This girl’s from like, Norway, and she heard the song that we wrote in my bedroom, and felt inclined to create this artwork, dictating her life through the years. It was so beautiful. So that was a really special moment as a songwriter.
And anytime I see someone performing a song that we wrote together, I always have that same feeling. It’s so special to just hear the emotion in their voice and see their faces while they’re seeing the other people’s faces. It’s crazy. But I think, and ‘I made it’ moment as an artist, there’s so many things. I genuinely feel like every time I create music, I feel like I’m having that moment where I’m like, I’m so lucky that I get to create music, and that’s an ‘I made it moment in itself. But I would love to go on a tour, and I would love to really be able to create the show that I have in my head. I think that once I am able to put that together, I think that that will be an ‘I made it’ moment for me.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
Rintoul: I think the most fulfilling thing is that I feel like you could take any emotion and you can turn it into a story, or you can take any story and focus it through the lens of an emotion. And I think that that’s something that’s so special. I write so many ballads, and so you can really hear the emotions. But even when you’re not writing a ballad, even when you’re writing a pop song for Selena Gomez or something, there’s usually a central emotion in it. And I think that the connection between storytelling and triggering emotions is so special, and music is the one place where I feel like emotions are glorified. Whereas I feel like every other industry, people are kind of inclined to dull down their emotions. And I think that there’s something so special about music and how open you can be, and how that is rewarded in music.
[Musical Interlude: “Collateral” by Lauren Rintoul]
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