Everybody Wants This—Laufey on Her Unexpected Music Journey

When artist, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Laufey was a child growing up in Iceland, she performed in a handful of local singing competitions. “I never really talk much about this,” she tells me of her humble musical beginnings. “I was singing songs like ‘Singing in the Rain.’ … Everyone else was doing pop music. She lost. I remember feeling, ‘Okay, this is not what people want.'” She made it far enough in the competition to believe in her talent, so she entered again. And again. And again.

For one of her final shows, she sang “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone. “I tried to find the songs that fit my voice and were more classic but that people still knew,” she says of her choice. “But I only listened to jazz music and classical music [growing up]. I felt like I just existed on a completely different cloud of music than anything popular.”

Laufey’s mother was a classical violinist, as was her grandmother, so she always thought she’d follow in their footsteps as an instrumentalist over pursuing a career as a singer. “That was the most natural thing to me just because I spent my whole life playing cello, violin, and piano,” she says. “I thought, ‘I guess that’s what I’ll do.'”