Girl Talk With Our Favorite LOVERBOY LADY, Lord Scorpio

Love this question! I will first say this, though: it's not that obvious [laughs] because a lot of people still ask me– even when I'm saying that my name is Lord SCORPIO– they'll still be like, ‘Are you a Scorpio? What's your sign?’

So, yeah, my big three are Scorpio sun, Aquarius moon... Oh, and Sagittarius rising.

Lord Scorpio

I kind of really like it. I'm not going to hold you. Like I fuck with it heavy.

And I also know that my Mercury is in Libra, which I feel gives me the perspective of everyone. I'm not too quick to be like, ‘This is what it has to be.’ I want to understand what's going on and then make a decision.

I don't know my Mars, but I know my Venus is also in Scorpio.

I think it's really good for the initial appeal and attraction, and that definitely helps. People love that. People love when you go deep with them, but then I definitely think passion turns into obsession and infatuation unless it's grounded in the other person also delivering that same passion.

And for me, for some reason, they don't be giving what I be giving! So it kind of turns a little infatuation-y soon on my end. I'm going to be honest, it happens.

I love that.

I’m ready for the prompt.

[Laughs] Their motive is… their motive is to take the capitol, period. They're going to shut everything off for 48 hours and hope that when they turn them on, people will have fucking sense! [laughs] I don't know.

I honestly think it would be pink, and it's not on some loverboy-pink-romantic-red type thing, but I think it's on a softness kind of thing instead of fully romantic. I always felt like LOVERBOY LADY just kind of made me come to terms with my own softness. Like I said: I can be obsessive. I can be passionate. I try to act like, ‘Oh, no, I'm cool. I don't like nobody!’ But it's like, no, I actually do be simping if it’s the right situation! [laughs] So I think pink because it's soft, it's inviting, it's beautiful. It's rare, still, even in nature! It's also very alluring at the same time. I’m even thinking maybe pink and white.

That's a deep question, and I think it's going to be a little bit of a longer answer. But, they say to write about what you know, right? But I’m a songwriter/ghostwriter for other people, so it's not hard for me to write about what other people need me to write about and in a different voice. So, sometimes I'm writing things in ways that I don't necessarily understand, but writing has always been second nature. 

Now, the things that I was writing, honestly, for myself? That was the stuff that I never put out! I have these all-encompassing songs about life where I'm like, ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ and ‘What's my purpose?’ and all that stuff. But those songs, I felt, were too vulnerable.

And for a while, I was kind of releasing stuff with a bit of aggression, a bit of edge like I had something to prove and needed to be loud and colorful in a specific way or carry myself in a certain way– especially with a name like Lord Scorpio! I think it colors me in a very specific way that might not be as fluid as I actually am as a person.

I think that if I wasn't Lord Scorpio, I'd just go by Loverboy Lady. Because I’d have the words ‘Loverboy’ and ‘Lady,’ right? That's the initial play on it. ‘Loverboy’ is like this androgynous place for me to feel like I have power without being seen as purely feminine and all this stuff. Though I do identify as a woman and a ‘lady,’ this loverboy side is the one behind closed doors, you know what I mean? When you're allowed to access this side of me, it's the fucking bubbles room, you know what I mean? [laughs]

Yeah, I felt like it was important to introduce myself as a soft person. I didn't want to start with this bravado that I’d have to maintain.

As far as the story behind the EP, it was something I knew and something that was deep to me. That relationship definitely took up a lot of mental real estate for a long time. So I thought I might as well write about it. Then, halfway through the musical process, the music started helping me to process the breakup emotionally.

And I thought, why not put this out? So I made so many songs, like SO many different songs, and it landed on these. And yeah, I'm so happy with it. And I'm glad that it's softer. I'm so excited to start performing it and embody that in real time for people.

“Yeah! And I think with this decision, it still allows for me to expand and grow organically as an artist.

Oh, I love this question. So, the process took about ten months. At the time of making this project, I had a huge family emergency where I had to be in Virginia for an unknown amount of time. When I got there, I was writing music and I might have made some of the songs for this EP, but I definitely didn't know I was going to do an entire project. I didn't know anybody in Virginia and didn't have access to studios. To top it off, I had access to an apartment with loud birds in it. So, recording was so funny. [laughs] 

But with that kind of thing going on, I had a lot of time for myself to think about love and family and friendships and romance. And, eventually, this breakup started coming in really loud for me because I no longer had New York to distract me.

And so I was just in this apartment by myself all last summer just with these birds. And I thought, ‘Okay, time to figure out how you're feeling about it. How are you going to do that? Write about it.’

I didn't know what else to do. I'd never been in love before that. So I started writing and doing a lot of electric guitar stuff originally– I always find it easier to write on a piano or guitar. I was writing a lot of things that were punk-inspired and more on the aggression side of the healing process. That's where I was. I was upset that I hadn't gotten through it already. I was upset that I was displaced.

It was. But my good friend, Jesus, who ended up producing four of the tracks on the project, sent me a beat pack one day early on in the process and I had it sitting there for mad long. Finally, I started writing to a bunch of the tracks– one of the first ones being ‘TONGUE TIED,’ which, on the EP, still has my guitar playing.

Yeah, ‘TONGUE TIED’ was the beginning of something. I didn't even finish writing it initially, but I was halfway through and thought, ‘Okay, this is definitely the vibe and something about this just feels so ‘Yes!’ This is getting somewhere!

Yeah! So, most of that summer I had a different track list of about six songs, ‘TONGUE TIED’ included. I think maybe ‘TONGUE TIED’ is the only song from that time period that you see on the track list today.

When I came back to New York, I was displaced housing-wise and didn't have time to find a new place so I ended up living with a friend in her basement. It was not glamorous at all. The only thing I could do is go to the studio and just get out of that apartment to finish this project.

To put the last few songs together, I actually linked up with a really cool friend of mine named Zukye who works at a studio in the city called S5 as well as their intern, Demri. I really clicked with Demri. I played her some instrumentals and then eventually we did LOVERBOY LADY first. I think the next time I went in, we re-did the second verse of ‘LOVERBOY LADY’  and then did all of ‘SIRENS’ in one day– and ‘SIRENS’ is my favorite song as well as the last song that I did. 

Fun fact: I recorded ‘SIRENS’ and ‘LOVERBOY LADY’ with Demri and I didn't even know that the title of the project was going to be LOVERBOY LADY! It was originally supposed to be titled ‘LONGSHOT, BABY.’

In the end, the final six songs felt the most truthful. I will say that ‘Sway,’ a single that I released back in 2022, almost made its way onto the final tracklist. At the last minute, I took ‘Sway’ out and put in ‘without me?,’ which is very raw and is also not mixed or mastered very well because I did it myself [laughs.]

It's also the only song in the list that's in all lowercase. It's a very sentimental thing for me. I don't know how people receive it, but, for me, making that song felt like the mountainous part of the feelings I had as I really just wondered: what's life without me?

Like, this girl really just dumped me. This girl really just dumped me and I got to deal with it. I did my best and I hope everything's good— and that's the last thing I got to say about it. You know what I mean?

Adding the story of healing and grief and denial and anger made me kind of feel like I was going through that. At first, I had labeled each song with an emotion, like ‘fantasy’ or ‘obsession’ or ‘allure’ or ‘intoxication.’ They kind of had their own grief cycles for me. And honestly, when the EP was done, I was like, dang! I'm ready to date! I'm so done. So good.

I was healed! [laughs] I would also give myself some time without listening to the project and then I would listen back to it and think: ‘This is it. It still sounds good. Okay, upload.’

So, that's my long answer! [laughs] I was very intentional. Not just about the story of the project from track one to track six, but my life story. I needed there to be something positive coming out of that ten months, and the music was definitely that. I'm very happy with it.

Now, I feel so much more compelled to keep making these bigger projects. At first, it was like, “Oh my God, how am I going to do this? An entire body of work!’ But now, I don't know, I’m just thinking of different ways to tackle the bigger stuff.

Some good stuff, actually. And very soon. Sooner than you think.

That's a really good question. I definitely feel like there was a difference in the healing process for me. When I dated a guy, he was my first actual long-term relationship and the biggest thing that I would tell myself might have been toxic, but I would say that I don't want to be a girl crying over a guy. That is not my story! [laughs] So it was just easier to move on.

It was a different process, however, with this girl. From your question, I hear the family, I hear the closeness and the partnership parts because, I think for my specific relationship with her, I was like a rock and she was a tissue. If she needed me, I was there for her. But I wouldn’t necessarily think that she'd be strong enough for me to lean on with the same weight that she was leaning on me.

When we weren't together, I think it was hard for me because I thought we’d always have the option to be friends, and I was so open to that. I thought, ‘Why can't we find a way to have each other around?’ and it was because our lives were so deeply integrated, much more than the guy I dated who didn't really know my friends or the guy that did know my friends, but my friends only really heard the shitty things when I would complain about him– that kind of thing.

But, I was more 360 about the relationship that I had with this girl– which wasn't all great. But, I was vocal about the things that were really great– more so than I was vocal about things that weren't. And it [the relationship] definitely was a huge deal– even my housemates were wondering what happened to this person now that it’s over!

I’ve got to tell you: I do think there's a truth in the difference due to the fact that we might not have as much experience or much of an example of how to heal and get through queer relationships so there might be more of a hardness to it. I definitely got over my male exes and counterparts quicker and sturdier.

But, yeah, that is funny, though.