Lola Scott’s EP Breakfast For Dinner comes out today.

Lola Scott is a bit of a powerhouse. Whether she’s releasing new music or attending co-writing sessions in LA, she’s the kind of artist that has a knack for always staying front and centre in your Instagram feed. Now, the Sydney alt-pop innovator is dropping her new EP, Breakfast For Dinner, and we have a sneak preview of the video for the track that inspired its title: ‘Brinner’.

Directed by Sydney’s Maya Luana, the video lives and breathes Scott’s bedroom popstar ethos. Charting the territory of an unlikely relationship, Scott sits in bed beside her sleeping partner, chewing on tongue-in-cheek metaphors: “You sleep all day I sleep all night / Breakfast for dinner, that’s alright.” Even though she didn’t know it at the time, the love song served as a kind of premonition for all the reasons why they wouldn’t work out.

Co-produced with frequent collaborator Oscar Sharah (moonboy, Mel Blue) and co-written with Pat Byrne (Beso Palma), Breakfast For Dinner is filled with Scott’s signature quick-witted lyrics – a combination of 90s-inspired grunge and sugary, auto-tuned pop cuts. Equal parts sassy and melancholic, the EP is pervaded by a feeling that Scott has grown a little older and a little wiser, gaining (and losing) a few things in the process. In the end, she’s still eating breakfast for dinner, proof that not too much has changed.

Ahead of the release of Breakfast For Dinner, we visited Lola Scott at her Summer Hill house and asked her a few questions about the new EP. Check out our interview below, and catch her live in Wollongong and Sydney this month and Vanfest in Bathurst in December. Tickets available here.

Hey Lola, firstly congrats on your new EP! How are you feeling right now?

Proud of myself. My friend told me to be proud of myself this morning for all of the hard work I’ve put in leading up to the release. For some reason, it felt really hard to admit that I do feel super proud of everything that I’ve managed to achieve in the last couple of weeks. We planned and shot four videos last week and recorded acoustic versions of some of the EP tracks. I also managed to finish the production and mixing notes of the whole EP through a pandemic, so I’m pretty proud of myself for being able to stay motivated and almost stay sane.

Moving on from last year’s ¼ life crisis, there’s a sense that on Breakfast For Dinner you’re a little bit more grown up, a little bit wiser (although you’re still eating brinner). But there’s also a kind of melancholy around that – you seem to be looking backwards, trying to fit all the pieces together. Can you talk to me about some of the themes on the EP?

The themes in this EP revolve around me having my first healthy relationship and letting myself receive the love I actually deserve, instead of going for dirtbags over and over again. I feel like I’m trying to embrace a new chapter in this EP. Looking back on memories made at previous share houses and benders can feel nostalgic, but I’m finding joy in different things than what I did when I created my first EP.

It feels like you’ve really pushed yourself sonically on this EP, from the super dancey beat on ‘feeling feelings’, to the heavier use of auto-tune throughout, to the pop banger territory of the ‘Can’t Be Enough’ chorus. Did you set out to make something that sounded different? Are there any moments sonically you’re really excited about?

I always try to go into the studio without boxing myself into any particular sound. I think the sound expanded naturally through feeling the freedom to experiment whilst working with my good friend and longest collaborator Oscar Sharah.

There are lots of moments I’m excited about on this EP. I was inspired by lots of different genres of music and that lead me to feel more creative and experiment with production ideas. It’s exciting for me as a producer as well, when I can go into the writing sessions and dip my toes into different genres every day. I was listening to a lot of 90s grunge music, but I wanted to mix that with the elements of pop music that I loved, trying to bring the rawness that I love from rock and indie music into the indie pop scene.

I would play parts in roughly on the acoustic guitar and then Oscar would sometimes put them into a sampler or heavily quantise them to keep the rough elements of the first takes, but incorporate the clean-cut pop production.

What’s inspiring you at the moment?

So much. I actually went away for a week in a caravan just to listen to music before I started this EP. This is the inspiration playlist I started before Breakfast For Dinner was created…I was also listening to a lot of 90s throwbacks, which I also turned into a playlist…

Do you have a favourite track on the EP and why?

‘Brinner’ is my favourite at the moment! It feels like the happiest moment on the EP and it already feels nostalgic to me because I’m not in the relationship I wrote the EP about, but ‘Brinner’ talks about us staying together forever no matter what – even though it kind of feels like I wrote a lot of the EP as a premonition as to why we would break up.

It was a falling-in-love EP, but listening to it now it feels like a break-up EP. I feel like I was listing all the things in the songs that made the relationship end, but didn’t realise it at the time, even though I wrote it in lyrics. He worked a night job and I would be doing writing sessions all day. During the time we had together, we were exhausted, we just had no time. Our schedules were out of whack.

You’re a bit of a powerhouse. It seems like every few weeks I open Instagram and you’re releasing a new song (in the best possible way). Are you a fast writer? Do you have an impeccable work ethic? How do you get it all done?

Thank you so much. I can definitely put a lot of pressure on myself to get a lot done but I also just love writing music. A lot of my social life revolves around getting in the studio with old friends or making new friends through songwriting. So when I don’t write for a while I start to crave it. I also think nothing gets me as buzzed as finding new production ideas that excite me. I definitely am a bit of a workaholic and at times feel like I’m falling out of touch with my non-musician friends because we don’t see each other as much as the friends who I work with regularly. I’m still working on trying to find a balance. It’s super important to have life experiences because, otherwise, I run out of ideas to write about.

Often, I go into the studio without a song at the start of the day and we’ll sit around for a couple of hours with just a guitar and write one. Once we have the bones of a pre, verse and chorus then we’ll start working on the production bed. I always try to make the production support the feeling in the lyrics.

Usually, we’ll come out with the finished production on the day. I’ve also tried to stop believing in demo vocals. I’ve learnt to trick my brain and tell myself what I record on the day is demos vocals, but I never end up going back to re-record. If you trick yourself and say you’ll go back and re-record later, you sing it with more honesty, but if you’re thinking at the time the whole world is going to hear it you sing it differently.

What’s the thing you’d most love to tick off your bucket list?

I have recently been looking into taking Flamenco guitar lessons for a month in Seville, Spain. I started out as a classical guitarist and dabbled in Flamenco for a short period but it’s always been something that I’ve wanted to improve on. I find practising guitar very relaxing as it helps my brain focus on one thing instead of a million at once.

Another bucket list thing for me has always been to open one of my sets by playing a classical guitar song. I think I saw The Jezabels play at the opera house and their keyboard player performed a song on the organ to open their set and since then I’ve always wanted to open my set with a classical-style solo piece.

Collaboration seems to be an important part of your creative process, from your regular writing/producing relationship with Oscar Sharah (Mel Blue) and Pat Byrne (Beso Palma) to writing sessions in LA and the Valley Girls songwriting camp last year hosted by Carla Wehbe and APRA/AMCOS. Can you talk to me about some of these experiences? Do you prefer to write alone or with other people?

It really doesn’t feel real, the artists and producers that I have been lucky enough to create with. I think writing alone and with other people are two completely different experiences for me. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other. I definitely work with other people more frequently as I struggle with my short attention span when I’m working alone. A day of writing with friends in the studio can be a super fun time so it doesn’t really feel like work and I could stay hanging in the studio for weeks.

I have more recently started working more alone and really enjoying it but it definitely takes a lot more discipline for me to finish production on songs alone. I also need to get in a headspace where I can ignore any self-doubt about my ideas. I find that when working with other people, having them encourage and get excited about my ideas can make me work a lot faster because then I have less self-doubt.

You’re someone who has a knack for coming up with iconic one-liners, and this EP is no different. ‘DELETE MY HISTORY (ctrl+alt+delete)’ is full of them – “I’m not dating anyone with skinny jeans now” comes to mind. Does it take you a long time to come up with them or do they just materialise?

It tends to be the lyrics that you write as a “lol” that tend to stick. I think that lyric was written by Gia Vorne, who is a hilarious human. We had a lot of laughs writing this track with Andreé Nookadu and Adrien Nookadu.

Hit me with the best and worst brinners you’ve ever had.

Oh I’ve made some shockers. I remember my worst breakfast burrito I cooked for dinner: rice and baked beans on a green spinach wrap with tabasco… not great. Brinners are pretty staple, because it’s pretty hard to fuck up cereal.

I did have red wine with cereal milk the other night for dinner which wasn’t great. I’ve burnt a lot of kale, and some days I just can’t cook eggs. Nothing worse than some really dry egg with some burnt kale for dinner.

One time, I had friends over here rehearsing for an acoustic video and decided to make some dinner and cooked some eggs (and burnt them) but put them on toast anyway. Turns out the toast was mouldy. There definitely was no Brinner that night.

What does the ultimate day in the life of Lola Scott look like?

The ultimate day would be: we’ve had an all-nighter and we’re going to go to the beach at sunrise (but make sure it’s an all-nighter because I hate waking up early). And then we go snorkelling. Someone delivers me a pizza and some coffee on the beach because I’m pretty tired from the all-nighter. Scrap the coffee – I’m having a nap after this pizza.

Then someone’s going to give me a back massage on the beach but someone else must be next to me holding an umbrella so I don’t get sunburnt. Then someone’s going to take me on a ride on a TukTuk around the harbour which is decked out with a great reading collection and seasickness tablets (because I’d get carsick if I was reading on a TukTuk). The TukTuk takes us to Tasmania, where I have dinner with my long-lost cousin. And for dinner, they serve me burnt eggs and kale along with a classical guitar serenade while I eat.