Laufey on creating her own sound

Laufey's music may not be what you usually think of as "pop," but if pop is short for popular, then she is indeed a pop star. The 26-year-old Icelander has earned a devoted following blending modern lyrics and music with classical and jazz. "My music is such a combination of the sounds of my childhood," she said. "It's just something that's become a part of me. I wanted to make things that made me happy.

"I loved Golden Age musicals," said Laufey. "I'd watch 'Carousel' and 'Oklahoma' and 'American in Paris' and 'Sound of Music.' They were so beautiful and had these dance breaks and the dresses were floating and the colors – that feeling I got from that, I just wanted to create that feeling."

The world she inhabits (in her work, anyway) is whimsical and romantic, full of windswept cliffs, frilly dresses and bows … and cello, almost always cello.

Watch Laufey perform "I Wish You Love" with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra:

She says the cello is "as important to me as my voice. And I think it's really what makes a Laufey song a Laufey song."

Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir comes by it naturally. Her Icelandic father introduced her to jazz when she was a girl; her Chinese mother played classical violin. So does Laufey's identical twin sister.

Growing up, she said, she felt different: "Everyone was like, you know, going to play soccer after school or dance, and I was sitting down and playing music from the 17th century. And then on top that I was a twin, identical twin. I just feel, like, weird on top of weird, on top of weird."

And things only got weirder when she started singing, as when she appeared on the TV competition "Iceland's Got Talent" singing Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You," at age 13: "I remember going on singing competitions in Iceland when I was younger and they'd always be like, 'She sounds like a 40-year-old woman that's been divorced twice and she chain-smokes cigarettes,'' Laufey said. "And I was, like, a 13-year-old girl standing on stage being like, okay, like, I just wanted to be a girl. So, yeah I was always a little bit like … felt a little bit like a circus act."

But Laufey found her footing at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She started posting original songs and jazz covers on social media during the pandemic, and they quickly went viral.

Laufey performs "I Love You (For Sentimental Reasons") on guitar and cello:

I asked, "Were you surprised that people were responding to the jazz influences?"

"I was so shocked, because I'd never seen any example of it before," Laufey replied. "And I'd never seen a community of young people … that was the most shocking part, that it was young people responding to the music. But there was always a part of me that was like, of course, it's the best music in the world!"

Now she sells out just about every concert – like a recent one in Norfolk, Virginia, where one fan, Alissa, told us, "When I first like showed, like, my parents that, they were like, 'This is what you guys listen to?' And I was like, 'Yeah, like, this is what, like, younger people are listening to!'"

Another fan, Logan, said, "I feel like she takes just kind of more 'old people music' and pushes it into, like, a newer generation so that more people can enjoy it."

Laufey's new album, "A Matter of Time," comes out this week. A stadium tour will follow.

Her songwriting usually starts on guitar, like her bossa nova-influenced "From the Start."

But she just as easily can weave in a little classical, as she did on her last album, "Bewitched." Last year, "Bewitched" briefly knocked Frank Sinatra off the top of the jazz charts – and then, that album won a best traditional pop vocal Grammy Award, beating such artists as Bruce Springsteen.

And then, Barbra Streisand asked Laufey to sing on her recent album of duets, performing a song Laufey wrote, "Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self." "It's one of those songs that I wrote just in my most intimate moments and could have been a song that I never put out," she said. "It was a song for me to heal myself. But it's a very hopeful song. It's reaching back to tell your younger self that you're going to be okay."

Don't you worry 'bout your curly hair Clothes that don't quite fit you anywhere Voices echo in the gym Another girl's had her first kiss

Please don't think too much of it, darling

I asked, "What do you think your 13-year-old self would think of all of this?"

"I think she'd be really excited," Laufey replied. "I think she'd be really happy. There's not a single part of myself that has changed any of my artistic interests to follow some sort of trend. And I get to make exactly the music that I loved back then. So, I think I would've been really, really happy."

To hear Laufey performing "Silver Lining," from her album "A Matter of Time," click on the video player below:

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Extended Interview - Laufey (Video)

For more info:

• Laufey (Official site) | Tour info

Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Steven Tyler.