A few days before I spoke to Laura Roy, the singer and songwriter performed on CBC East Coast Music Hour, with Ali Enriques (violin and piano) and Sam Wilson (guitar), two musicians with vital roles on her debut album, Late Bloomer Season. It had been a while since the trio played together, and as Roy finished the first verse of “Warpaint,” she noticed tears streaming down Enriques’ face.
The moment was both startling and comforting for Roy; serving as a reminder the vulnerability that’s core to the record could be felt on stage, too.
“I think it’s an important thing to share with people that [I am] the same girl who can stand up on stage in front of 80,000 people with high heeled boots on, [and yet] every time I go to sing these songs, it feels like my heart is beating on the outside of my chest and everyone’s watching it. I don’t think it’s going to go away. It’s that I’m willing to face it every time.”
That girl singing in front of tens of thousands? Roy supported megastar Sabrina Carpenter at Wembley Stadium for Capital’s Summertime Ball with Barclaycard in 2024. Roy is used to the sheen from collaborating with popstars: she’s provided backing vocals for Dua Lipa, Anne-Marie, Camila Cabello, and the UK’s Jordan Rakei, and in 2022, she received a Grammy nomination for her writing contribution on Doja Cat’s track “Alone,” from her Grammy-nominated LP, Planet Her.
But Roy found — while writing lyrics on tour buses and finishing songs in far flung hotels — that she wanted to keep some of the voice she lent to others for herself.
“These accomplishments are so exciting. These are huge international superstars. Ultimately, it reminded me about what is important to me, and what makes me feel connected, and how to make sure I’m doing that in my own music by creating the world around me to facilitate that,” she says.
“It’s very different from those spaces I’ve worked in — affirming to me in the sense that this is actually something I don’t think I would ever want for myself and that’s OK.”
Roy has three EPs under her belt, with Forte earning her an East Coast Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Recording of the Year in 2020. It was once she was off the road that she knew a full-length album had to be the next creative step.
“I had a collection of songs, and I knew I had an album that I wanted to record, but I also knew I was in this strange creative transition where I wanted to work with someone new. I needed someone quite specific for what I wanted to achieve with the recordings,” Roy explains
It was in conversation with fellow musician and friend T. Thomason that Roy worked out what she wanted exactly on this record, including executive producing it, and who might be a good fit for it. “I wanted a producer who was going to allow me to thrive in that position and allow me to lead and shape the songs.”
Thomason suggested Joel Waddell, who would help Roy make Late Bloomer Season in Nova Scotia at his home studio.
Laura Roy. Photo by Mila Austin.
“They were like, ‘Joel will cry in a session with me if he’s really moved by something,’ and instantly that was a green flag for me. When I’m writing and recording, it’s such a vulnerable space. It’s really important for me to feel safe to express and let out what I need to let out.”
Roy wanted the record to be “full of character, humanity and vulnerability,” with listeners feeling as if “they were sitting in the room with me as I’m performing.”
“Joel really understood on my previous projects there was a deeper level of production around the songs and level of ‘polished-ness’ I really wanted to let go of. I wanted to be true to the songs and true to my voice.”
It’s appropriate Late Bloomer Season arrived just as buds all around the Northern hemisphere began to appear and, if we’re lucky enough to witness it, blossom. A fresh perspective can be found anywhere at this time of year. The songs on the album reveal a little bit of Roy the way she wants, raw as she is, as though they are petals themselves, unfurling and coming into bloom.
The album’s art reflects a state of being that’s present, forming, but not quite ready to become something else yet. “There’s this sense that I’m turning and that I’m beginning to show myself.”
“The album ends with ‘Late Bloomer Season,’ and that feels like the bud is opening up. There’s so much more that I have to say and there’s so much more I plan to create with the music that I’ve been writing, even since I’ve finished this album,” Roy says. “The back of the record has a similar photo but it’s more my side profile. There is something kind of subtle in that pose. Maybe it’s [suggesting] that whatever is next for me, is really, fully, showing myself.”