Lauv says new album 'All 4 Nothing' was inspired by “spiritual quest” following “existential dilemma”

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Hannah Lux Davis

Lauv’s new album, All 4 Nothing, is out Friday, and it’s somewhat of a change from his previous album ~how i’m feeling~. That album had multiple guests on it, from Alessia Cara to BTS to Anne-Marie. By contrast, there are no guests on All 4 Nothing — but only partly due to COVID isolation.

“I also feel like I owed that to myself,” he tells ABC Audio. “I was just, like, ‘I’m not going to force any type of collab on this.’ Y’know, energy was just guiding me in the direction of, like, ‘This is a [sic] introspective project and just kind of me trying to put myself out there in the most raw way, lyrically and storytelling-wise, as I can.”

Lauv’s introspection was also a result of the pandemic. As he explains, “I started lockdown in a place where I was feeling like my whole system was still moving a million miles per hour. And I was very, very, very anxious and went through a big existential, I guess, dilemma, I would say, and, like, a whole spiritual quest.”

Part of that quest led him to “inner child meditation,” where you have conversations with your younger self. He explained on Instagram that those conversations helped him learn that “confidence is all about accepting yourself exactly as you are.” It also inspired the album track “Kids Are Born Stars.”

As a result, Lauv says All 4 Nothing is about “unpacking” the question of “how to be happy inside,” including how “falling in love with someone … can be such a healing factor.”

The “I Like Me Better” singer kicks off a tour in support of the new album August 11 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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