Interview: Aurora LaFond By: Sara Busone

Sara Busone talks with Aurora LaFond about traveling coast to coast, Philosophical Waffles, the origin of Sister Outlaw, favorite guitars, and joining the roller derby

 

RRX: You are originally from upstate New York and it looks like you’ve made a return from the West Coast. Is that correct?

AL: Yes, I grew up in Voorheesville, New York, and then I went to school in New Hampshire once I turned 18, and then lived in Vermont, New Hampshire for about six years and then, I moved out to California where I was there the last six years.

RRX: I was looking, doing a little bit of background research on you, and, uh, looks like you were “Philosophical Waffles”, and now your “Sister Outlaw”. You have a great penchant for names.
Tell me a little bit about the origin story of those.

AL: Philosophical Waffle  was an old girl band in New Hampshire that we had.  So we were just, you know, staying up one night being a little silly, and, I kept trying to say philosophical, but it kept slurring over our words, so then we just kind of went from there.

RRX: That’s funny!

AL: And then I kind of re-branded after the girl brand broke up. I had a philosophy teacher. – it was a spirituality and philosophy class, and it was kind of a low stakes, high reward class so there wasn’t a whole lot of test material. One of the only notes that I took was when she was kind of going on the story about her, her relationship with her ex-husband and saying, “oh, my sister, my sister-in-law, but I guess we’re divorced. So really, she’s my sister outlaw.” And it just kind of stuck with me. So I fell in love with the name.

RRX:  Oh, that’s really cool. I like that. I like a good origin story of a name.
So it looks like you’ve been playing locally. Do you have more shows booked in the area?


AL: Yes, I’m playing…let’s see…this weekend I’m going to Vermont where I used to live a little bit outside of Woodstock, Vermont.  And then I’ll be playing at Emac and Bolio’s the day after the album comes out, so that’s June 28th. And then I’ll be playing  at the Blackbird Tavern. I play there pretty much every month.


RRX: You mentioned the new album. Tell me a little bit about that.

 

AL: Yeah, so my brother’s a full-time musician out in Colorado. Last December, I flew out to just kind of get 5 songs down and recorded, and then we’ve kind of been back and forth. We both had busy years. He was releasing his album, so it took about a year and a half to produce everything, but it goes through changes of my life.. like leaving an abusive relationship in Vermont, finding myself moving across the country, falling in love, and then one of the songs I wrote for my wife. We just got married this last year.

RRX:  Oh, congratulations!

 

AL: Yeah, thank you. So some of the songs are a little silly. One of them  I wrote about my dog who just passed a couple years ago… and just kind of saying goodbye, a lullaby kind of song. It was originally called Dog Water Lullaby and then I just decided to name the whole album Dog Water.

RRX: I’m very sorry about the loss of your dog.

It looks like you posted on Instagram about a lava blue guitar. We have a lot of guitar enthusiasts who listen in and read our publications, so tell me a little bit about that guitar.


AL:  When I moved out to California, I only had one guitar in my car .   So I said, you know what? This might be the time… once I get settled I’m gonna upgrade again. So everywhere I stayed,  I was staying with friends that I’ve known over the years. I was kind of testing out different guitars that they had when I was staying on their couch and things like that. And so I fell in love with this mint blue baby blue aqua,  Ibanez guitar. I couldn’t find it anywhere and I, I tried to order it online from a used guitar store and then as soon as I went through with the payment, they called me immediately said we’re so sorry, we, we double sold this guitar.  Couldn’t get it, had to wait. Had to wait another couple months and then , I think I just found it at a used guitar shop in  Oakland Yeah… it’s an Ibanez i semi hollow body guitar and it’s yeah it’s, it’s my baby.

 

RRX: That is so cool. My husband is a singer/guitar player, and I always joke around that he has a million guitars, but there’s that one that’s like his trusty steed. Would you say that’s your trusty steed, or is there another guitar?

AL:  I would say so. You know, it’s between that one and… I have an acoustic one. It’s called a lava guitar and it’s got carbon fiber, it’s bright pink and it that was one of the guitars I played in Durango, Colorado. Somebody had a matching guitar ukulele set, but it has built-in effects so you can play it acoustically. You don’t need to plug it in anywhere and it will  give it a reverb and delay effects on it that you just turn with a dial, and it’s really nice for playing outside. It has such a nice tone, but when I was teaching kindergarten in California, something happened.  You  know, you’re working with kids and it has a huge crack in the side of it. It almost cracked like an eggshell. But the tone and everything is perfect, so I just, I can’t, you know, when you think of a trusty guitars, I just can’t set it down. I keep playing it at shows even though it’s got a little crack in it. So, you know, it’s almost like Willie Nelson with his beat down guitar.

RRX: Tell everybody where they can find your music, and your new album!

AL: I’m on Apple Music, Spotify, pretty much every available streaming source,  Distro Kid, um, when they release your album, they put it to pretty much everywhere, so it’s on YouTube, iTunes, Tidal, Bandcamp as well, so (my album) will be up and available. You can pre-save, the link as soon as, June 10th, so I’ll be posting that on my socials too to pre-save the link either on Apple Music or Spotify, whatever streaming platform we use.

 

RRX: Anything special coming up in the works that we need to keep an eye out for? I know you mentioned your shows. I know you’ve got the album release.

AL:  Yeah, outside of, of music too, there’s a really cool community of folks- I joined the roller derby team!  ‘m part of the Hellions of Troy. So if you wanna come out and not talk music, we can watch all of that. We have our bouts at the Bethlehem YMCA pretty frequently, so you can follow along on there as well, if you wanna see me not all dressed up and ready for music but ready to, you know, duke it out on the on the court.

 

RRX: That sounds awesome. I might join you for that. I’ll need a helmet, but I’ll definitely join
you.

 

AL: Yeah, exactly. You should. It’s real fun.

 

*Aurora LaFond will be playing June 8th at Public House in Vermont 6-8pm, Sunday June 28th at Emack and Bolios in Albany 4-6pm, Friday July 17th at Black Bird Tavern Voorheesville 6-9pm, Thursday August 20th at Black Bird Tavern Voorheesville 6-9pm and Friday September 4th at Indian Ladder Farms 6-8 pm.  You can also check her out in the Hellions Roller Derby June 20th at the Bethlehem YMCA, 3pm and July 18th, also at the Bethlehem YMCA, 3pm.