Lauv

At 29 years old, Lauv has this physical status:

Ari Staprans Leff (born August 8, 1994), known professionally as Lauv, is an American singer, songwriter and record producer based in Los Angeles.

His debut EP Lost in the Light was released in 2015 and his compilation album I Met You When I Was 18 (The Playlist) was released in 2018.

He has written songs for other artists including the singles "Boys" by Charli XCX and "No Promises" by Cheat Codes and Demi Lovato.

His debut studio album How I'm Feeling will be released on March 6, 2020.

Early life

Ari Staprans Leff was born in San Francisco, California. He spent his early childhood in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, before his family relocated to a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He went to Radnor High School. As a child, he was interested in music and took piano and viola lessons before learning how to play the guitar at the age of 11. Leff studied guitar, recording, sound design, production, voice, and songwriting with Jason Brook Zimmerman, co-owner and founder of the music lesson organization, Traveling Musician. He started writing songs in middle school, at around 14 years old. Many of his songs during this period focused on heartbreak and breakups, despite at the time, never having had a girlfriend. During his time in high school, he played in several bands and studied jazz before moving on to electronic music. He was so "fully obsessed" in making music and playing shows that he had no interest to "drink, or do drugs, or anything". He has said that his sister, Aiva would drive him and his friends on tour, where they often played "to zero people". His early musical influences were Owl City and Never Shout Never. He would listen to Owl City's "Maybe I'm Dreaming" and study the production style and the abstract lyrical themes that use "dreamy" and "whimsical" images to describe love. He also adopted the artist name, Somersault Sunday, and published some songs and extended plays on his Myspace account.

After graduating high school, Leff decided to pursue a behind-the-scenes role in music seeing that his career was not taking off. He chose to study music technology at New York University's Steinhardt School. While at university, he studied abroad in Prague and was a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity. He spent two of his four years at NYU as a studio intern for Jungle City Studios, where artists such as Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, and Alicia Keys recorded. During his junior year, he signed a publishing deal after the success of his song "The Other" but he decided to finish university and "enjoy it" having only a year left and because he was also feeling "fortunate enough to be able to go there".

Personal life

Lauv resides in Los Angeles, California. Leff dated pop musician Julia Michaels for 10 months in 2018, and they broke up in the end of that year. Since 2020, he has been in a relationship with fellow singer-songwriter Sophie Cates.

Leff has opened up about his mental health several times throughout his career. As a result, Leff is known for donating proceeds from songs to mental health organizations in an effort to erase stigma surrounding mental health. Microsoft and Leff teamed up to release "My Blue Thoughts", a place for people struggling to share what they were going through and to let go of something weighing them down.

His mother and his maternal grandparents are Latvian and Leff has frequently visited Latvia to visit relatives and spend summers in his grandfather's cottage in the seaside city of Jūrmala.

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Career

Leff began writing at an early age. He formed his first rock band with his buddy Mike Wagenheim when he was 12 years old, and the two teenagers formed a metal band by age 13. Leff first started to try and write music when starting to experiment with an acoustic guitar and some synth sounds. Parting Ways, a few months later, was he wrote his own solo acoustic album. Leff's first solo music project, Somersault, was launched on Sunday, when he was 14 years old on April 28, 2008. He started it "as a side project, just for fun," but after receiving a flurry of online feedback, he continued it.

Somersault's Sunday is an electro-infused pop rock solo-project. He was able to publish three extended plays, including Parting Ways EP (2009), Intermission – EP (2010), and Phone Calls & Weekends (2010) as part of the Somersault Sunday project. On his album "Wishful Thinking" from the Intermission EP, Trevor Dahl of Cheat Codes (who was then making music under the moniker Plug In Stereo) appeared. Kevin Gates, who also mixed and produced some of the songs of Never Shout Never, The Ready Set, and Cady Groves, produced the Phone Calls & Weekends EP. He posted his songs on MySpace, as well as some song covers, and maintained close contact with his followers through the site. During live shows and concerts, he had a band playing with him. In his early middle and high school years, Leff was known for his basement concerts.

Leff concentrated on writing and producing for other artists during college, departed from his personal songwriting style. During his sophomore year, he stumbled upon an interview with Paul Simon in which Simon referred to his songwriting process as a process of uncovering his deepest buried emotions. Leff was able to get in touch with the way he writes during the interview. Leff used the stage name Lauv, Latvian for "lion" (lauva), a nod to his mother's roots. In Hebrew, Ari means "lion," and Leo's zodiac sign is Leo.

He co-wrote "The Other" with Michael Matosic while recovering from a break-up in the fall of 2014. Although he was focusing on writing future songs for other artists, he found that "The Other" performed better than his own song. It will be the first song he released under the name Lauv. He also discovered his stripped-down electronic pop sounds on "The Other." The album is a mash-up of rhythm and blues with indie-pop influence from jazz guitar. Since he uploaded the song on SoundCloud in 2015, it became a hit on social media, peaking at number three on blog aggregator Hype Machine and landing in the top ten on Spotify and reaching the Top 100.

Lauv made the move from NYU to Prescription Songs, a publishing firm.

Lauv's debut EP, Lost in the Light, which featured "The Other," was released on September 25, 2015. Lauv wrote and recorded songs for other artists, apart from releasing the single "Question" starring Travis Mills in 2016.

He co-wrote and co-produced "No Promises" for Cheat Codes and Demi Lovato, which landed at number 7 on the Billboard Pop Songs chart, for the most part. Lauv said in an interview with iHeartRadio that he has been friends with Trevor Dahl from Cheat Codes since "back in the Myspace days."

Leff performed "I Like Me More," an up-tempo song influenced by his marriage that began shortly after he moved to New York City on May 19, 2017. It peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100, gained platinum status in seven countries (including the United States) and gold in three others, with gold certification in three countries. The song has over 1.1 billion streams as of March 9, 2021, according to Spotify.

In 2017, he headlined his own Late Nights, Deep Talks tour, which he appeared in eight cities around the United States. The tour started in Los Angeles on May 23 and concluded in New York City on June 7. On July 9, he appeared at Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On September 4, 2017, Leff would be joined as the supporting act on his Divide Tour in Asia. Many of Ed Sheeran's Asia tour dates were cancelled or rescheduled due to a bike crash, but Leff continued with tourism tours in cities like Manila, Philippines, officially starting the Divide Tour with Ed Sheeran in Singapore on November 11, 2017.

I Met You When I Was 18, Leff's first world tour began in the first half of 2018. The tour began in Seattle, Washington, on January 18 and came to a close in Oslo, Norway, on April 29. In the majority of North American tour dates, artists Jeremy Zucker and Ashe joined him as supporting acts. He had a box named "My Blue Thoughts" during the tour, in which he told fans to write down anything they wanted to and stick it inside. On his blog, mybluethoughts.com, he remembered the notes. Leff performed "Superhero" on August 30, 2018, a song based on a box note. On August 3, 2018, he appeared at Lollapalooza in Chicago.

I Met You When I Was 18 (The Playlist), a 17-track collection of new and previously released tracks, including "I Like Me Better" and "The Other," which he had been working on for some years. It has also been described as a "playlist" by Lauv that it has been progressing slowly until finally completing it in May 2018. It chronicles his move to New York City and the first time he fell in love. Spotify had been watched over a billion times by August 2018.

Leff was ranked number one on Billboard's Emerging Artists chart in June 2018, despite the fact that it was on June 9. He had been at the top of the charts for a total of 13 weeks as of September 29.

On September 27, 2018, he performed "There's No Way," a joint venture with Julia Michaels.

Lauv announced in November 2018 that his first headlining tour would begin in Asia, including India, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Japan. It started in Mumbai, India, on May 13, 2019 and ended in Tokyo on May 30.

On January 24, 2019, Lauv performed the single "I'm So Tired" with Troye Sivan. They first met at a rehearsal space, and after writing another song that didn't work out, Lauv performed "I'm So Tired" which he hadn't written a few days before, they performed Sivan the chorus. Sivan loved it, and the rest of the track was written and recorded together. On Jimmy Kimmel Live on February 7, 2019. They performed the song.

Lauv's single and music video for "Drugs & the Internet" appeared on April 25, 2019, when he wrote when he was struggling with feelings of emptiness and depression. It's his second single from his debut studio album How I'm Feeling. He also revealed that he'm Feeling will be released as it is being released, as well as the tour. Lauv's first arena show at the Smart Araneta Coliseum was held just under a month later on May 20, 2019. During the show, Lauv performed "Sad Forever," which led to the show's becoming the single's music video. "This is certainly the biggest headline show I've ever seen," Lauv said at the concert, and he wanted to have the video shot shot in Manila. Lauv announced the single and music video for "Sad Forever" on May 31, 2019. He also announced that all funds from the album will be donated to mental health services that work to eliminate stigma around mental illness. He has raised more than $150,000 to date.

He released "Fuck, I'm Lonely," a British singer-Marie's contribution to the third season of 13 Reasons Why on August 1, 2019. The song was also on his debut album. The song has over 350 million streams on Spotify as of March 9, 2021. The album is being sold as part of the How I'm Feeling Tour, which began in Washington, D.C., and will conclude in Perth, Australia, on November 26, 2020. It will fly around the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. bülow, Chelsea Cutler, and Carlie Hanson are among the tour's special guests. mxmtoon, an American singer-songwriter and social media celebrity, will be aided in the Asian leg of the tour. Lauv released "Feelings" on September 19, 2019. Two weeks later, Lauv launched "Sims" on October 3. On October 28, the single's "short film" was released. Lauv made his K-pop debut on October 18, 2019, when he teamed with BTS on the album "Make It Right," which is an ode to ARMY (BTS followers). Lauv performed Mean It on November 14, 2019, LANY's Mean It turned up on the music video, which debuted on December 17. Lauv made his Bollywood debut on December 22, 2019 when he worked with composer Rochak Kohli on the album "Dil Na Jaaneya," which appears on the soundtrack of Bollywood film Good Newwz.

Lauv's eighth single and music video for his debut album "Changes" was released on January 2, 2020. Lauv's song is about how Lauv's attempts to make resolutions to improve his life. Lauv's ninth single and music video for How I'm Feeling, "Tattoos Together," was released two weeks later. Lauv sings about tattoos with his significant other as a way to keep track of each other if they ever lose. "Modern Loneliness," Lauv's tenth single and visualizer for How I Feeling, was released on February 20, 2020. The song was supposed to refer to Lauv's "new" concept of loneliness.

Lauv announced How I'm Feeling on March 6, 2020, a series of collaborations. "Who" with K-pop sensations BTS, "Canada" with Alessia Cara and "El Tejano" with Sofia Reyes, with the latter receiving a music video on May 19. In addition,, singles from last year were released, including "Mean It" with LANY, "Fuck, I'm Lonely" with Anne-Marie, and "I'm Tired" with Troye Sivan. Lauv released another song, "Love Like That," which is a song about Lauv's struggle with reciprocating love, two months later, on May 6, 2020.

Lauv celebrated Mental Health Awareness Month by teaming up with Alessia Cara, Anne-Marie, and Sofia Reyes on May 1, 2020, a publication published in the United States. "Breaking Modern Loneliness" celebrates mental health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Lauv and artist mxmtoon and Jeremy Zucker, joined by Vivek Murthy on May 22 for a three-part one-on-one conversation on mental health.

Lauv unveiled the Without You (EP), a demo that was not announced by Lauv on SoundCloud a month earlier. The song "Dishes" music video was also released. It's also worth noting that all songs on the EP were written and recorded in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lauv teamed with Ellie Goulding on "Slow Grenade" six days later, on June 30, 2020. Lauv performed with many musicians over the summer, such as "If i were u" with blackbear and "Sweet and Sour" with artists Tyga and Jawsh 685. Lauv, and Saweetie, collaborated with Ava Max on the remixed "second" version of "Kings & Queens" (Kings & Queens), which was published on August 6, 2020, Pt. 2" is the new word in the United States.

Lauv's YouTube channel hosted a series of livestreamed conversations on October 10, 2020 in honor of World Mental Health Day. Lauv's single "Fake" with Conan Gray on October 13, 2020, a song in which both Gray and Leff take aim at fake people who appear to be their friends while lying about them behind their backs. He appeared on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of BBC Radio 2's Allstars' BBC Children in Need 2020 charity single in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2020. On November 20, 2020, the single debuted on the UK Singles Chart for the week ending on November 26, 2020, and it came in number one on both the UK Singles Sales Chart and the UK Singles Download Chart. Lauv's surprise single "2021" as a New Years Eve special was released on December 31, 2020. "2021" is a song that promises to be brighter and more hopeful than the previous year, which the world must deal with. Overall, the band is excited for the new year.

The 2121 American DJ DallasK has released a new single "Want Again" starring Lauv. The album was released on July 30.

Lauv announced that his second studio album, "26," was released on January 18, 2022. Lauv's sophomore album is set to be out later this year. Lauv finalized a distribution contract with Virgin Music Label & Artist Services around this time.

Lauv unveiled "All 4 Nothing (I'm So In Love)" on April 8, 2022, as well as a music video. His Spotify About section was updated the day before, with information regarding his second album, All 4 Nothing, which was released on August 5, 2022.

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