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Growing up doesn’t necessarily mean figuring everything out. Sometimes it just means getting better at moving through uncertainty. On Armor, LIA LIA turns that realization into a 13-track record about love, identity, friendship, and the strange business of becoming yourself without ever quite knowing who that person is supposed to be.

Armor never promises that growing up will make life easier to understand. Instead, it makes a case for continuing anyway. You might fall apart. You might fall in love. You might discover new sides of yourself you’ve never thought possible. Whatever the case, this album says, take the risk and see what happens next.

We caught up with LIA LIA to chat all things Armor and much more: 

OnesToWatch: Who are you? 

Lia Lia: I'm Lia Lia. 

Where have you been? 


I just came from Berlin, actually. I like Berlin. The food is cheap. 

Yep, that's a big reason to like somewhere. 


You can walk. It's pretty green. 

We've been a fan of yours for some time. Where would you say you're at right now, musically?

You knew me before I knew myself, I think. Where I am musically, I'm just about to put out my debut album, Armor. 


How long has this been on the horizon for you for some time, yeah? 

I started writing the album last year, in spring after I was performing Doom, by Anne Imhof in New York at Park Armory Avenue. Doom was a 3 hour long performance amongst 60 performers from different backgrounds. Monkey from Korn was playing, there were skaters and dancers and prima ballerinas and actors and models, so many talented people. I was there for a month. I also signed my 1st album deal with Altar Music. And then I came back and wrote my album there. I think it was really inspired by the whole coming to New York, meeting so many new people and friends. It was like graduating from the school you wished you would be in. 

I have that feeling a lot. How has your writing process changed or evolved? Was it different on this album? 

I think it really changed when I met my guitarist, Luke. I’ve done LA writing sessions before, but my preferred way of making music is like it’s a gift, something I receive, so I write all my songs within like 20, 40 minutes. Sometimes even shorter, and it's a whole song. Everything at once, then I understand the meaning often later. So I feel restricted by beats sometimes. I think maybe it's also because I come from Citron Opera and German choir, so my brain is all harmonies, melodies. When I met Luke, he is how I feel about singing, but on the guitar. Writing with him feels like dancing. When we wrote in New York, we were with producer Jonathan Visger, aka Absofacto, and we were in this guitar room in his home studio. There were so many different guitars and bass-guitar hybrids and just having those instruments to play with, the song will be different. A song you start on bass will be different than a song you start on acoustic guitar. Then, after the song is written, we ask, how do we want to produce it? 

So you hate beats.
You hate rhythm. 

No, you know what? I didn't know anything about drums before this album. Before, I let the producer do the drums and I could say, I like this or not, but now after this whole album, I have really strong opinions about a snare or a kick drum because we basically did it backwards. We started with acoustic, then we recorded vocals in LA, and then we flew to Nashville and recorded drums there with Aaron Sterling, who also does lots of drums for Lana Del Rey. He has 4 different drum sets, all very different. My main goal for the album was to have really contained drums because I feel like in pop music – because hip-hop drums are so big – the pop drums are huge, so I wanted to make them very small. 

What are your ambitions for this record? What do you hope happens for yourself, for your audience? 


I want to write the soundtrack of the best year of my listeners.
I hope they make great memories. And if I feel lonely, I can make them less lonely. That's what I want.
When I started writing this album, I was sick for 2 years with long COVID and I was not in a good situation, so coming to Doom was like everything opening up, falling in love with the world and life and myself again. I was almost in a cage before. When I started writing the album, the title was Fallen, but after I finished writing it, I was like, I actually don't feel fallen. It's a love letter. So I hope people are able to feel that, I want to give people the feeling of nostalgia for a better time. 

If you could dream up a festival – not just musical artists, but art in general – who would you want to perform? 

The Cure. Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wisp, Kate Bush, Lana Del Rey, Nico, and the Velvet Underground. But I also do love pop, I'm obsessed with 2010 pop. 

What about non-music, or non-contemporary music?  

Toon Lobach, he’s on tour with Rosalia right now. I also love Nan Golden, I love her photography. 

If your friends ambush you at home and you are forced to make food, can you? And what would you make? 

I think I'm a pretty good cook. I like to cook things pretty fast. I'm pretty good at winging it, I think. So if you have any ingredients, I can make something good with it. I've recently been obsessed with ground beef, with aubergine and onions, and put it in a lettuce wrap with some kimchi on top. 

Imagine yourself manipulating time and space. Would you go into the future, the past or would you leave it alone? 

If I stop time, how would I go from A to B, do I have to walk? 

I love how you have godlike powers, but you're like, but how long would it take me to walk? 

If I could teleport, I’d do it, but otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see much, because I could only walk… No, I would definitely check out the future and the past. But what if I go back in time and a rock falls on my head? 

So what we’ve learned is you don’t like to walk and you're afraid of rocks falling on you. I’d love two recommendations from you. One non-musical, one musical. 

To fun-max. It's really important to find beauty in the mundane of every moment. Spend time with your loved ones, do the things which make you happy and have fun with anything you do. I think if you're having fun, it’s the most empowering thing. Even if you work hard, everyone can get stuck holding on to something. So I think it's important to have. 

Lastly, we’d love a music recommendation.

I did my first feature song with Benee. She's amazing.

I want to end on your words. 

Thanks to my mom and my dad. And shout out to my sister. I literally wouldn't be here. 

Listen to Armor below: