Having broken out of the Isle Of Wight’s close-knit music scene, Lauran Hibberd is bringing her punky powerpop sound to shore. Her debut album Garageband Superstar is followed by a UK tour this month that should show why she’s the hottest of autumn tips. Emma Way got quizzy with her.

What are your hopes for the release of Garageband Superstar?

I just hope that people like it and there’s that springboard for me to make another one – which I’m already in the process of doing. It’s just kind of documenting my life until this point, and it feels very nostalgic to me as a debut. 

What is the most dad rock song on the album? 

I think it has to be Get Some. That’s the most dad rock track for sure. 

Does the album match up to your earliest expectations of what it would be and sound like?

You always put your debut album on a pedestal, but yeah it definitely does. I had so much time to write it that I really managed to leave no stone unturned. That’s why I feel fully confident that I did everything I could have done and spent enough time on every part of it that I’m very happy with where it is.

How long did you have to write it? 

I wrote it in the lockdown. So timing was totally on my side! I had all the time in the world to write and it did kind of happen by accident – I wasn’t intentionally writing an album. I just wrote 40, 50 songs and went “well, if there’s not an album in that I should quit now”. 

What was it like growing up on the Isle Of Wight?

It’s a really fun place to grow up. It’s super scenic, it’s really beautiful, and there’s loads of beaches. Quite quiet, but really fun as a kid. Then you hit those teenage years and go, “oh I wish there were more things to do,” but I think the lack of things to do inspired a bunch of us to start bands and get creative. 

Did you do music at school or was it more out of school?

It was more an out of school thing, but it was just always something people here do. I think that when you’re in a small town, everyone knows what you’re up to, so you might as well do something that you’re not going to get told off for. Just start a band in your dad’s garage and hope for the best.

Is there a particular Garageband Superstar track you’re most proud of? 

Yeah, I think my favourite is Average Joe. It was like a lightbulb went off when I finished writing it. It was one of the latest additions to the album, and really felt like – I know it’s cliché – that missing puzzle piece, that one thing I was aiming for. I just love the imagery in it, taking down the average man. So it’s good fun for me.

What is it that draws you to the spikiness of pop-punk and indie-rock sounds?

I don’t really know. I just feel comfortable in that area. For me, it always resembled that ‘last kid being picked for PE’ feeling. Feeling like you found a group that you could be involved in if you weren’t uber-cool or really booksmart. It felt like something I could do; that was really comforting to me growing up, and I can’t shake it off still now.

Ahead of your September tour, you’ve been playing a selection of instore gigs across the UK which include a pub quiz slot – so what’s your favourite pub quiz topic? 

I should say the music round but I’m notoriously really bad at that. My facts and stuff are just terrible. TV would probably be my favourite pop quiz topic. 

Do TV and film come in different topics? Or is it combined in the same one?

I think TV should be its own thing because TV is so massive and there’s so many. It rules now people want to bingewatch TV shows, rather than sit down and watch one movie.

I definitely prefer TV to film.

I do! I hate the idea of sitting down to watch a film for two hours, but I would watch three episodes of something which is longer than that, which is so weird.

Do you find that the kind of music you want to make changes a lot? What do you think your second album will sound like?

It definitely changes, I think it evolves. You take everything you learn and you keep learning and building and building. I’ve already started working on my second album: it’s definitely more experimental, and I think there’s a bit more maturity in it as well. I’m having a lot of fun finding my feet in a newer world. Everyone definitely naturally evolves and changes as they go.

What was the recording process for Garageband Superstar?

It was really fun. I recorded it with Larry Hibbitt in Brixton and it was basically how I imagined it was filming School Of Rock. It literally felt like just playing guitar all day, talking about songs and building tracks up and listening to drum takes. I’ve wanted to do it for my whole life, so to be able to record my debut album and have so much fun in the process was amazing, and there were not a lot of compromises either. We were both really on the same page, same influences. We just made the best of it and had so much fun doing it.

Were you aware that you were both on a similar creative page before you went into the studio?

We both made each other playlists and they were basically the same! It was really weird. We sent each other these things and it was honestly the same bands and artists, the same tracks. It was like, “oh, we’re gonna be fine”. So that was really reassuring.

Lauran Hibberd, Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Thurs 22 Sept. Tickets: £11. Info: here

Garageband Superstar is out now on Virgin.

words EMMA WAY