Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui: Max Martin Helping with ‘More Soulful’ Second Album
Fifth Harmony member Lauren Jauregui has a message for the girl group’s fans who panicked earlier this week when a quote from a Latina cover story signaled the quintet’s eventual breakup.
“Don’t worry!” exclaims Jauregui during a phone call with Billboard. “5H2 is coming! You’ll have music to soothe your soul soon, everything will be fine, we love you to death and we’re not going anywhere. I promise.”
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Of course, “5H2” refers to Fifth Harmony’s sophomore album, which follows their debut LP Reflection released in January. Earlier this week, the ladies posted some shots from a recording studio on Instagram, and Jauregui checked in on Friday to confirm that sessions for the Reflection sequel have kicked off — with pop super-producer Max Martin, no less — and are going swimmingly.
A photo posted by Fifth Harmony (@fifthharmony) on Sep 30, 2015 at 3:14pm PDT
Jauregui says that the girls are in Los Angeles working with Martin’s camp, as well as producers and songwriters like Mitch Allan and Jason Evigan, at Martin’s studio/compound. “It’s a really good vibe for recording — [Max] is in a great spirit the whole time,” she notes. “We’ve been wanting to work with Max for a while, and his camp as well. They’ve produced some of the best records of all time, year after year, consistently. They’re so talented and creative, and there’s real camaraderie and positivity.”
The singer also adds that she, Camila Cabello, Normani Hamilton, Ally Brooke Hernandez and Dinah Jane Hansen already have an idea of the sound and lyrical focus of the follow-up to Reflection, which produced the recent Top 20 hit “Worth It” (featuring Kid Ink). “For starters, we definitely want to mature in terms of our lyrics and content,” says Jauregui. “Although [on the first album] we touched upon a bunch of subjects that we definitely agreed with and our very relevant to us, like girl power and self-love, hopefully this time around we can have some more vulnerability, some more ballads and mid-tempo type [songs], to balance out this album. We want you to sit through it and feel a roller coaster of emotions.”
Jauregui continues, “We’re also trying to make it a bit more soulful. The whole R&B, urban, Destiny’s Child vibe? We’re definitely going to try and hone in on that this time around. We’ve recorded some dope songs already, some really sick tracks with crazy horns all over the place.”
The Latina cover story — in which Cabello was quoted saying “Honestly, I think we all do” when asked if she expects the girl group to eventually break up — was quickly responded to by Fifth Harmony’s label, who wrote that they were “not going anywhere.” Jauregui concurs that the quote was taken “completely out of context,” although the group has never been shy about being composed of five solo singers.
“When we auditioned for The X Factor, we were five individuals going into the show,” Jauregui points out. “That obviously means we are five solo artists in our beings, so we have our own creative ideas, of what sounds the best music-wise, because we are all artists. One day, we all have the idea of being a solo artist, but that’s not our focus right now. We all allow each other to explore our individual things that make us happy, and so we’re just being supportive of each other, and making sure we focus on Fifth Harmony and what’s important to the group is important to all five of us.”
With Fifth Harmony’s summer tour of North America wrapped, Jauregui is looking forward to performing a few overseas shows beginning on Oct. 26 in Madrid, and playing more international shows in 2016. “I just hoping that we get to start touring the world soon — that’s what I’m excited about,” she says. “I can’t wait until we can get to do that with the new music. I also hope that we have some songs on this album that can get us nominated for some shit. That’d be dope! That’s what we’re working on.”
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