Laila Smith Talks "I'll Do Anything," World Building, and Finding New Rituals for Grief.

Music as a Living World

Laila Smith isn't interested in simply releasing songs. She's building worlds for listeners to wander through.

With "I'll Do Anything," the first single from her forthcoming EP Something Dreadful Is Going to Happen, the Los Angeles artist expands music into something much larger. Interactive websites, installations, mythology, archetypes, and carefully constructed visual language all become part of the listening experience, inviting people inside the emotional landscape rather than asking them to observe it from afar.

Raised as a jazz prodigy before eventually finding her home in conceptual art pop, Smith has always approached creativity from an unconventional angle. While speaking with Everyday Jams, it became clear that every decision surrounding this project begins with one question: What feeling is this trying to hold?

That philosophy runs through every corner of I'll Do Anything.

Bargaining

The single explores bargaining, one of the five stages of grief, though not in the way listeners might expect. Instead of searching for neat emotional conclusions, Smith leans toward the uncomfortable spaces where grief becomes irrational, complicated, and impossible to tidy up.

"The emotions that interest me the most are the ones that have an undignifiedness and messiness to them. There is no composure, no defiance in bargaining. Just a desire to sublimate."

Within the world of the record, bargaining takes the form of the Siren, one of several feminine archetypes woven throughout the project. It becomes another way of exploring how people negotiate loss, longing, and identity through stories that feel ancient and deeply personal at the same time.

Beyond the Song

That instinct to blur boundaries extends far beyond the songwriting itself.

Rather than treating music as a finished product, Laila views each release as a ritual that can exist across different mediums. The interactive website accompanying the EP, where listeners move through stages of grief themselves, wasn't designed as an accessory to the songs. It is part of the emotional architecture.

"I'm interested in mediums as containers for rituals. I love when artists treat their mediums incorrectly."

That perspective transforms the project into something immersive. The songs, visual worlds, mythology, and game mechanics all become different ways of chasing the same emotional truth.

Fantasy plays a central role in that process.

"There is a liberatory power in the act of fantasizing. When I make music, I only care about achieving a very particular feeling."

It's a striking way to describe her creative process because nothing about I'll Do Anything feels driven by aesthetic trends or genre expectations. Even with references that stretch from The Color of Pomegranates to mythology and experimental game design, the work never feels academic. Instead, it remains intensely human.

Laila credits that to allowing history and influence to collapse into the present rather than treating them as distant artifacts.

"You have to let time collapse when you are making art."

Letting Go of Control

That same relationship with time sits at the heart of the EP's title, Something Dreadful Is Going to Happen. While grief is often framed as something that belongs to the past, Laila became fascinated by how it can also reshape the future, creating the feeling of bracing for something that has already happened.

She also found an unexpected parallel between the themes of the record and the experience of finally releasing it.

"You can't negotiate with natural phenomena, and you can't negotiate with how you're heard. Releasing anything requires some surrender, some helplessness."

It's a fitting reflection for an artist whose work constantly balances vulnerability with intention.

A Shared Space

By the end of our conversation, what lingered wasn't simply the ambition of the project, but the generosity behind it.

Rather than offering listeners instructions on how to grieve, Laila hopes the record creates space for whatever emotions arrive naturally.

"I hope this record feels more like a funeral than it does like a grand statement of permission. Nobody at a funeral needs anyone's permission to grieve. You've entered the shared container, and that is enough."

With I'll Do Anything, Laila Smith has created far more than an introduction to a new EP. She has built an emotional world that asks listeners not simply to hear it, but to step inside it. If this first chapter is any indication, Something Dreadful Is Going to Happen may become one of this year's most thoughtfully imagined releases.

Stream I’'ll Do Anything by Laila Smith Out Now

Photography: baz