NOIAFT INTERVIEWS LAUREN MASCITTI, COUNTRY SINGER-SONGWRITER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Raised in the small farm community of Louisville, Ohio, singer-songwriter Lauren Mascitti was a standout contestant on this season of American Idol. Watch any performance of hers and you will be captivated by her inimitable grace, poise, and charm.  A third generation Italian American with roots in Corfinio, Italy, she has a confidence and humility about her that makes you feel she is exactly where she is supposed to be and is going to give it all she’s got, and this girl has a lot to give. 

After getting her degree in nursing, Mascitti moved to Nashville to pursue her aspirations in music. Calling in from the mecca of country music itself, on April 23, 2020 Mascitti spoke with NOIAFT founder, Taylor Taglianetti, about her life and career.

Congratulations on a truly fantastic run on American Idol. Your latest album, God Made a Woman, is already charting #4 on the iTunes Country charts. You must be so excited.

Oh, man. I’m really excited and I released that record back in January. It’s completely independent and I’ve never been signed to any contract or been with any kind of record label. I paid for that album solely on my salary as a nurse. For it to be doing so well because of the exposure from American Idol, it’s a huge blessing. I’m super excited about it. 

And you’ve already written nine albums, right? 

Yes! This is number nine. I recorded my first when I was eight. Then, I did a couple of albums when I was ten and another album when I was twelve. I started out singing in my church. When I started out, I only did gospel music. I sang in a lot of churches. After I was twelve or thirteen years old, I started playing the guitar. I started writing music. I always loved old school country music so whenever I would write, I wrote gospel. I wrote other stuff, too. I finally decided that I really wanted to be a country artist. Up until now, the albums that I’ve done prior to me having a job as a nurse, my grandparents paid for; those were completely independent as well. This last one I paid for myself so we’re really excited about it.

I’ve been listening to God Made a Woman all day. It’s such a great album. Lionel Richie hit the nail on the head when he said that the most significant thing people take away from hearing your songs is really the storytelling behind them. I know it’s often been said that you can’t sing the blues unless you’ve lived the blues. Is that the same for country music? How much of your life are you putting into your songs? 

Haha, you know what, I think I do write mostly from personal experience. I find it kind of difficult to write things that I haven’t been through. Being a songwriter, there are so many different things you can write about. You can write a song about virtually anything. I think it was Tom T. Hall or Merle Haggard who said something like, “I never write a song that I haven’t lived or that isn’t true.” Then, there are other songwriters who can just write about anything and make up the coolest stories to go along with it. I think it’s just your style of writing. For me personally, I usually write about things I’m going through at the time or things I’m feeling. Sometimes, I take poetic license with it, but generally I write about things I’m going through emotionally.

Years from now, what are some things you want people to remember this album for? Is there something this album says that is different from anything else you’ve done? 

Well, my heart is really in traditional country music. If you come to Nashville and you listen to country radio, you’ll see that it’s mostly like a country pop feel and a lot of progressive sound; it’s a new sound and my heart is really old school stuff. I really want to be one of the ones to bring that back and I’m hoping this record can really accomplish that. I know there’s a handful of other young people in Nashville that are trying to do the same thing and I’m just hoping people get a taste for fiddle and steel again! That’s the kind of music I love. To each his own, but that’s really what I’m into. 

You mentioned before that you grew up singing a lot of gospel music in church so I think it’s fair to say that you had the benefit of being able to experiment and practice in front of an audience at a young age. Did you feel that this environment helped you to be able to express a song in a physical way? I think there’s an important distinction between hearing a song and watching someone perform it…there’s a totally different emotional reaction that an audience is going to get.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I definitely feel like it’s helped me a lot. I’ve been singing on the stage since the time I was eight years old. Especially growing up in the kind of church that I grew up in, nobody was shy. Everybody was on stage, in the aisles, running around, jumping up and down, hollering, praising the Lord. We were a shoutin’ church! I didn’t grow up being taught to be shy about my faith, especially. So I definitely believe it helped me to get comfortable being in front of people on stage. 

Well, I heard from your Uncle Paulie that you’ve graced many Italian festival stages and you’re also not shy about how your Italian heritage has impacted you both personally and professionally. I’m a big fan of your song, “Fuhgettaboutit!”

I’m a very proud Italian! People have kind of hinted to me here in Nashville and otherwise saying, “You’re a country singer and Mascitti is kind of an out there name for being a country singer…I don’t know if we can handle that much ethnicity!” I have said, “Absolutely not!” I am very proud of my name and I’m not going to change it to a stage name. I started singing at Italian festivals when I was a lot younger and one of them was the Dean Martin Festival in Steubenville, Ohio. His daughter, Deana, was a performer there. She would come there every year and anybody that was a Dean Martin fan…it was kind of like a pilgrimage! It was just a really good time and it was basically an Italian festival because, of course, Dean Martin was Italian American and so that’s actually where I met Paul Borghese and Vinny Pastore. Years later, whenever Paul would start putting together the Blauvelt Sons of Italy Italian feast in Tappan, New York, he gave me a call about it. I think I’ve been singing there for ten years now! 

So, you’re certainly an honorary New Yorker at this point!

Aw…well, I love New York! All of my friends that I’ve met up there have become like family and it’s definitely the highlight of our year going up there. Oh, and there’s another thing I did! I must have been seventeen, eighteen years old. I’ve never been in a beauty pageant before and I’m not really a pageant girl, but I entered the Miss Italia USA competition in Northeast Ohio for our region. There were five states in the Northeast represented and I was the runner-up. I was going to get to go on a cruise, but due to a series of events I didn’t get to go. I didn’t really do the competition because I’m huge into beauty pageants, I did it because I am really proud of my heritage and all of the girls in it were the exact same way. It was a really great experience and now this interview is another thing I can do to tell the world I’m Italian and I’m proud of it!

There you go! I love, love, love that sentiment. Now you had mentioned that country is your bread and butter, but there have been really successful musicians like Taylor Swift who made the transition to pop music. Do you think you’ll always be centered in the country genre or do you have plans to explore other genres or even different forms of storytelling? Are there any other artistic endeavors in your future?

Well, I’m not sure about acting, but I know Paul would like to get me in some of his films, haha! I don’t know…I don’t consider myself a great actress. I do love country music so much, but I’m also a huge fan of traditional classic pop like Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and Rat Pack music; of course I’m a massive fan of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. 

Oh, you’re definitely obligated to love them! 

Another funny thing is that I also share a birthday with Frank Sinatra and Connie Francis. December 12th! Another thing is that I do sing in Italian and I sing a lot of Connie Francis, Jerry Vale and Al Martino music. Yeah, I do love that kind of music and I do see myself doing something like that in future. Everything about me is a throwback. I’m not a huge fan of new techno, electro, electronic pop music; that’s not really my wheelhouse, but I do love the classics. 

I have a quote here from Bruce Springsteen, another great storyteller like yourself. He says, “You can change a life in three minutes with the right song.” Do you feel that you have any responsibility as a musician? I would consider you a great role model. You’re a nurse. You’re also someone who practices her faith and you’re not shy about it. In that way, would you consider yourself someone who is trying to make an impact through your music in any way? 

Yeah, I do. I feel like anybody that steps on the stage shares a responsibility to be a role model, especially for young people growing up, but the one I owe my life to is the Lord. He gave me a gift to use for Him and so I feel a responsibility to share His love and spread His message through my music. Whether I’m singing about the Lord or not, I do feel a responsibility just in the way I carry myself and the message that I convey to people of positivity and hope. That’s really the responsibility I feel I have to just resonate with people and connect with them on a level so even if I’m not coming outright and preaching a message on stage, I want them to feel that through my music. 

I absolutely love that and I can’t wait to see where this all brings you in the future. So, what exactly is next for you? 

I have my single, “God Made a Woman.” Since it got such a great response on American Idol, we decided to release it to Country and Americana radio this week. After Friday, people can call into their local Country and Americana stations and request it. It would help me out a lot because I don’t have anyone working for me. I don’t have an agent or anything. I’m completely independent and I just have a publicist, but helping me to get the album out there and make it available, I don’t have anybody really pushing it for me so if people love the song and people want to hear it on their stations, I just want to let them know they can call it in. 

The call ends here, but before the interview officially began, Mascitti did mention that she took off from her nursing job because of American Idol, but is looking to go back and help amid the coronavirus pandemic as soon as they can put her back on schedule. Could there be a better gal to root for to succeed? Fuhgettaboutit!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Special thanks to NOIAFT member, Paul Borghese, for setting this up.