Playboy Creator and lead-singer of The Dals, Asti-Loren Lucia is New Zealand’s latest (and hottest) import. She sat down with us to chat about her music career, her love of the outdoors, and a conspiracy theory that’s inspiring an audacious concept album.
Playboy: So to start us off, where were you born?
Asti-Loren Lucia: I grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand. And that’s where I was born and raised. I grew up in a very small village kind of situation on the top of a cliff which was beautiful. And I had two beaches on either side. My parents are both hairdressers, so they’re super creative. I’d say growing up was pretty unconventional. I would paint the walls and the bathroom red and my parents would just let me go crazy.
Playboy: Wow.
Asti-Loren: I’m so grateful for that. I went to a little old girls school…we would do a lot of paintings and a lot of emphasis on the Arts which was super awesome for me. I have a little brother. He’s amazing. I grew up with Dalmatians. That’s why I have Luna the Tuna over here. I actually grew up with eight Dalmatians in New Zealand. So hence the name of our band, The Dals. It stands for the Dalmatians because that was all of my baby photos with me and my brother. They’re all us with the Dalmatians. I learned to walk on a Dalmatian.
Playboy: I have to pause the interview questions for you and ask: did Luna have a nice birthday?
Asti-Loren: She had the best birthday…I let her pick the birthday…I rented a private dog swimming pool. So it had a waterfall and she was jumping and swimming. She swam for five hours and then she ate the whole birthday cake. She’s been on the couch for two days. She’s with her little teddy right now.
Playboy: Did you enjoy school, why or why not?
Asti-Loren: I did enjoy school. I ended up going to the same school as my brother, which was honestly a little bit heavy on the academics for me and sports. Which I didn’t really enjoy so much. And then the earthquakes happened. So in Christchurch, when I was about 13, we had three major earthquakes and 10,000 aftershocks. That basically destroyed our city. So our little house on the hill fell off the cliff, quite literally.
I sang at a lot of the funerals of people that died from my village. Thankfully none of my family was hurt, but a lot of people that we knew lost someone. Some friends got crushed in a building beside me, which wasn’t nice.
Playboy: That sounds harrowing!
Asti-Loren: It was a very horrible experience, fault lines opening up the whole shebang. We knew that we weren’t going to be back at school for probably 10 months. We had no water and power for six to eight weeks. We went to someone else’s house and it was just three huge families with young kids living together because that’s kind of what you did. Eventually, we did get water and power back.
They kind of relocated us to different schools across the country. We went to a place called Akaroa. I didn’t really enjoy high school. New Zealand’s very heavily academically focused. And very sporty. Rugby: very big, not my thing.
So, I basically wrote an email to a school that I really wanted to go to in London in the UK.
Playboy: How did you go about doing that?
Asti-Loren: I explained my situation and how I’m so passionate about music and I’d actually just performed in Carnegie Hall in New York the year prior to the earthquakes. Which was really cool as I got tp represent New Zealand and stuff. I had all that behind me. I’d done the World Buskers Festival. I was always performing since the age of nine.
I wrote this all down in an email and got a full ride scholarship to the school as one of 56 students. It’s the school similar to the one Amy Winehouse and Adele went to. And I was like little Kiwi Girl. One of 56 kids.
Most the kids that were in the school were performing in the West End in London. They’re in The Lion King. It was amazing, just meeting all those people. I ended up actually leaving early because I got a record deal with Downtown Artists in London and Soho to do my first album.
Playboy: How did that go?
Asti-Loren: I was very young and naive at that time…But anyways, that leads us to me coming back to New Zealand. I released two or three singles.
Playboy: Amazing. What’s the first thing you dreamed of achieving?
Asti-Loren: I wanted to be a firefighter. I do love firefighters because of the Dalmatian aspect. But no, it was to be a musician and to record and tour and perform to people and put out what I’m writing and stuff like that.
Playboy: What are you passionate about?
Asti-Loren: The outdoors. I’m kind of known on Instagram as like, “Nature Mommy.” Because I’m always hiking I’m camping. I’m rock climbing. I love bouldering. Free climbing. I love kayaking. I like white water rafting as well in New Zealand. That jazz and trap. I’m also very passionate about traveling.
I think tonight I’m gonna book a trip to go to Tahoe. we’re just gonna drive up and just go camp. I love Tahoe. It’s amazing so beautiful. You have to go there if you haven’t been. It’’s just crystal clear waters. my gosh, you would absolutely die. It’s the most beautiful place I think I’ve ever seen.
Playboy: What turns you on/off?
Asti-Loren: I would say what turns me on is open-mindedness. Meaning someone that’s kind of open to just everything. Learning new things, open to travel. Someone that likes a life that’s non-conventional. Because I’m very non-conventional so someone that’s not stuck in a routine and wants that life. I just love spontaneity. Literally, it’s perfect.
For turnoffs, I would have to say someone that does not like Luna the tuna. If someone won’t acknowledge her and I’m just like you “Acknowledge the dog!” You should acknowledge my dog before you start with me. She is my baby. And I’m probably turned off if he doesn’t inspire me.
Playboy: Who inspires you?
Asti-Loren: So I would say one of my biggest Inspirations is Lana Del Rey. I love her poetic lyrics. Her cultural impact is so powerful, and the fact her career has had such steady and slow growth. She’s really coming into herself and I think people are really starting to appreciate her expression and how honorable she is. I would say how much she has given to her music and its authenticity. I love that about her.
And honestly, my mom inspires me so much. She came from absolutely nothing. She dropped out of school and she was 15 and she created this entire business. She became one of New Zealand’s top hairdressers. So did my dad. We used to fly around the world. They worked for L’Oreal and Carousel.
They would fly my mum over to Thailand to do hairdressing conferences. Even when she was pregnant with me. We would go to a private school in New Zealand and everyone else is like “Your mom and dad do my hair! How are you here?” They kind of broke the rules because we go to school with surgeons and doctors and my mom doesn’t have a degree. She didn’t even finish high school and she was able to create what she created.
Playboy: Can you tell us the story of how your band, The Dals came to be?
Asti-Loren: Basically, I was always doing solo music. So a lot of my past stuff like all the Carnegie Hall performances…that was always under my solo which was Asti-Loren. When I came to America surprisingly enough, my little brother—who’s amazing—he never did music once in his life. Never once picked up an instrument. He was little Mr. Smarts.
He was meant to be the smart one of the family that got the career kind of situation. Then he picked up guitar piano. I kind of have to work for it…learning how to do things. But he’s always one of those people that just they pick something and—boom. They’ve got it the next day.
Then essentially kind of our professors at school, they would ask us to sing together. And eventually we were just driving home one night and we were just like, Maybe we should do a band.” And Luca reminded me of this the other day, I was like “Who came up with The Dals?” He was like, “You did, I think.”
I looked at Luna and I was like, “We should be The Dals.” It stuck and that’s kind of what it was and from then onwards.
Playboy: How has it been making music with your brother?
Asti-Loren: We kind of always had this idea that we needed to learn a lot, because Luca was just picking up production. He was just learning about all the software, and I was learning a lot about the industry, and the way that all that works. And just general lyrical stuff as well. We were learning the rules so we can break them.
We really got serious about The Dals and that’s kind of why I started [creating for] Playboy. All the money that I earn from Playboy, that all is to fund my music essentially. We did have some label interest but we kind of decided that honestly, I don’t think that going for a labels is the way to go. I
We do everything in-house, right down to the visuals. My brother does all the photography for me. All my Instagram and everything like that. My mom helps out all the styling. We do a lot of the clothes that I’ve worn, that I actually make myself.
We do everything together, which I think is a really unique quality. Having everything done in a family is so cool, and not having to outsource.
Playboy: How have The Dals been received?
Asti-Loren: We released “Feel Bad,” which was the first single which was really cool. And that went pretty well. But it’s hard being an independent artist. The Playboy audience…a lot of people love it. On Playboy I actually do a lot of singing videos. Two hundred dollars and I will sing in lingerie your song that you would like me to sing. I’ll learn it. I’ll sing it.
I did just an actor and Arctic Monkeys one for someone, which was really cool. I’ll just sing it in my living room, put on a little lingerie, look a little sext, and Bob’s your Uncle. Which is pretty cool.
Playboy: That is definitely cool. Can you tell us about being featured in Rolling Stone?
Asti-Loren: We did “Split Enz” which was covered by Rolling Stone. I got it framed on the wall. This is actually like our studio. We work out of my living room, which is so funny. Everything we make and do is just all done right here in the living room, very DIY. We basically reached out to the Rolling Stone people. And they said yes yes to a random New Zealand girl.
So we did a little interview on the air then we released “Growing Pains” and then “Cupid on Ice.” They didn’t go quite as well as what I expected because I kind of realized the power of getting a publicist. It’s probably the one thing I would outsource next time. Because me emailing a lot of people while trying to do social media and Playboy and just everything else.
They have the connections and they’re probably gonna listen to someone that has built those industry connections. The way America works, as I’ve learned. It’s kind of who you know, unfortunately.
Playboy: What’s next for The Dals?
Asti-Loren: At the moment we have temporarily slightly put a hold on The Dals. We’re writing, putting together this whole big album that we want to do, But for that I need $40,000. It’s called “Bohemian Grove.” I don’t know if you know much about Bohemian Grove…Google it. It’s basically a club—It’s in the Redwoods, California way. But the Kennedy’s all went there. And it’s a very secret society where all the top leaders in the world meet up.
Playboy: Wow.
Asti-Loren: It’s a real thing. There’s been documentaries of people trying to infiltrate it and stuff like that. So we have this whole huge concept that’s kind of a little bit of a political type piece that we really want to do. Release is the first album, but it’s a big concept album because my brother and me have made a whole storyboard and a whole video that we want to accompany it and it kind of takes you through a lot of it. And I’ve become this character, this Marilyn Monroe character, because it was rumored that she actually went there one year and there’s this big stone owl—stuff like that.
Playboy: Sounds ghoulish.
Asti-Loren: It’s really creepy. It’s strange and just like why would all these people from different political parties be meeting. Someone did go in one year and was able to kind of do a little bit of an expose.
We’ve written this whole big thing, and it’s the story of me and Luca essentially infiltrating Bohemian Grove. We’re in a hippie van and then we take it up into the sky and I drop down as this Marilyn character.
It’s about 17 songs. I want to have all the visuals and stuff that I really want to accompany it and the storyline. In the meantime, we’re actually working on my solo project which is gonna be super cool.
Playboy: Are there any other musical projects on the horizon?
Asti-Loren: Basically that’s gonna be this really cool new solo project. My brother’s still gonna produce more like a Billie Eilish/Phineas situation, where he’s going to be in the background.
I’m the act, but he’s gonna still be helping and stuff. I’ve got this great first single which is called “Silver Screen.” But it’s gonna be more writing from my perspective and my experiences.
Asti-Loren Lucia is on The Playboy Club. Talk to her now.
