The Voice's Lauren Duski Pays Tribute to Grandfather in New Music Video: 'I Wanted to Be Intentional'
Once described as “the missing piece in country music right now” by Blake Shelton, Lauren Duski is breaking through the solo career scene, with her recent debut EP Midwestern Girl, and now with a new music video, this time honoring her grandparents.
The season 12 Voice runner-up, 27, admits in previous tracks that she has been transparent about her own life, but hasn’t been the same way about her family. The last track on the EP is different; this time she is paying tribute to her late grandmother in “The Weather.”
“I’ve definitely opened up about relationships; there’s a lot of transparency there. But I’ve never been that transparent with my family,” Duski told PEOPLE.
“The Weather” got its name based on the idea that whenever Duski would check on her grandfather, he’d respond with “How’s the weather down in Nashville?” rather than sharing his current feelings of grief at the time.
“I remember every time he’d ask me that, being like, OK well, he’s just not ready yet,” she recalls.
The music video itself features her grandfather in his home in Gaylord, Michigan, Duski’s hometown. From there, the film moves to the Mackinac Bridge, a place that was “really symbolic of their lives.”
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In wanting to keep both the song and music video personal, instead of hiring a professional to capture the story, Duski opted to film and edit the entire project herself.
“It’s such a personal song and personal video for me that I wanted to do everything on my own. I wanted to create something that I could look back on and be proud of,” the singer revealed.
She filmed the entire video on her iPhone, and says she “didn’t really know what I was doing,” but wanted to make the final product as real and authentic as possible.
It was also important to her that her grandfather, the main face throughout much of the video, felt comfortable throughout the process. She was initially worried that he would be hesitant about being involved in the clip, but he saw it as a way to carry on the legacy of his late wife, who died two years ago.
“He kept saying, ‘All I want is for our love and for her to live on,'” Duski added.
Despite the loss she has felt the past two years, the singer also feels that she has learned so much about living in the present moment.
“I think it’s really allowed me to slow down and just focus on the things that really matter. I don’t know how much time I have left with anybody, and that’s a deep, dark thought, but at the same time, it’s just kind of the truth,” she shared.
The rest of 2019 will continue to be exciting for Duski, as she is touring this fall for the first time alongside Lukas Graham, and hopes to release another single she recently wrote.
“I’m just taking everything day by day,” she says.
