A Treat For Your Ears: Crêpe Girl

Photo by Honor Blevins

When thinking of crêpes, your mind probably conjures mouthwatering images of a French delight, not the sound of indie music. Eliza Grégoire, known onstage as “crêpe girl,” hits on both senses.

Born in Indiana to French parents, Grégoire initially moved to Grand Junction to race for Colorado Mesa University’s cycling team. Now, she’s planted roots in different ways — first with her crêpe stand, LULU Crêpe, and now by writing and performing music as crêpe girl (casually branded in all lowercase).

“It’s kind of funny, because I literally make crêpes, and I’m French, so it’s part of my culture,” Grégoire explains, speaking in a light accent.

While her voice alludes to her European heritage, her style of brown Converse and a long tee oozes an edgy, cool confidence — a call-out to the musician side of her crêpe aesthetic.

Crêpe girl is the definition of self-made. After teaching herself the guitar at the age of 10, Grégoire went on to learn the drums, bass, vocals and a little bit of keyboard. Not only does she write and play her own songs, but she produces everything from the comfort of her bedroom.

“I really like teaching myself production,” she explains. “Nowadays, you can look up a YouTube video for anything.” To Grégoire, writing music is both fun and a challenge. “I just like it so much,” she adds. “And, I like each of my songs for different reasons.”

Her most recent song, “Try Me Out,” is more artistically “open” than her other songs, meaning she didn’t follow any music rules and she “just went with what [she] felt.” While most of her songs are about love and relationships, she says that it’s up to the listener to interpret them as whatever makes the most sense to them personally.

“When you release a song, it’s not yours anymore ... Whatever the listener thinks the song is about, they’re right,” she says. And crêpe girl’s listener count is on the rise! At the beginning of this year, she had just under 1,000 monthly Spotify listeners. By summertime, she reached 20,000.

The best part of writing music, Grégoire says, is performing it. This past spring, she performed her biggest shows to date when opening for one of her favorite artists and musical inspirations, Del Water Gap. The audiences at these shows were upwards of 600 people, and Grégoire describes it as “the best experience [she’s] ever had.”

The process of performing with bigger bands and in front of bigger audiences has taught her various lessons, the most important one being to always “shoot your shot ... with everything.” Because Grégoire doesn’t have a manager, she’s the person who reaches out to artists about opening at their shows; she reasons that “the worst thing they can say is no,” a response that is very common in the music industry. “I’m way more used to rejection than people saying yes,” she elaborates, “but sometimes they say yes, and it’s incredible.”

While her listener count continues to rise, and she’s performing in front of bigger audiences, Grégoire plans to stay in Grand Junction. She argues that with everything being online nowadays, there’s no need to move to a bigger city, and why would she when she loves the Western Colorado area?

“I happen to make music in a time where I can build an audience from my computer,” she explains. Not only can she share her music from Grand Junction, but the fact that it’s not a big city with music influencers telling her what to do is also appealing. “I think, in general, Grand Junction is beautiful,” Grégoire details, “but also the slower pace and seclusion makes it easier for me to write what I want.” Needless to say, crêpe girl is staying in the area to satisfy all your senses— with tasty treats and even better music.

Originally published in the Fall 2022 issue of Spoke+Blossom.