ME: Your song ‘Let Me Follow’ was suggested to me by Spotify and is now one of my current
favourites. What inspired that song ? Were the lyrics written about certain experiences?
SON LUX: Yea, it’s funny. That’s an old song buried in a relatively obscure release. But the algorithms went bananas one day recently and put it on a bunch of folks’ radars. Who knows why, but I’m glad! The album is called Disappearance, and it’s music I composed for the film Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (which was originally in two parts—watch that version!). Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy and Viola Davis. There’s *very* little music in the movie, so I also wrote some additional material for it, including that song, which is inspired by the story. My dear friend Katie Chastain, who records as Faux Fix, sings with me on that song and much of the material on the record. Her beautiful voice also haunts one of my favorite Son Lux songs, the very obscure “Tear, Part 2,” and also “All The Right Things,” from the second Son Lux album, We Are Rising. -RL
M: With almost a million monthly listeners, is this a goal you ever wanted to achieve? Did you
think you would?
SL: Wow, that number is mind boggling! As a band, we’ve never discussed particular statistical goals, but we’re super grateful that the music we make has reached this many people. We’re lucky that we mainly concern ourselves with making the best and most honest music that we can, and that we have an awesome team (management/ label/ PR) that takes care of putting it out into the world. -IC
M: With things opening up slowly as COVID is on the down, are things getting busier and
somewhat more exciting for you?
SL: We’ve actually been really fortunate to be busy working remotely throughout COVID. In addition to finishing and putting out all three volumes of our latest album “Tomorrows”, we also scored a movie! Of course, we’re looking forward to performing live again, which will happen in 2022. -IC
M: You also have a song featuring Lorde. What was that experience like? Is there anyone else
you’d love to have feature on a song?
SL: That was a great experience, super simple and fun. She wrote some new lyrics and recorded and produced her own vocal approach to our song “Easy.” Inspired by her approach, we created a new version of the instrumental. She wound up performing a version of the song around the world on tour, and I got to see her in New York and hang a bit. Very cool woman, sweet and generous. There are tons of folks we’d love to collaborate with. André 3000, Thom Yorke, Björk, Vince Staples, Nick Cave, Jonny Greenwood, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Smino, Sam Dew, Moor Mother, Madlib, Tobe Nwigwe all come to mind without thinking too hard. And that’s just musicians. Recently my wife (who’s a dancer and choreographer) turned me onto the movement of one of her students, Jada Walker. Check her IG: @jadaa.walker. Super incredible! -RL
M: One of your songs has 40+ million streams. Did you ever expect Easy to be one of your
biggest hits so far?
SL: It’s always hard for us to be able to tell what will resonate with folks, and often it happens in ways we would never expect. There are so many strange and anomalous things about “Easy,” and it makes me happy that it has managed to reach such a wide audience. It’s a little funny to me that “Easy” was the first Son Lux song I ever recorded on, but I will say it’s one that is still really fun to play live even after having done it so many times. -RB
M: During quarantine, what effect did it have on your music?
SL: For quite some time before the lockdown hit, all three of us had actually already been living in different cities—Ian is in Dallas, Ryan is between LA and Indianapolis, and I’m the last one still in Brooklyn. The fact that we had already been working over distance was really fortunate because we already had mechanisms in place to build together despite the new limitations. We had also shared a lot time working in the same space in the months and years prior—from anAirbnb in LA to a live-in studio in the Hungarian countryside, a three-week residency in NYC, and actually a few more days back in LA right before quarantine started.
For those reasons, I think the primary way in which the music was affected by quarantine was
on observing the way that isolation was affecting us and those around us. There was this aspect in the music we had already been making that concerned sustained tension—like zeroing in and listening to two musical elements slowly pull apart from each other, or one thing slowly get subsumed by another. During the lockdown, that took on another sort of meaning as everyone was frozen in place, stuck sitting with the tension. -RB
M: This year you released an album - what about this album would you say is different to your others?
SL: The most immediate difference is that the album was released in three volumes, which is
something we had never done before. The longer format gave us more room to experiment with instrumental pieces, and we engaged in more collaborative songwriting with artists that we love like Holland Andrews and Kadhja Bonet. Another thing that we had never done before was create a draft of the track sequence before any of the songs were actually done. This helped us get really creative with how we would create connective tissue between the three volumes, as well as give each one its own identity. -IC
M: What I love about your covers is that they’re all following a similar aesthetic. What would you all describe as your aesthetic?
SL: Honestly, it’s a little hard for us to describe something that we are so close to. But I think
something we’re all pretty fascinated with is the tension that comes from sharp contrasts. Like organic and plastic, torrential and still, faint and in-your-face. Throughout the history of the project, none of these have been more prominent than darkness and light. I think the cyclical nature of Tomorrows helped allow us to position the listener in the space between a lot of those things. -RB
M: How do you come up with covers?
SL: I have to give our managers Michael Kaufmann and Hannah Houser credit for helping us direct the visual language of the band. Early on in the process, Michael will usually put together some kind of mood board as a springboard for conversation. Then we’ll typically work with an artist to help create a cover that speaks to some of the themes and ideas we have in mind. For our most recent album ‘Tomorrows’, the covers were actually existing artworks by Mareo Rodriguez. They were originally on the mood board, but were so perfect that we decided to reach out to Mareo to figure out a deal for usage.
M: I like to end on a fun one - If you could change your band name, would you? And what
would it be?
SL: Ooh, great question. Would probably change it if I could, tbh. Not sure what it would be, but I do have a knack for terrible band names. Can I just give you some of those? Pudge Cudgel, Jacuzzi Wrinkles, Albignome, Manthropod, Trouble Rainbow. So many stupid options. Thanks for the questions! -RL
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