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"Paris Is Kind Of Sexy Right Now": Lewis OfMan
How are you? How's Paris?
Paris is kind of sexy right now to be honest. I’ve been away with the tour for two months. Coming back at the beginning of summer, I felt a different vibe. Everyone is happy... Many are doing new things... Someone just opened this record store called A-1 Record. It's quite nice. It's all things I like.
So many New Yorkers were there for Paris Fashion Week.
Yeah. I feel like a lot of people from New York are also attracted to the Paris vibe.
Did you go to any shows?
No, I honestly haven’t even looked at any of the collections yet. I was really there for the people, connecting with friends and stuff, like my friend who had a gallery opening. I prefer all the side events most of the time. I loved it.
Did you get into anything fun then?
Yes… wait, what did I do? One sec, I need to find my phone to see the pictures. Oh yes, I went to that festival, Manifesto. That was really nice. I listened to Crystallmess’ talk with my friend Ben Broome.
What did they talk about?
The talk focused on Crystall’s art as opposed to her music and DJing. They also spoke about how she navigates both the art and music industry, how it’s changed and the steps she took to get to do what she wanted to. She said it was really important to say no a lot.
I always see interviews about your music, but never really about your style, which is a shame. Where do you usually shop?
I'm super happy to talk about this because I never really do. I love to go thrifting, it’s like a little meditation. I go in, listen to music, browse, and wait for that moment. You know when you see a piece and you’re like, ‘I never thought about putting this on but I might as well try it'? Then you try it in the dressing room, feel more confident in it and it’s like you’ve unlocked a new vibe. And then when you buy it, it's like you've unlocked a brand new life and it becomes part of you. You have a new way of looking. Often people say that style is not important but as a musician something like style shows your taste and some form of your decisions in life. It’s really important for me to show with my clothes: my sensibility – my sensitivity in a way.
Does the outfit matter when you're performing?
Yes definitely. It's funny because before the tour, I would perform in a white suit, pants and a little tie, and when I removed the suit jacket, there was a funny drawing on the back of my shirt. It was sweet and funny, but it didn’t have a lot of attitude. Then I met the designer of Momma’s Blues, who makes a lot of sixties and seventies-inspired leather outfits. For the tour, she made me one that fits me snugly with perfectly flared hems and a vest with stars sewn into it. It’s called ‘Stardust’. The moment I put the suit on, I feel a different vibe like, "Bam ok"... It’s a sexy feeling for sure.
So the tour marked a shift in your style then?
Kind of. Another example is how I stopped shaving my beard. I never felt confident with it before, but I kept it for the East Coast and feel good about it ever since.
You mix almost like a rockstar aesthetic with this synth-pop electronic sound, which feels like two completely different worlds. To see them together feels very new and original.
Thank you for thinking this; I grew up loving bands from the sixties and seventies, the hippie lifestyle, and all kinds of psychedelic things — performers like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Mick Jagger, the way they behaved on stage, and what they wore. I watched the Woodstock documentary a lot. For them it seemed like it was about more than just the music, which I’d say is the same for me. It’s funny that I even got into electronic music, but that's what I found myself doing so it was about finding a way to mix this rockstar behavior not typical of electronic performers who are often hidden behind a machine. The white suit I had before was also a bit too serious, which was more inspired by performers like David Byrne from Talking Heads. I like to be a bit funnier than this.
Could you tell me about the project you’re working on now?
The project I’m working on now is not very electronic. I’ve been talking about how I was dressing as a seventies performer doing electronic music for a while, but now I’ve set my synthesizer to the side and I’m back to playing guitar with a lot of psychedelic melodies.
Oh like with your latest single?
Yes, yes.
What inspired the video?
Well, I wrote the song in the middle of winter. Last summer I had a breakup and knew that I wanted some fresh energy and to check up on myself...
I don't know but I love breaking up, it's like a two year therapy kind of thing, having to come back to yourself and getting over the situation. It's also a super state to do music in, and kind of how I found my way back to my roots. I was playing guitar when I was thirteen and super into this Woodstock kind of vibe and I somehow started playing guitar again, which was how I made the demo for "Highway". I was also listening to all these rock and soul songs that had this ultra fuzzy guitar over it for inspiration. At the time I was touring and preparing for festivals for Sonic Poems, which was super electronic in comparison; the shows had violent baselines and a strong dance feel. Yet, on the side, I was doing this chill, acoustic-driven thing. I was kind of scared, which is good I think — to be scared of what you do in music sometimes.
At the end of my time in Greece, I received a dm from Empress Of saying that we should collaborate, which was crazy because I was listening to her back in 2014 when I was still on Soundcloud. Then we planned to meet up in the studio in LA and on my way there I listened to my demos and when this one came on, I knew it was the perfect song to do with her. She really liked it too so we wrote and recorded the track right then. The vibes were so easy, it was a cool process from beginning to end and the video was also fun to do; it was perfectly chaotic how I think videos should be.
I don’t really know what’s happening but sometimes the less you understand, the better.
I get that, yeah. Your mindset changes.
Yeah but it's like with my beard. I shaved for six years because I never felt confident with it. Suddenly I feel okay with it. I don’t really know why or what happening but sometimes the less you understand, the better.
Also, how was your Coachella debut?
Coachella was honestly insane. I played Sonic Poems as with the last couple of tours and it was truly surreal. I'd say that the first weekend was easy; I played at 1:45pm on Friday, and I was ready for a smaller audience but after I started playing, the crowd just grew and grew in size. It remains one of the best shows I ever played.
Although I'd say that the second weekend was the best because I was more prepared and all my friends were there. The night before the first show, my creative director and I were freaked out about how many people were there. I normally don’t stress about shows, but that night we chain smoked cigarettes in the parking lot.
That's such a milestone. Is performing on stage an astral experience?
It's totally out of body. If you’re performing and find yourself thinking about real life, then it’s probably not a good show. My second performance at Coachella felt completely mystical. As soon as I started playing the speaker glitched as I had thought it might. There was a sand storm the night before and it seemed like some had gotten into the speakers during sound check. I spent the entire performance waiting for it to happen again, but it never did. I was just like, ‘OK, I’m just going to surrender to life right now.’ I was prepared for it the show end at any moment so that made every second matter. It felt like the best moment of my life.
Are you already thinking about your next tour?
Yes, because it's going to be really different. We are organizing them more like actual performances than regular gigs or parties. Just myself and the band, no backtracking or anything like that, just instruments. I’m super excited about it actually.
What are you wearing?
Something with sparkles. Maybe a sparkled long sleeve top that makes me look like some kind of shooting star.
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Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares... A True Punk
Today, we have ten studio albums from the legendary vocalist and songwriter, her first being The Lion and the Cobra, released in 1987, of which she sold millions of copies worldwide. In the Irish artist’s memoir, Rememberings, the overwhelming sentiment was that she would never be happy with herself unless she stood proudly for her beliefs. It wasn’t money or fame that attracted her to the music industry. In fact, she didn’t like the “industry” part of it, at all. She only wanted to sing. One day, Sinead told a priest that she liked to sing. He told her, “He who sings, prays twice.” Sinead writes this is why she started to sing. She wanted to repent.
The songstress began making music in a home for girls with behavioral issues, where she’d sneak out at night to record, much to the nuns’ disapproval. It was there that one special nun gave O’Connor a guitar, with which she busked on the streets of Dublin. Sinead was so gifted, that a teacher even helped her sneak out once to record music. The head nun despised this fact, so Sinead would smoke cigarettes directly outside her office, just to piss her off. She was a true punk from the get-go.
After she turned 16, she fearlessly ran away from school and got a studio apartment, much to her father’s dread. He agreed to pay her rent if she got a job and could pay any bills herself– and if she took out her nose ring. So, that’s what she did. As she describes memories of her youth, she recalls Elvis Presley’s and thinks to herself, “I need a new father because Elvis is gone, my father isn’t dead; I just ain’t seen him for a very long time... I don’t go looking for any father because I have God.” Whenever she hears music piercing her soul, she’d say, “That’s my dad.” She describes the first time she heard Bob Dylan: “I like this Dylan man... Since discovering him, I’ve stopped knocking on doors... asking [people] if I can be their child.” Despite her mother’s physical and emotional abuse, O’Connor focused on the many tender moments in which people were looking out for her.
In 1985 she signed with Ensign Records and left Ireland for London. The deal she’d signed got her only 7% of sales, she had to pay for the whole recording and production process herself. It was a terrible deal, to say the least. But Sinead was happy to get out of Ireland. She writes, “I’m lonely, but I’m writing songs for my first album, and songs are a lonely person’s occupation. Songs are ghosts. When my album comes out, I’ll become a traveling ghost delivery woman. There will be a lifetime of goodbyes. I can’t have a problem with that.”
The men at Sinead’s label had an issue with Sinead’s demeanor and the way she presented herself. They told her to be more feminine and appealing. They wanted her pretty. Sinead came back with a shaved head the next day. In London, she loved speaking with Rastafarians about God. They called her daughter. They were the first people to tell her the pope is evil. They said, “Nobody can own God.”
The Lion and the Cobra had been recorded. During the making-of, Sinead had come to find out she was pregnant with her first child. She told her record label, and they sent her to their doctor, who told her to abort the baby. She immediately left the label and found herself 100 grand in debt. She writes, “If this record doesn’t make the money back and more… then I will never be financially independent of people with penises.” Sinead gave birth to her first child just three weeks before the album was released.
Unsurprisingly, it was a huge hit. But her label earned millions off of her without batting an eye. She hated the music industry. But she loved 90s rap. She related to it because the industry looked down on her the same way they looked down on rap (until, of course, they co-opted it and made tons of money off of it). “I’m a punk, not a pop star,” Sinead proclaims. The world so badly wanted Sinead O’Connor to fit into whatever box they wanted her in. But Sinead never wavered in who she was or who she dreamt of being, and essentially demanded that people look at her the way she wanted to be looked at.
I'm a punk, not a pop star.
Cut to New York. On Avenue A, she befriended the Rastafarians at a juice bar. They took her in and watched out for her. “I thought they didn’t like me, was why they were silent, but it ain’t anything other than: They are watchers. They’re watching out for God everywhere. They’re like God’s security detail.” Sinead lovingly recalls. One man there in particular, Terry, was an older fella Sinead had grown to love a great deal. One day, he confesses to her they’ve been using children to run guns and drugs out of the juice bar. He tells her he’s going to be killed soon. Sinead is horrified. She’s been taking spiritual guidance from people she now knows have been using kids as drug mules. It was the ultimate betrayal.
It was that very weekend that Sinead was slated to go on SNL. She brought a photo with her, of Pope John Paul II that her mother kept from when he kissed the ground and said he loved the people of Ireland. “Nobody loved us, not even God.” To Sinead, this photo represented everything she stood against: lies and abuse. “Destroy it I would, when the right moment came,” because “nobody ever gave a shit about the children of Ireland.” As her second song on the live NBC program, SNL, Sinead sang War by Bob Marley. She’d been reading horrible stories for weeks where it was only briefly mentioned that children were being abused by priests. After Sinead finished singing, she stared right into the camera, ripped JP2’s photo into pieces and yelled, “Fight the real enemy. I’m talking to those who are going to kill Terry.” She blew out the candle next to her. The entire building was engulfed in a deafening silence. “Everyone wants a popstar, see, I’m a protest singer.”
Sinead O’Connor explains, “I had no desire for fame... Success was making a failure of my life, because everyone was already calling me crazy for not acting like a pop star, for not worshipping fame… My own dream was to only keep the contract I made with God before I ever made one with the Music Business, and that’s a better fight than murder.” NBC banned her from their studios for life. “This hurt me a lot less than rapes hurt those children, and a lot less than Terry dying, which happens the following Monday, anyway.”
Many people believe that it was this moment of the tearing of the pope’s photo that ended up derailing Sinead O’Connor’s career. She clarifies, “Having a #1 record derailed my career, and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track. I had to make my living performing live again, and that’s what I was born for. I wasn’t born to be a pop star. You have to be a good girl for that.” From then on Sinead did what she loved, making music, and playing live. She was a mother to four children, paid all the bills herself, and got to make her art. “What’s more successful than that?” she asks. Later, she writes, “I’m feeling flattered that the establishment considers me enough of a threat that it needs to try and discredit me along with all the other bands and artists who’ve been under attack in the censorship of music that is America since Straight Outta Compton.”
It’s not that Sinead liked being hated. It’s that she had an undeniable and unbreakable selfhood that could not be shaken by the “man”. She was and always will be a true punk. She’s been called Rock Music’s Joan of Arc because she was fearless, but it was almost like she had no choice but to be so. It was just who she was.
Read the full article by Willa Rudolph here.
Father Takes on Fatherhood
I caught up with Father while he was in Brooklyn during his U.S. mini-tour to perform at the popular venue Elsewhere. While his mini tour with Babysp1der covered only four cities, Father says he’s happy with the feedback Hu$band 2 has received since its release in June.
“I’m always skeptical when I’m about to drop something new, especially if it doesn’t fall exactly within a certain version of me,” Father says. “But the feedback has been good. I haven’t heard anyone so far say ‘I fucking hate this.’”
Father is very deliberate when it comes to creating music. He says spacing out his music-making and not overthinking helps him create the best tracks. Whether he takes a month or an hour to write a song, he tends to organize his projects in order of creation.
Although they aren’t completely correlated, Father’s music experimentation and maturity began with his 2019 EP Hu$band. The titles came to life with the idea of himself, and most of society deeming the term ‘husband’ as more achieved than just a ‘father.’ “If I were to do another (Hu$band EP), it would be in the same vein,” he says.
Note-taking and freestyling his loose thoughts are usually the best methods of songwriting, according to Father.
“People have always seen how Lil Wayne and a lot of artists do things,” he says. “They just kind of rummage through their brain and fire off shit until it works. It’s just notes that come together. And then when I get to the verses, verses are always on the fly…it’s just stuff going on. I’ll be watching something and it’ll relate to a thought or a way of my own thinking.”
Now that Father is a father, he wants to shift from less sexual lyrics to more conscious lyrics. He says his fans call his recent music ‘Christmasy’ and ‘jollier’ than his earlier music that they called ‘horny raps.’
“I’m just not that guy anymore,” Father says. “I’m still a man at the end of the day. I’m going to have my thoughts, but it’s just not the image or person I want to portray anymore. And that might have something to do with fatherhood and maturing and shit like that. My kids don’t need to grow up and be like, ‘There goes horny ass dad talking about freak tunes.’ Not that I would give a fuck, but I’ve just naturally gone in that direction away from making music like that.”
Don’t let this fool you; he still wants to maintain some of his dark, macabre sounds to match Hu$band 2’s creepy cover. Father also wants to maintain his authentic relationships and collaborations. He cares more about making good music with artists rather than collaborating with the hottest artists at the moment. He often works with his friends like Zack Fox and Tony Shhnow, but also wants to work with more alternative artists like James Blake.
In addition to music, Father is exploring what he can do outside of the music sector to become a more multifaceted person overall.
“I would love to just own a restaurant or bar,” he says. “I want some structure now. It (music) became so saturated. It starts to feel like what you’re doing, even though it may be special, it gets exhausting for a while.”
Despite slowing down and taking the time to be a father, he hopes to release another project this fall. In the meantime, you can listen to Hu$band 2 and his earlier music on streaming platforms.
