Q&A: 13th LAW Opens Up About His Quarter-Life Crisis in His Debut EP ‘Crisis Core’
LIFE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR DROWNING AT TIMES — Like a raging riptide, no matter how much you try to swim forward, the wave pulls you further back. In your twenties, things can feel like a rollercoaster. There's lots of growth, change, ups, and downs. It can be a lot to handle and hard to understand. But through it all, we realize there are solutions and signs of safety when we just have to swim toward the parallel route to get there. Crisis Core takes us through the quarter-life crisis of 13th LAW.
“Songs about forgiveness after love, financial disparity, fighting for your place in the world against all odds, recognizing toxic patterns, remembering and reminding oneself of the true weight that love has,” Lawrence says.
This is expressed in this enthralling blend of indie, punk, and nu-metal with a touch of rap. With enticing guitar riffs and bass solos thrown in and combined with amazing production skills, Crisis Core musically embodies the emotions and journey we all can relate to. Evan Lawrence, who goes by the stage name 13th LAW, is a singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist hailing from the Southside Jamaica, Queens. After a nine-year hiatus from his solo project, 13th LAW is back with his debut EP, Crisis Core.
“A gospel reject and a recovering jazz kid,” 13th LAW is inspired by old-school jazz fusion, new electronic music, Japanese rock, and anime. 13th LAW is the first new solo project in nine years, with the one before being the first EP of Jelani Sei in 2014. Which then turned into a true band between 2015–2020. 13th LAW currently works on his collaborative project, Babyfang, a shoegaze trash-punk band based in Brooklyn, NYC. As a talented performer and an exciting artist, 13th LAW is an NYC artist to keep on your radar.
Read below to learn about the birth of Crisis Core and to get to know 13th LAW.
LUNA: Hey, 13th LAW! Can you share with the Luna audience who you are as an artist? Your stage name, music history, persona, and you as an individual.
13TH LAW: Hi! I’m Evan, aka 13th LAW, and I am foremost a New Yorker, by way of Southside Jamaica, Queens. I play electric and upright bass and guitar and produce my own tunes. I sing a bit as well. I’m a gospel reject and a recovering jazz kid who loves old-school jazz fusion, new electronic music, Japanese rock, and, of course, anime. The name 13th LAW [is] just an amalgamation of my day of birth and my last name, Lawrence (laughs). Sometimes people have asked me if it’s related to the 13th amendment and I always promptly jokingly say no. But metaphysically I could correlate it if need be (laughs).
LUNA: Wow, that's so awesome! Thank you for elaborating on everything. Congrats on the release of Crisis Core. How does it feel to have your first EP out? What’s the story behind the creation of this EP?
13TH LAW: Thank you! Super excited to have it on the digital airwaves. It feels rather exciting and emboldening to have this project out after what feels like a century. Genesis-wise, this EP is the result of a self-archaeological dig into myself, [which] brought forth the sounds and feelings I had been longing to have in the forefront for a long time. True to its name, Crisis Core is essentially about my quarter-life crisis. When I turned 24 it coincided with COVID, the beginning of the 2020s, and a world that had moved closer to brazenly and righteously bringing justice to oppressed people. Songs about forgiveness after love, financial disparity, fighting for your place in the world against all odds, recognizing toxic patterns, remembering and reminding oneself of the true weight that love has. Things like that. Production-wise, it’s always extremely fun to push myself into becoming one with my mind, body, and soul.
LUNA: You’re based in Queens — how would you say being in this environment has shaped your music?
13TH LAW: So as a Queens native, I grew up in a lot of New York City environments that forced me to be in competition with friends and foe alike. It also forced me to become better at my craft. But at the expense of comparison and at the same time, getting older and leading a band for myself in NYC and other states has led me to learn what it means to be a better bandleader, a better person, the best musician I can be, and to have fun all at the same time. It also helps a lot that my father is a musician as well. He plays electric bass. He and my mother, with their extensive knowledge of music, exposed me to a lot of beautiful works of music early on. I’d say that even though New York City is one of the most competitive cities in the world, I do appreciate the journey that’s brought me here and taught me how to love and care for others while performing music at a high level. It’s very easy to not do that and boy have I learned my lessons.
LUNA: You performed at Our Wicked Lady in Brooklyn the weekend your EP dropped. What was that like?
13TH LAW: It was a blast! Such an interesting and on-brand way to bring it all in. On the day of the show, the entail end of a Nor-Easter hit NYC and revealed all of my old city’s infrastructure issues. So with the trains messed up, we had to postpone the show to two days later. It kind of shifted the fungshay in an interesting way. It’s like, there’s this huge energy buildup within an artist and/or band alike before they release their art into the world for “consumption.” The release show is the moment all that energy gets to go live! It all gets to ruminate with everyone who’s there and having to keep that stored in definitely changed the emotional landscape for the evening. We had sets from my amazing friends, Blue Mena, SIRA, and one of the best bands in Nubrooklyn, Tetchy, and the full moon was bussin’ all night. Such a lovely Sunday.
LUNA: Sounds amazing! Wish I was able to be there. What is your inspiration both musically and in life?
13TH LAW: Water is [definitely] a huge inspiration. Life generally is an inspiration. I’ll start with the life half because it’s my Saturn return this year (laughs). Bodies of water and their endless ability to change shape, give life, nurture, and the reverse of it hold endless mysteries that are a beautiful entrancing part of being alive that I frequently enjoy. In my free time, I like to go to the beach and just sit with myself and think. I like to go hard and then rest, and I've been learning to make room in my life for true relaxation in the face of music and the work that comes with it. It reminds me that it’s never too late to change.
Musically, aside from my parents and the musical ethic of Jamaica Queens, its churches and musicians. I’d divide this answer into a few categories. For guitarists, I’d say Tosin Abasi, Allen Holdsworth, and Jimi Hendrix. For bassists, Richard Bona, Esperanza Spalding, and Mononeon. In the musicians and songwriter aspect of my musical inspirations, all aforementioned people possess phenomenal ability and an endless vat of creativity. Witnessing most of these people (except Hendrix and Bona) has been integral to my own processes as an instrumental songwriter. Thematically, I’d say the stories of life are what inspire me to write. In high school, I believed I needed to have a great weekend to have something to write about (laughs). Nowadays, life be life-ing so there's always things to pull from.
LUNA: “Blood Bending” is one of my favorites on Crisis Core. Tell me about the creative process and lyrics.
13TH LAW: Ah! It’s one of my favorites as well. That song, along with “It’s Alright” and “Light Run,” were the three that gave me the base work for the EP. They were all half songs for almost three years, finally getting completed this year. “Blood Bending” was written in the midst of the summer of 2020, during a time when I was rediscovering myself outside of being an instrumentalist and someone on the “scene.” It’s about moving forward during the hardest times of your life. It’s essentially a nu-metal reclamation of one’s self. A sort of struggle rap song. Or rather a struggle rock song (laughs).
After having the song sitting for a while with just some of the intro and the chorus, I decided to try and make it as enthralling as it could be. And really dove in on the production compositional side of it. Definitely one of my favorites! Oh, and the bass solo at the end too is just [crying smile emoji]. Production-wise, I definitely listened to Mid-Air Thief a shit ton to try and capture the mythological vibe they get on their songs. Check them out!
LUNA: I know you mentioned it’s been nine years since you released a project under 13th LAW. What are your upcoming plans for this project?
13TH LAW: Yeah, it’s been quite a while since I’ve dropped something under my own name. I had a band that was active from 2015 to 2020 that was really important to me for a while, called Jelani Sei. So having a true solo project is something that feels like I'm back at the bottom of Mount Vesuvius (laughs). It’s like restarting your save file on Pokémon Gold, or Diamond, and rechoosing one of the starter Pokémon. The plan for this is to just let it grow as naturally as I do. Extremely excited and grateful for the future.
LUNA: Would you like to share your other projects that you work on?
13TH LAW: Yeah! My Brooklyn-based punk band, Babyfang, is something that’s always fun to work on. We’re a shoegaze-thrash punk band.
LUNA: What brings you joy?
13TH LAW: Hmm… Mini Vans! Big warm bodies of water! Beaches, beds! Huge beds! A bowl of pineapples, grapes, and mangoes. Friendship! Fun! Long drives on the coast at sunset! I’m a simple person.
LUNA: Question for fun: If you can be a main character in a movie, anime, etc., what is your superpower, and what is your plot?
13TH LAW: Mwuahaha! My chosen power would definitely be the reality-bending power of manifestation. That way I would be able to physically manifest anything I want. Let’s say I wanted to be able to have psychic powers — my brain’s physiology would change in order for me to do that. I would definitely place limiters on myself just to make sure I wasn't too OP (laughs). Let’s say I can only manifest one thing per day depending on how many other lives need to be changed for it to happen, so if I wished for world peace, I wouldn't be able to use my power respectfully, for a full year. Which would be worth it several times over.
My plot would probably be me trying to figure out what to do with this power. Should it be abused for my greater good? Or for the whole greater good of the world? The power would be a plot device, and the real plot would be: Can I survive with no powers for a full year after wishing for world peace? Knowing that the axis power governments are in full pursuit of me. That would be pretty cool! (laughs).
