Q&A: CHRIS LANZON EXPLORES SELF DISCOVERY THROUGH COLLABORATION IN NEW EP, ‘ANGEL LITANY’
RISING STAR CHRIS LANZON REACHES FOR VULNERABILITY — through heartfelt and introspective lyrics in his new EP, Angel Litany. The Australia-based singer/songwriter has taken a new approach towards the making of the EP, all songs born through collaboration and writing sessions with artists such as Deb Never and Harmony to name a few.
The EP begins with a memorable instrumental to set the scene of the journey Lanzon prepares to take listeners on, slowly repeating a simple, yet powerful line of, “You’re the only one who knows me.” The strength these words hold combined with the power Lanzon has to convey real passion and feelings shines through the opening track as well as all that’s to follow afterwards.
Lanzon has found a way to reach new emotional depths within Angel Litany, sharing that this title “...sums up that feeling of this overwhelming abundance of things that happen in life that can just be really beautiful…”. Luna sat down with Lanzon to reach further into those aforementioned emotional depths to hear about his learning experiences while creating the EP, his take on collaboration, and more. Read the full interview below.
LUNA: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me about your new EP. Jumping straight into it, how would you describe the journey that this body of work takes listeners on?
LANZON: I hope that it's whatever it needs to be for each individual person. I think for me, I had a moment towards the end of making it, where I went for a walk and listened to it as a whole thing, and it just felt really comforting. So, I hope that the journey that it takes people on is one of just going into themselves and feeling comforted. There's a lot of themes covered, but in general I hope that's the journey.
LUNA: The first track on the EP, “777” focuses on the instrumentals as you repeat one line, “You’re the only one who knows me.” What inspired you to choose that as the opening?
LANZON: I wanted the song to bring the listener into the world of the project. Originally, that song wasn't on there and it started with “Angel Litany”, but it just felt quite jarring, and I wanted something to ease you into that. I had the idea in my voice memos, just repeating that line over and over and originally I kind of left it as an idea that I would maybe finish one day. I was like, “It feels weird to just have one lyric in a song, am I allowed to do that?”
But one day, I picked up the guitar, and I just started working with it, and it was finally in the same key as “Angel Litany”. And with the lyric repeating over and over, I wrote it with my partner in mind, just that feeling of having someone that just knows everything about you and knows who you are, and actually feeling seen by somebody, which I think is quite a rare thing in life in general. Often it can just feel like people don't understand you or don't know what you're going through, so it's kind of an ode to that, just expressing that feeling of being seen. But I think that can come in a lot of different forms as well – in the context of this project, there's a lot of themes of feeling looked after or guided in some way by this sort of higher force that I think it can often weave itself through creativity and stuff, where you can just feel like things are out of your control, but if you just let things happen, they have a way of working themselves out. So, it's kind of an ode to that as well, that sort of sense that there's something bigger than yourself in this world.
LUNA: So, would you say that that ties into what “Angel Litany” means to you as well?
LANZON: Absolutely. It's a weird title, but I think it kind of sums up that feeling of this overwhelming abundance of things that happen in life that can just be really beautiful and just kind of sitting in that feeling.
LUNA: What did the process of creating this EP look like?
LANZON: It started out quite differently to how I've usually made things in the past. A lot of the time I'm very intentional from the start, and will know that I want to make an EP, and I want it to be about this thing, or there's maybe a title or something in mind. But this time, I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do. I just was writing a lot of songs, and I grabbed five of them and just kind of put them together. I was looking at them and seeing at first that these songs don't have anything in common, they're just songs.
But over the process of working with them, I started to see a throughline, and they felt really connected. And then that process was just a lot of me alone in my room, tweaking the ideas and reworking lyrics and all of that, and then eventually opening that up. My friend James played the violin on a lot of the songs, so that was a new thing for me as well, to work with a violinist. That was something unique to this EP that I haven't done before.
LUNA: Upon the release of the EP, you had a chance to explain what this EP means to you as a whole, but you had also mentioned that each song was born through collaboration. What was your learning experience like working with different people?
LANZON: It was surreal. I think with collaborating, it could be a really scary thing at first because it's so vulnerable, and especially if you haven't met the person before, it can be just this really intimidating thing on the outside. But once you start, it's almost always the most beautiful thing, especially the first time. I find that there's a certain something that happens when it's the first time you're getting together with someone to make something. I don't know if you're both trying to bring your best and impress each other or something, or because you don't know each other, there's maybe like, more openness and you're kind of more free to just go with whatever the feeling is, but I definitely found that through this project. All of the collaborations were pretty much the first time that I'd worked with that person except for one. It was a really special process, and I think it was just very freeing to get out of my own way and not be super isolated in the process.
LUNA: How does it feel for you knowing that this body of work that represents so much for you is finally out in the world?
LANZON: It's a very strange feeling. There's just so many different emotions. On release days, you're kind of letting go of this thing that you've spent so long on and been so close to. These songs have just been something that are like my little secret, my little world that I've been building. So, it's a weird thing that only yesterday, I felt this almost grieving of letting go of this, this little baby of mine in a way. I'm so grateful that I get to do this, and it's nice that it's out in the world, but there's a part of me that's sad to let go of it.
LUNA: Definitely, it’s like the little bird is leaving the nest. Can you share a little bit about how your personal experiences shape your songwriting process?
LANZON: Pretty much anything I experience will work its way into a song somehow. I would love to try doing character writing and writing things that aren't of my experience, but it just doesn't work for me that well. The majority of the stuff that I write is very personal, so I think those stories tell themselves in the songs. But I think this project, I was just exploring a lot, about my own relationship to creativity and artistry and sort of like what it means to be an artist, like outside of making things. It was around the time that Rick Rubin’s book came out, and I was reading that book and a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. A friend of mine actually gave that to me when I was in LA, just after I'd written with Harmony and Deb, which is interesting that it was just after, but I feel like I was already in this state of mind. I remember talking to Harmony about this in the session when we wrote “Angel Litany”.
Her lyrics are so beautiful and magical, and I was like, “How do you do that? You just write so well and so creatively and just so freely.” And she said to me, “Well, how much do you read and write? Is that something that you practice?” I've tried to keep journals before, but I always fall off on it, and I wasn't reading that much at the time, so I think that was in my mind. Anyways, my friend gave me this book, and I took it home, and it was all about what it means to live as an artist and experience the world as an artist, and just being an observer and being open to creativity and ideas, and being like a vessel for the idea in a way, rather than being this sort of self centered, egotistical thing of thinking, “Yeah, I'm going to make something and it's gonna be really special.”
It's this totally flipped approach of being open to receiving ideas and channeling them somehow, and being the vessel that can bring them to life in a way. I think all of those experiences really shaped what the songs became.
LUNA: Even after reading that book, do you find yourself still struggling with vulnerability within creating something?
LANZON: I think it's always going to be a struggle or an uncomfortable thing to be vulnerable, and something that I'll constantly be hopefully learning about and growing with and maybe getting better at. There have been songs that hold lyrics that I'm writing where I'm like, “Oh, that's just a temporary thing. I'll change that.”, but then I'll send it to someone, and they'll say that that lyric is really special and I need to keep it, but I’m thinking about how it’s just so vulnerable. I think my brain is constantly trying to curate and protect myself from being too exposed in a way. But, that's something that I want to just keep getting better at because I think that's where art can really connect and shine in those really vulnerable moments, but it's not easy to do.
Photo By Sulaiman Enayatzada
LUNA: From your cover of “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls that went viral, to where you are now, could you have predicted your musical career would take off in this way?
LANZON: I feel very grateful to be in a spot where there are people listening out there. It's such a strange relationship with putting music out into the world, because a lot of it just happens on the internet, and it's so cool that it does, but sometimes it's just hard to process it or feel really connected to it. I think over the course of this EP, something that's been different, that hasn't happened before, is a lot of people are covering the songs themselves and posting it online. That is just so surreal to me, especially as someone who started out doing covers on the internet, to have people doing covers of my songs. I never expected that to happen. That's really brought in this perspective that there are real people out there behind the screen on the other side, who are actually feeling something through this music, and that's really cool to be reminded of and to actually realize. So, I'm excited to just keep going and play shows in real life.
LUNA: As an artist constantly learning and growing, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far and how do you feel they’ve shaped your growth?
LANZON: I struggled a lot with self confidence. I still doubt myself a lot, and I think that's been an interesting thing to navigate. I think everyone kind of goes through that to some extent, especially when you're putting yourself out there in such a vulnerable way. It can be so easy to second guess every decision you make, so that's been interesting to work through. And also just to generally figure out who I am and what I wanted to do and why I'm doing it. All of those questions are really fundamental to answer, but they're the hardest ones to answer. I feel like I'm constantly learning new things about myself and about the world that make me hope that I'm constantly growing in an upwards direction of becoming better at not taking everything too seriously and beating myself up. That's just a human thing.
LUNA: Any final thoughts you’d like to share with those reading this?
LANZON: I'm just glad that you’re here, and somehow our paths have crossed. I hope that you enjoyed this 15 minute body of work. There's much more to come, and I'm excited for it. I always feel connected to what I'm doing, but each time, I hope to feel more and more connected to it, and this time, it really feels like it's showing a side of myself that I haven't shown before. I hope that people can connect to it in some way and just feel at peace with it in whatever way that means. Also, if anyone reading this is in Australia, I'm going on tour next month, so I hope to see you there. But if you're in America, fly to Australia.
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