Q&A: Harrison Lipton Returns with his Newest Single “Synchronized Swimming”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY LILAH PHILLIPS☆
STEPPING INTO A NEW CHAPTER— Singer-songwriter and producer Harrison Lipton returns with his newest single, “Synchronized Swimming." After two years since his last single, “Sagittarius,” Lipton is exploring a new sound. Delving into 70’s Yacht Rock, Sade, and Michael McDonald - just to name a few - Lipton hopes that listeners will stick around to see where this new path in music takes him. “Synchronized Swimming” explores “the tenderness of two lovers falling in sync with each other,” as stated by Lipton. With the single being six years in the making, Lipton meticulously crafted a perfect end-of-summer/early fall track that blends together a harmony of 70’s soft rock, indie, soul, and R&B that supports his silky and soulful vocals. Layla Ku of MICHELLE adds backing vocals that give the perfect finishing touch to the song.
“Synchronized Swimming” is accompanied by a music video where Lipton plays a cowboy-meets-aquatic creature. To bring this creature to life, Lipton brings in Izzi Galindo, an SFX makeup and prosthetics artist who has worked with major artists like The Weeknd. The result of the music video draws viewers into the otherworldly aquatic romance known as “Synchronized Swimming.” During Lipton's two-year break, he’s been working and collaborating with other artists such as Yot Club, MICHELLE, and Mal Sounds, and has received major songwriting and production credits. He shares that “[it’s like being] in a dream because it’s so different than writing something for myself…when I'm writing with someone else, I'm following them with what they want to say.”
Read more to hear about the development of "Synchronized Swimming” and Lipton’s collaboration with other artists.
LUNA: Wow! I can't believe it's been two years since we last chatted about your single “Sagittarius.” How has life been? What have you been up to? Music? Etc.?
LIPTON: It feels a lot longer than two years ago,.“Sagittarius” was a really fun song to put out: I was excited to put it out, and since then, I've been headed toward a new direction and a new chapter. I've been writing and producing for artists, and it's been an extremely rewarding experience. I've gotten to work with extremely talented people that I love working with and also love as friends like Yot Club, MICHELLE, Morning Silk, Mal Sounds, FIG, and Middle Part. I want to say that's all of them. I'm just going to pretend that that's all of them (laughs). I've been working with these artists on various projects. I wrote and produced “Human Nature” with Yot Club off of his new album Rufus, which was so sick to see…So the past couple of years, having the opportunity to reach people beyond the scope of my own artist project has been really good for my confidence, but also I feel grateful, and I feel honored getting to work with so many talented people. It’s like a dream come true. So that's been my big focus, as well as writing new stuff for myself. So, you know, it's been really fun.
LUNA: That’s so nice to hear! Sounds like you’ve been busy! I love “Synchronized Swimming.” I got a ‘97 Toyota Camry recently, so I added the track to my car playlist.
LIPTON: That is the most badass car that “Synchronized Swimming” could be played in! Oh, my god, any of the 1990’s Toyota Camrys are a vibe.
LUNA: Thank you so much!— I saw that “Synchronized Swimming” was six years in the making. What was the creative process behind it?
LIPTON: So, I tend to find with songwriting that songs either happen very easily or they [are much more difficult]. [In those cases], you kind of have to work on it, and take a break [and so forth]. Ironically, “Synchronized Swimming” was a song that came super easily when we wrote it. I was at Ian Bakerman’s studio and I entered a state where I don't even know what happened. I was in the zone when we made this song. I can't even tell you what happened in that session (laughs).
Noah Ross, who plays guitar when we perform live, also plays the guitar on the track and it was just the three of us hanging out and [working on] that song. This was six years ago, and it sounded great, but at that time, it wasn't my sound and I almost didn't know what to do with the song. It was just so different from what I had been making. It just felt so good and I’m such a perfectionist, that I just was like, “I'm gonna wait for the right time to release it.” So finally, this summer, I was releasing the song if it was the last thing I did. Because I knew that this was the next thing I wanted to release. It’s so different than anything I've done before. It's kind of like soft rock meets modern yacht rock. It's got this smooth quality to it. It's a song that just feels very me right now, and I just knew I needed to release it this summer.
LUNA: Why did now feel like a good time to release it?
LIPTON: It took a long time for me to produce it the way I wanted to and I felt like at the time it didn't quite have the sound that I wanted. I wasn't quite nailing it the way I wanted to, so it took me six years to get it right. In terms of the songwriting, it came easy, and laying down all the instrumentals came easy. It was just finishing the song that took a long time to dial it in a way that felt professional, but also - you know - felt like the song. That's why I'm grateful to be working with my mix engineer, whose name is Steve Vealey - and he's super dope. My mastering engineer, Théo Quayle was also super helpful. It takes a village sometimes, and it just took a long time to get the song right and to get the textures of everything right. And I think that was important. We re-recorded the piano sound that's in the background, and I re-recorded that at the studio that MICHELLE had set up in downtown Brooklyn. Then the final touch was having Layla, from MICHELLE, singing the background vocals and - oh my god - her voice is like a combination of butter and velvet.
LUNA: I agree! Her vocals blended so nicely with your vocals and brought the song together.
LIPTON: Thank you! That was all Layla, so thank you to her for hopping in and and just being exceptional. We set up the mic and we probably recorded for a total of 15 minutes and it was done. She's so ridiculously talented.
LUNA: The music video for “Synchronized Swimming” came out so good! What was it like filming the music video?
LIPTON: Wow, that was a marathon and a sprint at the same time (laughs). It was [produced and shot by]one of my oldest friends, Jake DeNicola. His production company is called Anima Works, and he wanted to do the video for “Synchronized Swimming” for years because the song had been in the process for years. We were bouncing back and forth on ideas, and at the eleventh hour, we came up with this concept of me being this aquatic cowboy creature. And we were just like, “f*ck it. Let's go for it.” He brought in his friend Ella, who's a great director, and she brought in Izzi Galindo, the makeup artist who transformed me into this cowboy-merman hybrid and it was a great time. We shot everything in one day, from morning to 4 am. It was crazy, but I had never seen anyone work as hard as Jake. He did all the lighting himself, all the shooting, everything. We ended up with a great video and I'm very grateful to him, Ella, Izzy, and Logan, the dancer. It was so much fun. It was also just such a crazy concept because we didn't know what the makeup was going to look like until I was in it.
LUNA: So how long did it take to put the makeup together?
LIPTON: It was a good few hours. I think I lost track of time at one point because I was getting airbrush painted, holding this little fan so that I'm not breathing in the fumes. But, I think I probably did breathe in some fumes (laughs). So that's why I lost track of time, but it was a crazy experience. I've been putting out these reels of behind-the-scenes and what it was like to make the video. Some of them show how the makeup happened, from start to finish…we also had these prosthetics that I ordered from the UK, that had to be glued to my face.
LUNA: You can see that the hard work paid off! The result came out amazing. Were there any musical influences that inspired you during the making of “Synchronized Swimming?”
LIPTON: You know, that's a great question…I’ve been delving into the late 70s Yacht Rock, like Michael McDonald, Ambrosia, and a lot of Eagles. I think there's something about it that I love just sonically, and I think it's great songwriting, and great performing. So that's been a really big influence of mine. I wasn't shooting for anything when I started the song, I wasn't thinking “I want this to sound like X, Y, or Z.” I would say that it's a combination of Yacht Rock artists mixed with the tranquility and smoothness of Men I Trust or even Sade, who I’m a huge fan of, which is why having Layla's vocals was just perfect.
LUNA: I see you’ve received major songwriting and production credits for Yot Club and MICHELLE, how is it collaborating with another artist on projects?
LIPTON: It’s like being in a dream because it’s so different than writing something for myself. When I'm writing something for myself, I can go down certain tangential rabbit holes to try and find what I'm trying to say. But when I'm writing with someone else, I'm following them with what they want to say. When I walk into the room, it's not about me, it's not about what I make. I'm just trying to help another artist express what they want to express, right? So, there's almost a dream-like nature to it. It's almost like you're watching yourself do something. For example, with Ryan [of Yot Club], we drove out of the city to my studio in Connecticut, and we kind of posted up there for a couple of days, and we sat down and started making music. It was so refreshing to not be in the driver's seat and to see what Ryan [Yot Club] came up with. Once we started to work together, we found a rhythm and that's how we did “Human Nature.” He starts playing something, I start adding something and [vice versa] and before you know it, we have a song. It was so fun because I was trying to find out what he wanted to say not just from a lyrical perspective, but sonically. The same goes for MICHELLE and Mal Sounds. We had a very similar experience of just vibing off of each other, and being able to get outside of my own head is refreshing, because oftentimes, when I'm writing a song for myself, I'll feel myself judging it as I'm writing it. [I ask myself], “is this any good? Is this actually sounding the way I want it to? Should I give up?” But with someone else, you can't make those excuses. You have to follow through with an idea until it literally cannot be followed anymore. If we're not feeling something, then we start something new, you get excited about it, and then you just f*cking finish it (laughs). So you're held to a certain standard that you're not held to when you're just by yourself, which I love. It keeps me honest.
LUNA: Any plans for the remaining months of 2024?
LIPTON: This is just the start of something. I'm really bad at releasing music consistently (laughs). There's a reason why we haven't talked for two years, and it's because I just haven't released anything. But there is more coming. It's not just another Harrison Lipton one-off (laughs). And I hope that anyone reading this interview is compelled to follow where everything is going from here. I would love it if they follow and see what happens next…because this is the start of something, and I'm just really excited to keep putting out new music consistently, probably for the first time in my entire career.
LUNA: Last question, for fun - who/what is on your current music rotation?
LIPTON: MICHELLE’s new album Songs About You Specifically, some late 70’s like Harry Nielsen, The Japanese House “:)” and “Diet Pepsi” by Addison Rae is so addictive!
