Q&A: Sorry’s Louis O’Bryen on their Dark, Obsessively Intimate Sophomore Album ‘Anywhere But Here’

Q&AMusic

Oct 6

☆ by ALEAH ANTONIO ☆

HOW DO WE TAKE SHAPE UNDER DESIRE? — Where do we go in the chokehold of obsession? The answer is in the title of London-based band Sorry’s newest album, Anywhere But Here. In their bare-boned and carefully crafted sophomore work, the band explores heartbreak beyond its romantic implications. It’s a deeper look into identity outside of a relationship, a handshake between intimacy and loneliness, and an examination of the real world from outer space.

Sorry — a word that’s both bashful and aloof, perfect to describe the band’s duo Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen — wrote the songs for Anywhere But Here with a shut-doors London as their backdrop. This comes after the major success of their debut work, 925, a brazen and experimental reflection of love and rock ‘n’ roll fame, along with a 2020 tour that never saw the light of day. Starting the band as teens and gaining popularity as freshly-turned 20-somethings, O’Bryen shares that they’ve done some growing up since then.

“[With] the first album, we were younger and thought we knew everything about everything, as you do when you’re 21 or 22,” O’Bryen says. “As we’ve grown older, we’ve become a bit more self aware and a bit more mature. I think that shows in the songs.”

Anywhere But Here surveys bitterness while sonically bursting with pleasure. Its intoxicating opener, “Let The Lights On,” is metallic and bouncy, with Lorenz begging, “got a light, don’t let it go out” as she shouts “I need you! I love you!” Lorenz tones the band’s overall moodiness with an “it is what it is” quality, as if she confesses for the sake of hearing her thoughts outside of her own head. After all, the geography of the album switches between London and space, with the band taking alienation very literally. “Tell Me” is concerned with the out-of-body experience that can come with being alone (“I didn’t know I was like this”), while “Again” attempts to break out of a state of suspension (“time will heal / or make things worse, but / for whatever time is worth / I’ll take it to be free”). In our interview, O’Bryen often clarified “gloomy” with “retrospective,” as if those were the things the both of them were finding when they looked inwards.

Read our conversation below as we talk with O’Bryen about the process of creating Anywhere But Here.

LUNA: Your music has a bit of a doomsday vibe and it’s especially apparent on this album. Could you describe the headspace you were in when you were writing this album?

O’BRYEN: Well, we were writing over lockdown a bit. We wrote a bit of it before, but we were going through that. People were coming and going, relationships were ending and starting while we were writing it. That was really prominent in our lives at that time.

For me, I always like that. I’m quite interested in the doomsday kind of thing. I find that kind of cathartic. Without us really thinking about it, that feeling is present in our songwriting without doing it on purpose — it just creeps its way in.

LUNA: With the backdrop of the pandemic, I feel like the sentiments of that time are present but not necessarily those specifics. I feel like it focuses more on relationships. Would you say that’s accurate for this album?

O’BRYEN: I think a lot of people who were creating in that time probably felt a similar feeling, but the idea of actually talking about the pandemic [in songs] is a bit cringe. We’ve tried to avoid that. I would say there’s a kind of loneliness of lockdown that was present in our minds and in the songs. It was also a hard time to maintain relationships and keep sane. By putting that stuff into the song, it allows you to process that emotion a bit more.

LUNA: Some of the songs coming out now were written nearly two years ago. Do you still resonate with what you wrote back then?

O’BRYEN: They still feel super fresh to us. A few of them we wrote earlier this year; “Key To The City” and “Let The Lights On” we wrote after the first batch of songs — we revisited the songwriting a bit and wrote some new songs. Those especially feel super fresh.

I feel like you get a bit bored of the contents of a song when you’re constantly playing it loads. Because we weren't really doing that, they still feel quite fresh. As you release them and they go out into the world, they take on different meanings and hold different emotions. At this point in time, they are still resonating, but I think you have to ask me that after we go [on tour].

LUNA: You’ve mentioned in a press release that you’ve taken on London in a new iteration for Anywhere But Here compared to your take in 925. Was that intentional? Did you have the city in mind while writing this batch of songs?

O’BRYEN: The place we’re in is super important to us, but more just because it’s where our friends are and it’s where all our relationships are. Also the idea of seeing it as a city as well as seeing it as the world. In 925, in songs from our first world, those songs were a bit goofier, like small and innocent. The world we’re in now for this album is more sincere and a bit more haggard or self-reflective.

As we’ve grown older, I think our view of it has changed a bit. [With] the first album, we were younger and thought we knew everything about everything, as you do when you’re 21 or 22. As we’ve grown older, we’ve become a bit more self aware and a bit more mature. I think that shows in the songs. Still a bit of tongue-in-cheek-ness but I think the emotions are like, it’s okay for us to express how we feel.

LUNA: What were you listening to when trying to figure out the sound for the album?

O’BRYEN: Going into the recording process, we wanted the songs to be finished before we started recording them. Before, we relied on production to add more to the song, but we wanted the songs to be completely fully fledged before we started recording them. We were listening to a lot of Portishead, Carly Simon, a lot of early Randy Newman. People like that because at the time that [their songs] were written, they couldn’t go and do crazy production tricks. We were trying to get loads of inspiration from people like that.

LUNA: You and Asha worked with Portishead’s Adrian Utley for Anywhere But Here. What was it like to work with him?

O’BRYEN: When we wrote songs for the album, we saw them as more classical ’70s kind of songwriting. We wanted it to still be relevant for people today… a goal of having the songs be classic songwriting with a modern twist. Portishead was one of our references for someone who could do that. [Adrian] was really nice and put us on to a really good sound engineer, Ali Chant, who became a producer and helped us with [the album] becoming one entity. I think it came from so many different places, the way we recorded it. It didn’t, for us anyway, sound like one. He was really good at keeping us in the same place, using the same kind of instruments and amps. When we had the final product, it all sounded from one world. And, obviously, Adrian’s a really established captain, so he had loads of good ideas about parts and stuff like that.

LUNA: Sonically, did you have an idea for the mood of the album from the get-go? Or did it just happen naturally?

O’BRYEN: When we’re writing songs, the most potent aspect of our songwriting is more moody. When I listen to music, that’s the stuff that really resonates with me… more retrospective and lyrically potent. That’s the kind of song we want to write and that’s what comes out. We kind of know it’s gonna sound like that, but we also try and push the boundaries a bit. A lot of it happens subconsciously, but we do try to make it a bit less gloomy at points. “Let The Lights On,” the first track, that one we really wanted it to sound upbeat and different to the rest of it.

LUNA: The album starts with “Let The Lights On,” and by the end you get songs like “Screaming In The Rain.” Did you have a vision when arranging the tracklist?

O’BRYEN: We wanted it to feel like it was peaking and troughing — it would keep the listener entertained. Also to drop off a bit towards the end and be a bit more reflective towards the end of the album. “Let The Lights On,” that song is just so different to the rest of the album. It could only go at the start. We see it as an opening credits to the album and then it throws you into it, into the album, which becomes something different.

CONNECT WITH SORRY

INSTAGRAM

SPOTIFY

Listen

INSTAGRAM

We couldn’t be more stoked to have Suriel Hess as our new headliner for our upcoming LA show 🤩 🫶 Not gonna lie, us & Notorious Noise kinda went OFF with this line up & you’re not gonna wanna miss it - ticket link in bio 🎫