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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: A Conversation With Lana Del Rey. On the eve of her fourth album, the pagan pop star sounds more content than ever. How did she get there? Interview by Alex Frank for Pitchfork. Famous artists are notoriously late, but when I arrive about 20 minutes early for an interview at Lana Del Rey’s Santa Monica studio, she is ready for me, offering a handshake and a smile. It is the week before her new album, ‘Lust For Life’, will be released, but she seems unhurried and relaxed; when I ask if she’s been busy in the leadup to such a big day, she says “no” with a laugh, as if she knows she probably should be. She is not dressed like the glammed-up mystic you see in music videos and photographs: her hair, long and brown, is tied functionally behind her neck, and she is in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, with cream canvas sneakers and white ankle socks on her feet. Right away, she invites me through a side door into the inner sanctum where her brooding songs are created. For Lana acolytes, this is a mythic place. She has recorded here since 2012’s ‘Born To Die’, her major label debut. It is a beautiful room filled with sun coming in from a skylight and two windows, the opposite of the average dank music studio. It looks a bit like how you’d expect Lana Del Rey’s workplace to look: vaguely and warmly retro, with dark wood cabinets and a mid-century-looking painting with interlacing geometric shapes hanging on the back wall. In the center of the room is a scratched-up leather club chair with a Tammy Wynette album cover facing it. (“I always have Tammy there,” she says of the country singer best known for her ode to everlasting devotion, “Stand by Your Man.”) This chair, and not the actual booth in the front of the room, is where Lana sits to record her vocals. “I get red light fever in the booth,” she says. She likes that the studio is by the beach, where she’ll sometimes go to listen to mixes of songs on her iPhone. The studio is owned and operated by Rick Nowels, her longtime producer. He has come down today to listen to the album with us, a pair of sunglasses firmly on his face. Nowels has more than 20 years on Lana, who is 32, and he inhabits something of an uncle role, making the songwriter a bit bashful when he sweetly refers to a ballad called “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing” as a “masterpiece” for its lyrical message about the importance of finding ways to have fun, even in the Trump era. Gearing up to record what would become ‘Born To Die’, Lana had met with a number of producers who all tried to tell her what she should or should not sound like, with some encouraging her to ditch the breathy vocal style that would become her signature. When she finally met Nowels, he didn’t want to change a thing. “I went through a hundred and eleven producers just to find someone who says ‘yes’ all the time,” she says. “Everyone is so obsessed with saying ‘no’—they break you down to build you up.” Lana is a studio junkie—’Lust For Life’ is her fourth album in about five years. She says a day that she works is better than a day that she doesn’t. Nowels tells me that even though the new album isn’t out yet, she’s already making new music. “If I get a great melody in my head, I know it’s a gift,” she says. As we sit down to listen to ‘Lust For Life’, she is clearly at home: Like a good host, she offers me her comfy leather singing chair and instead curls up on a blue velvet couch nearby. She has a familial rapport with not just Nowels, but engineers Dean Reid and Kieron Menzies, who she credits again and again for making her work better, and the four of them ruminate on mastering, making jokes about Lana’s perfectionism when it comes to the final cuts of her songs. The album, like all of her work, is fastidiously and emphatically Lana in its sound and atmosphere: a haze of lazy pacing and flowery melodies, conjuring a foreboding backdrop for lyrics about summer and antique celebrity icons and dangerous, dissatisfying relationships. Front and center in the mix is her voice, which has a crooner’s tone and an especially wide range, from deep and low to high and sharp. Most pop stars rely on reinvention to retain relevance, but her output is remarkably consistent. She says her main criteria is whether or not a song sounds like it will transport listeners to somewhere else in their minds. On each album, the skeleton remains more or less the same while she infuses her work with stylistic elements from different genres, from rap to rock to jazz. ‘Lust For Life’ draws from folk and hip-hop, two genres that she says she loves because they both privilege real storytelling. The new record is a departure in key ways, though. In the past, Lana has become famous for themes that are, at times, hopeless: toxic romance, violence, drug use, despair, aging, death. This isn’t to say every song she has ever recorded is a downer, or that she hasn’t displayed a knowing sense of humor about her reputation. But her relentless obsession with the dark arts is a reason why her fans love her with an almost religious fervor; she’s had issues with people breaking into her house. “They want to talk,” she says chillingly. Her menacing themes have also led to resistance at certain moments from larger audiences who, perhaps trained to think of pop music as a tool of empowerment and empathy, just can’t face her nihilism. While ‘Lust For Life’ certainly has its share of grim moments, it is not as much of an avalanche of gloom, and perhaps offers signposts to a happier future. At times, Lana even approaches uncomplicated joy, like on first single ‘Love.’ The album also contains some of her first songs that deal with a universe larger than the tangled intensity of one-on-one relationships—there are tracks intended to be balms and battle cries for trying times, which, like many Americans, she found herself fretting over constantly during the 2016 election campaign. And for the first time on any Lana album, she’s also opening the door to a number of guest vocalists: A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, the Weeknd, Stevie Nicks, and Sean Ono Lennon on a Beatles-referencing song called ‘Tomorrow Never Came.’ “I FaceTimed with Yoko, and she said it was her most favorite thing Sean’s ever done,” Lana says.

After listening to the album, Lana and I peel off to a small office on the other side of the studio for our interview. Before we begin, she pulls out her iPhone to record the conversation along with me, a defensive move she’s taken up after years of feeling manipulated and harangued by the media. When answering questions, she is at turns thoughtful and strident, seriously considering topics like her attempts at a brighter life and how Trump has affected her love of Americana, and also entirely unafraid to bat away questions she finds boring or irrelevant. At one point, she laughs so hard at a silly sidebar in our conversation that she has a coughing fit and has to take a break. She says she binge watches ‘The Bachelor,’ and that while all of her friends now call her Lana—not Elizabeth Grant, her birth name—her parents are the two people who do not. She is wry about the new song ‘Groupie Love,’ in which she writes herself not as the star but in the role of a worshipful devotee: “Old habits die hard—I still love a rock star.” When I ask her if she is bothered by TMZ dating rumors, which have recently speculated about her relationship with rapper G-Eazy, she gives an unexpectedly goading answer: “They’re usually true. Maybe where there’s smoke there’s fire.” Which is to say: She’s kinda regular, not the hardened artist we’ve heard in her songs, but someone, it would seem, who likes to hang out and chat about life and music. Talking about good times brings up memories of rough ones, and when the conversation veers towards rocky terrain, she reveals an artist-and a person-at a pivotal moment. — A few years ago you were singing lyrics like “I have nothing much to live for,” and now you’re smiling on the cover of ‘Lust For Life.’ How’d you get to a happier place? Lana Del Rey: I made personal commitments. — Commitments to what? LDR: Well, they’re personal. [laughs] I had some people in my life that made me a worse person. I was not sure if I could step out of that box of familiarity, which was having a lot of people around me who had a lot of problems and feeling like that was home base. Because it’s all I know. I spent my whole life reasoning with crazy people. I felt like everyone deserved a chance, but they don’t. Sometimes you just have to step away without saying anything. — Your past albums often presented a claustrophobic universe made up of just you and one other person, but all of a sudden it’s like you’ve got your eyes wide open and you’re looking at the world around you. Developmentally, I was in the same place for a very long time, and then it just took me longer than most people to be able to be more out there. Being more naturally shy, it’s taken stretching on my part to just continue to integrate into the local community, global community, to grow as a person. Also, getting really famous doesn’t help you grow with the community. It’s important to have your own life. It’s hard with how accessible things are. Hacking? E-mail is just a no for me. I do a lot to make sure I don’t feel trapped. — Your fans are famously obsessive. Do they ever cross the line? They fucking have. Someone stole both my cars. All the scary shit. I’ve had people in my house for sure, and I didn’t know they were there while I was there. I fucking called the police. I locked the door. Obviously, that’s the one in one-hundred-thousand people who’s crazy. But I [had a hard time sleeping] for a minute. — Fame can be isolating, but you are making a real effort to not let it be. It’s going to be isolating. Period. Unless you stretch past it. But it takes so much footwork. Getting over the uncomfortability of being the one person in the room who everyone recognizes. The last few years, I’m out all the time: clubs, bars, shows. For years I was more quietly in the mix, always through the back door, do not tell anyone I’m coming. And now I’ve relaxed into it where I’ll just show up. I don’t need a special ticket. I’ll just go sit wherever. It feels a little more like I’m myself again. — If you’re happier these days, what do you think when you hear an old lyric from an old record, like, “He hit me and it felt like a kiss,” from ‘Ultraviolence’? I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing ‘Ultraviolence’ but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was 100 percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end. — Now you want to present a different face to the world on ‘Lust For Life’? No. I don’t care. I would just say I am different. And even being a little bit different makes me not want to sing that line. To me, it just was what it was. I deal with what’s in my lyric—you’re not dealing with it. I was annoyed when people would ask me about that lyric. Like, who are you? — Do you think you romanticize danger in your music? No. I don’t like it. It’s just the only thing [I’ve known]. So I’m trying to do a new thing. I never wrote better when I had a lot of turmoil going on. ‘Born To Die’ was already done before any of the shit hit the fan. When things are good, the music is better. I’m trying to change from the way I thought things were gonna be to what I feel like they could be, which is maybe just brighter. — But, even with some new perspectives, ‘Lust For Life’ is still very melancholy at moments. If you make sad music, which you’ve done for so long, does it necessarily mean you’re sad? Yeah. I think for most people, regardless of what they say, it’s probably a direct reflection of their inner world. With my first record, I didn’t feel upset. I felt very excited, and then I felt a little more confused. — After the release of ‘Born To Die,’ you faced a lot of criticism, partly around the issue of whether you were or were not authentic. Do you think of yourself as authentic? Of course. I’m always being myself. They don’t know what authentic is. If you think of all the music that came out until 2013, it was super straight and shiny. If that’s authentic to you, this is going to look like the opposite. I think that shit is stylized. Just because I do my hair big does not mean I’m a product. If anything, I’m doing my own hair, stuffing my own fucking stuffing in there if I have a beehive. Music was in a super weird place when I became known, and I didn’t really like any of it. — Did you ever feel like the criticism had a misogynistic bent? No. Women hated me. I know why. It’s because there were things I was saying that either they just couldn’t connect to or were maybe worried that, if they were in the same situation, it would put them in a vulnerable place. — You weren’t singing empowering things. No, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my angle. I didn’t really have an angle—that’s the thing. — Have you noticed that all songs on the radio are bummers now? That Lil Uzi Vert lyric—“All my friends are dead”—sounds almost like a Lana lyric. There’s been a major sonic shift culturally. I think I had a lot to do with that. I do. I hear a lot of music that sounds like those early records. It would be weird to say that it didn’t. I remember seven years ago I was trying to get a record deal, and people were like, “Are you kidding? These tunes? There’s zero market for this.” There was just such a long time where people had to fit into that pop box. — With all the flak you’ve received over the years, particularly after ‘Born To Die,’ some people would have thrown in the towel. But you doubled down and made an even more fucked up, almost hyper-Lana record with ‘Ultraviolence.’ I so double downed. [The early criticism] made me question myself- I didn’t know if it was always going to be that way. You can’t put out records if 90 percent of the reviews in places like the Times are going to be negative. That would be crazy. It would have made sense to step all the way back, but I was like, Let me put out three more records and see if I can just stand in the eye of the storm. Not shift too much. Let me just take some of the [production] off so you can hear things a little bit better; I thought people were maybe getting distracted. I did the same thing with ‘Honeymoon.’ Everyone around here heard it and was like, “It’s a cool record, but you know it’s not going to be on the radio, right?” And I was like, “Yeah. I told [record executive] Jimmy [Iovine] when I signed, ‘If you want to sign me, this is all it’s ever going to be.’” I was just so committed to making music because I believe in what I do. All I had to do was not quit. — So that ‘Ultraviolence’ woman who is so swept up in turmoil- is she still there on ‘Lust For Life’? We’ll see. That’s been my experience up until now, but, like, I’m trying. — Some of the sparer, really heartfelt songs on ‘Lust For Life’ reminded me of the ‘Ultraviolence’ song ‘Black Beauty.’ That’s a sad song. In that song—[sings] I keep my lips red like cherries in the spring/Darling, you can’t let everything seem so dark blue—that’s a girl who is still seeing the blue sky and a putting on a pop of color just for herself. But this [other] person—it was all black for them. And my world became inky with those overtones. [At this, Lana begins to cry, and we pause for a moment.] — What made you cry just now? In that moment, when I said “pop of color,” I was connected to that feeling of only being able to see a portion of the world in color. And when you feel that way, you can feel trapped. — Are you seeing the world in color now? [sighs] I don’t really know how to describe my perspective at the moment. — But you’re trying, and that’s what ‘Lust For Life’ is about? It’s not. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know what it is. — Is the album a way of saying that you at least want to be happy? No. It’s just that something is happening. — What makes you happy? I’m really simple. I love nature. I like hikes. Being by the water- I don’t always get in. I love the elements. Playing an outdoor festival. Love that feeling. — What bums you out? Feeling like going backwards. — Is there a storyline to the album? Yeah. — What’s the story? You have to figure it out. — Just a few years ago you were saying you didn’t care about feminism, and now you are writing protest songs and meditations on war and peace. Because things have shifted culturally. It’s more appropriate now than under the Obama administration, where at least everyone I knew felt safe. It was a good time. We were on the up-and-up. Women started to feel less safe under this administration instantly. What if they take away Planned Parenthood? What if we can’t get birth control? Now, when people ask me those questions, I feel a little differently. The reason why I asked Stevie Nicks to be on the record is because she changes when her environment changes, and I’m like that as well. In ‘When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,’ I wrote, “Boys, don’t make too much noise/Don’t try to be funny/Other people may not be understanding.” Like, Can you tone down your over-boisterous rhetoric that isn’t working? ‘God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women in It’ is a little shoutout to the women and anyone else who doesn’t always feel safe walking down the street late at night. That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote, “Even when I’m alone I’m not lonely/I feel your arms around me.” It’s not always how I feel when I’m walking down the street, but sometimes in my music I try to write about a place that I’m going to get to. — Do you feel unsafe? I feel less safe than I did when Obama was president. When you have a leader at the top of the pyramid who is casually being loud and funny about things like that, it’s brought up character defects in people who already have the propensity to be violent towards women. I saw it right away in L.A. Walking down the street, people would just say things to you that I had never heard. When people asked me the feminist question before, I was like, “I’m not really experiencing personal discrimination as a woman. I feel like I’m doing well. I headline shows just like the Weeknd does. I got tons of women in my life, love women, support women.” I just felt like, Why don’t we talk about the music first? I can tell you that what I have done for women is tell my own story, and that’s all anyone can do. — Is it harder to be romantic about America when Trump is the nation’s biggest celebrity? It’s certainly uncomfortable. I definitely changed my visuals on my tour videos. I’m not going to have the American flag waving while I’m singing ‘Born To Die.’ It’s not going to happen. I’d rather have static. It’s a transitional period, and I’m super aware of that. I think it would be inappropriate to be in France with an American flag. It would feel weird to me now- it didn’t feel weird in 2013. All the guys in the studio—we didn’t know we were going to start walking in every day and talking about what was going on. We hadn’t ever done that before, but everyday during the election, you’d wake up and some new horrible thing was happening. Korea, with missiles suddenly being pointed at the western coast. With ‘When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,’ I was posing a real question to myself: Could this be the end of an era? The fall of Rome? — Nostalgia can be really corny when it’s not done well, and you’re all about nostalgia. How do you try to get it right? I know I walk the line sometimes. [laughs] I saw comments that people said about my little ‘Coachella - Woodstock in my Mind’ song. I write that title and I’m like, OK, I know I went there. But I think it’s amazing. It’s on the nose. It’s so on the nose. But sometimes things just are what they are. I’m at Coachella for three days, and North Korea is pointing a missile at us, and I’m watching Father John Misty with my best friend, who’s his wife—that’s all I’m literally saying. It’s just like, Yeah, I’m a hipster. I know it. Got it. — You mentioned working with Stevie Nicks on this album, what was it like recording with her? She came in straight off a plane from her last show of like 60 cities, which I was actually supposed to open for. She had asked me, and I was like, “Oh my god.” But I couldn’t because I don’t want to do a 60-show tour. She flew through the door. Blond highlights, rose gold glasses, gold-tipped nails, rose gold lipstick, gold chains, gold rings, black on black on black. Very stylish. And meanwhile, I looked like a housewife of 15—flannel on flannel, because it was a cold night. And I was like, Why did I not dress up for Stevie Nicks? At the end of the track, she sings, then I sing, then she sings. I was kinda embarrassed. I was like, “I sound so little compared to you.” And she was like, “That’s good, you’re my little echo.” And I was like, Stevie called me her little echo. It’s a stupid little thing, but she was very nurturing in that way, and not belittling of the fact that I had a more breathy voice. Which I wasn’t even aware of until I was shoulder-to-shoulder on a track with someone with less air in their voice. I felt a little more exposed in that moment. But she was like, “That’s you. You just be you.” — Speaking of musical icons, can you tell me about performing at Kim and Kanye’s wedding party? It was a surprise for Kim. I hadn’t met her. I sang ‘Young And Beautiful,’ ‘Summertime Sadness,’ ‘Blue Jeans.’ Kanye requested ‘Young And Beautiful.’ The girls—the Kardashians—were so nice. There was only one front row, just them, right there. They were living for it. They started playing Kanye and Jay-Z records for the rest of the thing and it rained and everyone was just up dancing in the rain. I stayed for like 40 minutes and then I left. — People have made a big deal about that necklace you are selling that seems to have a coke spoon. Is it a coke spoon? Yeah. It’s funny. I have a flask and a lighter as well. I don’t do coke. — You’ve said in the past that you weren’t drinking either, and yet it turns up in your music. Do you drink now? No comment. — You sing about drugs and alcohol a lot. Not on this record. I well used to do a lot of drugs, but I actively don’t now. — What kind of drugs did you do? No comment. [laughs] But I think the coke spoon is kinda funny. I’m just like, Whatever. I don’t think it’s going to make anyone do coke. — Are you conscious of when you walk right up to a taboo in your work? Not really. That’s the one thing I don’t have my finger on. I am there, but there are times I don’t really know it. There’s certain stuff that I think is kinda dope that I know other people might be like, Okayyyyy. — Like singing about death? That’s real life though. Super real life. — You got a lot of shit for saying “I wish I was dead” to a journalist a few years ago. Fuck that guy, though. I didn’t think he would print it and make it the headline. I was having a really tough time. I had been on the road for a year. I was really struggling. I was just stupid, I was like, “I fucking want to die.” Maybe I meant it. I don’t really know. — Which of your albums is the most autobiographical? All of them. The last record- I listen to a song like ‘Terrence Loves You,’ and I just really feel for myself at the time. The person I’m singing about—[sings] You are what you are/I don’t matter to anyone—did I really just say I don’t matter to anyone? That’s fucking crazy. — Did you feel that way? I guess so. I sang it. — What makes you feel proud? My records. I love my records. I love them. I’m proud of the way I’ve put parts of my story into songs in ways that only I understand. In terms of my gauge of what’s good, it’s really just what I think. I have an internal framework that is the only thing I measure it by. My own opinion is really important to me. It starts and stops there.

#Lana Del Rey #Pitchfork #Alex Frank #Interview #Lust For Life #2017 #July 2017

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lanadelreyspoetry · 7 years

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: A Conversation With Lana Del Rey

On the eve of her fourth album, the pagan pop star sounds more content than ever. How did she get there?

Famous artists are notoriously late, but when I arrive about 20 minutes early for an interview at Lana Del Rey’s Santa Monica studio, she is ready for me, offering a handshake and a smile. It is the week before her new album, Lust for Life, will be released, but she seems unhurried and relaxed; when I ask if she’s been busy in the leadup to such a big day, she says “no” with a laugh, as if she knows she probably should be. She is not dressed like the glammed-up mystic you see in music videos and photographs: her hair, long and brown, is tied functionally behind her neck, and she is in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, with cream canvas sneakers and white ankle socks on her feet. Right away, she invites me through a side door into the inner sanctum where her brooding songs are created.

For Lana acolytes, this is a mythic place. She has recorded here since 2012’s Born to Die, her major label debut. It is a beautiful room filled with sun coming in from a skylight and two windows, the opposite of the average dank music studio. It looks a bit like how you’d expect Lana Del Rey’s workplace to look: vaguely and warmly retro, with dark wood cabinets and a mid-century-looking painting with interlacing geometric shapes hanging on the back wall. In the center of the room is a scratched-up leather club chair with a Tammy Wynette album cover facing it. (“I always have Tammy there,” she says of the country singer best known for her ode to everlasting devotion, “Stand by Your Man.”) This chair, and not the actual booth in the front of the room, is where Lana sits to record her vocals. “I get red light fever in the booth,” she says. She likes that the studio is by the beach, where she’ll sometimes go to listen to mixes of songs on her iPhone.

The studio is owned and operated by Rick Nowels, her longtime producer. He has come down today to listen to the album with us, a pair of sunglasses firmly on his face. Nowels has more than 20 years on Lana, who is 32, and he inhabits something of an uncle role, making the songwriter a bit bashful when he sweetly refers to a ballad called “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing” as a “masterpiece” for its lyrical message about the importance of finding ways to have fun, even in the Trump era. Gearing up to record what would become Born to Die, Lana had met with a number of producers who all tried to tell her what she should or should not sound like, with some encouraging her to ditch the breathy vocal style that would become her signature. When she finally met Nowels, he didn’t want to change a thing. “I went through a hundred and eleven producers just to find someone who says ‘yes’ all the time,” she says. “Everyone is so obsessed with saying ‘no’—they break you down to build you up.”

Lana is a studio junkie—Lust for Life is her fourth album in about five years. She says a day that she works is better than a day that she doesn’t. Nowels tells me that even though the new album isn’t out yet, she’s already making new music. “If I get a great melody in my head, I know it’s a gift,” she says. As we sit down to listen to Lust for Life, she is clearly at home: Like a good host, she offers me her comfy leather singing chair and instead curls up on a blue velvet couch nearby. She has a familial rapport with not just Nowels, but engineers Dean Reid and Kieron Menzies, who she credits again and again for making her work better, and the four of them ruminate on mastering, making jokes about Lana’s perfectionism when it comes to the final cuts of her songs.

The album, like all of her work, is fastidiously and emphatically Lana in its sound and atmosphere: a haze of lazy pacing and flowery melodies, conjuring a foreboding backdrop for lyrics about summer and antique celebrity icons and dangerous, dissatisfying relationships. Front and center in the mix is her voice, which has a crooner’s tone and an especially wide range, from deep and low to high and sharp. Most pop stars rely on reinvention to retain relevance, but her output is remarkably consistent. She says her main criteria is whether or not a song sounds like it will transport listeners to somewhere else in their minds. On each album, the skeleton remains more or less the same while she infuses her work with stylistic elements from different genres, from rap to rock to jazz. Lust for Life draws from folk and hip-hop, two genres that she says she loves because they both privilege real storytelling.

The new record is a departure in key ways, though. In the past, Lana has become famous for themes that are, at times, hopeless: toxic romance, violence, drug use, despair, aging, death. This isn’t to say every song she has ever recorded is a downer, or that she hasn’t displayed a knowing sense of humor about her reputation. But her relentless obsession with the dark arts is a reason why her fans love her with an almost religious fervor; she’s had issues with people breaking into her house. “They want to talk,” she says chillingly. Her menacing themes have also led to resistance at certain moments from larger audiences who, perhaps trained to think of pop music as a tool of empowerment and empathy, just can’t face her nihilism.

While Lust for Life certainly has its share of grim moments, it is not as much of an avalanche of gloom, and perhaps offers signposts to a happier future. At times, Lana even approaches uncomplicated joy, like on first single “Love.” The album also contains some of her first songs that deal with a universe larger than the tangled intensity of one-on-one relationships—there are tracks intended to be balms and battle cries for trying times, which, like many Americans, she found herself fretting over constantly during the 2016 election campaign. And for the first time on any Lana album, she’s also opening the door to a number of guest vocalists: A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, the Weeknd, Stevie Nicks, and Sean Ono Lennon on a Beatles-referencing song called “Tomorrow Never Came.” “I FaceTimed with Yoko, and she said it was her most favorite thing Sean’s ever done,” Lana says.

Which is to say: She’s kinda regular, not the hardened artist we’ve heard in her songs, but someone, it would seem, who likes to hang out and chat about life and music. Talking about good times brings up memories of rough ones, and when the conversation veers towards rocky terrain, she reveals an artist—and a person—at a pivotal moment.

Pitchfork: A few years ago you were singing lyrics like “I have nothing much to live for,” and now you’re smiling on the cover of Lust for Life. How’d you get to a happier place?

Lana Del Rey: I made personal commitments.

Commitments to what?

Well, they’re personal. [laughs] I had some people in my life that made me a worse person. I was not sure if I could step out of that box of familiarity, which was having a lot of people around me who had a lot of problems and feeling like that was home base. Because it’s all I know. I spent my whole life reasoning with crazy people. I felt like everyone deserved a chance, but they don’t. Sometimes you just have to step away without saying anything.

Your past albums often presented a claustrophobic universe made up of just you and one other person, but all of a sudden it’s like you’ve got your eyes wide open and you’re looking at the world around you.

Developmentally, I was in the same place for a very long time, and then it just took me longer than most people to be able to be more out there. Being more naturally shy, it’s taken stretching on my part to just continue to integrate into the local community, global community, to grow as a person. Also, getting really famous doesn’t help you grow with the community. It’s important to have your own life. It’s hard with how accessible things are. Hacking? Email is just a no for me. I do a lot to make sure I don’t feel trapped.

Your fans are famously obsessive. Do they ever cross the line?

They fucking have. Someone stole both my cars. All the scary shit. I’ve had people in my house for sure, and I didn’t know they were there while I was there. I fucking called the police. I locked the door. Obviously, that’s the one in one-hundred-thousand people who’s crazy. But I [had a hard time sleeping] for a minute.

Fame can be isolating, but you are making a real effort to not let it be.

It’s going to be isolating. Period. Unless you stretch past it. But it takes so much footwork. Getting over the uncomfortability of being the one person in the room who everyone recognizes. The last few years, I’m out all the time: clubs, bars, shows. For years I was more quietly in the mix, always through the back door, do not tell anyone I’m coming. And now I’ve relaxed into it where I’ll just show up. I don’t need a special ticket. I’ll just go sit wherever. It feels a little more like I’m myself again.

If you’re happier these days, what do you think when you hear an old lyric from an old record, like, “He hit me and it felt like a kiss,” from “Ultraviolence”?

I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing “Ultraviolence” but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was 100 percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end.

Now you want to present a different face to the world on Lust for Life?

No. I don’t care. I would just say I am different. And even being a little bit different makes me not want to sing that line. To me, it just was what it was. I deal with what’s in my lyric—you’re not dealing with it. I was annoyed when people would ask me about that lyric. Like, who are you?

Do you think you romanticize danger in your music?

No. I don’t like it. It’s just the only thing [I’ve known]. So I’m trying to do a new thing. I never wrote better when I had a lot of turmoil going on. Born to Die was already done before any of the shit hit the fan. When things are good, the music is better. I’m trying to change from the way I thought things were gonna be to what I feel like they could be, which is maybe just brighter.

But, even with some new perspectives, Lust for Life is still very melancholy at moments. If you make sad music, which you’ve done for so long, does it necessarily mean you’re sad?

Yeah. I think for most people, regardless of what they say, it’s probably a direct reflection of their inner world. With my first record, I didn’t feel upset. I felt very excited, and then I felt a little more confused.

After the release of Born to Die, you faced a lot of criticism, partly around the issue of whether you were or were not authentic. Do you think of yourself as authentic?

Of course. I’m always being myself. They don’t know what authentic is. If you think of all the music that came out until 2013, it was super straight and shiny. If that’s authentic to you, this is going to look like the opposite. I think that shit is stylized. Just because I do my hair big does not mean I’m a product. If anything, I’m doing my own hair, stuffing my own fucking stuffing in there if I have a beehive. Music was in a super weird place when I became known, and I didn’t really like any of it.

Did you ever feel like the criticism had a misogynistic bent?

No. Women hated me. I know why. It’s because there were things I was saying that either they just couldn’t connect to or were maybe worried that, if they were in the same situation, it would put them in a vulnerable place.

You weren’t singing empowering things.

No, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my angle. I didn’t really have an angle—that’s the thing.

Have you noticed that all songs on the radio are bummers now? That Lil Uzi Vert lyric—“All my friends are dead”—sounds almost like a Lana lyric.

There’s been a major sonic shift culturally. I think I had a lot to do with that. I do. I hear a lot of music that sounds like those early records. It would be weird to say that it didn’t. I remember seven years ago I was trying to get a record deal, and people were like, “Are you kidding? These tunes? There’s zero market for this.” There was just such a long time where people had to fit into that pop box.

With all the flak you’ve received over the years, particularly after Born to Die, some people would have thrown in the towel. But you doubled down and made an even more fucked up, almost hyper-Lana record with Ultraviolence.

I so double downed. [The early criticism] made me question myself—I didn’t know if it was always going to be that way. You can’t put out records if 90 percent of the reviews in places like the Times are going to be negative. That would be crazy. It would have made sense to step all the way back, but I was like, Let me put out three more records and see if I can just stand in the eye of the storm. Not shift too much. Let me just take some of the [production] off so you can hear things a little bit better; I thought people were maybe getting distracted. I did the same thing with Honeymoon. Everyone around here heard it and was like, “It’s a cool record, but you know it’s not going to be on the radio, right?” And I was like, “Yeah. I told [record executive] Jimmy [Iovine] when I signed, ‘If you want to sign me, this is all it’s ever going to be.’” I was just so committed to making music because I believe in what I do. All I had to do was not quit.

So that Ultraviolence woman who is so swept up in turmoil—is she still there on Lust for Life?

We’ll see. That’s been my experience up until now, but, like, I’m trying.

Some of the sparer, really heartfelt songs on Lust for Life reminded me of the Ultraviolence song “Black Beauty.”

That’s a sad song. In that song—[sings] I keep my lips red like cherries in the spring/Darling, you can’t let everything seem so dark blue—that’s a girl who is still seeing the blue sky and a putting on a pop of color just for herself. But this [other] person—it was all black for them. And my world became inky with those overtones. [At this, Lana begins to cry, and we pause for a moment.]

What made you cry just now?

In that moment, when I said “pop of color,” I was connected to that feeling of only being able to see a portion of the world in color. And when you feel that way, you can feel trapped.

Are you seeing the world in color now?

[sighs] I don’t really know how to describe my perspective at the moment.

But you’re trying, and that’s what Lust for Life is about?

It’s not. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know what it is.

Is the album a way of saying that you at least want to be happy?

No. It’s just that something is happening.

What makes you happy?

I’m really simple. I love nature. I like hikes. Being by the water—I don’t always get in. I love the elements. Playing an outdoor festival. Love that feeling.

What bums you out?

Feeling like going backwards.

Is there a storyline to the album?

Yeah.

What’s the story?

You have to figure it out.

Just a few years ago you were saying you didn’t care about feminism, and now you are writing protest songs and meditations on war and peace.

Because things have shifted culturally. It’s more appropriate now than under the Obama administration, where at least everyone I knew felt safe. It was a good time. We were on the up-and-up.

Women started to feel less safe under this administration instantly. What if they take away Planned Parenthood? What if we can’t get birth control? Now, when people ask me those questions, I feel a little differently. The reason why I asked Stevie Nicks to be on the record is because she changes when her environment changes, and I’m like that as well.

In “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,” I wrote, “Boys, don’t make too much noise/Don’t try to be funny/Other people may not be understanding.” Like, Can you tone down your over-boisterous rhetoric that isn’t working? “God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women in It” is a little shoutout to the women and anyone else who doesn’t always feel safe walking down the street late at night. That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote, “Even when I’m alone I’m not lonely/I feel your arms around me.” It’s not always how I feel when I’m walking down the street, but sometimes in my music I try to write about a place that I’m going to get to.

Do you feel unsafe?

I feel less safe than I did when Obama was president. When you have a leader at the top of the pyramid who is casually being loud and funny about things like that, it’s brought up character defects in people who already have the propensity to be violent towards women. I saw it right away in L.A. Walking down the street, people would just say things to you that I had never heard.

When people asked me the feminist question before, I was like, “I’m not really experiencing personal discrimination as a woman. I feel like I’m doing well. I headline shows just like the Weeknd does. I got tons of women in my life, love women, support women.” I just felt like, Why don’t we talk about the music first? I can tell you that what I have done for women is tell my own story, and that’s all anyone can do.

Is it harder to be romantic about America when Trump is the nation’s biggest celebrity?

It’s certainly uncomfortable. I definitely changed my visuals on my tour videos. I’m not going to have the American flag waving while I’m singing “Born to Die.” It’s not going to happen. I’d rather have static. It’s a transitional period, and I’m super aware of that. I think it would be inappropriate to be in France with an American flag. It would feel weird to me now—it didn’t feel weird in 2013.

All the guys in the studio—we didn’t know we were going to start walking in every day and talking about what was going on. We hadn’t ever done that before, but everyday during the election, you’d wake up and some new horrible thing was happening. Korea, with missiles suddenly being pointed at the western coast. With “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,” I was posing a real question to myself: Could this be the end of an era? The fall of Rome?

Nostalgia can be really corny when it’s not done well, and you’re all about nostalgia. How do you try to get it right?

I know I walk the line sometimes. [laughs] I saw comments that people said about my little “Coachella - Woodstock in my Mind” song. I write that title and I’m like, OK, I know I went there. But I think it’s amazing. It’s on the nose. It’s so on the nose. But sometimes things just are what they are. I’m at Coachella for three days, and North Korea is pointing a missile at us, and I’m watching Father John Misty with my best friend, who’s his wife—that’s all I’m literally saying. It’s just like, Yeah, I’m a hipster. I know it. Got it.

You mentioned working with Stevie Nicks on this album, what was it like recording with her?

She came in straight off a plane from her last show of like 60 cities, which I was actually supposed to open for. She had asked me, and I was like, “Oh my god.” But I couldn’t because I don’t want to do a 60-show tour.

She flew through the door. Blond highlights, rose gold glasses, gold-tipped nails, rose gold lipstick, gold chains, gold rings, black on black on black. Very stylish. And meanwhile, I looked like a housewife of 15—flannel on flannel, because it was a cold night. And I was like, Why did I not dress up for Stevie Nicks?

At the end of the track, she sings, then I sing, then she sings. I was kinda embarrassed. I was like, “I sound so little compared to you.” And she was like, “That’s good, you’re my little echo.” And I was like, Stevie called me her little echo. It’s a stupid little thing, but she was very nurturing in that way, and not belittling of the fact that I had a more breathy voice. Which I wasn’t even aware of until I was shoulder-to-shoulder on a track with someone with less air in their voice. I felt a little more exposed in that moment. But she was like, “That’s you. You just be you.”

Speaking of musical icons, can you tell me about performing at Kim and Kanye’s wedding party?

It was a surprise for Kim. I hadn’t met her. I sang “Young and Beautiful,” “Summertime Sadness,” “Blue Jeans.” Kanye requested “Young and Beautiful.” The girls—the Kardashians—were so nice. There was only one front row, just them, right there. They were living for it. They started playing Kanye and Jay-Z records for the rest of the thing and it rained and everyone was just up dancing in the rain. I stayed for like 40 minutes and then I left.

People have made a big deal about that necklace you are selling that seems to have a coke spoon. Is it a coke spoon?

Yeah. It’s funny. I have a flask and a lighter as well. I don’t do coke.

You’ve said in the past that you weren’t drinking either, and yet it turns up in your music. Do you drink now?

No comment.

You sing about drugs and alcohol a lot.

Not on this record. I well used to do a lot of drugs, but I actively don’t now.

What kind of drugs did you do?

No comment. [laughs] But I think the coke spoon is kinda funny. I’m just like, Whatever. I don’t think it’s going to make anyone do coke.

Are you conscious of when you walk right up to a taboo in your work?

Not really. That’s the one thing I don’t have my finger on. I am there, but there are times I don’t really know it. There’s certain stuff that I think is kinda dope that I know other people might be like, Okayyyyy.

Like singing about death?

That’s real life though. Super real life.

You got a lot of shit for saying “I wish I was dead” to a journalist a few years ago.

Fuck that guy, though. I didn’t think he would print it and make it the headline. I was having a really tough time. I had been on the road for a year. I was really struggling. I was just stupid, I was like, “I fucking want to die.” Maybe I meant it. I don’t really know.

Which of your albums is the most autobiographical?

All of them. The last record—I listen to a song like “Terrence Loves You,” and I just really feel for myself at the time. The person I’m singing about—[sings] You are what you are/I don’t matter to anyone—did I really just say I don’t matter to anyone? That’s fucking crazy.

Did you feel that way?

I guess so. I sang it.

What makes you feel proud?

My records. I love my records. I love them. I’m proud of the way I’ve put parts of my story into songs in ways that only I understand. In terms of my gauge of what’s good, it’s really just what I think. I have an internal framework that is the only thing I measure it by. My own opinion is really important to me. It starts and stops there.

http://pitchfork.com/features/interview/life-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-happiness-a-conversation-with-lana-del-rey/

#lana del rey #interview

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ephdraws · 7 years

Photo

A Little Wicked [a Starscream playlist]

- No one calls you honey when you're sitting on a throne -

Edit: Spotify version by @dusty-shelf (not a perfect match but mostly complete)

[Song list under the cut]

Valerie Broussard - A Little Wicked

No one calls you honey when you're sitting on a throne

One of these days a comin', I'm gonna to take that boy's crown

There's a serpent in these still waters, lying deep down

To that King I will bow, at least for now

One of these days a comin', I'm gonna to take that boy's crown

Bishop Briggs - Dark Side

Acting like I'm heartless, I do it all the time

That don't mean I'm scarless, that don't mean I'm fine

Twin Shadow - To The Top

Oh I know it’s not the right time tonight But I won't move until this stops We go back to the top

Mikky Ekko - Watch Me Rise

I'm still standing, I'm still climbing Even when the best are falling, You say, say my name Cause once I get my head above the clouds I'm never coming down

Tove Lo - True Disaster

Keep playing my heartstrings faster and faster You can be just what I want, my true disaster

Grace [Ft. G-Eazy] - You Don't Own Me

Don't tell me what to do And don't tell me what to say Please, when I go out with you Don't put me on display

Halestorm - You Call Me A Bitch Like It's A Bad Thing

You call me a freak like that means something Can't get your way so you insult me I think we know the rest Get it off your chest I don't give a shit

I love it when you call me a bitch like it's a bad thing

Lady Gaga - I Like It Rough

Cause it's a hard life With love in the world And I'm a hard girl Loving me's like chewing on pearls

Porcelain And The Tramps - King Of The World

'Cause I'm the fucking king of the world Do as I please So get up and get out and I'll show you What it takes for me to control you

Kerli - Hurt Me

Hurt me! See me crawling on the floor, Is that what you've been longing for? Is this enough, do you want more? Go on, if it makes you soar!

Halsey - Castle

And now my neck is open wide, begging for a fist around it Already choking on my pride, so there's no use crying about it

Bebe Rexha - Cry Wolf

Where the grass is green, but underneath you're cold and hollow Yeah, the words are sweet but no see they're hard to swallow So sick of your crooked smile and your counterfeit soul

Fall Out Boy - I Don't Care (Machine Shop Remix)

I don't care what you think, As long as it's about me The best of us can find happiness in misery

GUNSHIP - Fly For Your Life

I got spirit, I got wings

I got fire in my lungs

I don't know what you're fighting for

You better fly for your life

Sia - Unstoppable

All smiles, I know what it takes to fool this town I'll do it 'til the sun goes down and all through the night time Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'll tell you what you wanna hear

Porcelain Black - Pretty Little Psycho

You're lookin' crazy, you're lookin' wrong It looks like we're gonna get along And once I've got you, it's a fact Baby, there's no turning back

Archive - Hatchet

Every time I see you Look me in the eye I look straight back 'Cause a part of me will die

Simon Curtis - I Hate U

Betrayed me, played me, slayed me Hurt me like I've never been hurt before Disowned me Only For the other people you decided that you wanted in your life more Made your bed now lie in it

Mother Mother - Reaper Man

Oh yeah I'm an ugly mess Not in the face, but in the head I'm thinking that was best not said But I say it anyway, then I say it again

Melanie Martinez - Mad Hatter

Over the bend, entirely bonkers You like me best when I'm off my rocker Tell you a secret, I'm not alarmed So what if I'm crazy? The best people are

Egypt Central - Backfire

If I could leave this town forever It seems like no ones on my side Duck your head and run for cover Cross that bridge and just move on Save myself but lose another All my innocence is gone

Digital Daggers - Out Of My Head

I know what's underneath the mask What seemed so good at first is under attack I'm in the wreckage, damage done It almost killed me

Downplay - The One Who Laughs Last

This is a battleground, I'm caught in the crossfire

My words are weaponry and I'm waiting patiently

You win the battle now but I will return the fire

'Cause I'd crawl on broken glass

To be the one who laughs last

Susanne Sundfør - Delirious

I hope you got a safety net 'Cause I'm gonna push you over the edge The strangest thing, deliberate Done with intent, without repent

Marina & The Diamonds - Blue

No, I don’t love you No, I don’t care I just want to be held when I’m scared And all I want is one night with you Just 'cause I’m selfish I know it’s true

Of Monsters and Men - Human

Cage me like an animal A crown with gems and gold Eat me like a cannibal Chasing the neon throne

First Aid Kit - Master Pretender

I always knew that I was young But with a head held high and a shotgun I could fool almost anyone

I never expected to be struck By the fatal hands of fortune or by sheer bad luck

Snow Patrol - What If the Storm Ends?

Just for a minute The silver forked sky Lit you up like a star That I will follow

AURORA - Murder Song (5,4,3,2,1)

He holds the gun against my head I close my eyes and bang I am dead I know he knows that he’s killing me for mercy

Royal Deluxe - Born For This

I get hit, and I might start bleeding But I'm not on the floor staring at the ceiling I'll give you something to believe in About to show you now that it's more than just a feeling I was born for this

Rihanna - Sledgehammer

I hit a wall, I thought that I would hurt myself Oh I was sure, your words would leave me unconscious And on the floor I'd be lying cold, lifeless But I hit a wall, I hit 'em all, watch the fall You're just another brick and I'm a sledgehammer

Laura Mvula - You Work for Me

Dragged up, kicking and screaming Tied to the bottom of the sea I really don't care what you believe in Just remember one thing You work for me

Zedd, Kesha - True Colors

All my life, one page at a time I'll show you my, my true colors No, no no no I won't apologize for the fire in my eyes

The Prodigy - Spitfire

Fitz and the Tantrums - Burn It Down

Let's sit behind this fortress I built it just to keep the whole world out It wasn't meant for you Look who's left a prisoner

Bishop Briggs - River

Tales of an endless heart

Cursed is the fool who's willing

Can't change the way we are

One kiss away from killing

Don't you say, don't you say it

One breath it'll just break it

So shut your mouth and run me like a river

Hoobastank - First of Me

I here a voice inside It's crowning to a scream 'cause I can live the lie I am just what you see I'm not the next of them I am the first of me

Lissie - I Don't Want To Go To Work

I don't wanna go to work You don't pay me what I'm worth Can't make me go home now and go to bed I don't want to go to work All my dreams just turned to dirt 'Cause pretty soon there won’t be none left

Sia - Never Give Up

And I won't let you get me down I'll keep gettin' up when I hit the ground Oh, never give up, no, never give up no, no, oh

Lauren Aquilina - King

You've got it all You lost your mind in the sound There's so much more You can reclaim your crown You're in control Rid of the monsters inside your head Put all your faults to bed You can be king again

#starscream #playlist #maccadam #maccadams #music #I suck at tumblr formatting sorry #also behind the cut it's quite long #bc it has lyrics excerpts #enjoy!!!!!!!!!!#my art

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myopinionisntneededbutohwell · 4 years

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I’m not one for canceling but...some of y’all have to go...

H&M has mastered the art of “Black outrage” as free promotion. You know the saying “ You’re only as relevant as the last time you were talked about” ? Oh yeah they most definitely go by this business model. How can one company come under fire for racial insensitivity not once, but twice in under two years? It’s simple, market something racially insensitive, wait for the public outcry, then issue a crappy apology after pulling the image from the website. Now for sure H&M understands that the internet is forever and that even if they delete the image people will always remember the controversy. In the ever expanding world of fast fashion, among the Fashionnova and Missguided, it is imperative for H&M that they remain in the public's attention even at the cost of their reputation.

There’s absolutely NO WAY that a company such as H&M would not understand the implications of putting the black model in a hoodie worded “ Coolest monkey in the jungle”...how removed from reality would they have to be? Sometimes the question has to be asked, when has the line been crossed? I mean even G-eazy (one of the most controversial rappers today) had to cut ties with H&M, this was a bad look. All for what? A tiny bit of clout? A few more sales on now HEAVILY discounted items? H&M claims that they were hiring a diversity leader. The company has been in hot water for various accounts of racial insensitivity, In Canadian stores in 2013 they sold faux-feather headdresses which resulted in backlash from Canada’s aboriginal peoples. In November of 2015 H&M South Africa came under fire after people noticed they rarely posted black models. The company’s response? “H&M’s marketing has a major impact and it is essential for us to convey a positive image. We want our marketing to show our fashion in an inspiring way, to convey a positive feeling.”

Let that sink in, since when has racial insensitivity and cultural appropriation been a valid business model? H&M was already trash for having low paid workers in horrible working conditions, but their continued disregard of People of color is inexcusable.

Hey I’m not one for picking on the underdogs meaning stores you’ll find in a local mall- so I guess it’s time I keep the same energy for the big guys. Gucci, Prada and Chanel. These are way worse than the previous mentioned business H&M was a micro aggression while these guys are just BOOM in your face disrespect. A noose around a model's neck? Check. Blackface caricatures? You got it. Asian model eating Italian food using chopsticks? Hell yeah! Over exaggerated baby hairs on white models with no actual baby hairs? Yup. At a certain point we have to ask ourselves...when has high fashion gone too far? How is romanticizing suicide/lynching, blackface and cultural appropriation ok? And did they really think anyone was gonna buy it? I give credit to the fast fashion bands, while their marketing may be insensitive, their clothing itself isn’t the problem. High fashion brands seemed to have noticed the negative attention (any attention is good attention to them) that fast fashion brands were receiving and must have taken a page out of the same book. Question is...who are they truly marketing to? At least with the monkey hoodie a white, Latino, Asian hell even a black kid could wear it without people questioning the item. But a sweater with a noose on it? My black ass would never. And to be honest these brands don’t actually care, the average Joe working a 9- 5 making $11 minimum wage (at least in NYC) would not be buying these expense pieces from Gucci or Prada. And the rich who surely could afford these items probably wouldn’t buy them in fear of cancel culture. Again it's just using outrage as free publicity. We all know Gucci's clothes are boring, no one cares about their fashion shows. But doing insensitive things like these sure as hell gets everyone talking. And their response you asked? Hiring a new global head of diversity, equity and inclusion in order to "create a more inclusive and equitable workplace and increase workforce diversity." Aka… nothing’s gonna change. Expect some more cultural appreciation or idolizes another form of suicide in their 2021 collections.

#H&M #Gucci #Prada #Chanel #fastfashion #blackoutrage

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blufury · 7 years

Text

A Dragon's Life: Chapter 17

I peeked around of the ally, looked around, then dragged the unconscious body behind the trash. First I needed to find an abandoned house or something to question him. You can’t exactly run around with an unconscious body on your shoulder, you know. After I found a basement, which was kinda covered with spiders, but was clean enough, I retrieved the guy and headed there. Once I was there, I found a chair and tied the soldier to it, then splashed him with icy cold water. ‘Please don't kill me!’ That was the first thing the soldier said after getting awake and taking a look at me. ‘I won’t if you tell me a few things.’ I said. ‘Long as you don’t spill any info, I'll consider letting you go as well.’ ‘What do you want?’ The soldier asked, uneasily. ‘Why did you shoot at me? That’s tge first question.’ I replied. ‘Because we were ordered to.’ The soldier answered, still uneasily. ‘Who gave you the order and why?’ I asked. ‘Don’t give me crap that I already know. You attacked me because of orders. Else why would you have attacked me? Tell me what I want to know.’ ‘I'm not telling you that.’ I didn’t reply, but instead put my .45 against his skull. He shouted in panic: ‘Ok, Ok! I'll tell you! Just put that gun away! Please!’ I lowered the gun, but didn’t put it in the holster back yet. ‘Well?’ ‘Sigh… ok. So I don’t know where the command came from. All I know is that it's from a general. But I know why. They say that your protest and your act against the war will make us lose the war and…lose them the profit.’ He answered, hesitantly. I was confused. ‘What profit? What are you talking about? Be more specific.’ ‘The generals and commanders are smuggling out war supplies and selling them on the black market. They don’t want the war to end as that's going to stop them from getting profit and that's going to make them risk the reveal of the fact. We act like we don’t know about it, but all of us outside the frontline does know about it.’ I was stunned. While we were risking our necks on the frontline, the generals and the commanders were in the back, stuffing their pockets. I felt rage. The old saying was right: While it's the soldiers who fight, it's the generals who take the glory. I was going to kill those sons of bitches. ‘Keep talking.’ ‘So they don’t want the war to be stopped. They fear the civilians getting to know about this. They fear an uproar.’ ‘Well, they shouldn’t have started it in the first place if they fear for it. And?’ ‘That's all. That's all I know. Please, don’t kill me.’ He pleaded. I thought for a second. I didn’t want to kill anymore dragons. But I couldn’t just untie him, and let him see where I was going, moreover attack me. I reached a conclusion. ‘I won’t, but you'll have to forgive me for this.’ ‘Wha…’ He was cut short as the butt of my pistol met the side of his head. I said a silent apology and untied him, then walked out of the basement making sure I left the door open for him. The world suddenely went hazy as the adrenaline washed off. I remembered my wounds on my torn wing and my tail. I swore under my breath as I reached around for bandages. ‘Crap.’ I swore. I left my bag at Seath's house with the other supplies. Just great. And I’m getting hazy from blood loss. In haste, I ripped off my shirt and wrapped my tail with it. The wing… it was torn. There was no way to fix if it if I didn’t have thread and needle to patch it up. Well, I was screwed. I started running. I knew it would do no good to my wound, but better run so I lose less blood and not pass out on the streets. The world started to get more hazy. I stumbled. Thankfully, adrenaline started to kick in again and I could see semi-clearly. Still, the world felt hazy. ‘There!’ I heard someone yell at me. Then I heard gunfire and felt something hit my back. Then more hit me in the back. The world started to get more hazy. Even with the adrenaline, the world got hazier. ‘Crap… they must be soldiers…’ I thought to myself as I stumbled again. I still ran. Well, more like struggled to walk away. Breath was catching up to me. Blood was foaming on my lips. I heard soldiers catching up to me. I felt some more bullets hit me, and looked down. I saw blood soaking my shirt and oozing out of my chest. I've been hit, and it seemed like I wasn’t destined to make it till the war ended. ‘I'm sorry, Seath.’ I said, as the world went real hazy and I stumbled and fell, blacking out. -Seath- ‘He should have been here. He should've been here a long time ago.’ I said to myself, pacing around the room. ‘Eazy, Seath.’ My dad, Day, said. ‘Rebel's a strong guy. He'll be here in no time.’ But there was an edge of anxiety in his voice as well. It was near midnight, and Rebel still hadn’t arrived. We were all anxious for his safety, but I was the most worried. ‘But he's been shot, dad! What if he's you know, unconscious? What if he's bleeding out on the streets? What if he's seriously injured besides the wing?’ I exclaimed, getting more worried every second. ‘I really think we should go out and look for him.’ ‘And make yourself risk whatever threat that lurks outside? Nope. Not happening, young lady. Besides, Rebel's going to be mad at us if that happens and you're not here when he comes. And the last thing I want to deal with is him being mad when he's had so much training.’ My dad said, stiffly. But I wasn’t going to listen. I opened the front door, and went out to search for him. I walked down the alleyways he would've went. I walked down to the city hall for clues. There was a bloodstain on the bricks. My heart stopped, then sank. He had been bleeding. Bleeding quite a lot. Still, there was hope. Hope that he's still conscious and hopefully on his way to my home. I looked around, and after a few minutes, found another bloodstain. I looked around more, and found yet another. My heart stopped and sank every time I found another bloodstain. And the gap between each bloodstain got longer as well. He must’ve been running. I found the general direction, but every time he changed directions, I had to look for his bloodstain. Curse him and his habits of ignoring my words. I told him to get out, and leave behind whatever was attacking us, that it would do no good for us. I don’t know even if he was listening. I found another bloodstain. But this one was different. It was bigger… it was… splattered in all directions… and it hadn't even dried yet. And the whole outline of a dragon was drawn in blood, making me know how much blood has been spilled. This much blood can only mean one thing. And I did not want to accept it. Looking around, I found cracked bricks, done undoubtly by bullets. I didn’t want to believe it. But everything was pointing at one thing.Rebel's been shot, a lot. He had bled, a lot. And he had died. And someone had taken his body, most likely the attacker. I was robbed of something, and that something was something I treasured, and something that I would not see again. I fell down to my knees and cried. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed it, please Follow, Comment, and Share! http://dlvr.it/PzQf6j

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fashionmovesforward · 7 years

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Inside Wesley Wheeler's Esuri Los Angeles

We at Fashion Moves Forward are always searching for up and coming designers that obtain raw talent with the ability to create an amazing product. So naturally, we stumbled upon LA's own Wesley Wheeler. Starting out by helping develop popular wallet chains for Worn on LA, Wheeler is now the head of his own fully fledged cut and sew brand entitled Esuri. We recently had the pleasure of sitting down and interviewing Wesley about his first season "Velvet Moon," and the process of developing his vision into a brand. With multiple celebrities co-signs from the likes of G-Eazy & KYLE, it seems that Esuri is on the brink of becoming a store staple at multiple high-end boutiques. We love what this first collection has brought us thus far, especially the tees, the velvet trucker, and of course the pinstripe cargo pants. Be sure to check out the full collection and Wesley's interview below.

So First off for the people that might not know you give them the quick run down of Wesley Wheeler. (Where are you from and what you do)

"I'm a Los Angeles native; I feel like there's not many of us who stand out among the transplants, so I think that's a key piece of information to share for some reason. I dropped out of High School in 2011 and never looked back. I have a small background in garment production, working behind the scenes on quite a few contemporary brands that most everyone who is interested in fashion should know. That's where I really learned everything I know about designing as well as producing my ideas. After parting ways with the production company I was with, I started work on my first collection under my own brand, Esuri."

How do you describe your personal style?

"Oh man, I feel like my style can be all too eclectic at times while keeping an overall image of a clean look. I usually like to tie in a mixture of new pieces from my favorite designers alongside my collection of curated vintage that I source from around the world, and of course always a piece from my collection. Some days I wake up completely sick of what I wore the previous day. I guess you could say I'm inconsistent, but I like to look at it as always progressing without limiting myself. I get bored easily, I couldn't clearly define myself nor my style at this point in my life."

So your brand Esuri is dropping its first collection very soon entitled “ Velvet Moon “. Tell us a little bit about the brand and your collection.

"The brand itself was born from a restlessness to create. I never had the tools, but I always wanted to put out a project that was an extension of myself. The tools were sprung on me when I least expected an opportunity. Someone literally approached me asking, "do you want to learn clothing production?", so, of course, I said yes. I got pretty sick of working on other peoples ideas, even though the money was great. The collection title comes from a line in my favorite Jimi Hendrix song, where he talks about his loneliness and how there's nothing left to meet him but the "velvet moon". I was listening to that song while coming up with the concepts for the original pieces in the collection. For me, there was nothing left to do except for branch out on my own and face the challenges that come with starting a new creative venture."

Whats your creative process with the brand when coming up with ideas?

"The pieces in "Velvet Moon" were pretty much created with just me in mind, stuff that I wanted to wear, little ideas I gathered here and there while traveling or listening to music mostly. Some of the pieces were created from ideas I had jotted down in my iPhone notes dating back to 2015. With this collection, I didn't take a traditional approach of sitting down and designing individual looks. I basically created the pieces as I went along and experienced new things; my original samples look nothing like the final product. That proved to be an interesting task and all around learning experience. I plan on having my future collections reference key points in my life and specific interests that I have."

Did you have any inspiration from someone/something for the collection?

"Mostly just my experiences and self-awareness. I like to travel and I'm very involved in music; playing music was my first real creative passion. I touched on the self-awareness bit with the "Indigo Child" pieces. An Indigo Child is someone who is headstrong and entitled, someone who knows their place in life, someone who is very creative and goes against all authority. With this collection, I invited anyone who is interested in my creations to see the world through my eyes. I also tied some rock and roll and grunge elements into the collection. The burgundy velvet jacket references this crazy velvet coat that Jimi Hendrix wore the same color. The flannel cardigans reference the 90's grunge scene, mixing together the popularity of oversized flannel shirts with a cardigan body style. High quality and small details were also a key point for this collection. I wanted to come out of the gate strong, with a designer quality collection that I can take pride in for the rest of my life. Even the more simple pieces, like the hoodies and t-shirts, have all of the elements that go into designer garments, along with little details that often go overlooked. Such as the rivets on the kangaroo pocket of the souvenir track hoodie, and the small distressing details on the flannel cardigans. As for people who inspired parts of the collection, I'd like to shout out Gabe Salazar and Tony Su. Gabe is the other half of Esuri and he supplied all of the necessary business tools to really get this project off the ground exactly as I wanted to. Tony played a major role in the overall brand image and graphics aspect for this collection. Esuri wouldn't exist without them, so they're both key people in the brand.

So for every new designer, you always hit some trouble paths when creating. What was the hardest obstacle to conquer while designing Velvet Moon?

"Even with a background in production, I had some trouble being able to create the garments that I wanted to exactly as I envisioned them. I managed the entire project by myself using my knowledge and connections. I had to focus on design, sourcing the fabrics and having some of them custom made for me at the mill, working with factories to create various custom trims, and finally managing the sewing on all of the pieces. It took some time, but I learned a lot and I'll definitely be able to stream line the process a bit more easily for the next collection."

Whats your favorite piece from the collection?

"I'd have to either choose the velvet trucker jackets, or the souvenir style track suit pieces. Those pieces had a clear inspiration and were created with me and my interests in mind. I love a jacket with great details a nice flair, and being able to tie that into one of my biggest musical inspirations created a perfect jacket for me. The souvenir track suit pieces were something I'd never seen done like that before. I was surprised to see that I couldn't find a hoodie or track pants with Japanese SukaJan jacket details on them. Hence the use of a satin stripe alongside piping on the sides."

What do you want people to take away from your work/first collection?

"This collection was a direct extension of me. See the world through my eyes when you look at my designs. Be ready for more, this is only the beginning."

So what is next for Esuri and Wesley Wheeler?

"More clothes, more creativity. With my garments, you can see the world through my eyes. With my next creative venture, I want you to be able to hear the world through my ears."

Big thanks to Wesley for answering our interview questions. The first products from "Velvet Moon" are available on Esuri.la now. Be sure to follow Wesley here, and Esuri here.

#esuri #wesleywheeler

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