Introducing: Lennon Stella
As a freshly solo artist, Lennon Stella reflects on immersing herself in the world of her debut EP, ‘Love, me.’
It’s a Wednesday morning in California. Nineteen-year-old Lennon Stella, a Canadian native, based in Nashville chirpily picks up the phone to greet and introduce herself to me.
It appears that nothing can stop Lennon’s ascent to the top in this moment. Right now, Lennon has an abundance of achievements to celebrate. Her debut EP ‘Love, me’ is an unapologetically vulnerable and pensive cultivation of the music she has dreamt of releasing. It truly serves as an honest, raw letter from Lennon Stella to the world. “I love singer-songwriter, conversational lyrics that are just people expressing themselves from the heart. Those are the lyrics I connect to,” she vehemently explains.
She informs me that she just landed last night for her show tonight at the Troubadour. Now, the lyrics that she’s been “writing for so long, building up inside” are finally available to the world. She describes the moment as “a long time coming”, further going on to detail how the release “felt like a breath”, as if “this weight had been lifted.”
The reward? “Seeing it get to new friends and new people… It’s so crazy to me. It’s really, really, really so surreal.” And indeed, through her live accompaniment of the EP, she is reaching new people and new heights, and nothing can dampen her zeal. But, who can blame her? Having already performed in Nashville, there is a pure excitement that strikes Stella.
A1on1: I wanted to congratulate you because technically embarking on this means that you’re graduating from the first chapter of your career on Nashville and going into the second era. Would you call this a new chapter?
LS: Oh, yeah 100%. The show went into the music world and the whole transition of being solo has definitely been a graduation for sure.
Stella opts for more of a reflective, heartfelt, yet endearing, astute route.
You see other artists guide themselves into a more outlandish, wild track for traction. Can you talk about taking this more conversational route?
Yeah, honestly like all my favourite music and what I listen to, lyrically I love more singer-songwriter kind of conversational lyrics that are just people talking and just expressing themselves from the heart. Those are the lyrics I connect to. I kind of feel like in pop music, that’s not as much of a thing, and it’s kind of becoming more of a thing now. So, it’s kind of bringing those kind of lyrics in more of a pop track. I thought it would be a cool mix to find that balance.
Can you talk about what kind of philosophy or outlook you took on your artistry, considering this was your first solo endeavour? Did it change as you let more people in and learning more?
It totally did change. There was a constant change. I kept evolving and I just kept thinking that it sounds how I want it to sound like and sounds how I want it to feel like , and I just kept learning more and meeting new writers that I was so inspired by. I kept getting inspired and kept being like ‘wow, I’m so glad I put stuff out when I was ready.’ Being on the TV show I wasn’t able to, so that made it a good because I literally wasn’t able to release stuff and in a way, it was a really positive thing. I now look back and I think ‘oh thank god’, I’ve grown so much and now I’m really locked into it.
So, a perfect time to construct your own world?
Yeah, exactly! The timeline of it all [was perfect]. I was just writing, and writing and writing and all of a sudden, I was just like, ‘ok, cool let’s put out an EP’. It literally just happened one day, and we were literally like ‘ok, I think it’s time to put some stuff out’ and we just did single by single, then I put the EP out, but I was literally writing and I’m still writing up until it all [came out]. It’s still a constant finding and gradually figuring out and evolving for sure.
Everything on the EP meshes fluidly together. Even, from the album cover, seeing it as this picture of you broken, yet still somehow pieced together.
And, also, the ‘Love, me’ – being like to the world, from Lennon. Can you talk about why these 5 songs perfectly defined yourself in this era?
I feel like these songs just kind of all have a bunch of different emotions and feelings [when put together]. Some of them were feelings towards other people, like ‘La Di Da’ was very much about an argument, same as ‘Feelings’, but ‘Breakaway’ is very much internal, like all about myself. I think I wanted, they’re all feelings, but they’re all different feelings, but they still have a similar heaviness. I like them to have a certain weight, and I like them to have a sadness to be honest, so having them feel sad and lyrically have a heaviness, but then it’s still dancey and fun.
I feel like these songs were just [manifested] over time. ‘Breakaway’ and ‘La Di Da’ both happened when I was on a writing trip and it was very much when I found that sound ‘Breakaway’ was the first one where I was like ‘ok this production is totally what I love’. That was the first one and everything just grew over that time. I feel like these five songs represent a bunch of different emotions, but all ones that I really felt.
I loved how you spoke about juxtaposing heavy lyrics with a mature subject matter against that bouncy, youthful sonic. Would you say there are two sides to your personality?
Oh yeah, 100%! I think that there’s definitely a constant balance. I’m very in my brain and in my head all the time and I can go into full on, completely anti-social, do not want to associate with anyone. But, I can be super social and the second I’m thrown into a room full of people I love, I’m the most social. You know what I mean? I think that’s a big two sides to my personality that this EP shows because there’s different songs that have that a very much more internal aspect. Like, ‘Breakaway’ is very talking about myself and what I was going through and then there’s others where I’m more talking outward and more conversational, as if I’m talking to somebody else.
Do you always have that sense of self and strength in you and glass half full attitude?
I definitely am a glass half full kind of person, I just like to live my life that way, honestly. I really believe strongly that everything happens for a reason, so much so that I really trust in the universe in that sense. So, that makes me see things that way most of the time. Obviously, heartbreak and these kinds of things bring you down, but I think having ‘Fortress’, it was kind of that moment where I was like, ‘I’m not going to continue to be stomped on’. It’s important [to me] to have that outlook. You’re allowed to feel the sadness and heartbreak of it all, and doing so means you’ll be able to get over it. I think it’s also important to feel whatever you’re feeling and not always be so positive. That’s the big thing. I always want to be so honest with whatever I’m feeling. It can be super negative and sad, but whatever the feeling is, I think being honest about it is the way to be, instead of always trying to be a certain way. I don’t always want to just be singing the most positive songs. Obviously, I want to make people feel good, and make myself feel good, but I just want to write about what I feel, whatever it is. Sometimes it will be super dark, it will be dark.
And that healing and getting over it, do you feel like it happens as soon as you put pen to paper or do you need to internalise and take your own time before authentically writing from the heart?
I feel like I have so many things going on in my brain that before I go into a session I have to sit down and think about what I’m feeling and feel it and get it all in one little cluster, and then go and tell it to co-writers and tell it more freely. But, sometimes it happens that I’ll get to a session and a co-writer asks me something that ‘triggers’ something and it just happens on the day, in the moment. It happens often actually. But, I would say most of the time I go into a session with a feeling that I already know is at the forefront of my emotions and then I want to go and let it out.
And in some ways, it’s a risk to vocalise in front of people. What do you think is the most challenging thing you encountered in the face of risks, being that it’s your first EP?
Hmm, I think… I’m trying to think! I think locking into a consistent… I love so many different things so much, and visuals and things that make me feel different ways. So, I don’t know it was hard for me to lock into a certain consistency that stayed the same the whole time. That was the one thing I found, ‘cause I love so many different sounds and there was so many different things to experiment with. It was just sticking to one sound, I just wanted it to all feel consistent.
As far as writing, to be honest, everything I write is so personal and it’s always just the feeling that I’m feeling. I don’t really know how to write any other way, so sometimes that can really hurt other people’s feelings. The people you wrote it about, they know it’s about them and is it worth putting that into the world? Those are the things that were hard for me. Even ‘Bad’, it’s so specifically about somebody and he knows it’s about him and the other girl knows its about her, and do I want to put our whole story out into the world? That is something that was considered a lot.
There’s a positive to take out of that because it shows that you don’t manipulate or compromise your authenticity. Yet, you still manage to be versatile through the production with the courageous and addictive sonics.
Thank you so much, by the way, I really appreciate everything you’re saying a lot.
Can you talk about pushing your comfort zone in terms of the sonics and how they help add gravity to your vocals?
I think I’ve always loved being creative when it comes to the sonics and all the actual sounds of the production. I think as long as my vocals remain very organic and don’t have a bunch of tuning or all these things that make it go really, really pop… I want to keep vocals and harmonies and lyrics all feeling very organic and not necessarily like a pop record. But, then I love experimenting when it comes to different sounds and different beats and synth sounds and all these things. I love all that stuff so I wanted to find that balance of keeping my vocal and harmonies staying true to everything I love. I think that was where I wanted to keep it really honest and keeping them as untouched.
Because, a good song works if the lyrics and how you sing it are portrayed well, it doesn’t matter what sound it takes. Is that kind of your outlook on it?
Totally. I think honestly, if you sing something you mean, and you actually feel it, people will believe it because you mean it. Whether or not someone necessarily agrees with what you say, you still believe it and people will still feel that from you. I fully believe that.
Lastly, did you expect yourself to be able to do something like this? What was the biggest thing the EP has done for you/helped you do apart from unleashing your creativity?
Just having it out there feels…I’ve been writing for so long, waiting for the perfect time, I didn’t realise how much it was building up inside me, so when it was out in the world it was like ‘oh my gosh’, I didn’t realise that this weight had been lifted. It felt like just a breath to have it into the world and hearing people respond to it. That alone has sparked so much inspiration in me, I’m just so ready to go back and write more and just experiment with more different things.
I was writing so much, I’m not going to lie that I was a little bit tired out, because nothing was being put out, nothing was out into the world, so I was just writing, writing, writing and that’s so amazing, but at the same time, just lost inspiration along the way and so now having it out, I feel like I’ve totally recharged the battery and I’m ready to go. I think as far as my creativity, it completely recharged me, and it’s really, really cool reaching new people and seeing it get to new friends and new people, it’s really, really cool to me.
There is a captivating nuance to Lennon Stella. ‘Love, me’ makes its mark and brings her to the forefront of the world. Remember the name Lennon Stella, for she won’t be fizzling out anytime soon. This is just the beginning.
‘Love, me’ is available everywhere for purchase and streaming now.
Follow Lennon here:
