ifitbeyourwill Podcast
“ifitbeyourwill" Podcasts is on a mission to talk to amazing indie artists from around the world! Join us for cozy, conversational episodes where you'll hear from talented and charismatic singer-songwriters, bands from all walks of life talk about their musical journey. Let's celebrate being music lovers!
Season Four runs from September 2024 to December 2024
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ifitbeyourwill Podcast
ifitbeyourwill S04E14 • Lea Thomas: Embracing Individuality Through Music and Nature's Influence
Join us for an engaging conversation with Lea Thomas, a talented musician with a rich catalog spanning over a decade. Lea's musical journey began in her artistically vibrant family, where she first fell in love with the piano and guitar. She fondly recalls writing her first song, inspired by Alicia Keys, and shares the unique challenges she faced exploring her musical interests in a place where her preferred genres were not mainstream. Discover how setting up a home recording studio became a pivotal moment in her independent artistic development, allowing her to experiment and refine her sound.
As we explore Lea's transformative songwriting journey, she reveals how living in the city inspired a purpose-driven approach to her music, emphasizing a connection with nature as a source of healing and stability. Lea discusses the evolution of her music over the past decade, highlighting a shift from external influences to a more authentic expression of self. Her latest album, released in September, stands as a personal letter to the world, capturing her growth in confidence and communication, and showcasing the beauty of embracing individuality in artistic expression.
Lea also takes us on a journey through her process of creating vulnerable musical landscapes. She reflects on the evolution of her confidence and how setting energetic boundaries has transformed her approach to performing, turning music into an offering rather than a forced experience. Recorded in a serene, isolated environment, her latest album carries a minimal and introspective sound, influenced by the tranquility of its surroundings. Finally, Lea shares the joy of finally sharing this work, along with the poetic expressions of love and happiness that permeate her music, capturing the essence of emotional connections and the beauty of living in love.
volumes. I just recently got this whole mic thing.
Speaker 2:So it looks very official over there trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:I feel a little bit like a fish out of water, but hopefully the sound quality is good in the end. All right, another episode, if you will, podcast. I have Leah Thomas. Leah, thanks so much for coming on here. We had tried to have this podcast a couple of times and then things got moved around and I was trying to figure out my calendar. I apologize, and there's other things. Anyway, let's focus in now. This is a a beautiful friday we have here and I'm reaching down into New York state Is that correct yeah.
Speaker 1:And I am so happy to finally get to talk to you. I mean, the one good thing about all these delays is that I got to listen to your music more and more and more and more. So it's been a real treat doing this deep dive into you and your music. It's quite a catalog you have. This has been a decade worth, a little over a decade worth of albums and recordings under your name, and I want to talk about every single one of them. But before we start that, I love to kind of get background stories and this is one of the questions I like to ask as a starter. A starter is at what point in in time in your in your life did you start to realize that music had to be a part of it?
Speaker 2:um, pretty much from the very beginning. Um, yeah, I was really, I think, as blessed as be, you know, as someone with an artistic tendency, to have been born into a family of very artistic people. My dad was a guitar player since he was a kid and my mom just lives her life in an artful way, I think. And yeah, so, pretty much, I think maybe I started piano lessons around four and that was kind of my first epiphany, like I remember being at a piano recital when I was like four or five and a friend of my, one of my best friends at the time, was also taking lessons from the same teacher and we were in this recital together and you know, it's like 20 parents or whatever of like little kids.
Speaker 2:But we finished my like dory, me little solo and I like had that first feeling of like I like performing. I don't know what that was, but that was kind of cool. Let's do that again. And it was so interesting because my best friend that at the time hated it, like she was so nervous, she was a wreck. And it was like the first moment for me where I kind of realized like, oh, I guess not everybody likes to do this, so that's kind of interesting. Um, but yeah, that's where I kind of started and you know, it was just encouraged for me like any. I decided to play guitar when I was like 13 and my dad was immediately went and went with me to go get a guitar.
Speaker 1:He's like, all right, we're doing this right on, and was your dad um helpful in when you got that guitar and in helping you learn it and stuff, or was it pretty much?
Speaker 2:I think the question is more does a 13 year old want her dad to teach?
Speaker 2:her guitar I didn't think about her from that angle he would have been as helpful as I would have let him be. No, he was really great with this, like the basic kind of music theory. That was definitely something I absorbed from him. Um, you know the like tone intervals and whatever, like kind of more of the esoteric aspects of the theory. But when it came down to like actually practicing and stuff, I was like no, I'm gonna go like listen to nirvana and read the tabs because that's cool and I'm not telling my friends.
Speaker 1:My dad taught me how to play guitar. Right, exactly, not happening I did this all of my own and what was your first song? Do you remember writing your first song and and like what that scenario was and the theme that you came up with to write your first official song. Do you remember? Remember that song?
Speaker 2:I remember being like eight or nine and I was still very much in piano, um, as my main instrument until I was a teenager. But, um, I got really into Alicia Keys. I guess I would have maybe even been had been later around eight or nine. I was really more into kind of like instrumental piano pieces, kind of more intricate, sprawling, like orchestral, I don't know what. I don't even, I barely even play piano now. So it felt like I was in a totally different world. But then later I remember my first song with lyrics like I had no idea what I was writing about. I was writing like Alicia Keys, inspired, like love songs, when I was like 11. You know, I'd take it a little bit of this, a little bit of that, throw in the pot, stir it around a bit.
Speaker 1:No, that's really cool. And what propelled you, like once high school, going into you know further studies? Or after high school, like, did you start to formal? Did you play in other bands or other with other musicians when you were first starting to kind of get into the music business?
Speaker 2:it was actually pretty. I've always felt kind of like alone in my interests in music growing up on maui. It was like there's a really healthy reggae scene, there's a really healthy like blues kind of soul scene, um, but when it just came to the kind of like music that I liked I I didn't have a big community around it at all and it certainly didn't feel like it was a place that I could go and like see bands play that I liked or like. You know it wasn't, it was all through the internet for me. I was just scouring the internet for anything that um resembled something that I might like, and so a lot of my own exploration really came from um actually being being able to sort of adopt a recording like a home recording rig from a friend, family friend who was leaving, moving off island, and so we got to buy it from him for really cheap and and it like totally changed my life, because I was 14 or 15 at the time and I just spent the rest of my like high school years. Just as soon as I got home I'd be like back there and just recording and sort of exploring and being able to understand all of these production magic things you know, layer yourself and like hearing reverb on your voice and getting comfortable like just hearing your own voice and like harmonizing and you know, exploring, like having drums. I mean they're like little midi drums and stuff, but like you know, exploring like having drums. I mean they're like little MIDI drums and stuff, but like you know, like I didn't have like a drummer in my life really that, um, I wanted to like be in a band with or anything. So I kind of had to make my own band and, uh, it was really transformational and, um, I mean, you mentioned further studies but I didn't.
Speaker 2:I knew from like being kind of in high school, I was a bit of a rebel. It was kind of easy for me, but, um, I just found it deeply stifling. Like I want to just go be an artist now. So I think I'm done with this and I chose not to go to college. Um, and I instead, I knew I really wanted to move to New York City because that's where, that's where music happened. That was my state of mind. I was like you know, all the Joni Mitchells and everybody kind of ends up in New York City and I had all these like the lore of the Dylans and the whatever, and I was obsessed.
Speaker 1:Chelsea Hoteau.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like fully obsessed. And my brother is five years older than me, so he he went to school in NYU. So I was like flying every summer to go visit him and like planting all the seeds of, like, my future fantasy. And what eventually happened is that I, instead of going to like a regular college, I went to an audio engineering trade school for one year. Um, and that was all inspired from having this home recording rig at home.
Speaker 2:I just was so into it and I totally thought I was going to, you know, become more of an on the recording side of the industry, Um, but that really was like it gave me my foothold and just having something to do when I moved to the city and I met my partner, um, many years years later, we're still together making records today.
Speaker 1:so uh, yeah, is that John?
Speaker 2:that's John John Thayer. Yeah, he's a musician on in his own world too, but, um, it's really fun to to still be able to work together and like explore sounds and he's he's become more of an like a you know professional in the field and I, I quickly realized after working in a couple of studios I was like, hey, it's not. It was too much for me to like work on other people's music and then be able to have headspace for myself. Still, some people can do it, but I, I just don't nothing and, like john's, helped you on.
Speaker 1:I mean, from what I've gleaned from just looking at the liner notes, that he's helped with most of these records that you put out right oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean we met at this at the audio engineering school and it was fully just like hey, you want to come over and work on some songs there? You go and we're still doing that you know, it's all, it's all working out.
Speaker 2:Um, it takes some people like, ask me, like how do you so? Because some people just really can't work with their partners creatively, even though they're both creative people, that they just can't do it together. And, um, I think it took a lot of work for us to figure out like what that looks like in a way that complements each other's strengths, um, but you know, time, time can tell yeah, well, yeah, I was gonna mention I mean, that's a lot of uh, together time, um in in intimate personal relationships.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, music's very personal and obviously a relationship is very personal. Um, how do you guys, what's the secret sauce Like? How do you, how do you guys do it? How do you maintain that through all these years that you guys have been recording together, um and being together?
Speaker 2:I. I think it's really about for us. It's really about for us. It's been about just listening to where each of us is reaching towards, like what is inspiring me now. And it's about his record, cause I'm all. I also sometimes, will you know, pitch in on production, on on his music as well, and like it's all. It's always a conversation, a conversation. It's never like if it's his record, I'm gonna treat it like it's his record and it's like what does he want to do? You know, um, and and vice versa. But I also think it's just about being open and flexible to grow. It's like life would get boring if you weren't constantly trying to, like you know, grow into new experiences of yourself and of the world and, um, I think that we're both really supportive of growth and we're really lucky that we just keep growing in the same direction. You know all you can hope for too.
Speaker 1:It's, I mean, it's, um, I work with my partner as well. She's actually my boss and, uh, yeah, I love her to pieces. But, um, it can be challenging sometimes to keep those I wouldn't say lines in the sand. But yeah you know, just making sure that you also maintain who you are and kind of like what you were saying, which which is very insightful for sure what your music has so much natural connections to earth and the land.
Speaker 1:How did Maui influence you growing up that you are still taking those influences and incorporating them into your songs nowadays?
Speaker 2:I think, growing up. So I was born and raised on Maui and I lived there till I was 17, until I moved to New York and it was like night and day going from Maui to New York. I mean, even though I was so excited for it and I just have been preparing myself for years, you know, visiting my brother in college and whatnot, I it really didn't strike me how special it was to have grown up like so intimately in relation with the landscape until I moved to the city and I and I didn't have that anymore. And so I think for me a lot of um, like a lot of my first couple of records, like want for nothing and mirrors to the sun, I had a lot of inner conflict about living in the city and really being like nature's daughter, you know.
Speaker 2:Um but I think ultimately, living in the city also kind of um, inspired in me this, like this is kind of a purpose-driven songwriting experience. You know, like I, it's for myself, really like for a healing practice to just be like this everything is nature, you are nature, like you can make it work in the city. You know um, and but also just how important that was and how special it was and and I just, I, just I, I never took it for granted after that. You know, like you really just get so used to it. When you grow up in a beautiful place I mean it doesn't have to be Hawaii, it could be anywhere but when you leave that environment, you're like I get it now.
Speaker 2:There's nothing, truly nothing, more important to me, I think, than encouraging in myself and encouraging in other people a relationship with nature, because I feel like all of the lessons are there. You know what I mean, like all the metaphors you could possibly need, all of the teachings and the wisdom are there and and I think in a time where a lot of us are feeling like is very chaotic and we get a little swept up in things, it's like, if you can just remember to return to that relationship that is always there for you. I think it's really powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so beautiful, so beautifully said. Very very I mean very insightful, for sure. Um, what do you find has been the biggest change in your music over this last decade? I mean, that's a huge question. You can break it into little pieces, but I mean listening to your catalog from the earlier stuff and then this last record.
Speaker 1:I find is just it. I feel you in it, like there's this connection to it that is very internal and natural. I'll say the music itself. How have you gotten to this record that came out? What was this in? Uh, september, right, it just came out last month. This came out forever yeah, like, how, like, if this record is, is is a, a letter from you to the world. What did all those other records bring you to get to that point?
Speaker 2:I think that this record well, I'll say that the first record that I ever made Want For Nothing. You know, I was in my mid-20s when I wrote the songs. It's just I'm turning 34 in a couple of weeks Like it's just a very different time in your life. You know, I had a lot of. I think I was a bit more influenced in a way, like just by what was going on around me in my community and my music scene in Brooklyn at the time. Um, and I think that over the years I've really kind of come to understand what, what are like really deep, true inspirations for me, and I think they're just like a little bit different than they used to be. Um, although I feel like moving forward from this point on, like I I feel quite aware and confident of what, what is like at the core of my songwriting intentions, um, and so I think that I think it's sort of a matter of coming into my own as a person and the I would call it confidence or just being more comfortable.
Speaker 2:You know, being who I am and and and learning a little bit more about how to communicate. That I think a lot of practice around boundaries and figuring out what's oversharing and maybe what you don't need to say, like maybe what you can let the listener decide what it means for them you know interesting yeah um yeah, yeah it's, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a very personal thing, like I'm so fascinated by musicians that, like you said, like when you first started that first piano recital and you loved it you know, you just felt like okay, what's next?
Speaker 1:where's my next gig? I mean to particularly with this record. I find it so delicate and like just hangs in the air sometimes the minimal sound and your lyrics you've. You've pulled back, it seems, or you just put the words in that you wanted to, and maybe a bit of it is like I'm going to leave a little bit more up to the imagination of the listener. But to get to that stage you had to be vulnerable. Um, how do you find that balance of being vulnerable to create the music you want to create, to then delivering it and giving it to people and saying, here, here's a piece of my heart, and not having that ability to, okay, I'm taking it back. No, no, I don't. You know like, because once it's out there, you know like, even performing live, like going up in front of a crowd of people and kind of opening your soul up, it takes a tremendous amount of bravery. How did you come to that? Is it just through doing it Like? Experience is what, what? What allows you to get to that point?
Speaker 2:Well, when it comes to the performance part of it, um, I think so much of just like. Yeah, I mean, I can think about the arc of my life and my relationship to performing and how, when I was younger, I really, um, didn't care at all what anybody thought about what I was doing. I just wanted to perform. I wasn't self-conscious about it at all, it was just like here's my chance, I'm gonna do it. And then that kind of started going down a little bit, that confidence like in my early 20s, something about just being in a big, big city and feeling quite small, um, and just, I think it's just kind of like and that translates to in how you perform.
Speaker 2:You know that you might not be able to hold yourself with as much space to really be able to just be comfortable sharing the music, but a lot of inner work has taken place over the years and and, um, I mean I really think a lot of it comes down to for, for me, like being really comfortable with myself.
Speaker 2:As I said before, it's kind of an aspect of like setting boundaries in a more energetic way, where it's like this is something that I did and it's kind of it's the audience's responsibility to take it in however they want to take it in. You know, it's like totally down to the individual and all I can do as a performer is just offer something and and that's. It's just there in the air for you to do what you will with and to to be more comfortable. Letting go of like the expectation or what like trying to force an experience onto people has been really impactful for me as a performer over the years, cause it's it kind of allows you to step out of your own head space and just let the experience be an offering you know, more than like something you're trying to like force into existence.
Speaker 1:You all gather around me, nobody talking clock at the end of the songs.
Speaker 2:See you interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it it's. It doesn't work that way. You've had a bit of time with this record out. You know it's been out a month or so. Um, what do you get? What are you getting from it? Like you've put it out there, what has been the response? Um, that you've been receiving, like, I've read some of the reviews and they're very glowing, but you personally, like what?
Speaker 1:what did you get out of doing this record recording and putting it out like going through, you know, the juggernaut of the music record cycle, what do you? Stand back and look at what you got out of it as as a person?
Speaker 2:that's an interesting question. I love it well. Well, it's, it just came out, you know, quite recently, just a couple of weeks ago. So I think I'm just kind of coming out of this, honestly, just relief and joy to finally be able to share this record, because we tracked it originally in 2020, in the autumn 2020. So it's been quite a quite a while and it wasn't intentional.
Speaker 2:There were just lots of life things happening and and I put out another record in 2021 and we, like we really tracked most of it live, so there wasn't even like a lot of production that happened after this um, we essentially went to a house at the end of a road, like in a mountain. You're asking earlier, like you know, how did you get to all of the space and the music and stuff? And I would really attribute a lot of the um, the tendencies towards quiet and slow in this record, to just the state of the world at the time, you know, and kind of a response to that, but also just to be with my band completely uninterrupted, for four or five days in in the woods, you know, like leaning towards winter at that point, and, um, it just creeped in. I mean, it was utterly silent for most of the time.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was really special, um, and I think right now, like in this post release phase, I suppose, I've I really just been enjoying like being around, uh, the people that I recorded the record with, um, four of the five, it was five of us total and so, um, everyone except the original bass player on the record is performing a couple of album release shows together, and so we've just been getting together and like resurfacing these songs and with our energy and like it's been pretty awesome because I still get really excited to play them. Um, mostly because I still get really excited to play them, mostly because I can it's a record that I kind of set up for myself that I can just play really simple parts and the band can kind of create this atmosphere around me, and so it's quite a treat for myself to sort of just play the conductor and I can sit back sometimes and just enjoy the worlds that's that is being created, um, yeah, and you hit it on.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's exactly what they create, this sonic background and your lyrics and your flow and the melody just hangs on it sometimes and it like I think of rain, sometimes I think of um, a wave, like the songs make me feel, of, not like images come to my head of natural things yeah and I think the first lyric that you have on the first song, let's go for a walk, don't talk.
Speaker 1:I mean it sums up this beautiful record in in a way that that's that, that silence sometimes, and just this non-verbal communication that we can have and it almost puts you in this trance at the same time, because of well, that, that song in particular too, because it has this repetitive line that you, that you go through. But I love how you've pulled back on the lyrics and let that sonic landscape fill in some of those words, um, or that space that you've allowed it to take over. It's not easy doing that. Now people think, oh, you play slow, easy, no problem. I think it's the most difficult thing to do to to restrain yourself yes I mean instruments.
Speaker 1:You you want to thrash. You know like you start thinking about all the great bands you love. You know your nirvana's in here and you know we're gonna play some, some, and this is just this. Slow core times, reflective, sadcore, folk, indie.
Speaker 1:I mean it's just like it's hard to describe because there's nothing else out there like this and I really like I listen to a ton of music and I haven't run into a record like this that's had this influence in quite some years. Um, so I, I I want to thank you for putting it out, first of all because it's thank you it's a great collection of songs and I find too how you've turned it into this book.
Speaker 1:You know the chapters. If you saw, each song is a chapter. They perfectly kind of fold one into the next, um, and the first song, the second song, just kind of like.
Speaker 2:The placing is really really well done oh, thank you, a lot of thought went into that, so yeah, oh you can tell.
Speaker 1:I mean and again it's that subtlety I mean, is that easy to do? I mean, am I like being crazy here that having that kind of subtle restraint is not an easy thing to come to? I mean, the record before that was much more.
Speaker 1:You know drums and you know, brings into more of a folkier um, slow core, um, if I can use that term, because it it's hard to define it. I don't want to define it, I just want to enjoy it. But, um, was that a hard thing for you to do? To, to, to hold back almost a little bit and let that sonic landscape fill in a little bit more.
Speaker 2:I think um it can be difficult, just from a more, you know, utilitarian perspective, um, like especially performing these songs live, because I am singing really quietly and I think that's a big part of just the experience of the record and I want to honor that when I perform it live as well. And just in terms of the technical aspects, it can be a little difficult, certainly in the breath control it can be. It's like much more challenging for me. I find them singing just like a kind of more like verse, chorus, verse, chorus kind of song, because you really have to sit with it.
Speaker 2:And that I think was was kind of the intention to you know, with the record was to to really like step into this trance experience, um, with my band. And it's just so when you, when you can touch that space with a group of people and you're all just giving your, your entire presence and focus is in this one moment, it's really really special. And so for me, like that was what I, that was what I wanted, I wanted to be able to experience that with a group of people around the songs, the songs were kind of like the foundation. You know, I'm like this is the mood, this is the mood, this is the.
Speaker 2:This is a story, but, like I want everybody to be able to just be there as themselves, um, and so in that way, it kind of isn't also just a matter of trust yeah, yeah um and I'm lucky that I have a few people in my life that I play music with that are that I can fully trust in those moments and and it's it allows me to be maybe more more vulnerable just cause I know that they'll be there.
Speaker 1:You know, great, great, great. Well, I want to congratulate you again, cause it's just people go and buy this record. It's really um amazing, um, what? What's coming down the pipe for you in 2020, the rest of this year, in the next year, with your music?
Speaker 2:well, we have a few um album release shows, uh, just around new york state and in the city, um, and then we're going to be playing a few shows in japan in november. My folks moved from japan, or from hawaii to japan, years ago now, which is crazy, but um, it's been really cool to to go there every year and play some shows, um. So that's kind of the rest of the year for us and we have um a new duo project that's in the works. Me and John. We released an album called Blue of Distance a couple of years ago. That was very much like a blend of both of our worlds. It was written on an artist residency, so it was kind of lo-fi because we were at this like remote cabin in the totally like back country and that was like a whole story in and of itself. But, um, we're kind of, we were just craving like doing something like that, um, but in our home studio rather than out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it sounded like a lot of fuel recordings um yeah that, that duo that you guys did well. That's awesome and and you'll both equally add to the songwriting and the production as well, like you'll collaborate through the whole thing, as you've always done yeah, I'm kind of like the lyrics and melody girl um.
Speaker 2:and then john is kind of the world builder on these projects and sometimes, when it's just a collaboration with the two of us, we really kind of meet in the middle, where he works a lot in the electronic and ambient world and he's a drummer and percussionist since he was a kid.
Speaker 2:So there's like certain elements that he brings in and then I'll bring in, like melody and, you know, guitar and the instruments that I play with, but it's very much like a blend of our two worlds, for sure, that I play with, but it's very much like a blend of our two worlds, for sure. So I'm excited because it always kind of feels like a refresh for me. You know, I step into making my next record, which I'm also very eager to get ready on, probably later this winter. Yeah, Awesome.
Speaker 1:I imagine you have a a quell of a queue of songs that you've been working on and plugging away at.
Speaker 2:Always do Amazing. Sometimes it takes time for them to really find their partners. You know, and I had a very strong vision of what this next record was going to be, and sometimes things shift.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been really fun. Thanks so much for hopping on here and sharing your your timeline a little bit and some super insightful words that you shared with us today. So thank you. And again, such a great record, cosmos Forever. I'm loving it forever. I'm going to listen to it. After this. I need to hear it one more time today. Um, but thank you and I wish you all the best with um the future and um new music coming out and everything else that that falls into your world. Um, and thank you for for putting this out for us to listen to.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, it was really fun chatting.
Speaker 1:Cool Take care.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Guitar solo. Let yourself be happy, be happy when you look at me With that look in your eyes. All that surrounds me, because Love, we must be, we must be In love, we must be, we must be in love. Hold your hand, your hand, in mine. Oh, that surrounds us, because Love, in my sleep, in my sleep, in my, in my sleep, in my sleep, we must be in love, thank you. We must live, we must be In love, thank you. I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. We must be in love, we must be in love, in love. Thank you you.
