SOHN is making it all seem so easy

"In L.A. you totally lose track of reality."

You’ve done some pretty long tours in the past. What are you doing differently this time around?

I think the important thing for me is to remain close to who I am the whole time. And the thing is that the longer you’re out doing it, the more you get pushed and pulled in different directions by audiences or by being in a group of confined people. This time around I changed the personnel and got characters around me that bring out the more natural side of myself.

This better understanding of who you are and being truer to yourself, is it something that just came with time, or do you feel that all these big changes in your life triggered it as well?

I’m living in Barcelona now, and I think it was that move that really did it for me, being back on European soil again. In L.A. you totally lose track of reality. Being confident and full of yourself is kind of how everything works there, so if you show up somewhere and say you’re not really doing anything, they move on to speak to the next person. And that mindset swallowed me up for a while. Getting back to Europe, if you say you’re doing all of this and that you made a ton of money, they tell you to shut up, they tell you you’re a dickhead!

Getting back to Europe reminded me that I have to take care of myself; this isn’t a movie, this isn’t a game, this is my life.

Do you feel like traveling inspires you to work and write or do you usually need some isolation to get that done?

Traveling gives me the hunger to get home and work. Because otherwise if I’m just home, I’m not incredibly motivated. When I’m away and can’t have it, and I’m surrounded by new music around me all the time, I just want to get home to start working on new material.

The latest body of work you dropped was “Hue/Nill” earlier this year. Is that something you created on Spanish soil already, or was it something you had put together back in California?

Yeah, I made it in Spain, I got this nice little studio, very unpretentious, inside a little yard that you would never know was there. Got myself gear for the first time – I never owned any gear, I was making all my music with my laptop, a microphone that I’ve owned for about 20 years, which cost me about $400 at the time, and a synthesizer. So I finally bought some stuff, a piano, some guitars, and suddenly all this new music started to come out. And I realized that this work was actually totally unaffected by what was ‘cool’, that was my favourite aspect of it. So that was a nice surprise.

You also write for other artists. Do you enjoy it? I’m sure it helps when you know them on a deeper level (like you do with Banks), but I’m wondering whether you still prefer to write for yourself or not.

I’ve written some of my best stuff when I met artists on the first day. I’ve listened a lot to what they’re doing and I have in my mind a vison of what I’d love for them to be doing or what they do best that I’d like to capitalize on. In my dream scenario, I would love to be able to work with other people who wait for my things, where I have a load of people around inspiring me and therefore rubbing off on the music I’m making myself. But I don’t work that way, I tend to do my best work when I’m by myself. But I would love it if I could curate a situation like that, a house that we’ve rented which is the studio and has people coming in and out that inspire me and that I really like.

"Knowing that there are children of mine that will look back at what I did, if I can’t be proud of the things that I did, that would fucking suck."

Who would some of those people be?

This is the thing, I don’t even know. In my mind, there’s certainly people that I don’t even know, like recently I’ve been listening a lot to Moses Sumney, and I’d love to have him around, but then I don’t know him personally so who knows if that would work out.

Say you end up not signing another album deal. Do you still see yourself keeping your hands in music in some capacity?

Yeah I think so, I think I’m going to start doing some scores this year and stuff like that. I’m too deep in now, and certainly even before SOHN I never considered doing anything else. I love to think that I could or would do something else, but the reality is that I’m always going to be writing music, and I think I’m already established enough that even if it went totally wrong and I became hideously uncool, there would still be enough labels that think I write good songs for other artists and would get me placements here and there. Honestly, I feel really lucky to still be around because most people don’t get that far. I’m very appreciative of the fact that I can still do this and that it’s still growing. And that none of it is based on something that isn’t me.

Do you feel like being married and having a child is affecting your music or career decisions?

It made me way more aware that I could end up having finished my music career without having anything to be proud of at the end of it. Knowing that there are children of mine that will look back at what I did, if I can’t be proud of the things that I did, that would fucking suck. I’m very conscious of that now.

It also becomes a matter of what example you’re setting for them, because if you give up on your dreams then it might make them feel that it’s pointless for them to fight for their own.

Totally. I keep thinking that I’ve figured it out and then I realize that I’m way off. It’s gonna be interesting to look back in a few years and say, “Yeah I didn’t love my second record but I’m at eight now and the fifth one was really good though” or something.

So you’re currently working on this upcoming record?

Sort of. I’ve had a really great realization on this record. Before, I always wrote for a specific record and I always wrote very personal stuff, anything that was in the back of my head would come out. But I also held things back, because I was in a relationship. I wrote Tremors which is about a break up (“My love don’t love me”) when I was still in a relationship! So how could I take that home to my partner? Then Rennen happened and during it I was in relationship that became my marriage, so there was definitely a holding back element there too, because you’re with someone that’s gonna hear your music and you don’t want to hurt their feelings. But the human mind is fucking complex and relationships are really complex and all of those things, good or bad, are totally valid. During this phase of my writing life, I’m actually really happy. I’m as settled as I’ve ever been in my life. But if you hear “Hue/Nill” you’d think I was in a ton of trouble! The truth is that those feelings are still there; I 100% mean both of those songs but I have to be allowed to vocalize and even publicize that those feelings did happen. It doesn’t mean that those feelings are how I feel, but it does mean that they’re how I felt, at one point. I had a really amazing conversation with my wife and she said that anything that I want to put into words and release that’s about us, is absolutely fine. If anything, on the last record she felt that I had lied to my audience, that I only allowed certain parts of myself onto the record and held back other parts because you felt like that wasn’t something you wanted people to see. She said, “You have a responsibility. You’ve only got one chance at doing this, so don’t ever hold back again.”

Listen to more SOHN here. 

I’m here to be the best writer I can be, the best artist I can be, and the truest version of myself that I can be. This is my experimental phase from that point of view. And as a writer, if you can’t write about the most real thing you’ve ever experienced, how can you hold your head up high and say that you’re a writer?