Sondre Lerche: On Creativity
Marianna
Do you have a routine for entering into a creative headspace?
Sondre
I feel it goes on most of the time. I just choose to make room for it sometimes when I work or focus on creating something. But I'm always brewing on something, and if I'm in the process of a song, it's on my mind constantly, while I'm doing other things. It’s like trying to find the right key for the lock in my mind. And then I can sit down and reap some of the rewards of that ongoing process.
Of course, sometimes nothing works or comes of it. But I've done this for long enough that I trust it will happen again if I just stay engaged and hungry. Inspiration, to me, is the ability to see and create opportunities.
Marianna
Do you have habits you've built for yourself to foster creativity?
Sondre
It is my job to seek out new kicks. I need to get excited and feel I'm learning something from other people's work. And there's so much good stuff around. As a musician, you have the entire history of music at your disposal, and also the best and worst of contemporary music. It's all there for you. And it's my opinion that if you are not hearing anything that excited you, you're not paying close enough attention, or looking in the right place.
Marianna
Where do you think ideas come from?
Sondre
A need to formulate and structure your emotions, desires, or visions of the world. It's like tidying up. And also, for me: I want to make beautiful things, even if no one cares. It gives me joy.
Marianna
What does creativity mean to you?
Sondre
Being able to switch modes, and roll with the punches. If one thing falls apart, you build something else on its remains, and the universe can feel balanced again.
Marianna
When do your best ideas hit you?
Sondre
I do a lot of editing in my mind when I go to the movies or see a show. It immediately starts my own process.
Marianna
How would you describe your creative process?
Sondre
Messy, but ongoing -- it never stops. I just make more room for it to unfold in certain periods and focus on other things at other times. If you wanna do it in the long run, it requires a bit of discipline. I don't believe in waiting for inspiration to hit. You'll wait forever. The only way to get better is to do. Create, now. If it's not your best work, at least you got it out of the system, and now there's room for something else, perhaps something that feels better.
Editing yourself is key, but don't edit too early in the process. I try to only share my best songs with my audience, on my albums, and in concerts, but I still have to write the bad ones too, to get them out of my system. I just try not to release them.
Marianna
Has quarantine affected your creative process?
Sondre
Not a big change for me. I work alone most of the time and need alone time to do my thing. Nowadays I'm mainly working on label things, promo for the new album, and getting videos and materials ready, so it's a different kind of creativity. All touring and promo plans got canceled, so you improvise. Definitely feeling creative, and thankful for the internet.
Marianna
What unexpected turns did your life take to lead you to become who you are today?
Sondre
All kinds and I don't think I'd wanna be without almost any of them. Erase one thing, and it affects something essential that follows. I am all that stuff, for better or worse.
Marianna
What sources of inspiration do you use to foster creativity in your work?
Sondre
I like to run and listen to ambient and abstract music. It opens my mind to whatever I need to think about, or it empties it if that's what I need. It's great. Sometimes I come home refreshed after a long run, or I'll come home with a ton of ideas I need to write down or capture. But it's always a good feeling.
Marianna
What creative accomplishments are you most proud of?
Sondre
Getting better at what I love doing, and having the work feel more intimate and accomplished as I push myself. I'm proud of all my work, but the songs on Patience are my best work so far, and it's a good feeling to share that with people. It's very meaningful to me.
Marianna
What do you think is something that the most creative people in the world have in common?
Sondre
I think creativity can be unlocked in everyone, and some of us are lucky to be able to access and cultivate that side of ourselves more freely, or earlier on, and then we go with it. While some shut down that side, or don't get to exercise it too often. So I don't think there are creative people on one side, and non-creatives on the other.
I feel lucky that I've been able to channel my feelings and my passion from an early age. But I think persistence is key for me at least. I started trying to write songs when I was 8 and wrote my first real good one at 16. That's at least 10 000 hours of writing terrible songs, on the way to writing one good one. So I can understand if it's not for everyone.
Marianna
How do you make sense of chaos in your life?
Sondre
Chaos is always an opportunity to improvise, which I enjoy. Touring is chaos, which is the exhausting part of that. But in songwriting, I usually write what I need to hear. Recently I needed a sense of serenity, and it's that need that drives Patience. The idea that with patience, chaos can become serenity.
Marianna
Why do you think people get stuck on problems?
Sondre
There are so many factors. Some people are more comfortable remaining in the problem-zone, than transitioning into a zone where they no longer have an excuse. But some problems are unsolvable due to things beyond your control. Some people live with unsolvable problems. And it forces them to approach life very differently. Life is very unfair.
Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something fishy. The fact that I can make music I feel with my entire being for a living, means I'm a very privileged person. I'm not a millionaire, I'm not a superstar, I don't come from money, I work hard doing what I love and I accept that the world isn't always going to embrace what I do. And I forget problems and bad memories pretty easily, I won't harp on it. And I get great joy from very little victories every day. I don't really get too excited when things go really well. I'm happy, but I try to stay in balance. That's my job.
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About Sondre Lerche:
Sondre Lerche is a Los Angeles-based Norwegian singer, songwriter, film score composer, and artist. His eclectic and melodic debut, Faces Down, written and recorded at 16, was listed as one of the most remarkable debuts of 2002 by Rolling Stone, also winning a Norwegian Grammy for Best Newcomer.
Anticipated follow-up Two Way Monologue was a 2004 Album Of The Year in Uncut, and he toured extensively across the world both solo, with his band, and later with the likes of Air, Stereolab Elvis Costello, and St Vincent. In 2006, alone, he scored a Billboard Top 5 Jazz album, Duper Sessions, recorded the rambunctious Phantom Punch, as well as composing the score and soundtrack for the Steve Carell/Juliette Binoche hit movie Dan In Real Life, which included a duet with Regina Spektor. Lerche has also collaborated on stage with Milton Nascimento and Philip Glass. Said the LA Times about 2009's lush Heartbeat Radio: "No matter what genre he's working in (...) his refrains always pay off". Lerche co-wrote the song "Dear Laughing Doubters" for the 2010 comedy Dinner For Schmucks.
In 2011 he made his second appearance on David Letterman's Late Show, performing from his spirited self-titled (and first self-released) album, while in 2012 he had the honor of appearing on an official postage stamp in Norway. The 2014 release of his score for Sundance indie-hit movie The Sleepwalker, was followed by Please, which Popmatters called "a pop masterpiece”, naming it one of the finest albums of the year. 2017’s groovy and flamboyant Pleasure was a "thrilling sonic reboot", according to Allmusic, followed by an extensive and intense 100-date world tour, and, in 2018, the stripped-down come-down, Solo Pleasure + music for the Norwegian children's television icon Fantorangen.
With his 2020 album Patience set for release June 5th, Lerche continues fruitful collaborations with his core band; New Jersey-based drummer/percussionist Dave Heilman, bassist Chris Holm, keyboardist Alexander von Mehren, and producers Kato Ådland and Matias Tellez (of Young Dreams), all Bergen-based. The album also reunites Lerche with mixing engineer Jørgen Træen (Faces Down, Two Way Monologue, Duper Sessions), and world-renowned Philip Glass-violinist Tim Fain (Please), as well as introducing an unexpected but winning team-up with legendary lyricist/composer Van Dyke Parks, who has worked with everyone from The Beach Boys and Randy Newman too, more recently, Joanna Newsom, Rufus Wainwright, and Skrillex. The sweeping Parks-arranged chamber-pop ballad "Put the Camera Down", is very much the narrative foil to "That's All There Is”, as Lerche argues with the ability to capture everything at your fingertips. Sometimes it is, in fact, preferable to just experience the moment you're in, warts and all.
Patience's centerpiece, "Why Would I Let You Go?” is unusually and intensely personal for Lerche. The result of a hermetic all-night writing session in his Brooklyn apartment, the song paved the may for what Lerche describes as the album’s songs of “radical sincerity”. It took perhaps the longest journey from its creation towards finding its place on the record, while also signifying the definitive moment Lerche realized the thematic difference in Pleasure and Patience's narratives. Devastatingly powerful in its heartfelt reverence and fragile insecurity, "Why Would I Let You Go?" functions as an excellent benchmark for the emotional journey of Lerche's unofficial trilogy, and highlights Patience as an album rooted in acceptance and finding peace. A feeling further enhanced by the cinematic “I Love You Because It’s True’, the first song Lerche wrote after settling into his newfound bungalow-life in Hollywood.
If Pleasure reveled in giving yourself up to the here and now, so too does Patience. Swapping out hedonistic pursuits as a distraction from existential ennui and the fear of being known, Patience finds Lerche fully willing to surrender to the mounting tide of introspective inquiry. Lerche allows Patience to be an album of contradictions, where dueling thoughts and feelings coexist and are weighed with equal measure. Even as he ruminates on life's big moments and even bigger questions, Lerche is optimistic, full of love and empathy, self-critical, and self-aware. It’s a delicate tightrope to traverse, but Lerche does so with an almost effortless grace and a bit of humor. For Lerche, Patience isn't just a record, it's a mantra for how he hopes to live his life: present-focused, and resisting the urge to rush when it feels like time is slipping away.