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Striking New Sounds with Lila Gold

Music
Jan 14, 2020

Striking New Sounds with Lila Gold

Since we last exchanged words with artist Lila Gold back in May, her bi-coastal lifestyle from New York and Los Angeles has shifted to a parameter that is aligning her dreams closer to her reality as an artist.  Since then, the energy and passion for the pop-inspired creative has brought her to the hills of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, where she’s been honing in on her first EP set to release early spring.  

With a new single available for your listening pleasure, “Bedroom” is just the tip of the iceberg to what we can expect to hear on her forthcoming project Buttercup .

Just as you’d think preparing for a first major project is enough to handle, Lila talks to us about balancing  this alongside her artist residency at Future Classic and the involvement she plays with clothing brand Porcelain in New York .  

 

Since the editorial in may, what’s been going on in your life since then?

I’ve been recording and writing a lot. Been going back and forth from New York and LA. Right now I’m in LA but missing New York.  I’ve recorded an ep and the next single comes out soon. I’ve got a couple more singles and the EP comes out at the end of March! I’ve been digging my head into this pretty deep. 

 

Have you submersed yourself fully for this project since May?

I’ve gone fully into music and have been working on a small brand in New York called Porcelain with my good friend.  But I’ve been really immersing myself into writing and recording everyday as of lately. I like to record where I live so I have a set up in my bedroom literally across from my bed so I get stuck to that.  So doing that everyday and sort of been feeling guilty and I’m really hard on myself if I don’t work on this or miss a day, so I’ve been now taking my time on recording this debut EP. I really wanted to have the record process over a length of time. But also the tracks that I chose changed over this time. One day I’ll record my favorite song and say, “Oh I want to release this” and the next day it will happen with another song.  It’s very scattered. It’s been a while to pull everything together and decide what I want to release. In the past I’ve had scattered singles with long periods of time in between so this debut feels real to me along with the consistency of it.  

 

 

When you first started this project, did you have songs ready is this all new material?

I’ve been working on it for about 6 months.  I’ve been writing and recording with a bunch of different people and I found that like all the stuff I wanted to release was self recorded and produced with my dad.  He lives in Australia so we’ve been working remotely. He came to New York a couple months ago and did a few recordings. But it’s really unusual. I work with different people and write with different people but the person I naturally gravitate back to is my dad.

 

Tell us about that dynamic.

It’s really special, it’s unique.  I’ve explored outside of this but i always come back to this. I feel he’s an extension of me and it just feels right. I’ve been working with him since I was a kid and he helps me to pull everything and focus as well as releasing bodies of work. 

 

So tell us about the EP?

It’s titled Buttercup and the newest single is called Bedroom.

 

How did you end up with that title? 

To be honest I didn’t have a title until a month ago and my friend and I were talking and he was at the dog park and yelled Buttercup! He was yelling for another dog and he was like “Yeah this dog is so cute” and that’s pretty much it! It was a pitbull named buttercup and that resonated with me.  

Are you in LA semi permanently? How is switching back and forth 

Yes I’m here semi permanently, I’m doing a residency with Future Classic starting sometime this week.  I’m just going with the flow here and being here and missing NY but it’s actually winter over there.

 

How does the residency work?

It’s over a period of around a month and they team me up with a bunch of collaborators and will see what happens within the time.

 

Do you think your creative process will be different with this pressure of limited time?

Not at all, I put a lot of pressure on myself when it’s just me in my bedroom. I feel the most comfortable when I have that consistency and working under the clock. It feels natural to me.  I think for me it’s just getting as many ideas down at once and working from there and worrying about it later. As long as I’m working on something weekly it works out.  

How has being in LA inspired this project?

I’ve only been here for about 4 months and recorded Bedroom out here.  LA feels a little sleepy to me and kind of hard. I don’t know how people find it easy to create here since everythings at your disposal and you can be more organized with space.  For me, I like feeling unsettled and stimulated from a big city like NY. I feel la has things to def pull from. I don’t like the sleepiness of the city but the dreamyness of it. I like the weird vibe of the night time here.  I think LA is more romantic at night. When the sun goes down and all the lights go on it’s really pretty down the boulevards.  I treat LA like a working place. I don’t feel as culturally attached to it but I like it and I do have a community here.  And there’s plenty of inspirations here but just takes a little bit more of curiosity.  I feel there’s a common thread of this EP and going through a lot of these emotional changes and being in between these changes and how we move.  

 

Take us through bedroom, your first single off the ep

I wrote Bedroom in ny on the guitar during the summertime in. I kind of forgot about it. When i got to LA i told myself I needed to sink my teeth into something and came across it so I recorded it, and it came together in LA.  I did write it in ny during a really brutal sinister summer. It was like satan hot. I was sweating and didn’t have any AC and I was recording this in my bedroom and just wrote about wanting to be in the water! I was feeling so restless and wanted to be out of the city but NY is so fun and lawless during this time.  I had a lot of inbetween days during this time and felt a little depressed. So this was sort of a serenade to myself.  

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So tell us about the shows you opened for?

I had the chance to play with Empress Of in Australia and Wafia in NY! That was a lot of fun.  It was really cool to play in Sydney because a bunch of my old childhood friends and family came to the show.  

 

Any words of inspiration you took from these artists?

Empress Of really commands the stage and the way she was able to trigger drums and her music. It was her and another girl holding down the whole stage and she didn’t need a lot. She had done so much with so little it was tight.  It gave me some light on being able to do things yourself without a big band. I think embracing minimalism is really empowering and you have a lot of freedom. 

 

What music are you listening to nowadays?

Lots of reggaeton and dancehall, two of my favorite genres. Vybz Kartel and Bad bunny. I love Arthur Russell at the moment, Elliot smith, Alex G.  Vegyn’s album is so good. The track “”Nice to Be Alive” by him is so sick. A lot of Young Thug of course, he’s my favorite of all time. Then Ruff Ryderz and DMX.

Any resolutions for the new year and decade?

Just being consistent and keep going! I’m excited for the Future Classic residency.  I’m hyped for that and just keep the fire burning!

 

What do you have planned for the release?

I’ve got a new video coming out for the second single after Bedroom! I’ve got a friend choreographing it who’s an incredible movement artist so we’re shooting that next week.  It’s a team of women and I’m really excited about that.