- It is certainly a strange time.
It is very nice,
to even under these extreme circumstances,
it's very nice to catch up with you.
It's been a minute since I have caught up with you.
So I hope all has been well.
- Yeah, I know, it's been a while.
I mean everything's been great.
We were really on a role
and then this thing happened.
So everything's sort of been a little slow now,
but it's actually given me a lot of time
to kind of go back into the lab
and like fix things and clean things and,
I don't know, I'm just trying to see the silver lining
in all of this, you know?
I'm trying to put a positive spin on everything
so I can at least try and help whoever wants help
and kind of follows me or you know, listens to my music
and tries to like, you know, get something out of it really.
- Yeah.
What has, first of all, where are you
and where have you been over the past few weeks?
- I'm at home.
I'm in the UK.
I'm quarantining with the family.
It's been about 15 days now, so we should all be okay
at this point, but, yeah.
We're just trying to keep to ourselves
until we get a better idea of what's going on.
- Yeah.
What, have, I want to get into How to be Lonely,
the song and video in a second.
Have you been able to, you know, flex those creative muscles
at all over the past few weeks
and just, you know, write or tinker on new songs
or what has that been like?
- Yeah it's actually really refreshing, you know.
There's not a lot of people around
and so you know you can go back into your laptop
and look at some old ideas and try and sort of like
finish things off that you would never really
have time to do.
I have a lot of friends that are in the same boat
that are sort of sending over ideas
and we're just kind of bouncing things off one another.
So it feels a little bit like, you know, a really nice
refreshing back to basic music routine,
which I love.
You know, I'm just kind of singing on some guitar chords
and piano chords and just some riffs and that.
Just something that hasn't got that much going on
and it actually feels really nice and you know,
it's quiet, so there's just a lot of time to reflect.
- Yeah.
Have you, has that been influencing
what you're thinking about lyrically
just in terms of, you know,
I think everybody's wondering what kind
of art is going to be, to result from this time period
and this strange time in the world.
Have you let that seep into your, into your lyrics at all?
- Yeah, but I've also tried to keep it as minimal
as possible.
More about emotions rather than what's actually happening
in the world because I just feel like, you know,
I don't know about other writers,
but I just like to really speak with my feelings
and my emotions and I've also been wanting
to kind of find a record that I can write
that makes me also feel like I want to dance
in this strange time.
So I'm also writing things like that
because I just don't feel like,
I just feel like writing a great upbeat record right now
is what I need.
So that's just what I'm doing.
And I'm really good at those.
So, you know, I try to stick to that.
- What have you been doing just outside of music
in terms of just staying sane
and you know, keeping mental health in mind?
- I've been working out.
I've been doing home videos, which are hell.
Because every time I look away,
you have to like pause and try and go back.
It's just like, I don't know how people
do this all the time.
I've been doing some painting.
I've been doing some cooking.
I've been reading a lot.
FaceTiming my family abroad all the time and my friends.
I don't know.
That's all I've been trying to do.
I've been trying to stay productive.
Have, you know, conference calls with my team
and my company so we can really get, you know,
to see what's going on and things like that.
- Got it.
Well that all sounds good.
That all sounds positive.
I wanted to ask about How to be Lonely
which came out a few weeks ago
and the video I believe came out last week.
Where, so, you know, this song's in the works
before we all have to figure out how to be isolated.
Where did this song come from
and why did it feel like the right time to put it out?
- It's so crazy because obviously
it's called How to be Lonely.
I mean you couldn't even make it up, honestly,
at this point.
It came out a few weeks ago.
I did it with Lewis Capaldi.
It was just a moment in my life where I heard that record
and I was like, oh my gosh, this is a really cool,
I guess, perception of what people think a breakup song is.
And it's a good angle
and I just don't feel like a lot
of people talk about actually being alone
and they usually think, oh, God, it sucks to be alone.
So I just wanted to put a spin on it
and see that it's okay, to I guess at times,
no matter how cliche it sounds to be alone,
or at one with yourself.
And so, that's what How to be Lonely is about.
It's definitely a breakup song,
but from a different perspective.
- Yeah.
And then the music video, I mean,
it was some really wild set pieces in this visual.
I wanted to ask about, first of all, where did you,
when and where did you film that video?
- I filmed How to be Lonely in LA
in the top of January when I was taking my tonsils out
and it was before all this lockdown stuff happened
and me and Dave did a 72 hour day.
Dave Meyers is my favorite director.
We sat and thought about this whole concept
and everything looking
like a how to be lonely metaphor almost.
And so, I wanted to do all these things
like standing on eggshells, being hugged by a bear,
taking over the world with an alien, what else?
I can't even---oh, oh, the lying in the silk
with my heart on my chest.
All these are metaphors about different emotions
of how to go through a breakup, so, yeah.
- Was the scene with the eggs, were those actual eggs?
- Yes, those were real eggs.
- [Jason] What the heck?
- So the thing was, yeah they were real eggs
and Dave was like, okay, so you're just gonna really
just get into this now.
And I was like, huh?
And anyway, I did because I am a trooper
and I'd do anything for the act.
And what happened was it went into places
that I think are a bit inappropriate
to say in this interview.
But honestly, it was like the most amazing experience.
And then I Googled it.
And I think that it's healthy for your skin and stuff.
So I was just kind of like trying to do two things at once.
- [Jason] The new skincare routine.
Do we--- - Yeah, just jump
in a bath of eggs.
- (laughing)
That's incredible.
Yeah, I know, the song's great and I'm curious
as to, you know it's place on a larger project from you.
- Yeah, well I don't know if this is gonna be a part
of a larger project because I wanted to do this
like a solo single from me at this point.
But, you know, with my larger project, it's definitely,
this third album of mine is far,
by far, one of the most exciting things
I've ever been a part of.
It's just like, I'm turning it 360.
It's music like I've never done.
I'm introducing live instrumentation
and I'm really experimenting with other artists
that, from completely different genres
that I wouldn't usually work with
and just seeing what happens.
It's just a big old experiment and I think
that might be what this album is, just a cool experiment.
It's just really fun.
It's full of like life and it's all the artists
that I really actually just like right now,
so we'll see how that goes.