Blue Mountains native Leuras unveils the process behind her debut EP, “South Van Ness,” recorded at San Francisco’s Hyde Street Studios
In an exclusive glimpse into her debut EP, multi-instrumentalist and artist Leuras, delves into her song writing process, gifting us spontaneous and reflective collection of experiences.
Relationships and places serve as primary inspirations, crafting a deeply personal connection between her music and life’s nuances.
With over 20 songs awaiting recording, her music blends emotion, melody, and meaning. Join Leuras on a concise yet evocative journey through dreamy alternative rock, where each chord becomes a resonant echo of life’s intricate moments.
Multi-instrumentalist artist Leuras on experience and songwriting
All good songs have a unique story that led to their creation. My songs aren’t written on cue – they’re a funneling of emotions from experiences that come together at a particular moment. I can’t time them.
Generally I need a lot of exposure to outside influences to write a good song. That outside influence can be from many things: I’ll start with people.
My relationships with various people in my life have been a huge influence on my songwriting. It’s my most effective way to resolve feelings from complex experiences or to capture great moments and memories.
I write about everything from brief encounters with people and experiences of love, to the special things I do at my friends houses like playing records and burning sage. The words come more easily when the feelings are stronger or a situation has affected me so much that it’s hard to think about anything else.
An ability and openness to articulate emotions is vital to getting my words on paper. I’ve tried to develop this over the years and have spent a lot of time reading about interpersonal experiences and the psychology of human behaviour. It’s another interest of mine.
Once that experience with a person has taken place, once the emotions from that experience build up inside me, only then am I able to write the song. Sometimes I might get 2–3 songs out of an experience. Sometimes only 1, but it might be a really good one.
Another outside influence is places: it could be a view, a cityscape, a place I like visiting, or sitting watching the moonrise and drinking black coffee.
I wrote a song in the pandemic called “coffee and moonlight” because each night when I was stuck at home I would watch the moonrise in the east from a gorgeous bay window in a San Francisco apartment, and the next morning I’d drink a fresh brew of black coffee from that same position.
It gave me a sense of routine and calmness at a time when there was so much upheaval.
All the songs I’ve written are deeply personal experiences, but I’m open to sharing them to make art. Sometimes when I sing a song today that I’ve written a long time ago, the song feels less about the experience of that situation that inspired the song, and more about the sound.
The meaning of the moment I wrote about is less significant, but sometimes the meaning lingers, and I hope this is what resonates with listeners throughout time.
The next thing in the process is the opening chord, then the chord progression. Once I have that laid down, the lyrics and the composition of the song are written together, simultaneously.
I can hear in my head where the chords should go, where the chord progression should resolve, and I let the lyrics write the story of what happened and I focus on expressing how I feel.
When I finish writing a song, it almost feels like an emotional release, like the experience is somewhat resolved, right on cue, with that final chord.
It can sometimes be done in a few hours, or a day, or over a weekend. Sometimes I might come back to it over 3 weekends, but it usually doesn’t take longer than that to finish a song.
I have over 20 songs waiting to be recorded, that’s a goal for later this year, and I’m sure more songs will be written this year.
Words by Leuras
