How did you spend a pandemic?
I’m lucky to be a composing musician, so I forced to take part of the concert part, and on the contrary added in the creation, development of inspiration and the like. In fact, I just flipped the switch from concert work to studio work. I took advantage of the fact that there was a lot of time for her.
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I also gained courage and contacted various foreign producers online. I focused on those I had thought of as collaborators in the past.
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Dan Lancaster, who produced your new single Overdosed, was among them?
Yes. We have talked many times with people from my Universal Music label about the names of those who could produce my music. We didn’t want to contact some of them right away, and in the meantime they became so famous that they almost didn’t even answer us.
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We thought, for example, of the producer of the Canadian singer Tate McRae. We had him watched, but suddenly her single flew to the top of the charts and it was clear to us that a girl from the Czech Republic would not get to him just like that.
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Fortunately, the opposite was true of Dan Lancaster. He is a producer and studio engineer, working mainly with Bring Me The Horizon, mixing albums by Blink-182 or 5 Seconds of Summer, and also doing Avril Lavigne. I had him in sight for a long time, his name often appearing in my instagram searches.
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And then it happened that he started watching me on Instagram. I thought if he seemed to like my music, I could call him. He answered me in about fifteen minutes. He wrote that he really likes my music, he watches it and we can work on something together.
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Did he write the song Overdosed?
When we talk about Dan, we’re at the end of her story. Overdosed is one of the few cases where an already developed song came to me. I wasn’t with her master, but it got into my hands in the summer of 2019. At that time, we sent each other musical ideas with the co-author of my composition, Home Chester Travis, whom I met in Berlin and who comes from New Zealand.
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He was here for about three days in January 2020 and we wrote three songs together. We did great and I told him he could come again in April. But he didn’t arrive because of the covid. He flew to New Zealand, where he was stuck, so to speak, and is still there. We communicated with him and two other co-authors of the song Overdosed, who are from Berlin. The four of us are the authors and Dan Lancaster is fifth.
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He changed the original form of the song a lot. I don’t think anyone would take her as he did. In the first phase, I offered it for production to Ondra Fiedler, with whom I did most of my songs. But he honestly told me he didn’t think he was the right person for her. And then I started looking for a new producer and I just came to Dan Lancaster.
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By the way, I returned the first version of the song he sent me. It was too much a disco for my taste. But I wanted to leave its charge in it. The second version was great.
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Is it common that you have been waiting for the final form of the song for almost two years?
Both when. Last year’s Figured It Out was created in one week with everything. It took a long time for Overdosed due to the Covvid era. I think if it hadn’t happened, it would have been released last year and it would have sounded different. But before we agreed with everyone online, it underwent significant development.
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What is it about?
In January last year, we agreed that the topic would be a state of absolute love, when one can barely perceive what is happening around him. He is basically intoxicated, overdosed on love.
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Do you always need to sing about what you believe?
I’m not at all against the fact that the lyrics are just a supplement to the music. For example, many dance songs explicitly require it, in which you usually do not impress with the depth of the text. But it is true that I like to deal with the lyrics, I like to look at them and I like to get advice. Chester Travis is second to me in this.
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I told him several times what idea I wanted in the text, and he suggested a way to do it. He usually made it great. It’s always good to have a partner to help you.
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I do not insist that my texts be 100% authentic. I wrote a few of my own that are fictional. They were already on the first Hearts album. But I always make sure that they sing authentically at concerts and in the studio. Even if it’s just interjection. I think that when the performer is not 100% immersed in the lyrics, it can be heard in the song.
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At the first listening in Overdosed, I was fascinated that you don’t put so much pressure on your rock expression, the so-called rattle…
Do you know what it is? I watch the evolution of my voice. It’s logical, the voice is actually a musical instrument and I will learn to use and control it better, mainly thanks to experience. I learned to save it, to work with it better and to change its color. I use the so-called rattle in the passages that I think belong to them.
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English in the texts also plays a part in this. It’s the language that suits me best as a singer and which I can best give, I call it, feeling.
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Singer Lenny
Photo: Universal Music / Beata Mathé
In the clip for the song Overdosed, you are wearing a beautiful show dress. But it occurs to me that this is not your style. What led you to use them?
This is also related to my development. I like to watch people’s creativity on the street and on social media, and I’ve reached the point where I want to try it on myself. I do it more slowly than other performers, some of whom address their image right at the beginning of their career.
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Before shooting the video for Overdosed, director Ondřej Kudyn and I agreed that it would be very colorful. I didn’t want to be in it in just one dress, we separated the individual scenery not only by expression, but also by imagination.
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Are you already solving your image?
I am no longer so bound by the idea that others have of me. In the last four years or so, I have become more liberated, I do not deal with what others expect from me. In the case of the clip for the song Overdosed, I decided to experiment more.
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You are talking about the artistic side. What is your civilian image?
I walk in what I feel good about. How many times heels are more suitable for my clothes, but I will wear ordinary sneakers because I like them. I’m more of a sports type, I like casual fashion, not so much elegance.
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But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about my clothes. For example, I enjoy watching fashion shows. Even though the dress on them is sometimes too eccentric, I can take something from myself out of a lot of ideas.
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I admire fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. I love her pearl accessories and how she works with them. I also transferred pearls to my new video clip.
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When will you return to the concert stage?
We will perform with the band at a private event at the end of June. On the third day in July, we will start our summer season with a concert in Karlovy Vary. We have several performances over the summer. The highlight of the year will be a concert at last year’s translation at the O2 Universum in Prague on December 9.
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