Words by Harper Mahood
Los Angeles, the city of dreams. A place for aspiring artists to climb the creative ladder, traversing open mic nights, coffee shop pop-ups, gallery exhibitions and, for the lucky ones, sold out shows. Lael Neale’s forthcoming album, Altogether Stranger, is a self-proclaimed ‘child of Los Angeles,’ detailing the trials and tribulations of her life in the City of Angels.
Neale has spent much of her adulthood living in Los Angeles, aside from a brief period during the global pandemic when she returned to her rural Virginia hometown. Altogether Stranger was written, recorded and will be released in the time since Neale’s return to the city. The album explores her internal struggle with polarizing environments, anxieties about the acuteness of the city and a general questioning of her place in the world.
Off Shelf: The title Altogether Stranger feels oddly reflective of the times that we have been living in these past couple years with the pandemic, isolation and the all over political climate. I’m curious about how you conceptualized the title of the album, Altogether Stranger?
Lael Neale: All the things you just said are true. I was writing a song and the chorus was saying that I’m an altogether-stranger. Because of how weird the times feel, it’s almost like, ‘am I the weird one or are the times weird?’ Obviously many other people feel that way too but I think a lot of the songs on the album are kind of illuminating that feeling of being a stranger in a strange land.
OS: Completely, it’s very current. The album also tackles themes of polarity, which has been a common thread throughout a lot of your work. What is the significance of polarity, both in a musical sense and more on a personal level, for you?
LN: I feel like there’s been a rift in my whole life in terms of where I want to live and what I want my environment to be. I grew up on a farm in a very rural, idyllic kind of place. Then I moved to Los Angeles, which is pretty much the polar opposite of farm life, but I love Los Angeles so much. I’ve lived here for a long time and largely because of the people in the community. I’ve felt very isolated and alienated in Virginia because there’s just not the same kind of common understanding amongst the people that live there. And so I’ve felt like an alien there, but then I’ve also felt like an alien in the city. That’s one of the fundamental splits in me.
I also feel like so many things are getting pushed further and further to the extremes and I’m always trying to straddle those worlds so that I can come to a middle ground. Technology is another one. How can you live in this modern world but also retain a sense of connection to your humanness? There’s many polarities that are becoming more distinct and stronger now which is what I’m always grappling with in the music and art I make.
OS: Do you mind telling me about what brought you to Los Angeles in the first place?
LN: I actually moved to San Francisco first, right after college in 2009. I knew that I loved California but I was not very into San Francisco. I’d always heard terrible things about Los Angeles. I feel like on the east coast, especially in rural places, there’s a lot of brainwashing about what Los Angeles is like. And obviously what’s exported to the world is Hollywood一 which is not at all the experience that I have in L.A. I’m on the east side and it’s just a beautiful little suburb一so I was resisting it.
I went to visit a friend of mine who had moved to L.A., and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been lied to this whole time, this is heaven.’ I loved it immediately. I loved that the sun was always shining. I loved the palm trees and the people are truly one of a kind. I’ve never met as many people that I immediately click with as I have down here.
OS: After moving to Virginia for three years before returning to LA again, how has that change impacted you and your conceptualization of your music?
LN: I’m actually moving out of L.A. again on Saturday. This album was written, recorded and will be released exactly in the window of about a year and a half that I have lived in L.A. again, and I’m leaving right as I release it. The album is a child of Los Angeles. It’s like another character in the album. All the songs are my attempt to process and make sense out of what I have felt here. Even though this feels like home, I also became kind of sensitized to the city after living in the country for a few years. Everything just felt more intense and acute. I think the songs definitely reflect that there was a lot of anxiety and really questioning where I belong in the world, because in some ways I feel like I belong so much here, and in other ways, it’s like my body is telling me to get out. That I need to be somewhere quiet and peaceful and completely different. So the record is grappling with that.
OS: What prompted the decision to move back to Virginia?
LN: I want to be somewhere that is more spacious so that I can live in a more free-flowing way. Also the practical aspect of paying a lot of money to live in the city, whereas I can live for free in a rural place and be more free to tour, to move around and to try out different places. It’s a liberating move.
OS: I’ve also read how you are influenced by the Velvet Underground. Are there other artists who inspire your work or who you hold close to your heart when you’re making music?
LN: As a teenager I got completely obsessed with Joni Mitchell and I learned all of her songs on the guitar in all these really strange tunings. That was my first foray into learning music, which is pretty distinct in the way that she writes, and her melodies are very complex. I almost don’t ever listen to her anymore because it’s so complex. Something I love about bands like the Velvet Underground is that it can be very simple but super catchy. The melodic sense is really remarkable. Joni Mitchell was a huge influence, but I had to undo some of that more complex songwriting that got into me because I feel like the simpler the better in a lot of ways.
I love Spaceman Three and Spiritualized too, which are on the same branch as the Velvet Underground in that the songs can be just two chords and they’re very droning. I’m really drawn to that. What I did take from Joni Mitchel, and what I still keep, is the attention to words and trying to infuse everything with poetry and meaning. So I’ve almost fused the two. It’s like taking Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan’s approach to crafting the words of a song, and then the Velvet Underground, Spaceman Three musical approach, which is much more simple.
OS: On the more technical side of things I’m curious about your creative process. What went into conceptualizing Altogether Stranger and how you take something from a concept and put it into fruition in your music?
LN: It’s all very intuitive. I really don’t think about it very much. After it’s made is when I go back and make sense out of it. Even the title [for Altogether Stranger] didn’t come until later.
I usually write a bunch of songs for a couple months and then I have a stack of thirty or so to start recording. Then it starts making sense, which ones seem to go together, or balance each other out, or create enough dynamic in it.
When I write I usually do it first thing in the morning. I have some coffee and then just start playing an instrument and whatever comes through, comes through. If I write in a concentrated period of time, like a month or two, everything thematically matches because I’m processing what’s happening at the moment. That’s how the album came together.
OS: Did you have to cut out a lot of your material since it’s a shorter length album? Was there a lot of extra that you left out?
LN: There’s a ton more, we had talked about just making two albums at once, but I think sometimes, you know what the best [songs are]. I may have 30 songs, but I have to be brutal and pick the best ones. You do lose some potentially good ones because maybe they sound too similar to other songs that you choose. I think some of these other ones will live on another record. I’ve also started a Substack, so I share a lot of recordings that might never get officially released on that.
OS: Your music is guided by a lo-fi DIY ethos. I’m curious about the importance of DIY to you and how you are able to maintain the DIY spirit as you gain a larger following and thereby more success as an artist?
LN: It’s kind of everything to me. I really can’t imagine an instance where I would get anyone else involved in it, especially with what’s happening with AI now. The way that some things are produced is machine-like where everything starts sounding the same. I feel like the only way to counteract that is to do everything myself. All the music videos, recordings and the art. I don’t really have anyone else involved because it’s a pure expression of what I’m trying to convey without any interference. That’s what makes it feel human to me.
Being okay with it being imperfect is also a huge thing for me. I’ve been a perfectionist forever and I think that part of the DIY thing is the challenge of letting things be imperfect. I can’t do everything as well as other people can. I’m leaning into that because it’s authentically me.
So interesting! Thank you!