Pop Levi

question: We are loving your new song “Down To Sleep”, can you tell us a little about the backstory of the song? When was it written and recorded?
answer: Awww thanks! “Down To Sleep” is one of my favs from the new record, I’m really into the stripped-down, super-honest sound it has. It was co-written and recorded with a friend of mine in my mountainside studio on a tiny Greek island on the evening 8th January 2023. We adapted the lyrics from poetry my friend had composed and the music came very quickly and naturally so we made a voice note on my phone so as not to forget it. I liked the intimate feel and revealing performance of the demo so much that we decided to overdub drums, percussion, glockenspiel, Moog, organ and backing vocals. The whole thing was recorded in first takes and took less than an hour to complete.
question: What has the last 15+ years been like for you releasing music under the Pop Levi moniker? What is your personal favorite song you’ve put out to date?
answer: Yes, it’s been almost 20 years since 2004 when my first solo single was put out on the Invicta Hi-Fi label that was run by Daniel Hunt from Ladytron, who I was playing bass guitar for at the time. Since then there’s been 7 solo albums released through labels Ninja Tune, Boiled, Lo and the most recent is on my Dive Up imprint. It’s been a journey and I’ve been lucky enough to explore many different ways of making records; different approaches to writing and recording, different studios, different countries, different collaborators etc. Touring the first album around the world was a life-changing event for me – maybe one day I’ll tour again and play out the best of all the albums. Impossible to choose a favourite song of my own, really, but if I had to I guess it might be “From The Day That You Were Born” – the emotion of it still sounds so pure and I like the blend of Psychedelic production with a deep cut True Love song.
question: Where have you lived and where do you currently live? What has the experience of relocating been like for you?
answer: When I made the first singles and then the first album ‘The Return To Form Black Magick Party’ I was living in Liverpool where I had been studying music some years before and stayed because the music scene was so vibrant at the time. Then, when I got the record deal with Ninja Tune and created Counter Records with them I relocated with my live band to Echo Park in Los Angeles. This was a truly insane time for us; four rockers moving from Liverpool to Los Angeles to promote an album with live concerts, TV performances, radio spots and getting stuck into the endless night life…you can imagine. The highlight of this for me was playing Coachella in 2007, before it was a world-known music festival and there was only one weekend, it was a very special time. Then I stayed in Los Angeles for the next 12 years, continuing with my Pop Levi records, collaborating with and producing The Weeknd, Childish Gambino and Ariel Pink, creating and running a monthly rave party in downtown Los Angeles called Bouncy Castle, DJing, dabbling in fashion photography, exhibiting my oil paintings in solo art shows on the West Coast and living in a 1920s wooden Craftsman cottage in Highland Park on the East side of LA. Just before Covid I decided to spend some months on a Greek island and then the world changed and I ended up staying here and building a studio in my house, which is where the entirety of the ‘Island Girls’ album was recorded. I love travel and living in different places, The intense change in surroundings always sparks off new creative ideas which I thrive upon and work hard to capture in my lyrics and music. Living on a tiny island is the polar opposite of living in Los Angeles and it affords me the time to work on records where I play and sing everything myself, which is one of my favorite ways to make my songs. There are almost no distractions here and it feels like living in a never-ending creative playground.
question: If you could collaborate with any musician ever, dead or alive, who would it be and why? What is your go-to album when you’re feeling nostalgic?
answer: Kate Bush! But Kate in ‘85. Ever since I was a kid I was in love with the ‘Hounds Of Love’ album, the curious cocktail of sensuality and sexuality in her voice, the whispers and screams, I would love to have those all over my records. And I would love to play drums on her records! I don’t really ever feel nostalgic, or at least I try not to. But if you mean which records take me back to early days of being turned on to music I would say that these are some of my most influential at a very early age… Prince – ‘Sign ‘O’ The Times’. My aunt gave me a cassette copy of this to listen to on my walkman when I was 13 in 1990. The album was three years old by that time but it was brand new to me and I vividly remember the orgasm scene in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” blowing my teenage mind into pieces. I already knew everything by The Beatles and Pink Floyd but I’d never heard anything like that before, and never knew that such explicit imagery could exist in music, it changed me forever. Whenever I hear it I’m always taken back to that moment and inspired all over again. ABBA – ‘Arrival’. My mother had this on cassette in the car and I knew every single moment of it backwards by the time I was 10. The vocals are top-tier alien/angelic. So many searing-hot Abba moments on that album and it’s definitely still my favorite record of theirs. Carly Simon – “You’re So Vain”. Again, it was another favorite on tape in the car when I was very young and I get shivers whenever I hear this song now. I never play it and I’m not sure if I really even like it but it’s definitely a genius Pop song and I wish I had written it!
question: What is a childhood memory that sticks out to you the most?What is your ultimate goal for Pop Levi?
answer: I wake up in the middle of the night and there’s a storm outside. I want to go and see my mother and father in their room and in a hurry I try to jump the set of stairs that divides my room and the landing opposite. But I’m young and I trip and fall down the stairs into the cold and dark. As I’m lying there my eyes start to adjust and I’m looking at the closed door of the dining room. With nothing but the sound of the roaring wind outside I’m paralyzed with fear as I watch the handle of the door start to move. Then, with lightning speed, the door opens and a hand comes through and grabs me and pulls me into the blackness with a jolt. Still trying to work out if this was a dream or not. My ultimate goal is to continue making the best records that I can, be inventive and uncompromising, and one day breakthrough into the main stream and make some hit records for myself and for other artists! Love!