In this interview with film maker and ultra talented Logan Lynn, we covered the album, some personal history, addiction, and visuals in his work that are very striking in telling his stories. I sat down with Logan Lynn right before his album came out this June, ‘Softcore, and it’s anything but. This man’s work is deep, very intense, and plenty of food for thought with some eccentric visuals (the full audio of this interview can be streamed here).
Jeremy Hinks: Logan, Thanks for the time.
Logan Lynn: Thanks for having me on.
JH: So the new album, called ‘Softcore’, I have to say, is some of the gayest content I’ve heard since “Man On Man”.
LL: Well, then my work here is done, everyone go get the record, happy pride. I think it’s great that there are so many “in your face” queer musicians out there making music, but in Rock n Roll, queer is still unusual and it’s beautiful to see.
JH: Well, back when I was in high school, I got into Pansy Division. It was because we were just handing each other punk tapes, and they were one I was handed. I thought “Wow this is, new.”
LL: And few and far between back then now we have more folks in the genre.
JH: Yeah the queer core was loud, punk, and in your face. Like GAYC/DC, you hear the name, and you know what they are about.
LL: I know those guys too, I’m all for loud gay wildness-in-your-face music, so sign me up.
JH: So are you in Portland or Idaho? “
LL: I’m in Idaho right now, today, but I have been between Portland and Idaho for the last 25 years. I came to Idaho to make this record and film and heading back to Portland in August full time.
JH: Well, with the prominent religion up there, I’m in Salt Lake.
LL: Yeah, it’s been a long time since I saw a restaurant with a rainbow flag and said “Let’s eat here, we’re safe”, but that’s been happening here. I love certain things about the surrounding area but the culture is not one of those things. Though my body is in Idaho, my heart is already in Portland, I miss the music scene, I miss my friends, I miss my studio, I miss the rain. All the things I thought I hated, I really love and miss, I gave it all up for a man of all things. My main experience has been, aside from extreme homophobia, is the fact that it’s cold here, and the multilayers, I look forward to moderate temperatures again.
JH: So, I loved the record, I’ll do a deep dive into your catalog, with a scalpel and I dissect the music and the visuals.
LL: Awesome, elective surgery, I “Elect” to be here.
JH: What I loved about your work, is that you play around with visuals in your storytelling, I can see that you LOVE telling a story. I was watching “To Be of Good Use”, and the lyrics were “Most of my fantasies are making someone else cum, to be of good use” It’s all there in a minor key, then the line to be of use like a corkscrew, and then a horseshoe?
LL: Yeah we would have to get Bill Callahan on the line, that’s a cover of his song. Someone put that on a mix CD for me in 1998, and that one mattered to me, when I first heard him say those lines, it really resonated with me, and those lines were my feelings, trying to be useful in the world. When I was putting this record together, it was important to me to start it with something I love. It’s my favorite song in the world, and it was true foreshadowing, starting calm, then ending up in a wild dance party.
JH: Oh really? That wasn’t in the notes, I just got the music, no notes on it. Yes, just started very Sigur Ros, Godspeed You! Black Emperor song, then into CHVRCHES.
LL: Yeah, I think it’s great that you didn’t know it was a cover, cause I wanted to make it my own.
JH: Ok, so like when Jackie and Sugar Plumb Ferry, when they all realized that song was acknowledging them (in the legendary “Walk on The Wild Side” by Lou Reed). And the shout-out meant so much to them. So the visuals, you are getting dressed, in the shower, then at first glance, the frills looked like Big Bird. Then the Finger Painting in the shower.
LL: Yes, as one does. I will say that we wanted to evoke cum, somehow, that was where we landed, it was easier to do this masculine-feminine idea of cum, with the colors instead of trying to be on the nose.
JH: Cause that theme of the shower pops up in other videos. And please tell me you are a CHVRCHES fan, cause that had such a similar feel for that.
LL: Oh yes, I take that as high praise, and Lauren Mayberry and her solo career, are also fantastic.
JH: So you are obviously the filmmaker, and the outfits are getting really “Arty”, what was the point of the fluff and frills going back and forth?
LL: I think the idea was to go forward with masculine/feminine traditional ideas of those, I have a beard, and I’m in a mask in the shower, and in a gown, I wanted to be pronounced in being both.
JH: So, I noticed some “Naked and Famous” type sounds, and then some newer “New Order” and I LOVED it. It’s a great album, musically, and the content. I think you and Man on Man would be a hell of a good show. So, the song, “I’m Just a Hole, sir”.
LL: (Laughing) Making my parents proud with every song.
JH: Well, you went from that video, switched outfits, then walked out the door into the next part of the story. It looks like you had a lot of fun doing this.
LL: Yes, I love playing dress up, and making the songs mean something else, besides just what the song is doing, I like to bring it to life in new ways.
JH: Well, with the jacket, then the coat over the top, I was wondering where were we going with this. Because it’s a feminine dress, but feminine 1960s Italian, and then all you need is the big sunglasses and you are Sophia Loren with that outfit. And then the streets were Idaho?
LL: Yes we shot all the film in Boise, we had a lot of interactions with the townspeople there.
JH: Was it apprehensive?
LL: We got shooed away a couple of times, people saying “You can’t shoot here” in public places. But at one point in the video, a ghost showed up in the video, it was by a Halloween walk. It’s always fun making videos like I do, the visual part is just as important as the sound part. The clothes that I wore were so heavy, it was hot, and I was tired by the end of it from the weight of the clothing.
JH: Well, mission accomplished, and you told a story different than what the lyrics were saying. Let’s see “I’m just a hole sir, and I don’t need you, you can touch me, I don’t love you, I don’t like you, I don’t want you”..
LL: Oh yes, an old-fashioned romance song.
JH: Totally…
LL: Well, not that I think it’s original, but the album was written on the tail end of a bad breakup. Like the stages of grief, and staying open to love finding me again. I think that song in the middle of the rage part of whatever stage of grief is. And I was so horney, I had been hurt, in a public break up with a man I had been with for a long time. When that ended I sort of quit the world, I tried to quit the world for a year, and then that year turned into a pandemic, but there I was, ready to be touched, still mad, and needing to be naked.
JH: So imma put on my psychology classes level psychologist hat…. Out on a limb here.
LL: Okay.
JH: I saw that you were trying to get back to a normal life after a relationship killed you. And I was thinking of Lloyd Cole’s album “Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe”.
LL: I don’t know Lloyd Cole.
JH: Oh you heathen… he described this album as “We met, fell in love, then spent the rest of the time shooting each other’s lives to hell”, I remember hearing him say that about the record. I had been through a similar experience with this girl thinking of listening to it. Now I think you need to listen to that one, and from your notes on the album “The dark days of strife to the moments of life-affirming intimacy”. I felt you were saying “I want to get back to normal life, but afraid that even that’s gonna hurt”.
LL: I think the beginning half of the album was this desire to harden up, and close down, and instead staying open, staying soft, and open to this part of the world. I didn’t do the same old shit, that I used to do. I think that’s why I fell in love, why all this was happening, what I wanted was love, connection, and personal life, and to feel safe and secure in a relationship, and that was because I accidentally let the wrong person in and they got too close, doesn’t mean that that dream for my life is off the table for me.
JH: Well congratulations then if that’s what came about.
LL: Yeah, once I gave up, then there it all was, we got engaged last year. I think the good part of the pandemic, is because I’m an introvert, I had to go out and be myself, and then come down from being my public self for the world. So when the pandemic happened I was able to just work, write feel, and make sense of things, and didn’t have to decompress. I got a lot of stuff done out of the pandemic, I got a record deal. Although it was hard to book studio time then.
JH: Are you booking shows?
LL: I can neither confirm nor deny that…. Yet.
JH: So, when you wrote the song “I feel alone when I’m with you”, lyrically, that was a great line to relate to. I had gotten burned, I moved to Boston to get away from her. And when I was dating all these great wonderful girls, I never felt complete with them. I remember making out with this great girl, and I still felt completely alone. You NAILED it with that song, “Everything should be right, but I’m not feeling it”. Queer or straight, you killed it with that.
LL: Thank you, I would rather be alone than feel alone in the presence of someone who is supposed to be with me, that experience to me was so much harder than being alone. So moving through the anger, and accepting change, which was the dominant theme, I felt very “other” in the relationship.
JH: I was gonna say, this one, and “Don’t get weird on me babe” could be a psychology paper. You’re reaching dumb, straight, American, white, guys…
LL: Hey, reaching the new demo!!!!
JH: So did you do the art direction for “Nothing Is Ever Wrong”?
LL: Yeah I did.
JH: So, being in the shower is part of your theme.
LL: Yeah, I love clean.
JH: So aerial shot of the house, very aesthetically pleasing, then you have the line “I was always searching for a bigger liar, cause nothing’s my fault” or “It’s not my life, I don’t need your advice”. I felt like “I have to be in complete control, everything has to look right”, so it makes me think about a certain narcissist leader we all know about.
LL: It was not about that one, but yes it was about a narcissist.
JH: I noticed you walking past the globe, was that symbolic of “I own the world” or was I reading into that?
LL: I think that was on the other side of weird fame, how a person is famous, and how they react to a normal person. It was about me trying to leave something that felt real Hollywood and Fake. That record is “pre-arranged”, “pre-living” phase, that’s still in the middle of the experience. I survived, and this past March I celebrated 16 years of sobriety from cocaine and alcohol. I had so many opportunities to throw in the towel, but instead, I did therapy, made albums, and rescued some very important dogs in my life. I tried to build something, and I was successful, that search for peace, quiet, and love. I had a 16-year addiction, so I had a 16-year sobriety, the first decade of recovery was not great, but the last 6 years were great.
JH: WOW, everything in the world to be proud of there. So, your song “Feed Me To The Wolves”.
LL: Whoa, hearken back to the OLD DAYS.
JH: Yes, you had a little more orange in the bottom of your beard then. That was one hell of a freaky video.
LL: That was on the MTV logo network, that went out to 26 million homes every week, and they were not consenting to gay content, and you can go look at my public posts on that to see where we still are on that.
JH: Yeah, no budget, you had half-naked women, deer, and a guy sharpening the blades, and I’m thinking is he going to butcher the deer, or butcher Logan?
LL: Was still on a lot of cocaine at that time, and there was a lot at the intersection of sexuality and shame, but I think it was cool that I was down to so open about all that. I own all of that in my back catalog, if I had it all to do over again, I would do less raw meat (laughing).
JH: You seem to allow yourself to be degraded and threatened in your videos, you got the knives, and the blood and slashing of meat.
LL: It’s about violence, I was exercising my own demons, I think I was trying to figure that out, safety with people has always been a struggle, it’s all about power and violence and trying to love through that experience.
JH: So who are your influences musically?
LL: I was raised religiously, so Christian acapella, Amy Grant, and also Elliott Smith, REM, and The Dandy Warhols, on the electronic side, I liked Peaches, particularly female vocalists. I wasn’t allowed to listen to classics, my inspiration comes from what I was able to get into in my youth. I was able to sneak through “Jesus Jones” and convinced my parents they were “Jonesin for Jesus” and “The Sundays” cause they were about “Sunday”, I found loopholes to find good music. But I had no way to get David Bowie in the house. I had to steal CDs at the store, put them down my pants, and put them in the Amy Grant case. So the music was making in the early oughts, was cause I was pushing against the culture I was raised in, a racist homophobic conservative environment. I came to that cocaine addiction honestly my man.
JH: So final question, you have the opportunity to say something to that young gay kid in the closet. I am in Utah, you know what happens to those kids here.
LL: I would say stay the course, wait till it’s safe, get away from those people who don’t understand you. There is a community of people ready to accept you, I think it’s hard to see past life with you’re young, you feel like there is no safe place for you. I think that is a lie, and I would encourage you not to believe it.
JH: Logan this went fast, thank you so much for your time.
The full audio of this interview can be streamed here.
