Over the years, Andrew Luce has incapacitated his fans with some of the freshest music you can find in Electronic Music. You simply cannot box the artist into one square, his creativity and talent allow his experimentation to flourish with gusto. At just 20 years old, the artist has seen success since his high school days. Constantly wrapping his head around different sounds and grasping inspiration from everywhere he goes, his music is always maturing and evolving. He’s confident in what he wants, his #1 goal is stick to his artistic vision solely for the purpose of leaving behind music he can always be proud of.
Today, his “LANTERNS” EP finally comes to fruition. The 5-track project is seeing the light of day on Fool’s Gold Records. While this strikes as a massive accomplishment for his career, the biggest accolade he takes away from it is the music. This EP takes you on a musical venture that showcases a distinct set of intimacy and music that provokes emotion. To commemorate this milestone, we caught up with the Bay Area-based producer for a quick interview.
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After taking a hiatus, the LANTERNS EP is the result of the musical direction you’ve been talking about for a while. How long did you spend working on it?
“It depends. I’ve been working on an EP in some way or another for over three years, but from the moment I started the first song that would be released on this record to the moment of it being finished was only about six months, with the tail end of that spent re-mixing the music. With a project like this, I can’t work on anything for too long or else I lose the feeling of the moment. I knew what I wanted LANTERNS as a project to be around halfway through summer of last year.” -Andrew
What was the process like when it came down to curating vocalists to feature on these songs?
“I focused more on curating songs and sounds over curating vocals. I made a lot of music over the three years since my last EP, but somehow the timing was right with these five and they all came together (more or less) one after another. I think that’s why I’m actually content with the record. I feel so detached from my old music now that it almost feels like someone else made it. With LANTERNS, I’m confident that for the rest of my time that I’ll be able to listen back and remember exactly where and who I was in my life. I think that’s the best thing you can ask for as an artist.” -Andrew
How did the Smokepurpp feature come about?
“I sent out some cold emails to his management for the first time around the end of 2016, I think. We spoke back and forth for months, but nothing ever came of it. I sent one last email, and just as I was about to give up, I saw that his DMs were randomly open on Twitter. I hit him up and he replied in seconds. I was so surprised and I didn’t even have the beat ready for him, so he recorded over some TM88 beat and sent me the acapella. For what it’s worth, he was also one of the easiest people that I’ve worked with in rap music – I’m super happy to see how much success has come into his life.” -Andrew
How difficult was it to cross over into a more hip-hop and R&B oriented sound whilst maintaining your ‘signature style’ that is familiar with your earlier more electronic-leaning records?
“I honestly didn’t really think in that way. I officially started work on LANTERNS the moment that I decided that I would just make music and see what happens, without thinking about any signature styles or genres or anything like that. I’m fully cognizant of the fact that people that only like rap probably won’t like the record all the way through, and people that only like electronic probably won’t like the record all the way through. That’s the beauty of music!” -Andrew
One of the more prominent features about your music is how much raw emotion you put into everything you make, do any of the songs on the EP have a story worth telling behind it?
“That’s a huge compliment, thank you – I would like to think that they all do! “DIAMOND GIRL” might be the most interesting because I actually have almost no recollection of writing or recording the song. The idea behind it was something that I played with for hours a day for months, but the final version of the song was made in under a week, and the vocals were mostly done off the top of my head. I was going through a really transformative and experimental period of my life at the time. It’s kind of funny for me to listen back to now, and at certain points I thought about removing it from the record, but “DIAMOND GIRL” in its released version is exactly where I was at at the time, with no filters or second thoughts. I’ve been trying to focus less on making technically “perfect” music and more on making real music that captures a moment. So I kept it!” -Andrew
It feels like you’ve been working so hard to get to this stage in your career, describe what it means to be able to release a project like this with the sound you’ve been gunning for all along?
“I’ve been thinking about the next thing, the next sound, the next step in my career as a musician, since the second the record was done. I’m always going to be that way.
With LANTERNS, I wasn’t really focused on chasing a particular sound, it was more about finally making music that I would listen to again. I was blessed and cursed with releasing music at age 15 – it helped kickstart my career, but at a certain point, I found that my career was going in a direction that I really didn’t want as I got older. Something happened to me around halfway through 2017 too – I’m not sure what it was, but my ear completely turned off to really electronic and computery sounds.
At the end of the day, I’m more of a producer than an artist. I have artist moments for sure – I go through phases where I desperately need to create just for myself, and that’s exactly what this record was. For the year or so before that, I was creating because I felt like I needed to put another song out, or else I’d become “irrelevant.” But I came to realize that at some point, everyone becomes irrelevant. There’s no telling when that’ll happen, but when it does, all that’s left is the music that you made. So why put out something that you know you can’t stand behind?
What LANTERNS means to me is not really something that I can put into words very well, but if this record is able to inspire any producers, artists, fans, or friends to challenge themselves to be the most authentic version of themselves that they can be, then I’m happy.” -Andrew
At just 20 years old, the ceiling is very very high for you. What will you be doing to celebrate the release of the LANTERNS EP?
“I don’t really like to celebrate myself too much. I’ve been saving a bottle of Dom Pérignon from 2006 (the year I started playing guitar) for over two years to drink for whenever my EP finally came out. That was the plan, at least. I moved out of my old apartment a few weeks ago and forgot to take the bottle with me before a cleaning crew came in to throw everything out. So it’s gone. Or maybe the cleaning crew took it, in which case at least someone got to enjoy it.
I used to drive to Malibu alone when I was working on the EP to test the songs out in my car, and maybe I’ll do that one last time. Then I’ll spend the rest of the day making new stuff.” -Andrew
Andrew Luce – LANTERNS EP | Stream
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