Home is where the art is

Leaving Los Angeles helped Lontalius find his sound, he tells Lydia Burgham

EDDIE JOHNSTON

didn’t go to university like his friends in Wellington. Instead, he packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in pop songwriting.

“I went there and I learned a lot. I made mistakes and found out the things I didn’t want to do. I wasn’t really equipped for it, I didn’t really enjoy it that much,” he admits.

But something positive came out of it — his new album as Lontalius, All I Have. Johnston wrote it after coming home last year.

It’s a leap forward from I’ll Forget 17, the 2016 album that earned him a Taite Music Prize nomination. That was something of a celebration of teenage naivety. All I Have isa peek at the lessons he’s learned since and chronicles the pain of being an introvert in a loud city full of people striving for success.

“I think this is something that happens to 19 and 20-year-old writers. You’re away from home, exploring new things and meeting new people, experiencing different feelings. I’ve always been pretty shy and sad, so I’ve tried to be more open, sociable and happy. There was a clarity that came when I moved home about what this project was, and what Lontalius is. I could have gone the more indie-rock way [instead of pop]. As I returned, and as I was leaving LA, it made sense that I exist somewhere in the middle.”

While working on the album, Johnston, now 22, was introduced to more “out-of-the-way” collaborators by his publisher. They included Jim Fairchild, from US band Modest Mouse.

“He was a great person to work with and became a good friend just because he came from an indie rock background, similar to me, but was also very interested in pop music.”

Nevertheless, he admits not really getting pop before moving to the US.

“I remember going to New York for the first time, and I heard [rapper] Future coming out of a car in Brooklyn, it was like, ‘Oh, now it makes sense.’ It didn’t make sense to me in my bedroom in Wellington.”

The new album is a tight eight tracks. Johnston says he wanted to release something easily digestible in the era of streaming and fragmented attention spans.

It’s clear he thrives on introspection and honesty. He labels himself an introvert and his soft-spoken nature translates to his stage persona.

At the end of September, he opened for fellow New Zealand artist, Thomston. As his set began he stared into the crowd and sheepishly compared Auckland’s Mercury Theatre to his high school hall, a glint of anxiety in his eyes like he was right back at school assembly.

His introduction to Thomston — real name Thomas Stoneman — was a short-lived Twitter beef, but Johnston insists they’re on good terms now.

“I think the thing that maybe everyone is realising is that as Spotify gets bigger and the industry changes, is that no one really has the secret code to success and no one really knows what they’re doing, which is exciting because it means that in a way, we’re all on the same level.

“We’re friends and happy to be playing together. I think New Zealand has such a good community of people. It doesn’t feel everyone is competing in the same way that being in LA does.”