Interview with Bronx Jenson from Loft & Lillow

Bronx Dean Jenson Interview about Loft & Lillow and His Music

Taken by Nick Norris

What was it like playing your first show?

I was really nervous. When I was playing my first song, the acoustic one, I was trembling. Don’t know if anyone noticed that.

My music is really emotional and I’ve only ever showed it to my family and my friends, so playing it in front of people and being open was really nerve-racking, because my music is very much about myself.

How did you get into music?

Well...I’ve always been really into writing - writing for me is a way of expressing my feelings, because I don’t really do that with others. I want to be a writer when I grow up, and I’m working on my first novel actually. I also wrote poems and short stories, and started writing lyrics before I could even play music. My brother has this old electric guitar with only two strings on it, and I wrote my first song on that guitar. It was actually one of the songs I played at the show, the one where I was just screaming. And then I bought an acoustic guitar, and got into music that way. And I really like these bands, The Front Bottoms and McCafferty, and they really inspired me to create music that is emotional and just open. I just write lyrics about how my day’s going, or how I’m feeling or about past traumas. Just stuff I’ve gone through so people can relate to it.

How did the band start?

Ryder is our bassist, and Ian’s our electric guitarist, and I was in a band with them called Theo before this, and now they’re my best friends, so that’s how I got to know them. I showed one of my friends my music, and he said that he really liked it. He thought it was good, which was weird for me because I was really self-conscious about my music, and I think it’s really bad. But he thought that I should be in a band, so I asked Ian for electric and Ryder for bass. They are both enthusiastic about being in a band with me. I met Julian, our drummer, through instagram. He’s a very good drummer. He does jazz drumming, and we added some of that into one of our songs, “France.”

What does your band name mean?

People ask me this all the time. It’s funny because people look up Loft & Lillow, and apparently Lillow is an anti-pregnancy medication, so people always think it’s this deep thing about how I wish I was never born or that I’m going to commit suicide. Like, no no no no no, that’s not it at all. It’s actually from when I first started writing my novel, one of the first chapters I wrote is about how the main character’s parents fall in love. His parents have this perfect love story.

Alex Loft and Chloe Lillow are the kid’s parents, and there’s a story about how they fall in love. Everyone says it’s my best chapter. I really connected with it as I was writing it, because I based it off prior love experience. But that’s why I named the band Loft & Lillow.

Everyone has different personalities. How do you manage communication with each member being different?

It’s actually really weird, because everyone in the band is not a fan of the music that I listen to, but they like my music. It actually turned out well. Ian listens to alternative, crazy, electric rock music, like Built to Spill and Modest Mouse, who have very inventive guitar riffs. So Ian ends up making these creative guitar riffs that go really well with the melody of our songs. More of an upbeat, but creative, sound to the music rather than just punk rock. And Ryder is more into electronic, experimental music, like Homeshake and some other really weird bands. He is just the God of bass. We’ll play a song for him, and he instantly makes an insane riff in three seconds. I’ve never had a problem with Ryder. When we first started playing with Julian, he’s never really listened to rock or played rock at all, because he is super into jazz, so it was a learning curve for him. He makes really creative drum beats just because he has all of this jazz experience. He is very good at making the cymbals sound where they are supposed to be - making it sound full.

Where do you draw your inspiration from? Any specific bands or artists?

McCafferty and The Front Bottoms have always been a big inspiration to me, but as for acoustic music, there’s this artist called Pat the Bunny. He is this guy who left home, dropped out of high school, got addicted to heroin, and is an anarchist. He overdosed and actually retired from music because of it, but he wrote these really fucking good and passionate acoustic songs that he just recorded on his cell phone. He has millions of listeners just from a cell phone. His music is just amazing, moving, and emotional. He talks about his addiction and all the stuff he’s gone through, so that is definitely really inspirational for my acoustic songs. I have eighteen acoustic songs, and ten full band songs. I’m working on my acoustic album right now. Actually, Scared of Bears is acoustic, melodic music and they also inspire me to make soft acoustic music. I have this song, Loft & Lillow, our self-titled song, and it’s highly inspired by Scared of Bears. Really soothing emotional, and it has this climax.

When I started writing music, I had this idea of imitating bands that I love the sound of, and making music really similar. As I continue to write music, my friends always tell me that it is nothing like any of those bands. It is its own completely different thing. I just love expanding my music into something that is my own, and being creative with it.

One thing that makes my bandmates really frustrating is my songs have very erroneous song structure, so it took us a long time to learn that song because its very nontraditional and doesn’t make sense.

Is there a common theme in your lyrics?

I listen to music for emotional support and for connection, so you know someone else is going through the same thing you are going through, so I try to write my music that way. One of my favorite McCafferty songs says “what is love she asks, she slit her wrists inside the bath, nobody held her hand.” I really like the idea of communicating the fact that you feel alone and that there are other people out there that feel the same way, and that you have all of these problems, and just letting people know that someone else feels the same way you do. It’s a sense of comfort and empathy. I want people to feel happier about themselves, and just by empathising with the things I have to say, how I’m feeling and how I’m doing and what I’m going through.

Do you plan to release an EP soon?

Yes. I plan to release an acoustic EP really soon. Probably within the next two weeks. It’s going to be five or six songs. I’m also in the process of recording all of Loft & Lillow’s songs with our friend at his house. That should be done by the end of December, which will be a full album with about ten songs. But my acoustic album is going to take a lot longer because it’s going to be seventeen songs or so, so hopefully it will be done by January.

I’ve personally talked to the lead singer of McCafferty, he’s a really good friend of mine. He has helped me with mental health issues, so we are buddies now. I sent him one of my acoustic songs just as demos, and he loved them, and he said when I release my album he is going to tell his fans about it. So I’m super excited about that.

Where do you see Loft & Lillow going?

I am really self conscious about my music, and I know being successful in the music industry is really hard. Writing music never had the idea of fame or success or going anywhere, or even being the successful part of my life where my only career is my music. If I could release my music, and just one person reaches out to me and says “wow, your music changed my life. You really helped me out, I cried to this song,” then that is the most I ever dream to be. If I become successful and get 300,000 listeners like McCafferty, that would be nice too, but it would be just as cool to just have that one person connect.

What is one song you wish you wrote?

Plastic Surgery by McCafferty would have to be it. I really wish I wrote that song, it is the most beautiful song I have ever connected to. It’s just an acoustic song that he recorded on his cellphone, but it is so beautiful - such a good song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulxC7URKdMY - Loft & Lillow's Full Set of Their First Show