Interview: Adam Leeson Talks Treading Water and the Vision Behind It
“I hope that people see the message that I have put across with it”
Your last track, This Way, came out on June 27th, how has the response been so far?
That was absolutely incredible to be honest. I released it just as a last-minute thing. I decided the day before it dropped that I was doing it and so with no promo, no nothing, the response was incredible thanks to the Morning Coffee bunch!
So, the idea came about probably 2019 but then it really got written in 2022 and it was inspired by being sort of stuck in a rut, you know, not feeling like you're getting anywhere. You're going to work, you're coming home, you're going to bed. You're getting up, you're going to work. Rinse and repeat, and not moving forward. The best way to describe it would be perhaps a hopeful sense of not being stuck in that rut forever.
Treading Water is your fourth original release, can you tell us what inspired this song?
You released your first two tracks - The World’s Game and The Storm - on Spotify in 2020. How would you describe the evolution of your sound from those releases to now?
I’d like to think my sound has matured a lot, especially with further unreleased material. I feel like I look back at those and I still appreciate the songs. I still really enjoy how much other people enjoy them but I can certainly see my later material has definitely evolved. I've got a different, more mature sound I believe.
So for me personally, I was stuck in a little bit of a rut for awhile especially back when the song was written, where I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go and I think it was a bit of a quarter life crisis. It's nice to use it as a journal entry, as a little bit of, you know, there is a way out to the other side. You just gotta set yourself goals whether they be short or long-term goals, and that works for me.
What does Treading Water mean to you personally?
“The best way to describe it would be perhaps a hopeful sense of not being stuck in that rut forever”
Can fans expect any new instrumental or production elements in “Treading Water” that differ from your previous songs?
Yes, 100%. So, this track will include a pedal steel, which is the first time that's ever been introduced in my tracks before, which was played by a member of my favourite band City and Colour. Shout out Matt Kelly man, he's an absolute gem. Made that song come to life. As soon as that pedal steel track got sent back to me and I laid it on, played the song, I was like “Wow, that's it. Let's get the song released.”
What’s your songwriting process like, do lyrics or melodies come first for you?
Generally, I would say the melodies. It's dependent. Treading Water came about this way where I did sit down, I played the chords on the guitar, and I was like “this is nice” and then I had the original lyric melody but no words for it. I was just humming, like how the intro of the song goes now, but just humming it and that then evolved.
With This Way, I recorded the guitar and then the lyrics came quite late. I've struggled the other way around before and I’ve wrote lyrics as I say like a journal entry, I've tried that before and then when it comes to writing a fitting song it feels none of these syllables match and so you have to take words out or extend them and then the sentences don’t flow the same and then I give up on it I'm like “Oh no, I can't get this to work.”
How do you hope listeners will connect with Treading Water?
I hope that people see the message that I have put across with it I hope even if people aren't perhaps in that mindset of being stuck in stuck in a loop like whether whether they have done before previously and say like oh yeah man, I can relate to that Like that, I used to be in that position or whatever so I’m hoping the message gets put across and you know people can hear in the lyrics what I'm trying to say.
With four original songs now under your belt, is there potentially an EP on the horizon?
I would like to say there will be an EP. I'm not sure when. It won't be including the songs that are released currently, but my idea is there's a few more releases under this era and when they have been finished and released, I'm looking to hopefully make an EP probably early next year, but there's definitely some more stuff on the horizon coming soon!
Treading Water will be released on the 29th of August, and you can pre-save it here
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