It’s so boring to leave fantasy or imagination behind
An outtake with Youth Lagoon
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, an outtake from my conversation with Youth Lagoon – and an afterthought on perfect scores.
Read part one of our conversation HERE.
Outtake
ES: A lot of the coverage surrounding Rarely Do I Dream has zeroed in on the Western motifs, and it occurs to me that few symbols speak to that sad optimism you mentioned quite like a cowboy or cowgirl.
YL: Totally. That goes back to writing about home. I’ve been exploring those themes my whole life. My mom was in rodeos for years, and I grew up going to them… To some people, who aren’t from those kinds of places, it can feel like cosplay, but it’s the furthest thing from that. My reality in Idaho has been meeting these people, being in these circles, and being in these communities. They’re thick with characters and thick with stories, and I’m always taking those ideas and characters and combining them with my own life, using a literary or poetic perspective, to try and reveal one cohesive truth.
ES: When it comes to literature, do you mean someone like Cormac McCarthy?
YL: I love Cormac McCarthy. Another big one for me would be Jim Thompson. He wrote a lot of gritty, noir crime thrillers, usually taking place in small towns. The Killer Inside Me, that sort of stuff.
I also draw a lot of inspiration from film. People like Andrei Tarkovsky, Sofia Coppola, or Jim Jarmusch. I love pulling from those sorts of ensemble films, where it feels so immersive in terms of the world-building. I can take from that all day long because it’s a completely different medium. I can watch a movie and have it wash over me and have it speak to me on these levels that I can only otherwise access by working on music…
ES: It’s interesting you mention Sofia Coppola. I was poking around your Letterboxd account and noticed you gave Marie Antoinette one star, which felt aggressive.
YL: Laughs. I haven’t actually used Letterboxd in a while, I need to go through and update things. I think I watched that movie when I was in the wrong mood, maybe. I shut it off soon after. Someone had recommended it, and they made it sound like something that it wasn't, so I think I went in with the wrong expectations. It’s probably worth a re-watch.
ES: You also shared a photo on Twitter recently that included some of your all-time favourite movies and other ephemera. You had the original Nosferatu in there. What did you think of Robert Eggers’ version from last year? I loved it.
YL: It’s weird that you bring that up, because I got into a debate with three people about that movie last night. They all hated it. They said it was too over the top, but I think it was supposed to be over the top. I loved it. When I was laughing, it felt intentional. I also love to have a good time watching a movie, especially when it’s a horror film, and that movie made me have a good time. I loved it. I thought it was beautifully shot, the performances were amazing, and the set design was insane. It was hilarious in all the right ways…
ES: Along with cowboys, this album includes references to vampires. The album before, you were singing a little bit about aliens. What is it about the supernatural that you either relate to or want to explore thematically?
YL: I think that’s just because I never fully grew up, and I never will grow up. It’s so boring to leave fantasy or imagination behind. It’s so important to me to keep that state of feeling you have as a little kid running around in a forest and thinking that you hear or see aliens, because maybe you do. I find that mindset of the supernatural so fascinating… I’m a very spiritual, mystical person… There’s just so much to what we consider reality if you’re open to it. I sense all kinds of wavelengths and frequencies that are impossible to deny, and I love sprinkling that into the songs.
ES: Have you ever seen a ghost or an alien, or anything?
YL: I was in an old motel room in Detroit years ago, and I had this experience. I was fully awake, and I was getting ready for bed. When I was close to the bed, I started feeling like I was getting pushed toward it and then pushed down into bed. It was absolutely horrifying. It was the scariest experience of my life. I stepped out of the hotel room and called my brother and told him about it. I was all shaken up.
That feeling was only confined to that hotel room. After the call, I went back in and felt similar sensations and like a fucking idiot I stayed there because I had it booked for two nights. I was playing a show, and I didn’t want to get another hotel room; I didn’t want to bother with it because I had already paid. I told myself it couldn’t happen two nights in a row, and then of course it did.
Afterthought
Last night, Leah and I watched Sinners with Alex and Kate at the IMAX downtown. The movie, directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan, seamlessly blends horror, drama, and comedy as a group of Riverdancing vampires descends upon a small town in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.
When asked, Leah, Alex, and Kate said they would give the movie four stars out of five. Initially, I agreed. I loved Sinners, and yet I was reluctant to give it that last star.
Why?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my reluctance said everything about me and nothing about the movie. Specifically, it said that any movie I give five stars to becomes a pillar of my personality. That, besides simply functioning as a piece of art, movies like Superbad and Moonlight carry the paramount responsibility of signifying Ethan to the outside world.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on something. And yet it’s a trap we all fall into: defining ourselves by our likes and dislikes, as if perfect taste could ever account for a lack of personality. To make matters worse, we hold these opinions so tightly that they begin to atrophy. We refuse to challenge them, and so we forget why they mattered to us in the first place, or whether they still do.
The movies you consider perfect at 14 probably aren’t the same at 34 or 45. That’s probably a good thing! Trevor hated Marie Antoinette at one point, and yet he cites Sofia Coppola as one of his big influences. People contain multitudes. We are strangers to ourselves.
All this to say: Sinners is a five out of five. There is simply nothing more I could ask of it. Will I feel this way tomorrow, next week, a year from now? I’m not sure. For now, it’s perfect. For now, that’s enough.
Trevor Powers is a producer and songwriter. He lives in Idaho.