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Oct. 6, 2023

Interview with Oscar Lang

We had the pleasure of interviewing Oscar Lang over Zoom video!

Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Oscar Lang has released his sophomore album Look Now via Dirty Hit. Deeply personal and sonically elevated, Look Now features some of Oscar’s most confessional and inspired songwriting yet. Teeming with emotional intimacy, Look Now feels as if it was lifted directly from the pages of Oscar’s personal journal.

The 10-track collection features his newest single “Leave Me Alone,” which is both melodically sweet and infinitely relatable in its sentiment that sometimes you just want to be by yourself. A stand-out track on the album, the song describes the universally felt urge to self-isolate after a long night out. Quintessentially Oscar in its pop-fusion sound and piano-driven accompaniment, the confessional track is another example of his expert lyrical storytelling and knack for peeling back the curtain for a peek into his mind.

Earlier this year, Oscar provided a powerful introduction to his new musical chapter with his soaring, symphony-soaked lead single “A Song About Me” which recalls past love over a landscape of resounding instrumentals, received airplay on BBC Radio 1, and appeared on major editorial playlists across Spotify and Apple Music. He followed up this momentous opening with the release of subsequent singles “One Foot First,” an introspective, melancholic release of emotion that dives into loss through an empathetic lens, and “Everything Unspoken" which draws strength from Oscar’s own experiences with social anxiety and further establishes the album’s emotive nature. Exploring darker themes, while still maintaining a relatively light and melodic essence, his most recent single “On God,” haunting in tone and deeply personal, offers a glimpse into Oscar’s own journey through grief and how he continues to persevere.

With a sound influenced by the piano-driven ballads of icons like Elton John, Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, Look Now calls upon classic Beatles songwriting through the prism of Animal Collective and Mac DeMarco. After a break-up that left him heartbroken, Oscar channeled his emotions into his songwriting as a means of catharsis and therapeutic healing. Using the creative process as his lifeline, Oscar grapples with universal themes of personal loss and longing—drawing from his own experience with a broken heart and the lingering pain of losing his mother as a child. The result is a collection of songs that showcase his masterful honesty as a writer and soulful artistry as a musician.

Maintaining a rapid momentum as he continues his takeover of the indie-pop scene, Oscar will be embarking on a headline tour of the UK this August and includes performances at major European festivals including Green Man Festival in Wales and Waves Festival in Vienna.

Known for his signature sunshine lo-fi pop and unassuming, sharp songwriting, Oscar has had a momentous rise in recent years following the release of his debut album Chew The Scenery which features stand-out tracks such as “Yeah!,” “21st Century Hobby,” and “Stuck.” The critically lauded release, which quickly added to his over 100 million streams, received major praise from outlets such as SPIN, FADER, The Line Of Best Fit, NME, CLASH, The Guardian, Ones To Watch, The Sunday Times, and more. The stunning debut easily built upon the success of his early viral hits “She Likes Another Boy” and “The Moon Song” and early production work, most notably working on indie pop icon beabadoobee’s breakout hit “Coffee.”

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Transcript

I think I'm figuring that out in a minute because I do a lot of writing in periods of heightened emotional states

um and so you know I did uh I do a lot of writing when I'm really sad and I do a lot of writing when I'm really happy

and so you know doing writing when I just feel normal is quite hard sometimes

[Music] Oscar how are you here hello what's

happening I'm good I'm good I appreciate you doing this thank you so much of course thank you so much for

having me of course um I'm Adam and this is about you and

your journey in music and we'll talk about the the new album yes yes it is about my journey

love it well um first off talk to me were you born were you born and raised in London is

that what I read yes I've been uh I'm a Londoner born and bred so like yeah I've

been I've lived here my whole life I've actually just moved over to the other side of London now which is sort of

completely different um and there's so much of this city that I've still yet to see oh really why do

you and different in what way just yeah I mean I was living in a very

residential area before um and now you know I live in East

London which is full of just all sorts of different cultures and restaurants and and I don't know it's just a lot more exciting here than it was where I

was before oh awesome um and what was it like growing up on the other side of London

it was good I mean you're still part of the city so you can get anywhere you want really but you know just to be

based around that area it was it was nice it meant that I you know I met a lot of important people that you know

influenced my career over there but I'm so much happier being over East in East London it just feels like I don't know

there's something happening here and there's nothing happening over there I got it for sure yeah

um what about music do you come from a creative household musical household at all so I came yeah both of my parents were

pretty musical my dad uh was a drummer and used to play in a band called the

house Martins um which went on to become wildly famous in the UK after he left the band

tease them about um and then my mum used to sort of sing around the house I think she'd sort of

had that sort of like uh young dream to be a singer and she recorded one song

and so we've got that cassette somewhere of her song on it um but yeah both the parents and musicians

I think it's somehow wiggled its way through that yeah wow okay so dad was a drummer I just looked up the band yeah

he's uh credited there on the on the wiki uh was he playing in the band when you were born or not not anymore no no

no no way all my time yeah right for TV um but uh music for TV no no scripts he

writes scripts and stuff he went into the acting world and that's why he left the band uh and it pretty much yeah a

year after he left or something they sort of became huge it's wild yeah okay

um and you said your mom recorded a song as well yeah I've got it somewhere it's called move over I think it's weirdly I

think it's written by someone else because I ended up hearing it a few years later recorded by somebody completely different so I don't know if

it's a cover or or what the deal was but we had this one cassette of my mum uh

you know doing a recording wow uh did your dad like influence you or did he get you into drums or like how did you

start in music I think yeah probably he did he just was

into music so he also played a little bit of guitar he sort of played basic e chords and a lot of the time after

school I would go into his office and he'd whip out the guitar and we'd have a little strum along and they're saying

um yeah I think it kind of all slipped its way through it you know I have a love for ballads and and old sort of

piano music and I think my dad definitely got me into that he had this guilty pleasure CD that was just uh full

of absolute hits um and that kind of really influenced my music plays from an early age I think as

well I started to learn playing drums because of my dad um I don't know I've always liked the

drums and wish I was a lot better at them than I am did you start off on guitar or was it the first instrument or

you played I started on piano I've started on piano uh and I've kind of had the same thing with all the instruments

that I play in that I'm not so good at taking music lessons I'm not so good at being disciplined at doing things like

that so A Lot the a lot of the time I would sort of do a month of you know lessons and then once I learned the

basic Basics I'd teach myself and you know at the time I didn't want to play Mozart I just wanted to play Katy Perry

or whatever was on the charts that you know when I was 10. um so yeah I kind of sacked off all the

lessons for all the instruments I learned right on yeah I've heard that quite a bit about uh learning piano you

know they want you to learn the per the proper way to play and then it's like reading music and not only that but

songs you probably aren't really hip to want to learn right it's like I'd rather play this it's on the

radio instead of some Beethoven song or whatever yeah I think the irony is now is that I'd

rather be able to play Beethoven than something I've had on the charts so I wish I had now I wish I'd done that you

know at the start but I'll get there I'll teach myself yeah because if you could play the Beethoven I'm it would

probably pretty be pretty easy to learn a Katy Perry song I would imagine oh yeah I mean also just my music text has

changed I'd be much more into classical music nowadays than I would be Katy Perry [Laughter]

that's funny uh what about songwriting or writing your own songs it sounds like you didn't do the lessons because you

wanted to figure it out yourself but uh was it something that you were naturally

good at or like when did you start trying to write your own songs yeah I think it was kind of like it was kind of

a mixture of you know when I stopped doing the lessons then I was no longer trying to learn other

songs you know it was like I was just playing and through that you kind of

write things you know as you go because you accidentally you know make a little thing like oh that sounds nice and then

I think you know how kind of songwriting started for me was um I started on you know when you press

the the button on the keyboard and then it makes a song out of whatever key you're pressing started doing that when

I was sort of like eight and like I used to get a lot of fun out doing that and then got hugely into YouTube and start

doing covers and then you know that kind of LED uh you know weaved its way into songwriting and then I started a

songwriting Club when I was 11 or 12. wow before the songwriting club though

would you post onto YouTube or you were just watching people play and learning yeah I would post onto YouTube but like

little covers and stuff okay um I mean I still never posted the songs I wrote in

that club on YouTube I mean I think they're somewhere out there but please note like just please don't find them

they're horrific um but yeah you know I think that

songwriting Club was the first time that I'd sat down and you know written a Verse Chorus Verse Chorus and they

weren't great but you know it's the first time I had structure to what I was doing you did you you said you started

the the club or you joined it or I mean no no I joined it I I started uh that

was what that's how I started writing music oh got it joining the club uh and it was the yeah the first I think my dad

knew that I was pretty like quite a lot into music and then you know suggested this club and I kind of fell in love

with it ever since he's probably pretty stoked that uh your success I'd imagine yeah I think I think he thinks he did

well there you know yeah yeah he's like I left that band but look at my son yeah

oh 100 there's the amount of times he used to ask me uh do you need a drummer

or you know or played with them no because he says

that and then actually if I tried to get him to do it I think he'd be too shy to do it he hasn't you know he sort of got

he's the vibe is he's got a drum kit in the garage you know it's like he's he has his little fun but he's I don't know

he's doing it properly anymore it's cool though um so you started you joined the songwriting uh Club were you one of the

youngest people there if you're 11 or were there other people your age no because it was all designed design for

other you know other kids it was a kid's songwriting class it wasn't like a proper like a course or anything it was

like a little after school club and I think you know most of the kids that were going there were sort of going there because they liked music and you

know wrote a little song but there was something about it for me that I connected with and was like oh I I could

do a lot more of this um and then just kind of continued I did that club for quite a few years

sort of on and off I think my only thing again with that is it limited me because

they would often give us briefs they'd go oh I want you to write a song in this in a country style you know so I kind of

stopped it in the end because again it was kind of limiting what I was doing I didn't I don't necessarily want to do

what everyone tells me to do all the time sure and uh you know when somebody tells me to write a country song then I

just really don't want to write a country song so and it's the same with when somebody tells me to play Mozart

you know I don't want to do it right so that's why I kind of left that and then just kept kept doing it at home okay and

you had well the first few albums at least on your Spotify you originally put out under a different name right and

then you switch your project um so with that first you know

the first couple albums that you did or releases that you did uh were you playing around uh London or like how did

that kind of come about and how would we at that point it I think it was just a series of very

lucky events that happened um I I was in secondary school and was I

had been doing music doing little YouTube covers again for years writing little songs here and there and then I think at 17 I I I sort of went right I

want to start like an artist project and started Pig which was my you know my former name

um and then it was just like actually trying to write songs and then release them and I somehow got caught up in this

wave of I was really lucky in that the company there's a company out there called

Lander who do mastering things um and they just sent an email out being

like we've just released a streaming service upload feature and it was one of

the first sort of websites to to you know enable an average average person to

do that before it was like in order to get on Spotify you needed a label you know you couldn't do it yourself or like SoundCloud even was it was before that

uh it wasn't before SoundCloud SoundCloud was kicking about I I posted songs on Soundcloud but you know there's

a level of like you want to be on Spotify because that's right okay I see what you're saying

um because SoundCloud was like oh you've got to go find them on Soundcloud you know it's just kind of different thing okay um and so yeah I got this email and

it started releasing and weirdly got caught in this wave of things you know so we were sort of I was one of the sort

of few artists that just started self releasing at the start of when that was happening and um I was very lucky in

that through mutual friends I met um B who now goes as Bieber doobie

um and we started working on music together because she was sort of like

I've got these little songs that I like and I was like well I know how to press record so come around to mine and then

you know I ended up humming on the tracks and then you know a couple tracks layouts and piano and then somehow

wished up into you know kind of producing and releasing her songs

um so we kind of got caught in this little wave of of self-release artists and I you know I said to be I was like

well I've got this thing that you can release songs through and I pay a yearly fee for it so if you want to release

your songs through that I'll do it and you know so I was there when we sort of went oh what do you want your name to be

she went why don't we go baby doobie and it was like oh okay that's kooky and then you know that's good I'm just really lucky really

that I got you know through mutual friends stumbled into B who's a fantastic songwriter and she literally

was just you know a girl doing an acoustic guitar and she you know she's made her most popular song from that you

know that session we did that first one we did together yeah because you you were you produced that right I mean you both worked

together on coffee yeah yeah yeah yeah so that was that was um that was one of

the first few times we met and it was uh I'd heard this her play the song somehow I think on an Instagram live or

something and uh she came around I was like oh you should you know record that song you did from the Instagram thing

and that was coffee and that was one of the first times we met and took 45

minutes I added some humming at the end and then you know we got a hat

well you have quite a few hits I mean even if looking if you go all the way down to like you know she likes another

boy that song nearly has 100 million on Spotify alone I mean we're so you were

also releasing songs like you were producing with her and then releasing your own songs kind of simultaneously

yeah that's how that's how um I got in contact with B Because B it actually found my music through a mutual friend

and and had liked it and so messaged me and was like oh no way you know you go to this we sort of went to brother and

sister schools we both went to these Catholic schools and she went to the girls one and I went to the boys one and

so we sort of knew each other through that and it was yeah she'd had my music and liked it and then um

and then you know message me and that's that that's crazy because she likes another boy was the first song I ever

released on Spotify and it came from that that email you know where it came through and said oh we can release I'm

like oh I've got this song that I've just finished I'll put it out on Spotify and and then have this other little

spare song that I whacked as a b side and weirdly enough that's also now kind

of big um which is bizarre for me because it was such a little like oh I'll do a

little b side if I because it I think they were like oh you can do a single so you have two songs so I was like oh throw this one on wow

yeah amazing world yeah that one email changed my whole life to be honest sure

I mean once you're getting all these streams I mean to now see not you know nearly 100 million

um but even just in the beginning of it really taking off like that were like is

that how dirty hit came out to you or like were you like how did you know from

those streams and from that experience were you getting shows around town or were you even out playing it or was it

really just something you were recording and releasing it was I've always primarily been more

of a recording artist than a Live artist you know I try now play as alive as much

as possible but it's it's almost a struggle because I haven't really built up that live

um sort of presence because most of what I do exists entirely in the online World

um I was sort of getting live shows through mates I had a few mates that played in a band and we supported them a

few times uh I think I was again Super Lucky in that I was part of this first wave of

self-releases so weirdly you know there wasn't that much in the self-release

market to sort of overcrowd it so I remember one of my the songs I self-released of my first album I did

called snacks got added to a Spotify playlist and that must have literally just been somebody found the song and uh

I sort of went on and it jumped from 3K to 30k and I literally sort of jumped

for Joy um I remember like jumping around my room and going no way it's been add to a playlist let's go you know this is like

now it can really go um which is huge right especially for self-releasing I mean usually the

Spotify I mean nowadays right the Spotify playlists are pretty limited to the biggest artists on the country or

whatever it may be or a newer band signed to a major level or however however it goes

so to get on there I mean that's that's a massive achievement yeah it was crazy

um I still don't really know how it happened I've been really thankful in my life and grateful for I think the online

community in music because a lot of My Success is because of them a lot of the

success in my tracks has been because people have reposted them or those channels you know uh where they sort of

post a song they like a day um I remember one called David Dean Burkhart which was very like famous in

the Indie scene for for posting you know different songs um that he liked you know all the time

and that was one that's upselled and it's also come from reposting and I remember initially seeing these posts

and being like well what's the deal with this do I take it down because they're all you know they're all my it's all my

songs and it's all on these people's channels and you know this feels weird that they get to upload my song but yeah

I think I knew sort of not to disturb it it really because that's actually the

best kind of marketing is that you know mouth to mouth over the Internet

um and just spreading naturally and that's how she likes another boy and some of my million little reasons track have blown up just because they were

posted on these sort of editorial YouTubes wow yeah it is interesting how

just like you just said spreading the word through other people that have you

know somebody else might have a platform and they're like oh wow like Oscar Lang song is awesome I'm gonna put it up and

then other channels pull it and you're like you know maybe they upload it but still and people are going to come back

and know who you are right yeah that's the thing I just had to remember that it's like you know it's it's it's almost free

advertising it's it's hard it's advertising for the channel and it's advertising for the artist I mean I think it's mutually beneficial I don't

know why anyone would you know go after taking people down for that um

but I it was really amazing to see I think there was a million little reasons with Spanish subtitles video that I had

no idea existed and then went on one day and saw that had six million views and there was like 10 000 YouTube comments

all in Spanish devastating because I love to read the comments I love to like I don't see what people are saying and I

couldn't read a single one of them but yeah amazing uh that that can happen

wow and then from like those experiences like I know you've gotten on like BBC

One which is massive and all those things like what what did those come while you're still Independent Artists

or like and when did you decide to do the name change uh no those came those came with like

that's kind of the stuff that really comes with label you know that's why you sort of take it to a label because you

kind of want to go oh I want to be more serious with this now you know um I want to be on radio and stuff like

that um the the name change came it was an involuntary I didn't want to change my

name I still missed that name quite a lot but unfortunately there was another pig out there and he had been kicking

about since like the 90s and so you know we we had to we had to give up the name

annoyingly I think it was literally the day after I signed my record contract was when we got the message from them saying uh we've got to change it so

probably right they just get this alert like oh this person's yeah this label

now like I you could pay me for the name yeah I think they realized that like it

was starting to become a little bit bigger and it was you know getting in the way and I mean I don't know what the rules are with that I don't know if we

could have taken in the name or not because who owns the name Pig right exactly that's what I was thinking yeah

but I mean to be to be fair we didn't I didn't particularly mind because there's weirdly a lot of pigs out there there's

a band called pigs times seven um Pig speak pigs and there's a big pig and there's a lot of everything there's

another brand yeah yeah yeah so there's a lot of stuff out there so I thought I'd go with my name and you know solid

Choice yeah um what was it like signing then to to a label

a big accomplishment I would think yeah it was like it was so surreal it all

kind of happened so fast um I had worked with B on her EP patched up and then she had told me she was like

sort of oh I think they're thinking of signing you and and you know sort of all sort of laughing so fast and suddenly I

was signed in a record you know a recording artist I think it's been amazing I I'm very fortunate that my

label it's an independent label and they allow me to do whatever I want as long

as I had in the music at the end of the day you know which is I feel very fortunate to have that relationship

because a lot of labels aren't like that and like to stick their hands in it and you know control the music and dirty hit

sort of go as long as you produce these songs at the end of the day you know we'll support you and you know give me

give me money to make cool things happen which is great yeah and I mean the

people on that label are you know you have the 1975 you know so many incredible artists that you share that

label with which yeah I mean it still surprises me uh like they just keep

signing really great acts and I can't believe that like I'm part of this roster of really the Fantastic artists

um so with the the album you just released what two months ago I believe just a few months ago

um tell me about that album and and writing and and I think there's kind of

a you know pretty heavy storyline behind it correct yeah I mean this album was kind of an

assess a necessity for me to to write I I had finished my last album and was

kind of unhappy about it um I had done three EPS in an album in

one year and by the time the album came around I sort of didn't even know what music like noise sounded like anymore I

still really incredibly proud of those songs but you know I just got to the end and felt like I could do more

um and so started all those in one was that during like the covet thing that

was 2020 so I did yeah you just have a lot of time to write or inspired I mean

that's a lot of music it was a lot of music yeah I mean it was like what else are we gonna do it was kind of it was

hard because I just signed this record deal and released an EP and was ready to play shows

um and that was you know my final thing yeah I got a label and I'm now we're gonna go play loads of shows and we did

a tour and it was exciting and then boom you know no live scene for two years so it was like the only thing I can really

do is record music so that's why I did so much of it but

um you know when you do that much and you have the year like that you just sort of I don't know by the time I got to the

end of it I was like I know I can do something better um and so started writing this album and

it started in a very weird disco space and I think I kind of needed to go through some sort of you know thing and

I went through I I went through a breakup and it was a breakup of like sort of childhood love and you know that

my first relationship and been together for three and a half years and it was the only thing I'd known and that wrote

you know we broke up and I sort of plunged into I don't know just I didn't know what was going on

um and so every time I felt incredibly low I gravitated towards making this album and making this album was hugely

therapeutic for me I mean we like I think some people have slightly misread it as a breakup album

um which it's not it's got breakup songs but really it's I think it's an album about uh growing up and I think as

something like that really matures you and there's lots of themes you know things I've I've dealt with on this

album talking about my mum who I lost it when I was seven um

and just kind of coming to times with being an adult would that must have been a I mean

obviously a really difficult song to write the one uh about about your mom um was this the

first time you tried to take on that subject no it wasn't I've tried to write I've

written multiple songs about my mum over the years um and none of them seemed right I don't

know I just I've never been a fan of of a pity or or you know I hated in school

when I told people my mum died and then they'd go like oh so sorry like you know and like or if somebody made like a yo

mama joke and then they'd be like oh and get all like awkward about it and I think I always kind of disliked that

pity so in the songs I tried to write I didn't want to write they want to write some song that was

all like I miss my mom you know they're just really like a lot of the songs I was writing I was like yeah I just want

to hug all this like that and these songs that were very personal um and then I kind of what I just came

up with this idea of you know talking about it from the angle of religion which my mum my mum's family was usually

religious and uh you know talking about how I I

don't believe in God but I I wish there was one because that means we all get to

go see our you know dead pets dead relatives at the end of our life and we get to have a big happy time in the sky

um which sounds great to me uh but yeah so it's kind of it's all about

I thought it was just an interesting angle to come at it from and I think it's one that people can relate to and

and anybody that's lost someone you know feels that and you sort of hold out on a God just so that you can see that person

there sure yeah and I feel like yeah well there's kind of probably two ways

to think about it in the sense of like I love what you did with the song and and the idea behind it it's like you could

lose some money and then if you have if your people are religious you could either be like oh you know there isn't a

god of you who taking you take my mom or whatever or you know it's okay because I'm gonna see them but to not and you

went through Catholic School it sounds like so like you probably have this sense of it all and then it's like but it's still like I hope this is the case

right I mean I mean it was just so it was it was weird because you're just

getting so many conflicting opinions and I went to Catholic school all my life and sort of in my heart didn't really

believe a lot of it but at the same time you've got your mum's family telling you you're gonna see your mum again and and

all of this stuff so yeah hugely conflicted and I they also you know when

you go to Catholic School you sit in a lot of masses and I spent a lot of time thinking yeah yeah you spend a lot of

time thinking because you're just so bored of you know what's what's happening on up there so I think you

know I spent so much time thinking about that uh and I'm so glad that I managed to get it down in the film that's amazing and

when you wrote that what did you know like okay this is this is the one I'm gonna release is you know kind of

before her or you know about her so to speak like was that finally the one that you had written you're like okay this is

the one I'm gonna put out because it sounds like you had done that before but you just didn't do anything but yeah I

think there was just a feeling that it was like okay this is right and this is the right tone to it and you know

anything I just sort of would cringe um thinking that people would be like oh

it's too soppy and whatever so it just felt right I don't know there was a deeper gut feeling that that's something

I've learned to try and trust a lot more is this deeper intuition gut feeling

with the new album we've put out a a handful of music videos and from what I was reading I believe didn't you just

did you direct the last one you did was that like kind of stepping into that role

oh it was it was amazing I mean I've wanted to direct music videos for so long I think part of the the way I

listen to music and have always listened to music a lot of the times I'm listening to a song and I'll visualize an entire music video in my mind I don't

know if anybody else does this but sometimes you imagine yourself in a music video or you imagine some idea of

a music video and I just constantly you know uh seeing these music videos and I

never really quite had the confidence to you know direct my own one but for this album I saw this music video so clearly

in my head that I sort of went I'm I'm tired of trying to explain it to other people I'm just actually gonna you know

direct it myself so it wasn't an incredible uh yeah incredible process to be a part of and I'm really thankful as

well to the team that helped me because obviously I was a first time director so I didn't know everything

um and every you know the crew were really really really helpful and and guided me through the process

um but yeah I'm hoping to do to do more of it I'm really excited but did you have like the when you wrote the song

did you you said you kind of have the video in in mind when you write I don't know if it's all your songs but some of

them did you did were you able to put that like was this one of those situations and were you able to put that

to life like were you

I think all of the music videos for this album I had visualized before uh before

you know we had filmed them and and one that was amazing was we did a music video for the lead single called song

about me which I envisioned exactly that in my mind when I was listening to the song if

you watch the music video I'd seen exactly that it was the platforms and it was like an old 70s thing

um and it was just surreal to watch it back and and actually just arrive at the

on the set on the day and and see something that I had seen in my head on

a large huge scale set and it's real and tangible it was it was very surreal but

I think most of the the music video process for me comes after the songs are finished and it's that process of you

know I sat on this album for six months and mixed it and mastered it and listened to it so many times and it's in

that process that I start to see you know videos oh wow is that something you

usually do or is this new to not the music videos obviously but like taking that much time with with the

album or with oh we took a lot longer it was very new for me to take a long time

working on a project because you know as I said we did three EPS album one year which is insane

um uh so I was very used to sort of going next thing next thing next thing

um and this was a slow process I think we wrote 50 or 60 songs and whittled

them down to 10 um because I just wanted them to be you know the greatest the the the best

ones we had written out of that 60. and that's what I missed from my previous album is that for that album we wrote

every song and every song made it onto the album it was like we write a song goes on the album right song goes on the album this was let's write all these

songs and then decide interesting so you have 50 songs that are just kind of hanging out on a hard

drive or something yeah yeah but I think everyone a lot of people that are musicians and and producers a lot of

them will say that 90 of the stuff they make never sees the lighter day so um yeah I've I'd say 98 of what I make

never sees the lighter day this is a small fragment of what I make sure wow so that must be a pretty difficult

process though to sit down and listen and you know weed out that many and be

like okay this this is gonna you know these ten are gonna make the album and then it's I because I came from radio and I did

radio for a lot of years and programmed radio stations so I I love the process of just putting the songs in order right

I'm sure that takes oh yeah that's like one of my I would I would think that would be a kind of a cool experiment

process like how are these songs that go each other what's how how are we going to tell the story what's the through line yeah it's all it's all part of the

process I think one thing you have to be very careful of is not exhausting your ears and I've done that in the past you

can listen to a song so many times where you just don't know what it sounds like anymore it's just completely lost all

like you know it's just noise when it it reaches a certain point

um so yeah I mean that process is just a super long I think that the the hardest

thing was definitely whittling down the songs I think the initial cut we did from 60 was I cut from 50 or 60 down to

15 and then slowly they dropped one by one as I went I don't think this is the

best it can be you know and I think this is you know so we've still got all of these

songs that I don't know if I'll ever do anything with them one day but you know who knows we'll see

awesome and you just did a I'm speaking of live shows earlier you just did a big headlining tour

was that was yeah it was really fun because again I've become kind of disconnected

with doing live stuff we we get to do it so rarely and I love doing it so much that um

you know I had been a while since we played shows and we've got a whole new setup and I'm playing piano which I love

doing and I've never done that before on stage and it really made me fall back in love with

it and I'd sort of forgotten about that and I love doing it so so so much and whether it was you

know 30 people in Manchester or like a thousand at Green Man festival both in both of those situations I just

absolutely love doing it so um we're hoping to do as much as possible because it's my favorite thing

to do in the world amazing and uh the amount that you rate I mean do you do

are you constantly doing it like do you probably have 60 more songs that you're tinkering with right now or did you kind

of put a pause on that with the tour and trying to pick through the record and all of that I think it's like

I I kind of write when I I I think I'm figuring that out in a minute because I

do a lot of writing in periods of heightened emotional states um and so you know I did uh I do a lot

of writing when I'm really sad and I do a lot of writing when I'm really happy and so you know doing writing when I

just feel normal is quite hard sometimes um so I just have to accept that you

know these things come in ebb and flows and waves and there's been months where I feel like I'm on fire and I'm just

making so much cool stuff and I I just feel great and then there's months where I I'm not making anything and everything

every time I touch my piano my fingers to a piano I just can't get anything good so I just accept that it's gonna

come in waves and I just have to remember that every time I'm in a wave that somebody else out there is having a

bad wave and that means that every time I'm in a bad wave somebody else out there is having a good one

um and you know chance said it's going to come back around so at the minute I'm in a little lull um but we're gearing up to start

recording the next stuff so I'm very excited to get back in the studio because I miss it so much love it well

thank you so much Oscar for doing this uh I have one more quick question for you before I let you go

um I want to know we kind of just gave some great advice but I want to know if you have any advice for aspiring artists

yeah I do I think it took me a long time for me to really

trust my gut instinct um and there's something an Indescribable feeling that you know

what's right sometimes um and to trust that so much because

you know with before this album I went into the label and laid out every single

music video and every plan and what every single single was going to be and what the album cover was going to look like because I didn't want a chance that

anybody else you know could put their fingers into it because I knew exactly what I wanted and that's what I'm saying

is that don't be afraid to be a bit of a diva sometimes um because there's nothing you know you

just know in your gut what's right [Music]

Oscar Lang

London-based songwriter and pop artist

Known for his signature sunshine lo-fi pop and unassuming, sharp songwriting, Oscar has had a momentous rise in recent years following the release of his debut album Chew The Scenery which features stand out tracks such as “Yeah!,” “21st Century Hobby,” and “Stuck.” The critically lauded release, which quickly added to his over 100 million streams, received major praise from outlets such as SPIN, FADER, The Line Of Best Fit, NME, CLASH, The Guardian, Ones To Watch, The Sunday Times and more. The stunning debut easily built upon the success of his early viral hits “She Likes Another Boy” and “The Moon Song” and early production work, most notably working on indie pop icon beabadoobee’s breakout hit “Coffee.”