Q&A: Drew Regan’s Lyricism and Shift Towards Live-Driven Sound Shine on Alt-Rock Single “LETTING IT GO/PILE”
WRITTEN BY AMANDA COLLINS
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Photo by Ben Burton
Single “LETTING IT GO/PILE” was released this summer by Drew Regan, a rising Nashville-based alternative artist whose complex songwriting, strong vocals and energized production are not to be missed. With a history of releasing music that seamlessly blends intense alt-rock soundscapes and catchy pop-like lines with a touch of electronic elements, Regan’s latest release keeps his signature sounds while bringing a raw, controlled chaos feel to his music.
“LETTING IT GO/PILE” brings in a demanding live-based sound for Drew, thereby expanding his genre, something he wishes to emulate from genre-bending inspiration Dominic Fike. “ I'm also very inspired by Dominic Fike in the sense that he can write a rap song, and then do a rock song, and then also do a super pretty finger-picking guitar thing, and it all still doesn't feel out of place. That's the spot I always want to be in. I would say definitely like that genre, like the fusing thing, I take so much inspo from Dom on that. ”
The lyrics of “LETTING IT GO/PILE” maintain the production’s alt-rock energy, with the lines emotionally charged yet intensely melodic. The single includes stand-out lines such as "I'm gonna scream and let it out, pick up the pieces of this house. Nobody makes it in a town where kids and clubs decide the sound,” and “If I could believe in a freefall, well I’d wait for forever if it's nothing at all.”
Throughout the conversation, Life on Jupiter and Drew discuss songwriting in depth and the personal process behind his lyrics. Effective lyrics can be extremely personal and, sometimes, words make less sense logically than they do emotionally, which is part of the strength of music and songwriting. Going into depth about his lyrical process, he states, “I think I can write pretty cryptic sometimes, but it always makes sense to me and makes me feel some type of way. It honestly feels more expressive on my end if I write that way.”
Drew discusses writing “PILE” specifically, stating “I learned a lot from writing “PILE” …I think that it's really scary at first when you're making music to say things that you're like, “Oh, I would never say this.” But nobody is perceiving you like that except the people that are directly around you, and the people that don't know who you are.”
Making and publicly sharing art of any kind puts the artist under a microscope and opens them to public reception. However, as Drew says, the beauty of making music is that “you can really be whoever you want.”
“LETTING IT GO/PILE” is lyrically layered, each line purposeful yet catchy, and paired with production that sonically drives the emotions home. Read below for Life on Jupiter’s in-depth discussion with Regan on the production and stories behind “LETTING IT GO/PILE,” as well as what it means to be both a musician and a songwriter.
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LIFE ON JUPITER: For readers who aren’t yet familiar, how would you introduce yourself and your music?
REGAN: My name is Drew Reagan, and you'll have to listen to find out.
You recently released two songs, “LETTING IT GO” and “PILE.” Why release them together?
REGAN: I released these two songs together because we really wanted to play into the idea of the light and the dark. I think "LETTING IT GO" is the light, and "PILE" is the dark, and it was represented in all of my visual identity. I wrote “LETTING IT GO” realizing that something was about to leave my life, and it was a sad feeling. For “PILE,” I was super angry, and I just felt like I released them together because I wanted to play into the light and the dark of the two songs. I felt like “PILE” was really dark and scary, like the first line is like, “I want to be killed in my sleep” or something like that. I feel like "LETTING IT GO” felt like knowing that you have to get rid of something, but flourishing through that.
The songs are described as “the contrast of emotions between the acceptance and rejection of change.” What are the stories behind “LETTING IT GO” and “PILE” ?
REGAN: I wrote a song called "gush" around the same time a couple months ago, and when I was writing "LETTING IT GO,” I think "Gush" was me realizing that there was something about to change or leave my life and not knowing what that is. I think with "LETTING IT GO,” I really realized what that thing was going to be but it was still a very uncomfortable thing. But I knew that it had to happen. For “PILE,” I was angry about some stuff, like in the city that I live in, because I felt like I wasn't getting the praise that I wanted and that I felt like I deserved from the people around me, so I was really angry. But I think I had accepted that what I do is cool, and I didn't have a care in the world for anybody and what they thought of me because I thought what I was doing was cool. “LETTING IT GO” was me realizing that I needed to let go of that mindset and just do me. So, because I thought it was cool, I think the way that I went about creating, and the way I acted sometimes, was out of like, “I'm going to show you,” and I think that's an awful place to be in.
What drew you to shifting your sound to a more “raw” feel on these tracks, and how did it change the production process?
REGAN: Yeah, at the beginning when I was first recording everything, I was recording with one guy, and that was strictly it. And then I started working with a bunch of people around town, and it was kind of hard at first to work with people whose production philosophy, or the way that they go about things, was hard. But I learned to really love it, and I felt like it encapsulated a lot of how my stuff feels live, which I thought was cool. I do really like the super polished, almost electronic thing going on, and then the live thing, and I think having them both together and the next stuff that I have coming is a great mixture. I think I've grown up always playing live and playing in bands. So, I do love that super raw aesthetic, but I think it was just me testing the waters on if that was somewhere I wanted to move.
Do you think that the shift from a more produced to a more live-driven sound changes how listeners emotionally interpret the songs?
REGAN: It's kind of more about what you're into. I do think that it definitely did change people's perspective on me and what I do. I think people were like, “Oh, I didn't know that he could do this thing as well,” and I think that it has opened a lot more ears to the rest of my stuff because I did this thing that was palatable to them. Now there are people that have come from these more “live sounding” songs and come to appreciate the other stuff. I think I'm just always trying to, not open myself to new markets, but just to make myself palatable to a lot of different people. I think you could say the same thing as with genre. I think that I like to be all over the place with my genre, but there'd still be this through-line of me. I'm always just trying to give context to why I work the way that I do and why I create the way that I do, because I think there's a spot in it for everyone.
Your songwriting is both melody-driven and emotionally charged. What was your experience like writing the lyrics for “LETTING IT GO” and “PILE”?
REGAN: “LETTING IT GO” I wrote a lot of it by myself, and I feel like most of the time when I write something that I really enjoy, I don't think too hard about it, and it just kind of comes out of me really fast in a really weird way. I don't really necessarily understand what it means at first, but then you kind of sit on it for a second, and then you're like, "Oh, this is why I said that because of X, Y, Z that happened in my life, or whatever.” I feel like a lot of times I say something, and I don't understand why I'm saying that yet. But then, when I reflect on that moment in time, it's like, "Oh, this makes sense now.” It's always really weird when that happens when you get to realize what you were talking about. I wrote the majority of “LETTING IT GO,” and then I brought it to a buddy of mine and we finished the chorus. It was just kind of up from there. With “PILE,” I knew what I wanted to say, and it was just about finding a way that sounded cool to say it. I learned a lot from writing “PILE” and things that I enjoy, or ways that I enjoy expressing myself. Including things that are kind of grim and scary, just for the hyperbolic element of it.
Totally, it's like poetry.
REGAN: Yeah. I think that it's really scary at first when you're making music to say things that you're like, “Oh, I would never say this.” But nobody is perceiving you like that except the people that are directly around you, and the people that don't know who you are. But you can really be whoever you want.
The line “kicking my feet before I drown” in the song “PILE” feels like it encapsulates the sonic feeling of the track quite well. What does this lyric mean to you in context of the single?
REGAN: I think I was just feeling the emotion of being upset that people aren't giving you the appreciation that you feel like you deserve. I felt like I was being swallowed by that feeling, and it was almost killing me because I was making so many decisions about things with that in mind, and I felt like I was drowning, but I was really trying to fight that feeling. I was very angry, but I think that when you do that, it's so much harder to pull your weight. So, it's like you're drowning, but you're trying to make it up, but you can't. You can't poke the surface because you're doing everything from a poor intention.
If you had to, what would be your favorite lyric from the two songs and why?
REGAN: Honestly, I feel like it's not even that important to the songs necessarily or the meanings, but it would be “Shaking the tree, let the leaves fall/ They're laughing at me until it's under my breath.” I just love the representation of what I was talking about in that line. I have this clear picture of what that looks like in my head, but no one would ever know specifically what I'm talking about. I just like that description. I think I can write pretty cryptically sometimes, but it always makes sense to me and makes me feel some type of way. So I always like to continue to do that, and it honestly feels more expressive on my end if I write that way, which is super backwards.
In the teaser video for “LETTING IT GO” you tie a string in knots on your hands. What did this symbolize to you and how does it connect to the song?
REGAN: It was definitely on purpose. It wasn't necessarily my idea to do that. I gave total visual creative control to my friend Ben Burton, who does all my stuff. I really love what we were just talking about, the interpretation., It's up to everybody, so I have my interpretation of these feelings and these emotions, and it comes out through sounds or whatever. But I always want to have somebody else's lens, and I trust him completely. I think it's cool to have another perspective on it, and it can totally change the meaning of things. But I definitely do feel like when you're feeling the way that that song makes you feel, you just want to almost tangle yourself up more just for some type of security. I've always liked to tell people to just have full creative control, and then if I want to reel you in, then I will. But I never really have to do that.
Who are your biggest musical influences, and what is it about their sounds that really inspire you?
REGAN: It's always a super weird question. I've always really struggled with that. I think the people that I'm most influenced by, I don't sound like at all. When I look at my life, I see there's like four different artists across different age groups that I'm like, “That was like that was my person at the time.” My first love was John Mayer, and then when I was in middle school, early high school, it was John Bellion and Jeremy Zucker. I still come back to Jeremy Zucker albums. I admire his production and songwriting so much, and then over the past couple of years, it's been this guy Porches. That's my biggest inspo, especially like what I was saying earlier about sonically why I shifted to doing more of a live thing. I think that at the time when I was doing these, I was super obsessed with his live show and his recorded music. Feels very polished and produced. I just admire Porches’ creative freedom, like he just can kind of do whatever he wants, and it's always cool. I'm also very inspired by Dominic Fike in the sense that he can write a rap song, and then do a rock song, and then also do a super pretty finger-picking guitar thing, and it all still doesn't feel out of place. That's the spot I always want to be in. I would say definitely like that genre, like the fusing thing, I take so much inspo from Dom on that.
How has growing up in Nashville influenced the way you approach music, and do you feel like that influence shows up in your sound?
REGAN: I think it definitely has influenced me, but in a weird way, I think it makes me lean more into just doing what I want to do because I think that when you live in a city where everybody's doing music, I think people can start to sound the same and come under this one thing. So as I developed my sound, I was like, “Oh, when I lean harder in this direction, it's different than what everybody else is doing and, honestly, makes me the happiest.” It made me want to stick to what I was doing more. But I don't think that it necessarily influenced the actual soundscapes of what I do. I'm from Texas as well, so it's the country thing; I already grew up on that, but I think the community aspects of things also definitely influence the most, like just having different people around you that support you, and I think that can definitely affect how you feel creatively.
What’s coming next for you, in life and in music?
REGAN: I'm taking a break from releasing for the rest of the year. I feel like I've been on go go go since I dropped my project in March, and the singles before that. So, I'm taking a break because I want to sit and, when you're in rollout mode, you have to be super intentional about living life or having substance to speak on. So I want to take some time to really figure out what I want to say because I was super proud of everything that I said on my project. I don't ever want to underwhelm myself or anybody with whatever is next. I'm just kind of planning out what next year looks like for me. Probably a project next year, playing some shows, lots of shows. I've spent the last month and a half, and then it's gonna go until probably the end of the year, just really figuring out how I can take what I've already done and go upwards, and have it not just feel like the same thing, like rinsed and repeated.
Is there a feeling, idea, or message or lesson you hope listeners take away from “LETTING IT GO/PILE”?
REGAN: Trust your gut.
