Sondre Lerche Talks New Album ‘Patience,’ Pressing Pause & Using His Platform To Educate

It’s absurd, promoting an album in the middle of an international crisis. Sondre Lerche admits as much, bridging the social distance via video chat from his home in Oslo. The singer/songwriter's ninth solo album Patience was supposed to be his reemergence into music after two years spent reconnecting with life in one place—something he admits he hasn’t done in nearly 20 years. But now, all he can say for certain is that the album will come out, and hopefully there’ll be time to connect with his audience later.

Patience is third entry in Lerche’s recent string of albums that begin with the letter "P." Like Please in 2014, and Pleasure in 2017, the title hints at a sonic through line, namely a desire to create space in his work, loosely inspired by his love of ambient music. ("I'm a tourist in that music, and I found it to be patient," Lerche notes.) His gently unspooling pop compositions are embellished with Bossa nova melody lines, crackling electronics, acoustic guitar and Lerche's idiosyncratic croon. And even though there is a sprinkling of lines that seem darkly prophetic now ("Kissing like lovers long deprived of human touch"), Lerche insists it’s a collection of songs not unlike himself—leaning toward positivity, even while remaining realistic about the human capacity for falling short.

Ahead the release of Patience, Lerche spoke with the Recording Academy about how he constructed the album’s delicate world out of hidden politics, heartfelt fan interactions and learning how to stay home.

Has splitting your time between Los Angeles and Oslo changed your relationship with Norway?

I think maybe I'm able to enjoy Norway more. When I moved to L.A., I was decidedly looking to travel less and be more in one place and experience what that would be like. When I when I moved to L.A., I didn't want to tour. So, it was really part of the move in the sense of like wanting to, not settle down, but land in one place and feel what it would feel like to not have any shows booked, not have any travels—because I realized I had not really done that since I was 18. I hadn't really stopped. I don't think I've stayed in one place for longer than two and a half months for almost 20 years.

Given your running Burger Blog joke on social media, what would be in the Patience Happy Meal Box?

Well, somebody was making fun of me the other day because we did a pre-order of the record in a bundle so you can you can order the vinyl. And then we've made T-shirts, we made totes and you can do the bundle and if you go for the most expensive bundles I've made, I've made bandanas or handkerchiefs that say Patience. Maybe handkerchiefs?

That's far more dapper answer than I was expecting. When and where was the moment this album started coming together for you?

It was actually in 2016, in Brooklyn, in my apartment. I was about to finish the Pleasure album. And I think, in sort of the same couple of months, I wrote, "I'm Always Watching" and "Soft Feelings," which were the two final songs that I wrote and recorded for Pleasure. But at the same time, I wrote some of the key songs on this album. I wrote, "Why Would I Let You Go? " And "I Can't See Myself Without You." And those two songs were definitely not going to be on Pleasure. They were going to another place. Especially "Why Would I Let You Go" was a very big song for me to write.

It was very powerful and intense, and I didn't at the time almost know what to do with the feeling or with the song. Somewhere around the time that I delivered Pleasure, I found the word Patience. I was listening to so much ambient music and I called that music "patient music." To me, that's what I came to ambient music for. When I say ambient, it's a lot of stuff that probably has nothing to do with ambient music. I'm a tourist in that music and I found it to be patient music and I felt the need to make what I considered patient music. So, patience became a term.

I like that it guided so much of your philosophy going into this.

Yeah, absolutely. It came out of a very clear need in myself, but was steered by the songs that came completely unexpected and guided me to this collection of songs and to this state of mind that I consider Patience to be. Once you have that word or that umbrella, then okay, now I know what I'm tuning into, and then more songs arrive. Meanwhile, I'm touring the world, doing a 90-minute aerobics class every night that ends with me tearing up my shirt. So, I'm sort of living out in the exact opposite of what I know is going to be the next chapter, and in a way, that made me need to write these Patience songs even more because I needed balance so as not to sort of completely go, full Pleasure. Like Robert Downey Jr's character in Tropic Thunder, where he makes a mistake and goes 100 percent. I think I could have easily just become the Pleasure guy if I didn't have the songs to sort of go, well there is a way forward and there is a way there.

Do you see this as an optimistic album?

Yeah, partly, I think something that surprised me was the extent to which it contradicts itself. It's a very conflicted, but it's more just the complexity of our best intentions and our failures to sometimes live up to our best intention and wanting to be positive. I'm thankful that my default setting is pretty optimistic. I feel lucky in that sense, I believe I see opportunity in music, and in life, most of the time. But, of course, it's a record that also acknowledges that you sometimes simply fall short of your best intentions and you fall short in achieving your goals. Sometimes you want to be positive, but on this record, you have a song like "I Can't See Myself Without You" followed by a song called "Don't Waste Your Time," which is complete opposites in terms of how you how you view life. I know which song I want to live in, but I can't lie and say that the other song can't be a reality, that devil on your shoulder. It’s a voice in people's heads, and in my head sometimes. The more sort of nihilistic egotistical voice. I think, in that sense, it's a record that that tries to create a safe space where all these contradictions can actually coexist in a way or at least where you can express them in a safe environment.

It seems the way you're treating the topic of love has changed throughout your career. It’s not all so starry-eyed. All of a sudden "gaslighting" has become a term in your catalogue.

Obviously, it's a term that’s became a part of the vocabulary in the last four years. But yeah, it was a word that interested me. I think I was reading Donald Fagan's book and then you know, maybe three or four years ago and there was a passage there about gaslighting and it made me look up the word and the origin. And so, I started sort of just getting into it. What does this actually mean? Where does it come from? It was popping up whenever you read stuff about Donald Trump and his current administration so I just found it to be sort of almost the political term, but clearly also a very terrible thing to bring into a relationship. It's so difficult and so common, because, it's easy in relationships to want to try to control the other person to try to control perception. It is the most sacred thing we have—our perception and our ability to be protected. So, when you f**k with that it is a terrible evil. But it is something I'm sure we are all guilty of in one way or another.

Some of these songs, even though sometimes it's subtle, there are definitely political undercurrents in some of the lyrics. And some of them may be more explicitly so, certainly than I've been in the past. I think that's something great about a lot of Brazilian music. Especially of course from the '60s in the '70s, that they had to disguise the political agenda of the song with more romantic and domestic themes, but they had to be really smart because the militant dictatorship would censor them if they were too overt. Of course, I don't have that concern. But I thought, the combination of romantic and political songs could be really cool. So obviously, a song like "Why Did I Write the Book of Love" has two parallel stories, but they both talk about the well-intended failures of, you know, a liberal guy like myself, politically and romantically. I feel like Democrats, we make ourselves such easy targets in a way because we're not always ready to face the consequences of, "Okay, well, you want you want equal distribution of wealth? Well that mean these consequences." And of course, I don't want it to really affect my life. And that's where it gets tricky. And then of course, the idea of love conquers all. I guess it doesn't because we can't even save ourselves in our own relationships.

How did your fans inspire the spoken-word portion of the title track?

What can I say? It was time? I had never had a spoken-word section. I have been listening to Laurie Anderson, so I'm not gonna hide the fact I felt encouraged by her music, but more than anything, that her speaking voice is just one of the great speaking voices of all time. Can I just say something? Can I just speak? Could I channel Laurie to tell some stories and try to connect some dots? It felt very dangerous and very bold. And I've gotten used to the idea that there is spoken word section on my record now. It gives me a little bit more confidence every time somebody says that was actually cool, because I'm just thinking about everybody going like, “Jesus, who the f**k do you think you are?”

This song is really about the creative process. It is about living with someone who is this sort of a "performance piece of work," as I call it. And then I thought, what is the next step here? Well, that is the audience or the perceived audience. And then and then that made me think of, what are my encounters? I'm blessed to have a warm, invested audience. What are some of the funny sweet bizarre encounters I've had? And then I anonymized them. I didn't want people to feel that "Oh, this is me." I changed the names on the location, and took some liberties. What happens after a show, when you run into someone? It’s really about their stories, and it's about how they perceive me. And sometimes that is hilarious. And sometimes that is beautiful.

Speaking of the Trump administration and our current political moment, what would you say you, as a non-POC artist, are doing to be strong ally right now?

As dark and disturbing as it all is in America right now, this response, these protests and the magnitude of it all, certainly needs to be happening. No one should look away, or attempt to minimize or distort this moment, as we see the American dictator doing, and his followers do in order to create chaos and distraction. I try to use my platform to spread and seek out constructive and credible sources of information on how to best serve and support Black communities—and to enlighten myself through what I find and share. It's not hard to ask yourself, "How would I feel if I was in that situation, all the time?" And we should all be doing that, all the time. I care much for and communicate a lot with my followers and fans, and it's always been meaningful to me to express a general message of empathy in my work and way of communicating. This is especially important to me now. Of course I wish I was present in L.A. right now, so I could be of more service, on site.

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Sondre Lerche Talks New Album ‘Patience,’ Pressing Pause & Using His Platform To Educate

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