Jackson Lewellen (sophomore), under the artist name Lavender Lemonade, released his first album “Kill Me In Style” Sept. 17 after a number of EPs and singles.
According to Lewellen, the album acts as a time capsule of his current place in life.
“I tried to keep [the album] low-key and not fret too hard, because it is a passion project,” Lewellen said.
According to Lewellen, the album’s name comes from a lyric on the title track. Lewellen said he thoughtfully structured his album to create the most engaging listening experience for his audience.
“It’s an eight-song album, 25 minutes — pretty short,” Lewellen said. “I want to hit [the audience] hard [and] fast. [I] open up with the title track, it’s an anthem sing-along song. And from there, hop into a couple of singles that hopefully people have heard before. So the first half [is] very hard [and] very loud to retain the audience’s attention.”
For the latter half of the album, Lewellen said he shifted the style to a mellow pace.
“[The] last four songs, [are] much more slowed down, much more bare-bones and acoustic sounding, and really a reward for anyone who is interested enough to get past the beginning,” Lewellen said. “And then if you’re able to get to the second half, I think you’ll find a lot of really pleasant, really nice sounding low-key tracks that are honestly some of my favorites on the album.”
Lewellen, a San Francisco native, said that his artist name originates from The Grove, a hometown restaurant that serves lavender lemonade.
“I was like, ‘lavender lemonade!’” Lewellen said. “Yeah, that works. It’s an alliteration [with] two L’s.”
Lewellen said he credits Twenty One Pilots as the band that has most influenced and inspired his music.
“I wanted to do rap, but like in a more alternative rock way. I’ve certainly shied away from that now. But Twenty One Pilots – in my voice, in my cadence, you can really…hear that influence,” Lewellen said.
Lewellen said he also listens to and gets inspiration from The Strokes, The Killers and Mitski.
“I really love the way Mitski has a crunchy rock song and then throws a rough synthesizer in there, or a nice synthesizer,” Lewellen said. “I think they sound so good together.”
Lewellen said he got into music early in his life.
“I’ve been making my own music since I was super young — [I] probably started in first grade,” Lewellen said. “I would basically do what we’re doing now — [use] a voice recorder and just sing songs that I made onto a phone.”
Outside of a high school guitar class, Lewellen said his instrumental skill is self-taught.
“I got a drum kit and started playing drums,” Lewellen said. “That was the first instrument I ever tried to learn, which I enjoyed. Then I tried learning bass, which I liked… piano I taught myself 100 percent.”
Lewellen said he took guitar class over Zoom in high school but preferred the creative freedom of learning by himself.
“[For] guitar I did one year online of Zoom, so that was just enough to get a basic understanding,” Lewellen said. “But I found when I took guitar in school it became like a chore. When I wasn’t [in school], it was like, ‘I’m going to go into [the ultimate guitar tabs website] and just learn a bunch of songs for fun.’”
According to Lewellen, he is also part of a band named Thorpedo with fellow Occidental students. Bandmates Maddie Thorpe (sophomore) and Lukas West (sophomore) both said Lewellen is a talented person to have in their band.
Thorpe said she met Lewellen in high school in San Francisco, where they began working together during their senior year after collaborating to record a cover of “Ode to the Mets” by The Strokes.
“I knew that he had his Lavender Lemonade project going, and I knew that he was proficient in recording and producing,” Thorpe said. “It sounded really good and [we] figured out we work pretty well together.”
Thorpe said she’s enjoyed seeing the progression of Lewellen’s artistry.
“It’s really cool to see his evolution of getting more advanced with recording techniques and songwriting because it’s an ongoing process and as things happen to you in life, that influences your music,” Thorpe said. “It’s cool to see the correlation [of how] something that you’re listening to influences the song that you’re making.”
Bandmate West said he hadn’t heard “Kill Me In Style” yet but was looking forward to listening to the album once it’s released.
“I haven’t listened to the new album coming out, so I have just as good an idea as [anyone] of what’s coming out,” West said. “I have a feeling it’s going to be really good. He just keeps getting better and better.”
Contact Julian Villa at jvilla@oxy.edu.
