Seven Lions is currently going around the US with The Journey Tour promoting his new Creation EP. With tracks filled with emotion, the long haired beast does not disappoint on his performance and takes you on a journey from beautiful impacting vocals, to dubstep bangers combined with a pinch of psy trance. One of the most versatile, talented producers, I was surprised to find a quiet, and a bit introverted Jeff Montalvo in the greenroom at the Fox Theater. Starting off with the title track from his EP, “Creation” got the euphoric vibe going for the crowd, and popular tracks such as “Strangers” and “Worlds Apart” brought the crowd to an immense hype and energy throughout the entire show. With 20+ shows scheduled on his tour, make sure to catch Seven Lions live to be absolutely mind blown by the beast.
MMIBTY: What’s your creation process when you’re starting a new track?
SEVEN LIONS: It’s really kinda different for every song, sometimes it’ll start with the melody, sometimes it’ll start with a structure idea, or sometimes it’ll start with just a vibe it just really depends.
MMIBTY: What are some of your favorite vst’s?
SL: Definitely silent, massive, omnisphere, serum and spire are the most used.
MMIBTY: How did the collab with Mike Mains and The Branches happen?
SL: I was listening to a lot of monsters and men because my wife likes that type of music, so it’s always on in the car, and I just kinda wanted to make a song like that. I wrote the instrumental and everything, and then we were looking for like, a folky kind of singer, and his name came up, we listened to his music and thought it would be a good idea. We tried a bunch of different people actually, and his top line was definitely the best, his vocals.
MMIBTY: Which track from “Creation” did you have most fun working on?
SL: Probably “Leaving Earth” just because it’s so weird, and it’s in ¾ timing, so that’s like a metal time signature, so I had a good time with that.
MMIBTY: When you first started, your music had a lot of trance elements to it, and then fused with dubstep because of your metal background. How do you think that has influenced your music become what it is today?
SL: I think a lot of the rhythmic stuff is influenced from metal, and the drumming; the drum sounds that I use, like the drum fills and articulation it’s from listening to a lot of metal.
MMIBTY: If you could collab with any artist, who would you collab with?
SL: Umm… probably Imogen Heap, or Ellie Goulding again, or LIGHTS again I don’t know, I like just the people that I’ve worked with before, all of them are great, I don’t really have a preference. Zoe Johnston for sure would be amazing.
MMIBTY: What is the best part of playing a festival?
SL: Probably exposing new music to people who haven’t heard it yet, like a lot of the festivals I don’t think people have heard a lot of the stuff that I play, like psy trance and some of the drum and bass I think a lot of people haven’t heard it, especially now that I’m playing main stage, and I know main stage is like, a very specific kinda banging, people play all the same stuff over and over which still blows my mind. So going up there and playing stuff that people haven’t heard yet is a lot of fun.
MMIBTY: Do you feel nervous to play a song to crowd that you haven’t played yet?
SL: Yeah, definitely, but it’s also exciting at the same time, and I can tell pretty quick whether or not it goes well.
MMIBTY: Do you have any favorite song that you like to play live?
SL: There’s a new track that it’s not out yet, a collab with Jason Ross called Higher Love, that’s the one that feels really good to play. The first drop needs a bit of work, but the second one is really, really good. And it’ll only get better once it gets out too, that’s the nice thing when you play a song that hasn’t been released yet and still gets a good reaction, it means when it does get released it’ll be fucking awesome. It gets hype for the track, like I have songs that I’ll play this whole tour that probably won’t come out until next year. And it’s cool, because people will post it online and be like “oh, what’s this new track?!”
MMIBTY: Your music is always so filled with emotion, and part of conveying that feeling when you’re playing a show also comes from the visuals. How’s that process for you? how do you develop what people will be seeing when you play?
SL: When I think of music and songs I think about colors a lot, so when we’re choosing the visuals it usually has to do with like, color schemes and stuff like that. All the visuals are very fantasy based, because that’s what I’m into, I’m a big fantasy nerd so, we’re trying to capture that epic adventure landscape.
MMIBTY: And my last question is…. what’s your favorite color?
SL: Probably like, blueish green.