PVRIS vocalist and driving force Lynn Gunn talks us through each track on new album Use Me
PVRIS’ third album Use Me is out now via Warner/Reprise, and it sees singer Lynn Gunn finally gaining the confidence to step out into the spotlight as the creative force behind the band. From chronic illness to broken relationships and hallucinations, Lynn takes Kerrang! through the new album one song at a time…
“I wrote this during a time when I just really needed a minute (laughs). A minute for my thoughts, and just to rest. The last two years were extremely chaotic, a lot of trials and errors, and a lot of drastic changes happening in a short space of time. This song has a lot of references to those changes. I think it has a really good build in energy for an intro track. I also feel like it really captures a lot of what this album feels like, which is feeling run down, pushed around, and not having much say in things or being able to speak up for myself.”
“This song is almost like the aftermath of Gimme A Minute. It’s like, ‘This is where I’m at now,’ and to let go of any situation or energy that doesn’t serve me right now, to have it stop weighing me down. For the [music] video, I felt like it had to be a bit dark and weird, but there are also bits of cheekiness to the song, so I thought, ‘Okay, driving around a bunch of zombies feels like it could be funny and also makes sense!’”
“This was one of the earlier songs that was written, and honestly I wasn’t even too sure if it would make the album. Not to throw anybody under the bus, but one person in particular was very adamant that this song shouldn’t even be recorded! But it felt really special when we first made it, it was one of the earliest songs on Use Me that we finished. It’s about preserving innocence – a good memory of a person, a place, or a situation. In particular it’s about a short-lived relationship, but a really special one. I wanted to preserve it as a good memory.”
“I wrote this song, Gimme A Minute and Use Me all around the same time. I was in a two-week writing camp [with producer JT Daly], feeling really sick and dealing with health issues, just not in a good place. There was one day where I was really, really out of it. I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t think I can write something now, let’s capture some instrumentals, just to create stuff that on a better day I can come back to.’ I don’t play acoustic a lot, but I started playing some riffs, and JT was like, ‘That’s really cool, we’ve got to get that.’ And the next day we wrote this.
“Again, we zoned in on that energy of just getting really tired, the constant pressure of having to work, not wanting to fall behind in your career, and also the reality of, ‘Well, that’s the life you’re choosing!’ I really look forward to waking up every day, and I enjoy being alive, but with the circumstances of my health and my schedule, it was good to be alive, but I hate my life. It’s meant to be cheeky, though – it’s not a serious statement.”
“Death Of Me was written a long time ago – three or four years now. It’s about that risk you take when you pursue something – especially in a relationship. When you’re fully consumed by something or someone, and you can either go in a really positive and healthy direction, or the complete opposite of that.”
“I read this book on our last tour called Hallucinations [by Oliver Sacks]. When I read I always underline and highlight anything that sounds cool, or something I might want to come back to, so I looked back at my highlights. A lot of them were the different types of hallucinations – that was a really cool visual thing to think about. So we went through it, picking and choosing which details to be inspired by.”
“This is another older song; it was actually written before we even put our second album out. I was in New York, and dealing with, well, it wasn’t a break-up because it was such a short-lived relationship, but it was a really special one. Things had been cut short and without any clarity, without any answers. There wasn’t any bad blood – it was just a weird situation, and that person always has a special place in my life. They contacted me after a while, and some of my friends were like, ‘Don’t respond! Don’t open up old wounds!’ And I thought that was a cool song idea. I had the demo for about three years, and now finally it gets to see the light of day.”
“Loveless was a very difficult song to write because it was about a situation and a person that I didn’t want to write any songs about! I didn’t want to go there, I didn’t want to think about it anymore. But if I feel resistant to something, I know deep down that it’s important, and positive in the long run. So I had that battle writing Loveless. It was me surrendering and putting my faith in the universe, and I think it could help a lot of people when they hear it, for anyone who’s gone through a similar situation.”
“This was a really last-minute addition to the album. JT and I were in the final stages of tracking everything, and had another song to go in its place. But one morning I woke up before I went to the studio and I just had this melody in my head. I brought it to JT, asked him what he thought, and we decided to work on it.”
“I actually wrote Use Me after I watched the TV show Euphoria. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and wanted to make a song inspired by it. It was inspired by the characters Rue and Jules. Rue was telling her sponsor that she was basically in love with Jules, and he was kind of explaining to her that she was placing her addiction on a human instead of a substance. I wanted to write about that concept.”
“This is about cutting ties with people, and wishing them well. Even if people do you wrong, just always send them love. Try to be the bigger person. A lot of people can take advantage of that. The song is about a lot of different relationships and partnerships we kind of had to part ways with. There are a couple of people who I was wishing well to in that song. It’s a bit of a passive aggressive song, in a way (laughs). Like, ‘Okay, I’ll wish you well, but you really didn’t deserve that!’”
Use Me is out now via Reprise / Warner Music – order, download or stream your copy now.
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